Divine Impressions, Dreams, and These Voices in My Head

“God spoke to me.” “God gave me a dream.” “The Holy Spirit led me.” All these represent claims that I hear just about every time I am around other Christians. Rare is the modern Christian that does not make these claims. Rarer still are those that dare to question such claims. And most rare of all are those that dare to reject such claims in preference for, not just a theological, but a practice view of the sufficiency of Scripture. Why is that?

The proposition that “God spoke to me” is not the same as the proposition, “God spoke to Moses.” It is not even the same as the proposition, “God spoke to men and women in Scripture.” There are a few things we can point out about the experiences revealed in Scripture and the modern claim that God is still speaking to people. First, the nature of the experience in Scripture is remarkable. When God spoke in Scripture, it was a miraculous event. God spoke directly to men, audibly in Scripture. There was no possibility of confusing God’s voice with a voice in my head, my own psychological self-conscious dialectic. Second, God spoke to men through the Torah. The Torah was given by God through Moses during a miraculous, supernatural event. God spoke to men in visions and dreams within the Scriptures, but these experiences were divine visions and dreams that also suggest supernatural properties for lack of a better expression. In other words, they were real. It was not possible for the recipient to “get it wrong.” God speaks efficaciously to His children. He does not stutter or stammer. He does not leave you hanging. You know it was God speaking to you because of the supernatural imposition of the event itself. In other words, it is not possible for you to adopt the belief that God had not spoken to you when, in fact, He had not spoken to you.

What are we to make of the claims: 1) God spoke to me; 2) God gave me a dream; 3) The Holy Spirit is leading or speaking to me to do x. If you are the one making such a claim, you must be prepared to defend your claim. If you are going to tell others that God is speaking to you, you must give us good and justifiable reasons to believe it. No one should expect to make the incredible claim that God is speaking to them without being willing and open to showing us why they believe such an event occurred. Yet, when the people making such claims are questioned, even in the politest way, they get incredibly defensive. It is has if they think that they are one of the apostles of our Lord, speaking with unquestioned authority. But even the apostles did not operate with that kind of mentality. We read Luke’s record in Acts of how the Bereans responded to Paul’s claims. “Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.” They turned to God’s speaking in the Scripture to see if Paul’s claims about the Messiah were true. Luke describes these individuals as more noble minded than others. Why? Because they readily received the Word of God and tested all claims by the Word of God. The claims of the apostles were testable.

This problem has arisen within the Church because of a flawed understanding of the nature of Scripture. What is Scripture? A.B. Bruce represents revelation as consisting in the “self-manifestation of God in human history as the God of a gracious purpose – the manifestation being made not merely of chiefly by words, but very specially by deeds.” [Warfield, Revelation & Inspiration] And that revelation comes to us by way of a text, words put down on paper. The Scripture is not just the record of God’s revelation, but it included in that revelation itself. The two cannot be separated.

Many modern Christians do not appreciate the uniqueness of Scripture. They do not understand that God’s divine acts in Scripture had a unique and specific purpose. They seem to think that, like Paul, Christ should appear and speak to them. But such a view cannot help but devalue the nature of God’s self-revelation in the history of human redemption. I was watching the popular TV show, “Blue Bloods” not long ago and one of the actors in this particular episode claimed God had spoken to her. When Danny, the cop, took the information to his sister, the assistant district attorney, her response was profound. Danny argued that God had spoken to people in the Bible, so why not this girl? Erin’s rebuttal was short, and swift, and on point: “this isn’t the Bible.” Her answer was actually spot on. What I am saying is that any claim that God has acted especially in your life is a claim that must be, by its nature, on par with Scripture. God’s acts cannot be categorized into “really amazing” and therefore, authoritative, like the acts in Scripture and “not really amazing” and therefore, not binding, because they are personal to me. We have no record of God acting supernaturally in the life of anyone that was just personal to them. Every act of God in Scripture was a unique act designed to reveal something about God to His elect. Think about it.

