Subtitle
This is Not That
At 1:04 –
In his cross examination of Ante, Jordon used a Mormon
website that affirms the charismata. However, Ante missed Jordon’s point
completely in his rebuttal because he attempted to casually dismiss the problem
by saying that Mormons also believe in prayer, so that means we should do away
with prayer. The real problem for Pentecostal/Charismatic theology along these
lines is that Mormons, Catholics, Modalists (people who deny the Trinity),
prosperity subscribers, other religions, and even cults all practice the very same
ecstatic utterances of gibberish as those who claim to be more orthodox in
their doctrine in the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement. When modern linguists
study the practice from a scientific standpoint, there is no discernible
difference in the practice among these various groups. It is the exact same
phenomenon. Therefore, the Pentecostal claim that their tongues are an
extraordinary act of God is patently false. So unimpressive is the practice
that anyone can learn how to do it with minimal instruction.
The second point of this section is Ante’s attempt to defend
the long ending of Mark. Ante believes that the ending of Mark was initially
removed by infidels who did not believe in the resurrection of Christ and so
they took it out. The idea is that all the resurrection accounts, on this view,
were added to the gospels later as the church was trying to deify Christ. Ante
actually says the source for rejecting the ending of Mark is “from the devil.”
This is typical Pentecostal rhetoric and intimidation when they become nervous
that their doctrine may actually be in jeopardy.
I do not want to get too side-tracked in textual criticism,
but it seems appropriate to refute Ante at least at some level on his
outrageous claims around the ending of Mark. First, the earliest and best MSS which
are Siniaticus and Vaticanus do not contain Mark 16:9-20. Second, of the church
fathers, Clement, Origen, Cyprian, and Cyril of Jerusalem show no knowledge of
the longer ending of Mark. The historian Eusebius said that the most accurate
copies of Mark ended with v. 8. Third, there isn’t just two optional endings in
the MSS evidence. There are five potential endings in the MSS evidence. Which
one is correct? The earliest MSS that contain the longer ending of Mark are no
earlier than the 4th century: MSS according to Eusebius, Jerome, Severus.
The only exception is a Latin translation coming from Irenaeus. Fourth, the
longer ending is stylistically incongruous with Mark. Scholarly consensus then
is that Mark did not write any of the endings available to us except, of
course, the one that ends at v. 8. Ante’s claim that most MSS contain
the longer ending is, from a textual critical standpoint, irrelevant.
It is also worth mentioning that Ante thinks that Mark could
not have ended without having a resurrection account. The implication is that
if we reject the longer ending in Mark, we end up with an Markan ending that is
absent a resurrection account. This is confusing to me because when one reads
Mark 16:1-8, they do in fact find a resurrection in Mark’s gospel. In fact,
Mark 16:1-8 is entirely focused on the empty tomb. The angel says, He has risen;
he is not here! Again, Ante’s basic mistakes are piling up one by one.
At 1:28
Ante begins with the proposition that the Bible teaches
that the gifts of the Spirit would continue until Jesus returns.
Ante references Matt. 28:18-20. Ante’s argument is that
Jesus was given all authority and that through the charismatic gifts, that
authority would be granted to the church for the purpose of world missions.
Jesus tells his disciples in Luke 24 not to leave Jerusalem but rather, wait
until they are clothed with the power from on high. Again, in Acts 1 Jesus
reiterates his command. And in Acts 2, this power falls upon the disciples
through the filling of the Holy Spirit. The problem with this line of reasoning
is that the filling of the Holy Spirit and the charismata are conflated in this
argument. Moreover, Ante still has not made the case that the miraculous
tongues (languages) that appeared in Acts 2, 10, and 19 should be understood as
normative phenomenon when someone is filled with the Holy Spirit. Out of the 11
conversion stories in Acts, only 3 references the supernatural language
abilities. And out of the 6 mentions (Acts 2, 4, 8, 9, 10, 19) of someone being
filled with the Holy Spirit, only 3 of them (Acts 2, 10, 19) include any
reference to tongues. Therefore, the assumption that the filling of the Holy
Spirit will always be accompanied by tongues is simply false. Paul reinforces
this fact in 1 Cor. 12:30: Do all speak with tongues? The Greek
construction requires an emphatic negative answer – no! So, not everyone in the
body will speak in tongues according to Paul as documented here in 1 Cor.
12:30. But in Eph. 5:18, this same Paul commands that all Christians are to be “being
filled with the Spirit.” It is safe to assume that all Christians must be
filled with the Spirit since Paul commanded it and to live a lifestyle in
perpetual disobedience is an indication that one’s faith is not genuine.
Therefore, if Ante is correct, and being filled with the
Spirit is always accompanied by tongues and I am right when I say that Paul
commands all Christians to be filled with the Spirit, then this would mean that
those of us who do NOT speak in tongues are not filled with the Spirit, and are
living in perpetual disobedience to Scripture and are therefore not saved. The
point I am making is really this: the same apostle Paul who commanded all
Christians to be filled with the Spirit is the same Paul who unambiguously denied
that all Christians would speak in tongues. This must mean that even in
Paul’s day, in fact, and yes, even in Corinth, that not everyone who was filled
with the Spirit spoke in tongues. In fact, this same Paul wrote to the Church
at Ephesus, and said that God has blessed us (all Christians) with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenly places. I do think that being filled with the Holy
Spirit and speaking in tongues, according to Ante’s theology, would be
considered one of the spiritual blessings that Paul is talking about. Paul went
on to say that we are all sealed with the promised Holy Spirit. This is the
same promise Peter referenced in Acts 2:38, and that Jesus referenced in Acts
1:4. Moreover, the same Paul said to the Corinthian Church at 1:7 that they
were not lacking in any spiritual gift even though not all of them spoke in
tongues. So even in Paul’s day, it was possible to “not speak in tongues” and
be filled with the Holy Spirit and to be “not lacking” in any spiritual gift.
