John MacArthur gets fresh pepper for attacking the Charismatics
October 28, 2013Mark Driscoll is challenging John MacArthur to a face to face debate on the person of The Holy Spirit.
John MacArthur is renouncing the Charismatic movement for entertaining unclean spirits.
Both MacArthur’s Strange Fire 3-day conference held last week in Sun Valley, Calif., and Driscoll’s Resurgence conference in Seattle planned for Nov. 5-6, center around the themes of the two pastors new books — MacArthur’s Strange Fire: The Danger of Offending the Holy Spirit With Counterfeit Worship.
Driscoll’s has a call to Resurgence: Will Christianity Have a Funeral or a Future?
With your Strange Fire conference and book you are, insofar as I can tell, pressing for a conversation among God’s people about the person and work of the Holy Spirit.
I would agree with you that error and excess are often perpetrated, tragically, in the name of the Holy Spirit. This grieves him deeply.
At the same time, like many, I also think that, since the majority of Christians worldwide are not cessationists (believing that some gifts of the Spirit have ceased), it is unreasonable and unhelpful to broad brush faithful brothers and sisters in Christ along with those who may not be faithful or may not even be brothers and sisters in Christ.
Source: Christian Post
My comment:
Its a long time since we had a debate on the works of the Holy Spirit on this site.
I agree and I disagree with John Mac Arthur.
I agree that there is a lot of counterfeit stuff in Charismatic Pentecostal Churches. False miracles and wonders are manifested, and we hear and see noisy stuff that is not from the Holy Ghost.
But this does not affect my life, since I do not have to participate in these events. Nor have to accept such persons as a part of my team.
Satan is surely a copycat. We saw this when Moses tried to convince the Egyptian Pharaoh, by doing true signs and wonders. The Egyptian king summoned his pagan magicians, and they copied the miracles.
Would the solution have been to ban both Moses and the magicians, from performing miracles?
When did God stop using His children performing miracles, and what should be the purpose of stopping?
The problem with the theology of John MacArthur, is that the Bible do not give answers to all questions. Like how to walk left or right, when you have come to a cross road in your life with Jesus?
Now, it is good to be in a Church where the Holy Spirit still operates, and where there are true prophets of God of Israel in function. They will be used by the Lord to confirm which direction your should take, confirming what Jesus the Messiah already have put in your heart.
John 14:15-16The personal gift of Healing is still active. The personal gift of discernment is still active. The Holy Spirit is supposed to be with us forever.
‘If you love me, keep my commands. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you for ever – the Spirit of truth.
When did the Spirit of truth change His mind?
If the gift of discernment has ceased, and was inactive: How would the Church be able to discern when deception creeps into the fellowship of Believers?
I feel lucky that I knowing my gifts of the Holy Spirit. And no man rejecting this, will ever be able to take away my joy in serving the Lord, using these gifts.
1 Corinthians 14:12You can be sure, that if this gift of the Holy Spirit is not activated in the fellowship of believers, Satan will have his way. Hock or by crock, the flock will be lead astray, no longer doing the will of the Father.
So it is with you. Since you are eager for gifts of the Spirit, try to excel in those that build up the church.
If you are in a Church or a fellowship where the gifts of the Holy Spirit are not permitted to be activated, you might be in a place where sin and blasphemy against the Holy Spirit is being done. Someone, probably a pastor has replaced the Holy Spirit, as the spiritual medium between God and man. This is a serious issue, since sin against the Holy Spirit is not pardonable, but an eternal sin.
Likewise to stay put in a fellowship where unclean spirits are presented as the Holy Spirit, is equally wicked. Large sectors of the Charismatic Pentecostals will not escape judgment, not others who blaspheme God the Holy Spirit.
So seek for a Church or a fellowship where the Holy Spirit are present, honored and His gifts activated into all brothers and sisters, helped and guided by a broad New Testament leadership.