I blame this particular error of continuous revelation on two movements primarily: the influence of Anabaptist theology from the radical reformation in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, and the encroachment of Pentecostal theology into main stream Christian churches in the 20^th century. Pentecostal theology, while denying it theoretically, affirms a standard for revelation apart from Scripture. Pentecostal epistemology is experiential at its core, subject to the whim of the individual. According to Pentecostal hermeneutics, we live within Scripture the same as the apostles. In fact, many Pentecostals claim that the apostolic office continues to this day. This is a serious error. And it opens the door for all sorts of subjective claims that God is revealing himself to us in ways that are distinct from Scripture. And if this is true, Scripture is not any more unique than its final outward form of being 66 books that happen to be collected together in one book called the Bible. God’s revelation cannot take on different characteristics because, well, it is God’s revelation.

The claim is made that the Holy Spirit will lead us into all truth and will teach us and show us all things. The references that supposedly support this way of thinking are John 14:26 and 16:13. But do these texts actually teach us that every Christian will have a relationship with the Holy Spirit, of such a personal nature, that He will actually lead us in ways that do not concerned the revelation of truth in Scripture? What does John 14:26 and 16:13 actually say? What does it mean? And how are we to appropriate it to our lives today?

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you. [John 14:26] First of all, this statement is made within the context of what is called “The Upper Room Discourse.” This is Jesus’ final interaction with his disciples prior to His arrest, trial, and crucifixion. He has gathered His disciples together one final time. Hence, He is speaking to His disciples. In this setting, Jesus makes a statement of fact: when the Helper comes, who is the Holy Spirit, He will teach you all things. So the Helper is going to teach the disciples all things. What things? All things that Christ has taught them up to this point. The Holy Spirit is going to bring all things that Christ said to them to their remembrance. Jesus makes it plain that the role of the Holy Spirit is to enable appropriation of the truth revealed by Christ to His disciples. Jesus is not speaking broadly to you and me here. D.A. Carson explains it well:

“One of the Spirit’s principal tasks, after Jesus is glorified, is to remind the disciples of Jesus’ teaching and thus, in the new situation after the resurrection, to help them grasp its significance and thus to teach them what it meant. Indeed, the Evangelist himself draws attention to some things that were remembered and understood only after the resurrection (2:19–22; 12:16; cf. 20:9). Granted the prominence of this theme, the promise of v. 26 has in view the Spirit’s role to the first generation of disciples, not to all subsequent Christians. John’s purpose in including this theme and this verse is not to explain how readers at the end of the first century may be taught by the Spirit, but to explain to readers at the end of the first century how the first witnesses, the first disciples, came to an accurate and full understanding of the truth of Jesus Christ. The Spirit’s ministry in this respect was not to bring qualitatively new revelation, but to complete, to fill out, the revelation brought by Jesus himself.”

Since this passage is not a blanket promise to all Christians everywhere, it is improper to interpret it to mean that Jesus is here suggesting that the Holy Spirit is going to teach all of us everything that He said to His disciples. It is important to remember the basic steps for interpreting a passage. We must understand what the text is saying, then what it means, and then determine how that applies to us. We have already explained what the text is saying and with D.A. Carson’s help, both what it means and how it applies to us. Because the apostles were taught directly by the Holy Spirit how to understand and interpret Jesus’ revelation of divine truth, we can trust what they wrote to the church.

The other text cited by many Christians that hold this “divine impression” position is John 16:13: “But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come.” It must first be understood that Jesus makes this statement in the very same Upper Room Discourse as he did John 14:26. There is a variant in this text that has a bearing on its interpretation. If eis is preferred, the reading should say “into all truth” while if one prefers en, the reading should be rendered “in all truth.” Metzger prefers en. Carson comments, “If there is a distinction between ‘in all truth’ and ‘into all truth’, it is that the latter hints at truth the disciples have not yet in any sense penetrated, while ‘in all truth’ suggests an exploration of truth already principally disclosed. Jesus himself is the truth (14:6); now the Spirit of truth leads the disciples into all the implications of the truth, the revelation, intrinsically bound up with Jesus Christ. There is no other locus of truth; this is all truth.” Again, this text is speaking specifically about the relationship and role the Holy Spirit has with the disciples. Neither John 14:26 nor John 16:13 suggests that Christians can expect to be taught all things.