Ante’s argument has hit a proverbial brick wall. His conclusion that everyone
who is filled with the Holy Spirit will speak in tongues, or, more accurately, supernatural
languages.
For the remainder of this section of the debate, Ante goes
off on what can only be described as a Pentecostal tirade lifting text after
text out of context in order to support his radically biased and anachronistic
hermeneutic. There is literally nothing that I could find worthy of rebuttal.
At the risk of sounding uncharitable, it was an embarrassing moment among
embarrassing moments.
Some closing points
·
The apostle Paul did not
believe that speaking in tongues always accompanied being “filled with the Holy
Spirit.”
·
Of the 11 conversion
accounts recorded in the book of Acts, only 3 mention tongues. (27%)
·
Of the 6 accounts of people
being filled with the Holy Spirit in the book of Acts, only 3 mention tongues.
·
The ending of Mark has 5
different options, not two. [1) Siniaticus/Vaticanus; 2) Bobiensis; 3) A, C, D,
θ, f13, 33, Maj MSS, & others; 4) W, MSSaccording to Jerome,
5) L, ψ, 083, 099 & others).
·
The tongues mentioned in
Scripture are genuine languages – spoken miraculously as a divine sign that God
is ushering in the New Covenant.
·
The miracles and healings
in the NT were indisputable.
·
The Holy Spirit is the
dispenser of the gifts. He gifts them out as he wills, not as we will.
·
The church fathers
overwhelmingly speak of tongue-speaking as the supernatural gift of speaking in
real languages: Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Hegemonius, Gregory of Nazianzen,
Ambrosiaster, Chrysostom, Augustine, Leo the Great, and implied by others (such
as Tertullian and Origen)
Afterthought: How to debate Pentecostal/Charismatic
Theology
When I debate Pentecostals, I like to begin the discussion
by talking about their more egregious errors rather than their experiential
bent. Many Pentecostals hold to oneness theology, modalism. These oneness
Pentecostals engage in exactly the very same practices as Trinitarian
Pentecostals. There is no experiential difference between them. How could a
heretic be filled with the Holy Spirit? Second, the overwhelming majority of
Pentecostals believe you can lose your salvation. This reflects a serious
heresy in their soteriology. Third, as mentioned above, most Pentecostals
believe that ecstatic utterance is a necessary sign that always accompanies the
experience of being baptized or filled with the Holy Spirit. After demonstrating
that these first two views are heresy and the latter serious error, I move to
my cessationist arguments.
My approach to discussing and debating the operation of the
gifts is pretty straightforward. I begin by affirming that God can perform a
miracle today if he chooses. God can heal today. And if God chooses, he can
gift someone in a foreign country with the gift of language not previously
studied for missionary purposes, if God so chooses. Having said that, my
assertion is simply this: the claim by modern
Pentecostals and Charismatics that they are practicing the very same charismata
we read about in the NT church is patently false. Essentially, my claim is the
contradictory of Peter’s quote of Joel: this is not that.
First, one must examine the nature of these gifts
exegetically without regard for modern phenomenon. What was the nature of
tongues in the NT? What was the nature of prophecy? And so on and so forth.
Once you have determined the nature of these gifts using sound hermeneutical
and exegetical principles, only then can you examine the phenomena within
modern Pentecostalism and Charismatics. What are they doing? Is what they are
doing what the early NT church did? NOTE: you cannot examine these modern
claims using Scripture alone so to speak. You have to use other methods. One
such method is empirical in nature. When a Pentecostal “faith-healer” comes to
town making remarkable claims to be able to cure all sorts of ailments, we don’t
use the Bible to see if he is telling the truth. We examine the actual physical
evidence in front of us. For example, when people who can walk are placed in a
wheel chair and a faith-healer prays for them and they stand up and walk, how
can you refer to the Bible to determine if a miracle just took place? If that
is your method, you will never figure out who is a true faith-healer from the
false faith-healer. So, what you do is examine the person to see if they really
were paralyzed to begin and if they really can walk now. You study the nature
of the phenomenon itself. The same is true with modern tongues. Is this
that? Are modern tongues of the same nature as that which we see in Scripture.
Does the modern experience match our exegetical analysis of the text of
Scripture? Well, we don’t simply use Scripture to make this determination. We
have to look at and examine the nature of modern tongues. And when we
do, we discover some remarkable things.
·
The modern practice of tongues
is not actual languages. Therefore, it is not the same thing that the NT church
experienced.
·
The modern practice of
healings and miracles are unverifiable and nebulous at best. In fact, no one
claiming to be a miracle-worker or faith-healer has been able to demonstrate
clear proof of his or her gifts with anything close to authentic documentation.
In fact, every time a Pentecostal is given the opportunity to “show us” they
fail. On the other hand, the NT miracles were verifiable and uncontroversial.
Therefore, the modern claims that miracle workers and faith-healers exist is
illegitimate and demonstrable false.
·
Finally, scientific studies
have conclusively demonstrated that modern tongues, better understood as
ecstatic utterances, are not miraculous in nature, are identical to tongues
practiced by other religions and cults as well as heretical Christian groups, and
can be learned or copied by anyone wishing to do so.
I do believe that Peter would say: this is not that!
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