Written by Ivar
John MacArthur Sends 500,000,000 Charismatics to Hell
October 18, 2013 By 338 Comments
“God in Hell” (by nakedpastor David Hayward)
When I read Challies’ notes at first I didn’t believe them. Challies doesn’t interject his opinion, but neither does he criticize MacArthur’s. So I watched the video of MacArthur’s actual address. Sadly, Challies’ notes are an accurate representation of MacArthur’s argument.
I am familiar with Pentecostalism and the charismatic movement including the Vineyard movement’s particular flavor of it. I spent many years in the charismatic movement, serving it in various capacities, even attending a Pentecostal Bible College. In seminary I studied under my mentor, Dr. Gordon Fee, a Pentecostal and one of the most respected text critics and biblical scholars in the world. In Charisma News you can read Michael Brown’s “final appeal” to MacArthur which I thought was direct, clear and fair.
I’m also familiar with the Reformed movement. During my religion and ministry program at Presbyterian College at McGill University in Montreal I joyously immersed myself in reformed studies. When I graduated I was surprised but pleased to receive the prize in Reformed Theology. It was no big deal but I appreciated the fact that my seriousness about reformed theology was recognized. Then I was ordained by the Presbyterian Church in Canada and spent many years serving reformed churches. Karl Barth is my favorite theologian and probably will remain so for the rest of my life, hands down.
I’m sharing this is to show that I’m not just talking from the sidelines as a bystander but as someone who has had a lot of experience and education in both traditions and still embraces a respect for each while feeling free to critique both.
As I watched the video I felt a growing anger as well as a disgust for what MacArthur was saying and how he was saying it. His speech is as lofty as his demeanor. His criticism of charismatics is as old as the charismatic movement itself. So it’s nothing new. It is a familiar flame. What I found dismaying is his complete dismissal of the movement and all its adherents in a single one hour dignified gesture. With one speech he purged the rolls of salvation of over 500 million believers.
Basically his argument is that charismatics dishonor God. Since they are therefore not in Christ, their theology is demonic. So since they are serving Satan and promoting him, there is a hotter hell reserved for them. He claims that the charismatic movement has done nothing to advance sound doctrine or biblical theology but in fact has caused more damage than anything else ever has because it has only delivered confusion, distortion and error to the church. He questions the church: You have always defended God. You have always defended Jesus Christ. Why do you not defend the Holy Spirit? Instead, the church opens the gates to the charismatics and they have taken over the city of God and set up an idol in its center. He doesn’t understand why God doesn’t just strike all these people down. He sadly supposes his ways aren’t our ways.
Here’s my response to MacArthur in defense of the charismatic movement and its adherents.
- I suggest that the charismatic movement is a subversion of the very theology MacArthur espouses. It possesses a socio-political power that is devastating to those who would control the church and her members. The spiritual gift at the center of the charismatic movement is speaking in tongues which is an act of defiance against the principalities and powers because it is a secret language, like a code, that cannot be controlled or censored. This is a frustration to the powers who would like to see tighter regulations upon the church in how it should think, speak and act. The more MacArthur talked the more defiant I became, sensing my own spirit crying out, “If I worship I will worship the way I want to worship!”
- The spiritual gifts level the playing field. I was disturbed by how smug and arrogant MacArthur came across, easily condemning 500,000,000 people to hell. And it was all done with such finesse, dignity and aplomb, padded by PhDs and suits and fine speech and a luxurious church full of violins and operatic voices. Along come the spiritual gifts that usurp all of this. Anybody can play! The charismatic movement is gaining speed, especially in developing nations, I think for this very reason. It is empowering and accessible and available to every single living person regardless of race, sex, status, economics, influence, education or power. It can’t be regulated, and this baffles the tightly run reformed ship that MacArthur pilots.
- Several times MacArthur used scripture against the charismatics that could be applied to him. For example, when Jesus cautioned his listeners to not dismiss what’s happening as not of the Spirit and that this is tantamount to blaspheming the Spirit, MacArthur turned it around to say that the charismatic do the opposite by claiming that what they are doing is of the Spirit. While he was saying this I thought, “John! Why not just leave the verse as it is and apply it to yourself? Aren’t you afraid of the possibility that you denying what is happening is of the Spirit is blaspheming the Spirit?” For someone with his level of intelligence, you’d think that he would realize that every scripture can be used like a bullet in anyone’s gun. A bullet is neutral, but he made it fatal by sliding it into his reformed gun’s chamber, firing away like a drive-by shooting of his charismatic brothers and sisters. He could turn the same bullet on himself. But for some reason he doesn’t see the scriptures as a corrective for himself or the reformed movement which he obviously elevates above all others.