Finally, the notion that we need divine impressions, voices, visions, and dreams today has serious implications for the attribute we call the sufficiency of Scripture. Either the Scripture is enough for right relationship with God, for walking in divine truth, for walking in God’s will or it is not. Francis Turretin puts it like this: The question then amounts to this – whether Scripture perfectly contains all things (not absolutely), but necessary to salvation; not expressly and in so many words, but equivalently and by legitimate inference, as to leave no place for any unwritten (agraphon) word containing doctrinal or moral traditions. [Turretin, Institutes] Can a Christian violate the will of God without violating Scripture? Can a Christian violate the will of God without also sinning? This is the question. According to Paul, the word of God enables the Christian to meet all the demands of godly ministry and righteous living. [MacArthur]

In summary then, to claim that God is speaking to you through some small voice in your conscience, through divine impressions, through dreams, or visions is an extraordinary claim that requires extraordinary justification if it is to be accepted. To argue that God is still speaking to us today because he spoke to others in the Bible is a logically specious argument. We are not living in the unique revelation of God as it unfolds across the history of redemption. Third, such claims are simply untestable. Whether or not you married “the one” based off some impression is a claim that can in no way, shape, or form be tested. Fourth, if these claims are true, a person could sin without violating a command of Scripture. If I refused to relocate when God was telling me this was His will for me, that would necessarily be a sin because I am going against God. But that sin is not found in Scripture. How many of these could there be? It seems there could be an infinite number of them. Moreover, this thinking impugns the sufficiency of Scripting by implying that Scripture alone is not enough. After all, if I can sin while being obedient to Scripture, then obviously Scripture is not sufficient to keep me from sinning or failing to walk in the will of God. There are numerous problems with this way of thinking. I hope this post has, at a minimum, helped you recognize some issues with this behavior that you may have not considered previously.

Sam Storms on Infallible Prophecy: Point Number Five

Fifth, yet another statement in 1 Corinthians 14 confirms this understanding of NT prophecy. In v. 36 Paul asks, “Or was it from you that the word of God came?” He doesn’t say, “Did the word of God originate with (or “first go forth from”) you,” as some have suggested. Let’s not forget that the “word of God” didn’t originate with Paul either!

Rather, Paul’s statement is designed to prevent them from making up guidelines for public worship, based on an alleged prophetic word, contrary to what he has just stated. His point is that a Scripture quality, authoritative “word of God” has not, in fact, been forthcoming from the Corinthian prophets. Paul does not deny that they have truly prophesied, but he denies that their “words” were equal in authority to his own. Such “words” were in fact of a lesser authority.

In order to make sure we continue to focus on the subject, I want to remind you that the issue at stake here is the quality of NT prophecy. Sam Storms and other non-cessationists claim that it is of a lessor quality or authority than either OT prophecy or the teachings of the apostles that eventually became encapsulated in Scripture. Mr. Storms is working through ten points that he believes supports his argument. In reviewing his argument, I am searching for any implication in the text, properly interpreted of course, that lends support to Storms’ argument.

In his fifth point, Storms claims that 1 Cor. 14:36 lends support to his view that NT prophecy is of a lessor authority or quality than canonical Scripture. It reads as follows, ἢ ἀφʼ ὑμῶν ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ ἐξῆλθεν, ἢ εἰς ὑμᾶς μόνους κατήντησεν; The literal translation is; “Or from you the word of God went out, or to you only has it come?” Paul uses the spatial frame “from you” to draw extra attention to the tone of his argument.

Storms has opened up a real can or worms in this section. If Paul is referring to prophecy when he uses the phrase, ὁ λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ, then Storms seems to have shot his own foot. This phrase is always used of the authoritative word of God. It appears 11 times in NA28 and in every single case there is nothing to distinguish it from itself. Everywhere it appears it appears as the authoritative communication from the one triune God.

