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Music in church: Michael Jensen

© Australian Christian Pty Ltd 2010
This article was first published in eternity.biz and Eternity Newspaper, 26th February 2010. It is reproduced here with permission. For more information about Eternity, visit eternity.biz.

I know there’s no subject more likely to get Christians weeping and gnashing their teeth, but I’d like to put forward some observations about music in church.

Musical diversity & culture

The days when you’d hear people talking about rock’n’roll as ‘the devil’s music’ are happily long in the past (…um, like the term ‘rock’n’roll!). Modern-day churches have, on the whole, moved beyond the sacred/secular divide when it comes to styles of music. They have decided that there is no genre of music that is necessarily more holy than any other; and that the matter of style in music is merely a matter of personal taste. This is a theological decision (i.e., no music is inherently more sinful); but it is also an aesthetic judgement (i.e., there is no objectively beautiful or universally ugly music).

Nowadays, most evangelical churches imagine themselves choosing a style of music on the basis of its cultural relevance. The right style of music, then, is the style that clicks best with the congregation of the day, roughly speaking. To cite an example drawn from the US: when megachurch pastor Rick Warren arrived in the Saddleback area, he researched the kind of music that people in his target group were listening to, and that became the music-style of his new church. And ministries targeting special groups adopt the music of that particular tribe.

There are good theological instincts at work here. The Bible does not mandate a style of music, though like an opera it is full of people bursting out into song at the drop of a hat (Miriam, Hannah, Deborah, David, Isaiah, Zechariah, Mary… the list goes on). What is more, the gospel does not come to us bound hard to a particular cultural expression - in fact, the missionary genius of Christianity is that it transcends cultural expressions. Church singing in Africa and church singing in Indonesia are going to be different, and yet still absolutely Christian – and thank goodness for that.

Musical adaptation & transformation

Furthermore, a robustly Biblical doctrine of creation and a cursory glance at church history both show us that the church adapts forms of music that it finds to its uses rather than needing to invent them from scratch. So: today’s beer hall song is tomorrow’s Lutheran hymn; that familiar sea-shanty will be turned to use in the Methodist chapel; the work songs of the slaves morph into gospel music.

But does this mean that church musicians are aesthetic relativists? I don’t think it can mean this. Don’t get me wrong: I am not saying that (for example) the organ is a more sacred instrument than the electric guitar. That is just silliness in spades.

No: what I mean is this: I would expect that as music is pressed into the service of congregational singing and worship of God, it will be transformed as music. And this means that the church will continually be generating fresh styles (or freshening up old styles) as it puts the music it hears to holy purposes.

Which means that, while church musicians ought to be open to repeating what they hear around them, they ought also to be encouraged to innovate and develop their musical style as a reflection of what they are doing.

Music of the people & for the people

How might this work out in practice? A preacher I greatly admire once said to me, when I put the relativist/pragmatic argument forward: “no, there definitely is a style for church music. It’s called ‘folk music’.”

Originally I thought this was hogwash. But nowadays I think there is something in this – so long as we take a broad definition of ‘folk’. He didn’t mean Peter, Paul & Mary or Bob Dylan before he went electric! He meant ‘folk’ in the sense that means ‘of and for the people’ - as opposed to elitist and alienating.

That is, a style of music that achieves a marriage between the words of praise and the use in congregational singing can never be stylistically arbitrary, though it may vary enormously over time and place. And ‘folk’ isn’t a bad designation for it if it is in the service of the people of God. It is in that sense ‘music of and for the people’. This is the criterion we get for the use of any gift in church from 1 Corinthians 12-14 – and music shouldn’t be exempt from this. It is truly the music of love if it up-builds the church.

It is no accident that Christians have been responsible for developing some highly original and sophisticated forms of music from asking ‘what musical style best serves and edifies the people of God?’ and ‘what musical style best helps us let the word of Christ dwell in us richly’ (see Col 3:16)? These styles have been very different from one another – think gospel music and choral music – but have had a common purpose. Putting music to this purpose is truly transformative.

So here’s my tentative thesis: ‘folk’ music is the best way to describe the form of music that ought to be found in churches. This is a particular expression of a theology of church of course. It is missional, in that adapts to local conditions; it is non-elitist, in that it is accessible by the community without asking extraordinary skill or learning (thus reflecting the priesthood of all believers); and it is open to being sanctified for its use by the Christian community.