- He went on and on about how injurious the charismatic movement has been to the church. I agree there have been a lot of abuses and misuses within the charismatic church. I’ve seen it and experienced it first hand. I’ve also seen it and experienced it first hand in reformed churches. This is because it’s not rooted in theology but in the greed, ignorance and cruelty of our hearts. Theology only comes along to justify and vindicate our inhumanity. The response to MacArthur by the church is so overwhelming because, in fact, he is the one who is hurting his brothers and sisters. As a man with such clout in the theological and ecclesiastical world, how injurious was just this one hour of spiteful speech? In one fell swoop he not only disassociated himself from half a billion believers, but he called them “of Satan” and consigned them to a “hotter hell” reserved for such people who dishonor God. In all my life I’ve rarely been so assaulted with such blatant and mindless cruelty dressed up as theological astuteness.
- MacArthur wonders why God hasn’t struck down the movement and its adherents. He wonders why the church universal hasn’t condemned it. Speaking from a theological perspective, is it possible that what we are witnessing is actually the movement of the Spirit? Jesus said that the Spirit comes and goes as it wills, like the wind, beyond our control and understanding and even sometimes beyond our observation. Is it possible that this movement that MacArthur can’t control, can’t understand, and can’t even explain is the very wind of the Spirit he desires? Is it possible that this movement that he and his fellow theocrats can’t harness is the Spirit that won’t and can’t be contained? Is it possible that the maverick Spirit is acting in a very unreformed manner, thanks be to God?!
I thought we were better than this.
There Is No Narrow, Pure Stream
http://www.internetmonk.com/archive/43911
21 Oct by
When the day of Pentecost came. Hewitt
There is a stream of sound teaching,
sound doctrine, sound theology, that runs all the way back to the
Apostles. It runs through Athanasius and Augustine, through Luther and
Calvin, the great Reformation and Reformers, and the Puritans, and
everything seems so clear to them. Through the Westminster divines and
the pathway of Spurgeon and David Martyn Lloyd-Jones, and S. Lewis
Johnson, and Jim Boice, and to R. C. Sproul. That’s the stream of sound
doctrine. The heroes of this generation are people in that stream. We
know who they are. You’ve been hearing about them this week. We go back
to John Rogers, and the 288 Marian martyrs. Those are our heroes.
- John MacArthur
Strange Fire – “A Call to Respond”
Strange Fire – “A Call to Respond”
* * *
This is John MacArthur’s vision of Church History. What a narrow and simplistic view it is!His portrayal of a “faithful remnant” providing an unbroken stream of sound doctrine has more in common with the Landmark Baptists and their “trail of blood” than it does with an accurate depiction of the messy and complicated communion of saints across the centuries. It is apparently the Reformed Baptist version of apostolic succession.
Michael Spencer wrote about “the little red book” that describes Church History from the Landmark Baptist point of view. In that post he quoted a passage that brings us right to the bottom line of their view of history:
Only Scriptural Baptist churches can
make a legitimate claim to an unbroken succession back to the time of
Christ and the apostles. Christ only built one kind of church and that
church is described in detail in the New Testament. The only churches
meeting the requirements of that description today are true Baptist
churches. Baptist churches have existed in every age since their
founding by Christ, though they have not always been known by that name.
We do not deny that there are those in other so-called “churches” that
have been born again by the grace of God. We do deny, however, that
these man-made organizations are true churches of our Lord Jesus Christ.
One of the problems with this approach is that, like the Landmark Baptists, you have to ignore the details. Just as the LB’s include all manner of groups in their “trail of blood” that they would not recognize if they sat down and talked with them for five minutes, so John MacArthur has to overlook a lot of contradictory evidence to include the members of his “faithful stream.”