So then, what was Paul actually getting at with this question? Was Paul actually dealing with the authoritative nature of NT prophecy? Can we really interact with this verse through such a contemporary lens? If we knew nothing about modern, contemporary claims of prophetic utterances, would we even be looking at the text from Storms’ perspective? I find it difficult to believe that we can honestly answer that question in the affirmative. It seems that Storms continues to interpret 1 Corinthians 14 through the lens of modern Charismatic experience.

Even if the Corinthian believers were not prophesying and were only preaching the Word of God and teaching it, could Paul have said the very same thing to them? I think we can easily answer in the affirmative. The Corinthian believers were not in sole possession of the Word of God. God’s word had gone out to the universal church, and the Corinthian believers did not have the corner on the market of divine truth. Like every other community, the Corinthian group must submit to apostolic authority.

“As TEV makes clear, the two halves of this verse balance one another; the Christian message neither began nor ended in Corinth. The implication is that the Corinthians have no right to decide independently of other Christian communities how Christians should believe.”^[1]

“The balance for the Corinthian Christians is that they are one of a number of churches that now stretch across the cities of the eastern Roman empire. They may live in one of the most important cities of the province, but they need to learn humility.”^[2]

“Witherington offers two useful observations on v. 36. First, he perceives the point of Paul’s rhetorical questions to lie in the scenario that “it appears the Corinthians are trying to make up their own rules, and perhaps thinking their own word is sufficient or authoritative or even the word of God for themselves.”^[3]

“Who do they think they are anyway? is the implication; has God given them a special word that allows them both to reject Paul’s instructions, on the one hand, and be so out of touch with the other churches, on the other?”[4]

There is no connection at all between 1 Cor. 14:36 with the present argument put forth by Storms. There is no reason to think that Paul is concerned to help the Corinthians understand that their local prophetic utterances are somehow less authoritative than Scripture. What Paul is concerned with is the autonomous desires of this community and their spiritual pride, which emerges throughout the letter. Storms’ fifth point does absolutely nothing to advance his case and lends not an ounce of support to his contention that there is a difference between the prophetic Word of God coming through prophets and the canonical Word of God encapsulated in Scripture.

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^[1] Paul Ellingworth, Howard Hatton, and Paul Ellingworth, A Handbook on Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians, UBS Handbook Series (New York: United Bible Societies, 1995), 326.

^[2] Clinton E. Arnold, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary: Romans to Philemon., vol. 3 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 174.

^[3] Anthony C. Thiselton, The First Epistle to the Corinthians: a Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: W.B. Eerdmans, 2000), 1161.

[4] Gordon D. Fee, The First Epistle to the Corinthians (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1987), 710.

Sam Storms on Fallible Prophecy: Points 3 & 4

Third, although I realize that cessationists have a different understanding of 1 Corinthians 14:29, I believe Paul is saying here much the same thing as he said in 1 Thessalonians 5:19-22. “Weigh” (diakrino) what is said by the prophets. That is to say, sift the word and identify what is of God and what is the human and thus fallible admixture. I find it difficult to believe that Paul would have commanded this sort of assessment if all prophetic words were by definition inerrant Scripture quality revelation from God. See more here.

The general thrust of Storms’ entire argument is that he considers Paul to have modern Charismatic prophecy in view. In other words, Storms is simply assuming that his view that ancient prophecy was the same as modern prophecy is correct. But the descriptions we read in Scripture and the phenomenon we see among Charismatics are remarkably different. Modern Charismatic prophecy and prophets simply just start speaking at the slightest hint of an emotional sensation. They have no idea what is going to come out of their mouths. The rational mind is entirely suspended and replaced with a radical, mystical sensation and they just begin to prophesy.

Second, there is no indication in this text that the prophets are prophesying. Storms simply assumes this to be the case. There is no reason for this assumption other than his desire to grasp for something to prove his case. Paul informs the Church to have the prophets speak, one at a time, and then that their sermon is to be judged for its faithfulness to the truth they have received from the apostles and their associates.

