(The following is an edited email correspondence.)

Have you already written something about Pentecostalism?

I have not yet written anything detailed about Pentecostalism, or a direct evaluation of the Charismatic Movement or Charismatic Theology. The most relevant and publicly available work that I have produced so far is Biblical Healing.

I am quite familiar with the theology and the personalities involved in Charismatic circles. From my perspective, many but not all of the Reformed and Evangelical criticisms regarding the doctrines and practices of the Charismatics are accurate.

However, when it comes to a positive statement concerning spiritual gifts, their own doctrine leaves much to be desired, even though they have also made valuable contributions on the subject, compensating for the errors of the Charismatics.

I am not an absolute cessationist. There are different senses and degrees of "cessationism." Many cessationists affirm that God indeed still performs the extraordinary, only that he no longer performs these feats through "spiritual gifts" or special endowments granted to individual believers. By "absolute" cessationism, I refer to the position that God has altogether stopped performing the extraordinary. This position claims that all the reasons for which he performed the extraordinary during biblical times are now gone and inapplicable, since the Scripture has been completed and the canon closed.

One of the several reasons that I reject absolute cessationism is that there are biblically supported reasons other than those cited by the absolute cessationists for God to perform the extraordinary. In other words, God performs the extraordinary not only to authenticate his messengers, confirm his revelation, etc., but there are other reasons for which he performs the extraordinary. Therefore, even though the reasons connected with the formation of the canon are no longer applicable, this does not eliminate the possibility that God still performs the extraordinary today.

I believe that God still does whatever he wants, and sometimes he might want to do things that are out of the ordinary, including healing and other "miracles," often in answer to prayer. This is only a consistent application of the doctrine of divine sovereignty.

And this is consistent with mainstream and historic Reformed thinking in principle. I say "in principle" because many Reformed people who say the same thing as I do here then preach and behave as if God now absolutely refuses to do anything out of the ordinary. But there is no biblical evidence for this.

Or, they say that God can still do whatever he wants, but that he no longer wants to do extraordinary things. But neither is there biblical evidence for this, although many forced and invalid inferences are sometimes presented as evidence.

In fact, some people preach and behave as if this has become a deistic world after the apostles and the close of the canon. In some cases, this might be an overreaction to charismatic excesses, but whatever the reason, it is unbiblical and unnecessary. A practical deist is not really better than a charismatic fanatic — both are wrong, and both are ignorant of true spiritual power.

Instead, we should affirm that God is free to do whatever he wants today as in the past, including extraordinary things. How often he chooses to do these extraordinary things is another question, but I would not say that he never does them anymore.

In fact, we should affirm that God’s power is very active in this world, that God does whatever he pleases for his own glory and for the good of the elect. Although Christians have no right to demand God to do anything, or to do something in a particular way, neither do they have the right to say that God has absolutely ceased doing extraordinary things, or doing things in extraordinary ways, especially when there is no real biblical evidence for such a stance.

This is my basic position, as least when it comes to cessationism.

The normal Christian life should be characterized by real and active spiritual POWER. Charismatics make a lot of noise but know nothing of it, but most Reformed and Evangelical Christians are also ignorant in this regard.

Paul writes that he doesn’t want us to be ignorant of spiritual things (1 Cor. 12:1). Nevertheless, when the Charismatics get done with 1 Cor. 12–14, they come away with a false spiritual power, a fanatical imitation of the real thing, but when most Reformed and Evangelical Christians get done with the biblical passage, they come away with NOTHING, since they see to it that everything described in there has passed away. Both groups end up still ignorant of spiritual things, and destitute of spiritual power.

Perhaps I will write something about Charismatic Theology in the future, including tongues, baptism in the Spirit, and other related topics.

Recommended:

Ministry Spending and Favoritism

Copeland Deifies Man

Vincent Cheung, Biblical Healing

D. A. Carson, Showing the Spirit

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, Joy Unspeakable: The Baptism and Gifts of the Holy Spirit

John MacArthur, Charismatic Chaos

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