Let’s take a few of the “heroes” in the quote above, for example.
- I’m sure when John MacArthur points to Athanasius, he is admiring his faithful stand against Arianism. But Athanasius is also considered one of the four great Eastern Doctors of the Church by Roman Catholics and is honored as the Father of Orthodoxy by the Eastern Orthodox. Surely they do so with appreciation for many aspects of Athanasius’s teaching and practice that MacArthur would abhor! Would the biblicist MacArthur think it appropriate to participate in an ecumenical church council to determine sound doctrine? Or to appropriate Greek philosophical terms to define a fundamental doctrine about Christ? I doubt he shares Athanasius’s enthusiasm for aceticism and promotion of monasticism. Would MacArthur embrace the apocryphal books that Athanasius included in his biblical canon? The fact is that Athanasius was a leader in a philosophical and ecclesiastical world that John MacArthur would not recognize and more than likely would not accept. The real Athanasius would have little in common with MacArthur’s iconoclastic biblicism.
- People who call themselves “Calvinists” revere St. Augustine for his teachings on original sin and divine grace. But once again, we are talking about a Catholic Christian who also believed in apostolic succession and the one true institutional Church. I wonder what John MacArthur would think of Augustine’s sermon in which he proclaimed, “No man can find salvation except in the Catholic Church.” St. Augustine’s non-literal interpretation of the early chapters of Genesis would be anathema to a young earth creationist like MacArthur. The Bishop of Hippo also rejected premillennialism and became the father of what is now called amillennialism, and how could a dispensationalist possibly approve of that? He believed in purgatory. He wrote more about Mary, the Mother of God, than any who came before him. Does MacArthur know that Augustine polluted the “stream of sound doctrine” with all this stuff?
- It amazes me when a Reformed Baptist cites Luther as a model of sound doctrine. Surely that gives evidence that he is honoring only a caricature who said “The just shall live by faith,” and not the actual human being who remained a Catholic and a monk, whose teaching on justification by faith included baptismal regeneration, who fought his whole life against anyone who denied Christ’s real presence in communion, who excoriated the Anabaptists for practicing believer’s baptism alone, who spoke uncharitably about certain books of the Bible, and who held a high view of Mary that retained most of the traditional Roman Catholic teachings about her, including her Immaculate Conception, perpetual virginity, and status as Theotokos (Mother of God), and who maintained devotional practices venerating her and said all Christians should honor her as “the Mother of us all.” That’s your great Reformer in the flesh, Pastor John. You can’t just cherry-pick a few of his ideas.
- And then there’s Calvin. We’ll forget for a moment that, although John MacArthur cites both Luther and Calvin in the same breath, the two Reformers and those who followed them had bitter disagreements, particularly over the nature of the Lord’s Supper. (I guess their common opposition to Catholics is detail enough to include them both.) But of course, like all the magisterial Reformers, Calvin believed in baptizing infants (for different reasons than Luther), which MacArthur and all Reformed Baptists find unacceptable. He was also non-millenarian. Though Calvin certainly did believe God created the universe in six days, he also said that Moses adapted his language so that some things in Genesis 1 reflect the perceptions of ordinary people and not the findings of astronomers, which may indeed be factually different. Though his thinking about civil government planted seeds for future developments in separation of church and state, he most certainly did not advocate religious freedom in a way that modern Baptists would recognize.
It is puzzling to me that, in a conference criticizing aberrant views of the work of the Holy Spirit, John MacArthur would mention Lloyd-Jones in the stream of sound doctrine. I wrote about Lloyd-Jones’s views on the Spirit a couple of years ago, and MacArthur would definitely not consider his interpretations orthodox.Lloyd-Jones was no cessationist, and he insisted that there is a work of the Holy Spirit for all believers for all time that is subsequent to salvation, that is “entirely subjective,” that brings deep assurance of salvation. Lloyd-Jones thought the Spirit especially manifested this work in times of revival, and said it is an experience Christians and churches should be praying for and seeking all the time.