Third, there is no indication in this context that Paul is dealing with the more narrow use of prophecy. Rather, it seems clear that he is dealing with preaching, proclaiming, teaching, and exhorting. He uses the words μανθάνω (manthano) and παρακαλέω (parakaleo) which means to learn and to be encouraged. There is no indicating that he has forth telling the future in mind whatsoever. In addition, how could anyone ever judge whether new revelation was right or wrong unless he or she compared it to what had already been revealed. How could we know that predictive personal prophecy was from God? If the event were not going to happen for years, we would simply have to wait. We could not scrutinize or examine it for years to come. However, if these speeches were objective truth claims, then the ability to examine them in light of previously given revelation would be possible.

Fourth, in 1 Corinthians 14:30-31 Paul writes: “If a revelation is made to another sitting there, let the first be silent. For you can all prophesy one by one, so that all may learn and all be encouraged.” Paul appears to be indifferent toward the possibility that the first prophecy might be lost and never heard by the church.

Storms again assumes that this revelation that has been revealed to someone takes the shape of modern claims. There is no reason to think this is the case. The ancient form of revelation seems radically different from modern claims. In modern Pentecostalism, the experience is one of a radically heightened emotion. This does not at all come into view when one examines the more detailed accounts of revelation in Scripture.

The emphasis in this text is clearly on the order of the service and the avoidance of confusion. Apparently, when the first prophet was speaking, or even perhaps prophesying, a second would just jump in and begin to do his thing as well. Paul’s concern about order and his point out that God is a God of order indicates that the typical ancient patter was not being honored. The idea that the first prophet could not resume when the second prophet had finished, and that such a position by Paul indicated some sort of disregard for the authority of the prophetic words being uttered is sheer conjecture. Paul’s point that the Spirit of the prophets are subject to the prophets contradicts Storms assertion directly.

Finally, Sorms’ view that subjecting ancient prophecy to scrutiny makes is less than the Word of God encapsulated in Scripture is just plain wrong. In order to illustrate why I think this is the case, we may turn to other sections of Scripture that indicate clear why I think this to be the case. Acts 17:11 is a perfect example for this discussion and it alone is sufficient to demonstrate my assertion. Luke tells us that the Jews at Berea were more noble minded than the Jews at Thessalonica because they scrutinized Paul’s gospel proclamation by examining his arguments in light of the Old Testament revelation. The idea that we do not judge the assertions and claims of men when they say they speak for God is utterly ridiculous. Even the proclamations and arguments of Paul were judged according to prior revelation. This did not make those words any less authoritative at all. Is simply means that God is a rational God and He has not left us without a standard by which we can know when He is speaking and when He is not.

Storms’ argument cannot see the forest for the trees. He enters the conversation with a bias against the cessationist position. I was saved in the Pentecostal churches. I was a licensed minister in the Church of God in Cleveland, TN. I come to this subject with both an experiential and theological perspective. I know what Pentecostal prophecy looks like. I have experienced the experience they claim is God revealing things to them. It is highly subjective and arbitrary. It is driven by pure emotion. Angels are not standing in front of them talking to them. God is not appearing to them in dreams. They have dreams that they claim are from God but the truth is they could just as much be from Papa John’s Pizza. There is no way to really tell. When we compare modern claims with ancient facts, the two are remarkably different. Give me Scripture, give me grace to understand it, give me grace to live it and I shall know Him and the power of His resurrection. Then and only then will my soul be satisfied!

The Gifts that Are Not and Extra Biblical Revelation in Pentecostal Theology

We keep hearing about John MacArthur’s Strange Fire conference coming up in November and how all the Pentecostal folks and their sympathizers are distressed over the issue of the continuation of certain gifts within the Christian Church. I have written a few blogs about this controversy and have had an opportunity to interact with Steve Hays over at Triablogue on the subject. I categorize Hays as a sympathizer of Pentecostal theology given his statements and his apparent theological paradigm.

There are two basic issues I want to point out in this blog. One concerns the question of spiritual gifts in the body of Christ and the other considers that nature of revelation, extra biblical and otherwise.

