I get emails —
Thank you for oneinjesus.info; never enough said.
My Bible class is viewing Francis Chan’s Basic Series
. Last week’s lesson was on the Holy Spirit.
Soon came the statement of some that the Holy Spirit acts in / through/ by the Word and not in/ through/ in relation to the person in the physical plane.
Soon it was stated that only “the providence of God” is at work in the lives of us all.
Why are Church of Christ students so afraid of the power of the Holy Spirit to change people’s lives? It’s easier to not let the Holy Spirit in and just do our thing seems to be the answer.
Thank you for any comment or links to earlier posts.
[Edited.]
As is true of so many things Church of Christ, this goes back to Alexander Campbell. Barton W. Stone, whose branch of the Restoration Movement predates Campbell, taught the Holy Spirit much as I do — except that he was much more of a charismatic than I am. Indeed, his part of the movement began at the Cane Ridge Revival, famous also as the beginning of charismatic Christianity in the United States.
Stone describes the exercises in more detail in his autobiography –
The scene to me was new, and passing strange. It baffled description. Many, very many fell down, as men slain in battle, and continued for hours together in an apparently breathless and motionless state–sometimes for a few moments reviving, and exhibiting symptoms of life by a deep groan, or piercing shriek, or by a prayer for mercy most fervently uttered. After lying thus for hours, they obtained deliverance. The gloomy cloud, which had covered their faces, seemed gradually and visibly to disappear, and hope in smiles brightened into joy–they would rise shouting deliverance, and then would address the surrounding multitude in language truly eloquent and impressive. With astonishment did I hear men, women and children declaring the wonderful works of God, and the glorious mysteries of the gospel. Their appeals were solemn, heart-penetrating, bold and free. Under such addresses many others would fall down into the same state from which the speakers had just been delivered.
After attending to many such cases, my conviction was complete that it was a good work–the work of God; nor has my mind wavered since on the subject. Much did I then see, and much have I since seen, that I considered to be fanaticism; but this should not condemn the work. The Devil has always tried to ape the works of God, to bring them into disrepute. But that cannot be a Satanic work, which brings men to humble confession and forsaking of sin–to solemn prayer–fervent praise and thanksgiving, and to sincere and affectionate exhortations to sinners to repent and go to Jesus the Saviour.
So that’s the origin of the Stone branch of the Restoration Movement. But the Campbell branch had a very different attitude toward the Spirit.
Alexander Campbell sought to combat two errors. The first arose from the brand of Calvinism popular in his part of the world in the early 19th Century. Believers in Jesus who desperately wanted to be saved were told that they could not be saved unless they were elected.
This brand of Calvinism taught prevenient grace, that is, that one could only be saved if the Spirit acted on the convert’s heart before he believed, empowering him to believe and compelling him to believe. The experience of having one’s heart opened by the Spirit was called “election,” and it must be proved by relating a saving experience: a vision, a dream, or the like.
Merely believing in Jesus and wanting to serve him was considered inadequate for someone to be considered saved. As a result, many good men and women struggled, feeling damned despite their faith and desire to follow Jesus.
As a result, Campbell taught very strenuously against the direct operation of the Spirit on the hearts of the not-yet-saved.
The other error that concerned Campbell was Quakerism. His father, Thomas Campbell, lived in western Pennsylvania, the state founded by William Penn as a safe haven for Quakers.
Many Quakers taught that Christians have an “inner light” by means of the Spirit, allowing them to speak with equal or even greater authority than the scriptures themselves.
Campbell therefore insisted that the Spirit could never contradict the scriptures and, indeed, would never teach any truth not found in the scriptures.
Campbell occasionally taught a more orthodox view of the Spirit — but he rarely spoke about the Spirit except in his critiques of contemporary Calvinism and Quakerism. In fact, at times, he seemed to plainly adopt the “word only” view. Therefore, many — quite understandably — understood him to teach a “word only” view of the Spirit even after conversion.
The real difference between Campbell’s views and those of his 20th Century disciples is that Campbell seems to have believed in a personal indwelling that could be perceived and that had an effect — except the Spirit’s work was always in conjunction with the word. It was not limited to the word or to working through the word. It was, rather, limited to working with the word.
Thus, Campbell could teach —
[T]he Spirit of God animates, consoles, and refreshes the whole body of Christ. These consolations, joys, and refreshments from the presence of the Lord, the Apostle imprecated upon all the Corinthian converts.
This “word only” view is an exaggeration of Campbell’s actual views, but that view appealed to a Movement that moved more and more toward hyper-rationalism after Campbell’s death. Indeed, our teaching on the Spirit often became the equivalent of Deism — the idea that God is no longer active in the affairs of humans.
The Spirit was considered to have taken early retirement at the end of the apostolic age — near 100 AD. Any reference to the Spirit being active among Christians after that date was considered downright heresy by some. Thus, we were Spirit-Deists.
Many extended that notion to God himself, limiting his activities to apostolic times and earlier. Others allowed God to take some limited actions in modern times, but struggled to defend how it was okay for God to be active but not the Spirit. We could pray for God to “guard, guide and direct us” and to give the preacher “a ready recollection,” but if we uttered the same prayer regarding the Spirit, we’d be damned. Really.
I think that’s because a scientific, rational perspective — as rule-based as Newtonian physics — appealed to the spirit of the scientific revolution of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries.
I’m not that old, you know, but even in the 1950s and early 1960s, the American perspective was that science was going to solve all our problems. I read books as a child that promised a solution to tornadoes and hurricanes, disease, and hunger, all thanks to science and the greatness of the American government.
Because Americans had great faith in science and government to cure their problems, they re-created God in their own image. If science is all about laws of nature, and good government is about the principles of American democracy, well, the Bible should be understood as being like the American constitution, and God should be seen as acting strictly by natural law. After all, it’s the natural laws that make science possible. How could we want more? Good things happen for those who learn the laws that govern everything.
We now live in an age where the limits of science and government are all too obvious. The weather is, if anything, getting more dangerous. Americans are dying from their “solutions” — due to obesity, diabetes, and cancer. The world is starving despite having more than enough food to feed everyone. Oh, and Viet Nam pretty much ended the delusion that government knows what’s best for us. (Although that lesson seems to be fading in some circles.)
Our changing culture — our new worldview — is now more open to a God who is active, who solves problems that are bigger than human capacity, and who labors to restore humanity to his image — because our broken, fallen image is just not good enough.