The Christian pop music genre

And so (and here’s the controversial bit), some forms of music are going to be excluded because they are not aesthetically shaped to the purpose of singing together to God. While no particular form of music is commanded or sanctified in scripture, as we try to adapt different forms of music to use in Christian fellowship as expressions of common life we will soon realise that some styles are just so ill-suited they will never work for this purpose without a great deal of adaptation.

In each age, certain musical styles offer themselves in different ways for adaption for use in church meetings. The traditional tunes that we find used in ‘Be Thou My Vision’ or ‘A Mighty Fortress is Our God’ are already deeply embedded in the history and culture of the community from which they emerged as an expression of commonality - the pride and security of togetherness is the note they immediately sound.

These features really work for church music because of the overlap - Christians want to express precisely those feelings and truths about their God. The return of Celtic-sounding melodies in the music of Stuart Townend and Keith Getty works because we associate that style of music with rousing fellow-feeling. If anything, the danger is that the Celtic style is a little militaristic - they all sound like national anthems in the end!

Since the 1970s, much new church music has followed the form of the popular song, with its verse and chorus pattern (and sometimes a middle section), its use of repetition, and simple and rather short melodic lines. In a sense, popular songs are the ‘folk’ music of the era, given the mass appeal of the form – so it has made good sense to use them. What are the implications of using this genre for church music?

Music for our maturity?

Broadly speaking, the popular songs of the mass communications age are all about romantic love and desire. The (usually) bright and hooky melodies are meant to match the content of the words. When we hear a popular song, we immediately associate it with this erotic theme, even before we hear the words.

The singer of a popular song is most often an individual singing about his or her longing or loss. That’s the genre: when the Beatles play around with this genre and began singing about walruses and paperback writers and what have you, we recognise that this stretching of the genre is taking place, and ride with it. The music of U2 (beloved of many Christians) is an interesting case of course: they express desire and love, but most often it isn’t for another human being. In fact, it is often suggestive of a desire for the transcendent.

And this is quite apt. Psalms such as Psalm 63 give Scriptural voice to this theme of longing and desire for God. Christians have recognised that the popular song is a ready-made vehicle for the expression of longing and desire of an individual for God, because we instantly think of this when we hear it.

However, this is where the pitfalls lie, too. Since way back in the 1930s, the popular song has revealed itself to be capable of quite complex and even profound expressions of grown-up and mature emotions. But it has also been the musical vehicle for short-cuts to emotional fruition.

So: while the popular song expresses much of what we might want to say to God, it doesn’t capture all of the gestures and attitudes that are available to us. If Christian musicians don’t work hard to transform the popular song for a higher purpose, it may not help us mature in our Christian affections.

Dr Michael Jensen teaches doctrine at Moore College. The original version of this article was presented at EMU Music’s TWIST conference in 2009.
talkingpentecostalism.blogspot.com | joe towns: christian discussion on pentecost, charisma, pentecostal and charismatic beliefs, the Bible and Jesus; including the origin and history of pentecostalism, baptism in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, gifts and miracles, divine healing and word of faith, prosperity and wealth, praise and worship, guidance and hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit.

John Wimber changes his mind: Phillip Jensen

© Matthias Media 1990
This article was first published in The Briefing, no. 45/46, 24 April 1990, pp. 3-6. It is reproduced here with permission. For more information about The Briefing, visit www.thebriefing.com.au.

Just prior to the Spiritual Warfare Conference in March, John Wimber met with three of Sydney's leading evangelicals. The discussions, which lasted just under three hours, were requested by some Sydney people who had reservations about the Signs and Wonders ministry. Present at the meeting with John Wimber were Jack Deere and Paul Cain from the Vineyard Ministries, Dan Armstrong from Kairos, and John Woodhouse, David Cook and Phillip Jensen from Sydney. Although the meeting was conducted privately at John Wimber's hotel it was agreed from the outset that what was said privately would be published openly later. Careful notes were made of the discussion.

We began the meeting by asking John Wimber if his public preaching and private views were the same. We explained that it was rumoured that there were differences.

Hurt by this accusation, John very generously and openly declared his views with the kind of humility, compassion and laid-back friendliness for which he is well known. Six areas of discussion ensued:

• the use of money
• the healing miracles
• power evangelism
• the sufficiency of the Scriptures
• the concern for truth
• the divisiveness of the Signs and Wonders ministry.

1. The use of money

We were assured by John that profits from the Australian conferences would not go to him personally, nor to his American organization, but were invested in the continued growth of the Vineyard International Ministry. We were promised that a full account of the books would be sent to us by Kairos Ministries, the local group responsible for financial arrangements.