First of all, I think it is necessary to point out that there are a number of gifts that God has placed in the body of Christ, all for her spiritual growth and edification. The spiritual gifts are mentioned in a number of passages in the New Testament. Romans 12:6-8 lists out the following: prophecy, service, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading, and mercy. Paul lists more in 1 Cor. 12:8-10: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, effecting of miracles, prophecy, discernment of spirits, kinds of tongues, and the interpretation of tongues. Paul lists out apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers in Eph. 4:11. So we have a list of gifts that God has placed in the Church in order to produce the kind of change and perform the kind of work He desires to perform within this community.

Now that we can see that God has placed gifts in the Church for the overall purpose of her spiritual growth and maturity, the next question naturally leads to specific gifts. What are these gifts? What were they designed to accomplish? As an example, let’s look at the gift of diverse languages. It is a mistake to interpret “tongues” as some supernatural language. The Greek word to describe this phenomenon is the same Greek word used to describe languages. It is used 50 times in the NT, 168 times in the LXX, 13 times by the Apostolic Fathers, 101 times in Philo, and hundreds of times in the Classics. While it does not always mean languages that is its predominant sense. Acts 2 clearly informs us that the languages spoken on Pentecost are real languages. The gift of tongues is not unintelligible broken syllables that no human can understand. In addition, any human being is capable of producing or mimicking this modern phenomenon practiced by Pentecostals. There is nothing miraculous about it. That is to say that it does nothing to set God apart or prove anything that intelligible language cannot do a superior job of proving itself. In addition, the practice is highly irrational. It simply makes no sense. But it is supposed to be edifying. How does speaking gibberish edify me? 

The NT phenomena and the modern phenomena are clearly not the same. This is where we begin to answer our question whether or not these gifts are still being given in the Church. If we no longer see them in use, we might ponder the purpose of these gifts when they were in operation. For instance, an apostle had a completely different function and purpose than an elder. Apostleship is no longer a gift that men receive. There were a select few given that gift, called to that office. This would naturally lead to the question of what purpose that office served given the fact that it no longer exists. The same is true of any of these gifts.

Another issue with modern tongues is the notion that it is the evidence that one has been filled with the Holy Spirit. Exegetically speaking, this is not difficult to prove in the ancient Church. The correlation is undeniable. If Pentecostal theology is right, there are a lot of us who claim to know Christ but who are not even filled the Spirit. Are the continuationists prepared to go down this road? Of course they’re not. They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to argue for the continuation of the gifts but also argue that Pentecostal theology is wrong about tongues. I’m sorry, but they can’t have it both ways. When NT believers were filled with the Spirit, they spoke in tongues. Why don’t we speak in tongues when we are filled with the Spirit? The continuationist who is also non-Pentecostal is left to do extreme exegetical gyrations in their typical answers.

I simply draw your attention to this issue to point out that most of the Christian Church has always believed that some gifts were permanent while others were temporary. The argument over how we arrive at which gifts are permanent and which ones are temporary is really one of semantics from my perspective. Tongues mysteriously stopped happening for some reason. From the beginning, the individual never acquired this ability. The individual passively received this supernatural ability to speak in other languages. The event was initiated by God. No one was going around seeking to speak in tongues, praying for this to happen to them. God was in charge of the process end to end. And for some reason, God stopped endowing people with this gift. What are we supposed to say? Did the Church just decide she would no longer accept this ability from God? The same is true with miracles and faith healers. For some reason, the ability vanished. This isn’t to say that God stopped healing people entirely. That is not the argument at all. But that men like Paul, Peter, and others would come into a town and perform numerous undeniable miracles and healings continued to happen throughout Church history is simply contrary to the facts.