He called this the “sealing” work of the Spirit (Ephesians 1:13) and wrote about it in great detail in his commentary series on Romans. The passage which he expounds in the Romans series, for several chapters and in great detail, is Romans 8:16 — “The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God.”
Quotes and references in the following paragraphs are from D.M. Lloyd-Jones’s commentary, The Sons of God: Exposition of Chapter 8:5-17 (Romans Series).
First, here is his interpretation of the text, his understanding of the Spirit “witnessing” to our spirits:
This is something subjective, something which essentially belongs to the realm of feeling and subjectivity, and the emotions. It is something within us at a deeper level than the level of the intellect. That seems to me to be the vital point in this statement. In other words this does not result from certain actions on our part; it is the Spirit that produces it in us. It is not something of which you can persuade yourself. As we have seen, by applying various tests you can persuade yourself whether you are, or are not, being led by the Spirit, but that is not the position here. This is not in the realm of intellectual argumentation or demonstration; it is something of which one becomes conscious. This is — to use the obvious and the simple analogy — comparable to what we know in human love. You do not persuade yourself that you are in love; at least, if you do, or have to do, you are not in love! This is not a matter of persuasion; it is something you know; you become conscious of it. It is on a deeper level than that of the intellect and of reason and of argumentation. This is, in my view, a vital principle. It not only demonstrates the advance in the thought, it also shows us the graciousness of God in giving us these further proofs, these yet more certain proofs. So the nature of this proof is thoroughly subjective, and it is produced by the operation of the Holy Spirit.
Now, to be sure, this is not
“charis-mania,” but that is not my point. John MacArthur is a confirmed
cessationist and his position is that cessationism is “the historic position of the church and in the Word” (so Steve Pennington, Strange Fire Conference).
Having been in cessationist circles for many years, I know that there
is little allowance for exceptions when it comes to that doctrine. Any
testimony which threatens the assertion that the Holy Spirit speaks only through the Bible is repudiated.
Why then would John MacArthur note
David Martyn Lloyd-Jones by name at a conference in which Lloyd-Jones’s
own non-cessationist views would be pronounced anathema?
D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones stated his positions
clearly and repeatedly, taking much of his 438 page exposition of Romans
8:5-17 to do so. He argues that “the baptism with the Holy Spirit” is different than the baptism by the Spirit, by which he puts us into the body of Christ at the time of salvation (1Cor. 12:13).
“The ‘baptism with the Holy Ghost’ is not only different, but you can
be a Christian without it, as the Apostles were without it until the day
of Pentecost,” he wrote.
Interesting, isn’t it, that John MacArthur
lifts up this man as a hero of “sound doctrine” even though he argues
biblically for a direct and definite supernatural work of the Holy
Spirit in believer’s lives, subsequent to their salvation?
Second, Lloyd-Jones reinforces his argument by appealing to Christian history — and this is interesting — specifically by pointing to the Puritans — another group of MacArthur heroes mentioned above. Here is one of his examples:
Take the case of
John Flavel, the Puritan of 300 years ago. He was a godly, saintly man, a
notable expositor of the Scriptures. He was not only a believer, he
also had assurance of salvation. But he tells us in his Treatise of the
Soul of Man that one day, on a journey, he began to meditate on ‘objects
of faith and hope.’ Ere long he felt as if he was lifted up into
heaven. He was taken out of the world and out of time. He says that he
even forgot his wife and children, and longed to be taken immediately to
heaven. He was given a glimpse of the glory; the love of God was shed
abroad in his heart in such a manner that he did not know whether he was
in time or in eternity. Flavel was a typical Puritan; not an excitable,
emotional person at all, but a quiet, studious, pensive kind of man.
But he says that as the result of that experience he ‘understood more of
the light of heaven by it, than by all the books he ever read, or
discourses about it.”
Lloyd-Jones also points to Jonathan
Edwards, John Preston, John Owen, and others in the Calvinistic
tradition who teach this direct, sensible ministry of the Holy Spirit,
sealing the assurance of salvation subjectively into the hearts of God’s
children. He even mentions a leader of the “Strict Baptists” and a
staunch Calvinist, JC. Philpot, who said, “But all the children of God have not this direct and immediate witness; many are longing for it.”