2. The healing ministry

John seems persuaded that great miracles of healing are taking place by God's work in the world today. He rejects the idea that he is a healer; it is God who heals. He quickly and freely gives countless anecdotes of healing, and promises that documentation of the Vineyard's Ministry of healing will be forthcoming.

He admitted that not all diseases are equally responsive to healing. Blindness, for example, has a success rate of 3-8%, depending upon the cause of the blindness—blindness from disease having more healings than blindness from accidents or birth.

Three issues need to be dealt within assessing these claimed healings:

a. the facts—whether genuine miraculous intervention by God is actually taking place
b. the theological significance of whatever miracles take place
c. how we handle the issue pastorally.
a. The first issue was tackled by raising the possible healing of children with Down syndrome. This genetic disease cannot be caused or healed by psychosomatic ‘mind-over-body’ factors. It is an ideal test case disease, being relatively easy to diagnose genetically both before and after the ‘healing’.

John Wimber claimed to have prayed over more than 200 children with Down syndrome. To his genuine disappointment, only one of the 200 have shown any sign of healing. This one child still has many of the symptoms of his problem (i.e. visual features), but has been able to reach “the lower end of the normal range” in educational attainments. John was careful to emphasize that it was the lower end, but within the normal range.

The healing rate, then, for Down syndrome is 0.5%, and the healing that did take place was only partial (unlike Jesus' healings). Why this disease is so resistant, John has no idea. On further consultation with doctors working in this area, we have been assured that for a Down syndrome child to be in the lower end of the normal range of academic achievement is not unusual or remarkable, let alone miraculous. From a medical viewpoint, John Wimber's 0.5% success rate with Down syndrome is less than is achieved through the efforts of health professionals.

The implication this has for other ‘healings’ of backaches and headaches seemed to escape John Wimber completely. We know that many illnesses are psychological or psychosomatic. We know of the placebo effect where a patient takes what he believes is a cure for his problem (but which is actually a sugar pill), and improves. The evidence so far suggests that John Wimber heals in the ‘sugar pill area’. The area where the New Testament speaks of healing and where he talks of healing seem to be wholly resistant to his ministry. That is, to put it bluntly, it is to be seriously doubted that any miraculous healings are taking place at all. (The failure so far to provide Christian doctors with cases to verify from the Sydney conference only contributes to the growing doubt over any genuine miracles. See Philip Selden's account on page 19.)

b. The second issue is the theological significance of healing. Given the very low percentage of healings, we asked John Wimber if he considered that his healings were like Jesus' or the Apostles'. He quickly and rightly saw that they were quite radically different. We asked about the claims of his books and his previous teaching that the powerlessness of evangelicals lay in their failure to pray for and claim the Signs and Wonders of the Kingdom, seen in Jesus and the Apostles. He replied that thanks to the advice of Jack Deere, he had come to understand that the current miracles fit into the New Testament not at the point of Jesus and the Apostles and the coming of the Kingdom, but in 1 Corinthians 12-14 and the gifts of healing.

This change of mind seriously compromises the stance of the previous Signs and Wonders conferences, Vineyard Ministries and John Wimber's books. He was asked if he would be explaining this change of mind to the Sydney conference, but he declined. (As it turned out, both views were expressed during the course of the week.)

c. The third issue of healing is the pastoral consequences of the claims for miracles. John Wimber is very open about not being healed himself. He also said that he does not promise healing for everyone or blame lack of faith as the sole reason for lack of healing.

However, when asked if he would be open with enquirers and tell them of the small probability of healing, he declined. He wants to encourage people to put their faith in God and call upon him for healing. He wants people to know that God can heal and wants to heal, and therefore to ask expectantly. He paralleled this to salvation/forgiveness. He said that we do not say to people that they only have a chance of being saved. We say that God can save and wants to save, and so we encourage people to put their faith in God and call for forgiveness. Such a confusion of categories is appalling.

Like a politician, John Wimber is not promising unequivocally that each person will be healed. But it would seem that his mixture of generalization and over-confidence results in all but the wary being misled.

3. Power evangelism

One of the most contentious parts of John Wimber's speaking and writing has been his distinction between evangelism and power evangelism, with the resulting distinction between Christian conversion (inferior and superior).

