This weekend, my church has invited one of those Pentecostal Rock Star preachers to come and visit us. We get that about a dozen times a year. I was reading the “Statement of Beliefs” posted on his website, and of course this led to a post. I think it is important to have statements of faith. It is also important to do the leg work on your website that demonstrates that you actually have a mature theology in Christ to understand the scripture. When reading this statement of faith and the scripture cited to support these beliefs, I felt that he merely did a search on a particular word and then used the first scripture that came up without actually reading the passage. Let me highlight some items for discussion.
The rapture = the blessed hope. The scripture cited is Titus 2:13.
13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,
I am sitting here chuckling to myself as I notice that the heading for Titus 2 is “Teach sound doctrine.” I have read Titus many times before, and again just now. Nowhere in that Epistle does the word “rapture” appear. In fact, I can’t find the word anywhere, but I’ve dealt with that elsewhere, including my current series on Daniel. I do believe in the glorious second coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. It will happen on the Last Day when he comes in Judgment. What’s this about a rapture? I’m hoping for something a bit larger than a cosmic dog whistle to whisk me off the earth before things get really nasty.
Healing = The redemptive work of Christ on the cross provides healing of the human body in answer to believing prayer. This time he cites 1 Peter 2:24.
24 He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
This guy is kidding, right? A passage dealing with justification and substitutionary atonement given as a rebuke to yield to His authority also has a double meaning for faith healing? Tell me about that past tense, passive voice of the last verb: you have been healed. It is already done. There is nothing else to do. This is an indicative. This is news, good news. What is this guy doing to the scripture? Notice that I’m not belittling anyone’s view of healing miracles. The Bible is full of them. What I am focused on here is that the scripture cited does not support the practice as this guy practices it. It doesn’t even support it as Jesus practiced it. It is not even about healing in a physical sense.
Baptism in the Holy Spirit = The baptism in the Holy Spirit, according to Acts 2:4, is given to believers who ask for it.
4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance.
Here we come to everyone’s favorite skill: speaking in tongues. Please, oh please, tell me that if you want to talk about glossolalia, you will at least use 1 Corinthians 12-14 rather than the most clear example of what tongues really are in Acts 2:4. Just to humor me, read the next paragraph from Acts. There were Jews from many nations and they heard the sermon in their own tongue. Please tell me you understand that this is not glossolalia, this is as clear as can possibly be a gift of languages. He could not have done worse at citing scripture for his case.
Holy Spirit = Regeneration by the Holy Spirit is absolutely essential for personal salvation. This time he cites Titus 3:5.
5 he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit,
I have railed against this notion of the Baptism by the Holy Spirit in the past, and it is truly a much larger issue than I want to tackle here. Short version: There is but one Baptism for admission into the New Covenant with Jesus. It is done with water. Our hero doesn’t even quote the correct passage in Matthew to defend immersion versus sprinkling or pouring. There is no second Baptism. That isn’t Biblical. There is not a higher level of Christian who can perform parlor tricks. I’ve written on the Sacraments elsewhere, so I’ll not repeat myself. There is no such thing as a “carnal Christian.” It might be that once or twice in my life that I have uttered a string of disjointed, unintelligible syllables, but it was not because of the Holy Spirit.
One more time, in small words: the Holy Spirit ONLY acts to reveal the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If someone claims to be telling you prophesy about you, or themselves, or aunt Martha because they had a vision from the Holy Spirit, that is a sure fire test that the “vision” is false. The Holy Spirit ONLY acts to reveal the Gospel of Jesus Christ. If someone tells you that the Holy Spirit told them what flavor coffee to order or which lane to take on the freeway, and that this caused them to avoid botulism or a horrible wreck, while being very fortunate for them, this is not a true vision. The Holy Spirit ONLY acts to reveal the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
And so this weekend will be entertaining to say the least. I’ll try not to laugh out loud. I will be in church and I will find that crumb that Frank told me to look for each week. I know it will be in there somewhere. I leave you with this portion of the Olivet Discourse from Matthew 24.
--Ogre--
No comments:
Post a Comment