Did you read that? A “direct and immediate witness” of the Holy Spirit, a blessing not possessed by every Christian, being preached by a Calvinistic Baptist!
And then there is George Whitfield, whose Journals contain this testimony: “Was
filled with the Holy Ghost. Oh, that all who deny the promise of the
Father might thus receive it themselves! Oh, that all were partakers of
my joy!” And this one: “God’s presence so filled my soul that I could scarce stand under it.”
Furthermore, D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones points
to the Puritans to show that this witness of the Spirit may (or may not)
be accompanied by gifts and phenomena. He mentions Robert Bruce, a
minister in the Church of Scotland, successor of John Knox, who
testified that the Holy Spirit spoke to him “by vocal speeches” that he could hear audibly within himself. “That from a dour Scotsman!” Lloyd-Jones quips.
Congregationalist minister Jonathan Edwards
is regarded as the greatest American theologian and a singular
intellect. In MacArthur’s Strange Fire Conference, Edwards’s work on the true signs of revival was cited
to make points about how we should “test the spirits” to see if they
are genuine. And the points are generally on target; they provide good
tests for winnowing out abuses from legitimate manifestations of the
Holy Spirit.
But too bad MacArthur didn’t read Edwards
more fully. Lloyd-Jones did, and here is one extraordinary experience of
the Spirit which Jonathan Edwards wrote about, when God opened the
heavens and gave him a spectacular vision:
Once, as I rode out
into the woods for my health, in 1737, having alighted from my horse in
a retired place as my manner commonly has been, to walk for divine
contemplation and prayer, I had a view that for me was extraordinary, of
the glory of the Son of God as Mediator between God and man, and His
wonderful, great, full, pure and sweet grace and love, and meek and
gentle condescension. This grace that appeared so calm and sweet
appeared also great above the heavens. The Person of Christ appeared
ineffably excellent, with an excellency great enough to swallow up all
thought and conception, which continued, as near as I can judge, about
an hour; which kept me the greater part of the time in a flood of tears,
and weeping aloud. I felt an ardency of soul to be, what I know not
otherwise how to express, emptied and annihilated; to lie in the dust
and be full of Christ alone; to love Him with a holy and pure love; to
trust Him; to live upon Him; and to serve and follow Him; and to be
perfectly sanctified and made pure with a divine and heavenly purity.
Another point Lloyd-Jones gleans from the
Calvinists is that this work of the Spirit is “not confined to any
particular means.” John MacKenzie, another of the “Strict Baptists,”
whom Lloyd-Jones describes as “unusually serious and sober people, not
given to emotionalism,” said in a sermon,
As to the immediate
act of this sealing of the heart and the peculiar feelings under it,
they are better known and understood by the sweet experience of them
than can be conveyed by words or conceived in ideas….The Spirit is not
confined to any particular means in giving this rich blessing. He may
give it under the preaching or reading of the Word, or neither. But
whatever outward means He may please to use, or should He without any,
come suddenly and sovereignly down upon the heart, the soul will feel
fully assured it is the blessed Spirit within him.
Read that carefully. The Spirit may use the
Word. He may not (though Lloyd-Jones himself thought he usually does).
He may use means. He may not. It is an immediate act. He may come
suddenly and sovereignly as he wills. This is a Calvinistic Baptist of
an even more sober variety than John MacArthur who is speaking!
Third, there is something
else about Lloyd-Jones’s approach, something I find appealing, and that I
can’t imagine would win John MacArthur’s approval. Not only does D.M.
Lloyd-Jones expound the Scriptures, and not only does he cite the
experiences of the Calvinistic Puritans as historical verification of
his doctrine of the Spirit, he also gives accounts from people in other “streams” of Protestant Christian tradition.