When this matter was raised, John Wimber expressed dissatisfaction with his teaching both in Canberra (where he spoke of ‘natural’ and ‘supernatural’ evangelism) and in his book. He explained that his book was not written by him, but came from tapes and notes of his seminars. He had not read the manuscript in detail or critically before its publication.

When asked to publicly repudiate this false distinction (between natural and supernatural evangelism), to withdraw his erroneous book and to desist from talking of power evangelism, he equivocated. The book is wrong and “needs re-writing” and he was “wrong” in his address at Canberra, but somehow this is not to be taken as a serious problem.

He agreed that the book on power evangelism was imbalanced, lacking as it does any real exposition of the gospel or evangelism. However, this was due to the manner of its composition and plain oversight.

4. Sufficiency of Scriptures

This topic was more difficult to discuss because of the need for precise terminology to avoid misunderstandings.

John Wimber was keen to stand in the Evangelical tradition, upholding the inspiration and authority of the infallible and inerrant Scripture which is sufficient for all matters of the Christian life. However, this was because he had not understood the implications of his ‘words of knowledge’, which go well beyond Scripture and play an essential part in his Christian living. John's adviser, Jack Deere, assured him and us that he did not believe in the sufficiency of Scripture.

Thus, the ministry of gifts is used to add significantly to the Scripture as the authoritative voice of God for Christian living.

5. Truth

No-one claiming to be a Christian can be unconcerned about truth. All of us must vote for it, along with motherhood, prayer, the Lord's supper and apple pie.

John Wimber's teaching on ‘The Third Wave of the Holy Spirit’ proposes that the Pentecostal movement at the turn of the century and the Charismatic movement of the 1960s were truly movements of the Holy Spirit. However, John Wimber thinks that some of the central teachings of these two movements (concerning baptism in the Spirit and the place of tongues) were wrong. So the movements which taught error were inspired by the Spirit of truth!

This kind of confusion of truth and error is reflected in his books when opponents of evangelical faith are portrayed as having conversions or being great saints and advocates of signs and wonders. This is particularly so with his ready acceptance of Roman Catholics.

When the matter was raised with John, he refused to countenance criticism of charismatics. He accepted that healing in the name of Mary was wrong. He pleaded ignorance of some of his Roman Catholic examples in his books. He didn't know much about them; in fact he did not even know who they were or that he had cited them.

6. Unity

The discussion of truth led naturally to the issue of unity. John Wimber sees the ‘third wave’ as a unifying force for Christians. Those outside it see it as divisive. Each can blame the other for the divisions.

It was suggested that the ‘third wave’ was not so much uniting Christians as re-aligning them on the basis of common experience instead of truth. This was denied by John; he wanted to say that truth was important.

When challenged about our unity in the cross, he again denied that he had been distracted from the cross, or that he allowed the signs and wonders ministry to be less than cross-centred. The Vineyard songbook was cited, where 52 out of 53 songs fail to mention the cross! John agreed that this was awful. He has tried to correct this, but his writers have very little or no theological training. (Those present at the evangelistic rally held on the Thursday night of the conference may have noticed the striking absence of the cross or repentance in the preaching.)

Discussion ranged widely and freely over these topics for almost three hours. The meeting concluded with an invitation to cancel the Spiritual Warfare Conference and to go home to America.



Summarizing such a meeting is very difficult. On all appearances, John was trying to answer the questions of his critics honestly and openly to satisfy us and to gain our fellowship, goodwill and acceptance. The concluding invitation to cancel the conference was an obvious disappointment to him. He did not seem to expect our continued dissatisfaction with his answers.

However, his lack of theological understanding and education makes him a most dangerous friend. He is like the ‘loaded dog’ of Henry Lawson's story. It is his friends who are most likely to be damaged by his errors.

None of us has to be right 100% of the time in order to teach. But the teacher is judged with greater strictness for the damage that he can do. We teachers must be clear on the basics, ready to admit error, quick to correct and withdraw misleading ideas, and willing to take responsibility for our faults. We must work hard to be accurate and to be accurately understood.

From the outset of our discussions, John said that God had told him not to read anything critical of his ministry because it would discourage and embitter him. He has followed this advice, and relies on his friends and co-workers to screen all critical material.

John Wimber has changed his mind on cardinal points of his teachings, yet he will not come clean publicly and denounce his former ideas. Rather, he continues to express himself in a confusing mixture of old errors, and new and contradictory insights. The truth that he does teach only further confuses Christian people into following his thoughtless theology.