So the argument for the continuation of these gifts has first to establish what these gifts actually were. As far as I can tell, Pentecostal theology has it wrong when it comes to their most basic gift, tongues. They make numerous hermeneutical leaps in their effort to defend this phenomenon. We simply cannot accept the claim that the modern Pentecostal practice is equivalent to the one experienced in the ancient Church. In addition, if it is accepted that modern tongues are in fact the same as those in the ancient Church, we are then left with no recourse, but to accept the Pentecostal teaching that it is the initial evidence that one has been filled with the Spirit. You see, we cannot cut the debate off in the abstract. We must also examine the experiential side of the equation if we are to discover the truth regarding this question. This is why we demand proof that healings and miracles are in fact legitimate. Method is critically important in this discussion. We are not arguing for Christian theism. We are not asserting the existence of the non-material God who is our Creator. Our method is very different for examining the truth claims of Pentecostal theology.

The argument coming from sympathizers like Hays is filled with contradictions and I am certain that most Pentecostals would tell Hays NOT to do them any favors. Steve Hays desires to defend Pentecostal theology but he doesn’t want to have to speak in tongues to be Spirit-filled. He wants to argue, in theory that healings and miracles have continued without missing a beat even though he has never encountered a faith healer or miracle worker himself. Based off that sort of reasoning, we are left without any recourse, but to accept the claims of alien abductions as well. Those who argue this way want to defend the on-going practice and possibility of tongues, healings, and miracles but without having to subject it to empirical verification. However, we cannot leave out empirical verification because it is essential to understanding the phenomena and comparing it to what we see in Scripture. The men that Hays and I both would call charlatans, most Pentecostals defend as prophets, apostles, and men of God. The excesses that Hays mentions, most Pentecostals call Spirit-filled worship. Very few Pentecostals see the practices of the larger segment of Pentecostalism as excesses. Hays is missing his target. In addition, Pentecostal hermeneutics and theology naturally lead to what Hays and others call excesses. The subjective nature and experiential orientation of Pentecostal theology is powerless to offer a critique of such practices. Once you open the door to such experiential leanings and to extra biblical revelation, just about anything can walk in under the guise of a “movement of God.”

Extra Biblical Revelation

The Westminster Confession states, “The authority of the Holy Scripture, for which it ought to be believed, and obeyed, dependeth not upon the testimony of any man, or Church; but wholly upon God (who is truth itself) the author thereof: and therefore it is to be received, because it is the Word of God.” It was the fall of man that made way for the need of a special word from God. The consequences of sin amputated man from fellowship with and hearing from His God. Man, by nature, corrupts the revelation of God given to him in nature and in conscience. He does this willingly and naturally. He is a natural born enemy of God. The revelation of God comes to him clearly, and his reaction to that revelation is to pervert, to corrupt, and to reshape it. Two things are needed if man is to relate to His God rightly. Man needs a change of nature, and God must speak to Him. Otherwise, man is hopelessly lost without any hope of truly knowing and relating to God.

Calvin says regarding God and Scripture, “…what we ought to think of him is set forth there, lest we seek some uncertain deity by devious paths.” [Institutes] What we think about God, how we see Him, who He is, what He is, what He is like, is all set forth for us in plain view in sacred Scripture. A right understanding of Scripture is essential to a right understanding of God. A poor hermeneutic has continually led men to heresy more than any other single factor. Pentecostal hermeneutics are highly subjective, based on individual experience. The Pentecostal looks at Scripture through the grid of experience and interprets the experiences and teachings in Scripture through the grid of their own experience. This has continually led to devastating error and even heresy in Pentecostal denominations.

Calvin continues, “Hence the Scriptures obtain full authority among believers only when men regard them as having sprung from heaven, as if there the living words of God were heard.” [Institutes] To the liberal, this is utter folly. To the Pentecostal, Scripture is clearly not enough. The experience of extra biblical revelation is in every case to be sought. Why? We have the miracle of the text! The Pentecostal wants Paul’s experience for himself. He is not satisfied to take from Paul what Paul took from the hand of Christ. That just won’t do!

God alone is sufficient witness to Himself in His Word. He needs no other witness to defend His own truth. The Holy Spirit seals this truth upon the hearts and minds of God’s children. God is His own witness and His witness is sufficient in itself. If this is true of the revelation of Scripture, then reasons the Pentecostal, it is true of God’s revelation to me. And they are right! If in fact God reveals to men today, then that revelation is just as self-justifying, and self-authenticating, and authoritative as Scripture. And this is the crux of the problem. Open this door and anything may slither in among the saints to consume, to deceive, and to devour.