He gives testimonies from Methodists like John Wesley and Howell
Harris, American Presbyterians Edward Payson and Charles Finney, Swiss
Reformed pastor Merle d’Aubigne, evangelist D.L. Moody, and even
Plymouth Brethren J.N. Darby, C.H. Mackintosh, and William Kelly.
In other words, in teaching about the Holy
Spirit and in countering false teaching about him, Lloyd-Jones does not
appeal to a narrow “stream” of doctrinal conformity to make his
argument. Instead, he makes his point by being intentionally more ecumenical.
He recognizes that the body of Christ and the work of the Spirit in
Christ’s Church is bigger than any narrow “trail of blood” which I might
limit to those who I think are “right.”
Fourth, one final point from David Martyn Lloyd Jones: should we be seeking this experience?
I answer:
Certainly, obviously, it should be sought, and for reasons which should
be quite self-evident. If this experience is open to all Christian
believers in this life, and any feel that they have not known it, surely
they should seek it. Every Christian should always be seeking the best
and the highest. We should never be content with anything less than what
is described as possible to the Christian in the New Testament.
Lloyd-Jones then quotes the great Puritan preacher Thomas Goodwin, who exhorted his congregation,
We are said to
“receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Gal. 3:14). Believe
there is such a thing, aim at it, wait for it and serve God day and
night in all humility to obtain it. Rest in no other lower and under
assurance, and in the Lord will give it. The reason why men attain it
not is because they rest in other assurance, and they do not aim at
this. They content themselves with bare believing and that their
consciences are quieted. But, my brethren, there is such a work as
sealing by the Spirit, if you have faith.”
In this light, Lloyd-Jones appeals again to George Whitefield, who stressed that anyone who does not have “an immediate assurance” through this work of the Holy Spirit “ought to labour after it.” Then, in an interesting note, he records Whitfield’s observation that some “are taught that it does not belong to Christians in these last days.” David Martyn Lloyd-Jones joins George Whitfield in disapproving of this “cessationism.”
At least with regard to teaching about the
Holy Spirit, I can’t see that Lloyd-Jones, Whitfield, or any of these
other people fit into John MacArthur’s “stream of sound doctrine.”
* * *
I do not post this to argue that what David
Martyn Lloyd-Jones or the Puritans taught is what today’s
“charismatics” are teaching and practicing. In fact, in MLJ’s Romans
commentary he thoroughly deals with false and inadequate teaching about
the Spirit as well as making a clear distinction between legitimate
experiences and abuses.
I also don’t post this to commend
Lloyd-Jones’s specific interpretation to you, as though I were taking
his side or approving everything he taught about the Holy Spirit.
Analyzing his position and the views of those he mentions is a subject
for another day.
I post this to show that Martyn Lloyd-Jones and many of the Puritans, whom John MacArthur cited as members of the stream of faithful teaching down through the ages, held views of the Spirit and his work that clearly contradict what McArthur himself holds to be sound doctrine.
- They were not cessationists.
- They acknowledged a direct experience of the Spirit subsequent to salvation and compared it to what the apostles received at Pentecost.
- They taught that the work of the Spirit was immediate, direct, and subjectively experienced.
- They taught that means were not necessary.
- They taught that it may or may not involve the use of the Scriptures.
- They taught that it may or may not be accompanied by supernatural phenomena.
- They taught that the sealing of the Spirit is an experience that holds the greatest blessing for a believer in this world.
- They taught that believers and churches should be ever seeking this gift.
It undercuts the credibility of what may be an important prophetic message to the Church when we present it like this.
A hubristic, uninformed view of Church History like the view revealed in the above quote shows me that folks like John MacArthur don’t actually have human heroes from Church History. Their “heroes” are, in reality, the ideas that they themselves hold and believe to be right. The names from Church History they cite are just pegs on which to hang those ideas. They either don’t know about or choose to ignore whatever these people taught or practiced that doesn’t fit their “pure stream” paradigm.
But history, theology, and life consist of more than mere ideas, especially cherry-picked ideas. The reality is always more mysterious, more human, more complex, and messier. It doesn’t fit inside our neat little doctrinal systems.
Sort of like the work of the Holy Spirit.