The Revelation of Scripture is absolutely necessary if man is to know and relate to God. Turretin makes a keen observation to this end, “It was necessary for a written word to be given to the church that the canon of true religious faith might be constant and unmoved; that it might easily be preserved pure and entire against the weakness of memory, the depravity of men and the shortness of life; that it might be more certainly defended from the frauds and corruptions of Satan; that it might more conveniently not only be sent to the absent and widely separated, but also be transmitted to posterity.” [Institutes] How can we know that Benny Hinn did not receive a legitimate revelation that God has disclosed to him but to no one in Scripture? If we affirm the possibility of extra biblical revelation, I do not see how we can judge the claims these men make, to be false without at the same time engaging in a level of arbitrariness foreign to all rational thought. Even if we arbitrarily assert that all new revelation must be examined in light of Scripture, there is enough not revealed in Scripture that enormous error could ensue and we would have no exegetically rational way of refuting it. This development is both intellectually unappealing and spiritually perilous.

Deut. 29:29 informs us that the secret things, the things that are unrevealed, belong to God but the things revealed to us are ours forever. What is revealed? In this case, it was the written Law of Moses. The implication is that what is written is what is revealed, and what is not written is not revealed. Moreover, what is not revealed is secret. And if it is secret, it belongs to the Lord. Our concern is with what has been revealed, not what has been kept back, kept secret. God has told us that what He did not reveal belongs to Him. Everything that has not been given to us in the sacred writings belongs to this class of unrevealed, secret things that belong to the Lord, not to us. That is a fact of revelation, a principle of revelation that we must humbly recognize with all sincerity.

This whole question is a question of epistemology. How do we know and what is our final authority for knowing? Either we have a closed canon and a final authoritative revelation that serves as the basis for knowing truth or we do not. There is no middle ground. The cessationist can say that what we must be concerned with is understanding and rightly interpreting the revelation of God in Scripture. That is our guide. It is our final answer to every question. If the thing we seek is unrevealed, then it belongs to the Lord. Who can know it but God alone? The word of God was given to sanctify, to perform a work in us by revealing to us the Will of our Heavenly Father. It is enough that this revelation should occupy our thoughts, that we should read it, absorb it, understand it, and live it.

If I allow the extra biblical principle in Pentecostal theology, I am indeed in quicksand without any escape from any of the outrageous claims that supposedly come through those revelations. A man may hear that God wants him to divorce his Baptist or Presbyterian wife and marry a fellow Pentecostal who will follow him in his supposed Holy Ghost filled ecstatic utterances. Who are we to say he is wrong. We may say you cannot divorce her because of Paul. He will retort that Paul was speaking of a general situation where the man never heard from God. But I have heard from God and therefore, I must obey! How shall we respond to this person? They have a word from God as sure as any word from God written down in Scripture.

I have said that our method for examining this question is both exegetical and empirical. It is exegetical from the standpoint that we must understand the nature of the gifts given in Scripture and how the Church used those gifts for ministry and for edification. It is empirical in the sense that these claims are physical in nature and can be subjected to empirical testing. We can see if a healing has taken place or if a person can actually speak in a foreign language supernaturally. I have also said that when we remove the ultimate authority of Scripture, which is itself divine revelation, and allow for extra biblical revelation apart from Scripture, we nullify the final authority of Scripture and land in a sea of arbitrariness and subjectivity. We lose our ability to distinguish true extra biblical revelations from false ones.

I have also said that if we measure extra biblical revelation by the standard of Scripture, contending that such revelations must always be in line with Scripture, they become superfluous at best. On the other hand, if extra biblical revelation is not superfluous and God really is participating in on-going revelation, the canon should never have been closed and we are now faced with the impossibility of falsifying any of these claims. In other words, the Pentecostal claims to extra biblical revelation and the revelations themselves are in the last word, not defeasible. This is a real dilemma for theology. In fact, how is theology even possible if such a state of affairs has truly obtained?