In encouraging people to get in touch with the ‘supernatural’, he misrepresents the effects. In seeking unity, he welcomes and promotes the enemies of the gospel. In emphasizing extra-biblical phenomena, he undermines the centrality of the cross, the power of the word of God, the sufficiency of Scripture, and the unity of our common commitment to the truth of the gospel.

He maybe compassionate, loving, genuine and sincere, but so was the loaded dog!
Phillip Jensen | Briefing #45 | April 1990 talkingpentecostalism.blogspot.com | joe towns: christian discussion on pentecost, charisma, pentecostal and charismatic beliefs, the Bible and Jesus; including the origin and history of pentecostalism, baptism in the Holy Spirit, speaking in tongues, gifts and miracles, divine healing and word of faith, prosperity and wealth, praise and worship, guidance and hearing the voice of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit and Conversion in the Writings of Paul: Barnett & Jensen

© Anzea Publishers 1973
This article is an excerpt that was first published in The quest for power | neo-pentecostals and the New Testament by Paul Barnett and Peter Jensen (Sydney: Anzea Publishers, 1973, p. 42-55). It is reproduced here with permission.

Paul’s most heated letter is to the Galatians. In his absence they had moved away from the gospel of Christ which stated that God forgives people through their faith in Jesus. Certain Jewish Christians had been teaching the Galatians that they must also be circumcised. Paul points out that justification is no longer a gift from God if anything beyond mere accepting the gift (faith) is required. The gospel promises justification on the basis of acceptance (= faith-in-Jesus); the Galatians, by making the basis achievement, had in fact said, ‘we must contribute to our own salvation… the death of Jesus is inadequate’. So incensed is the apostle that he pronounces a curse from God on such teaching.

Faith-in-Jesus, not works of the law, means justification

Yet [we] who know that a man is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of the law, because by works of the law shall no one be justified (Gal. 2:16).
Quite clearly one cannot add anything to faith-in-Jesus.

Justification by faith alone is God’s characteristic way of entering into relationships with men. The ‘father’ of the Jews, Abraham, was justified by faith (3:6-8), a fact significant for the Jewish teachers who demanded Jewish circumcision as a requirement for justification. Further, those who believe in Jesus are the ‘sons of Abraham’ (3:7), that is, they have a relationship with God like Abraham’s.

God promised Abraham that the nations (Gentiles) would be blessed through him (3:8). Centuries later as Gentiles like the Galatians believed in Jesus they became sons of Abraham (3:9, 14). To undergo circumcision was to perform a work of the law, which is to be under a curse, since it is not possible to be perfected by works. But Christ in his death has become a curse, and has redeemed us from the curse of breaking the law. Thus those who believe in Jesus, rather than the circumcised, are the true descendants of Abraham (3:9, 14).

Faith-in-Jesus, not works of the law, makes us sons of God

You are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus (3:26, own translation).
God adopts us into his family as sons because he has redeemed us from the curse of the law:

When the time had fully come God sent forth his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as his sons (4:4-5).
God has changed our status from slaves to sons, by adoption, through faith in Jesus (4:1-5). God not only changes our status to sons, he also gives us the attitude of sons. Because of our adoption God gives us the Spirit of his Son so that we might, with Jesus, regard God as our ‘Abba’, our ‘dear Father’.

Because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying ‘Abba! Father!’ (4:6).
It must not be thought that being redeemed, being adopted, receiving the Spirit are different and successive events, divided from one another by the passing of time. No! We have all these things ‘in Christ’, that is, when we exercise faith in him. Redemption, sonship, the Holy Spirit are all ours, then and there.

This is established as follows.

Faith-in-Jesus, not works of the law, brings the Holy Spirit into our lives

Having referred to the proclamation of Christ crucified Paul inquires:

Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law, or by hearing with faith? (3:2).
The ‘hearing with faith’ refers to the message about Christ crucified. When the message is heard and believed the Spirit comes. This truth is restated three verses later in the form of a question:

Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by the works of the law, or by hearing with faith? (3:5).
Clearly God ‘supplies’ the Spirit to those who ‘hear with faith’ the message about Christ crucified. Paul’s word for ‘supplies’ means ‘supply fully, richly’. Faith in Jesus attracts the fullness of the Spirit as surely as an electromagnet attracts iron filings.

* * * *
The apostle is clearly attacking the addition of works to faith-in-Jesus. Faith-in-Jesus justifies the sinner and redeems the accused. Faith-in-Jesus confers the status of son of God on the former slave. Faith-in-Jesus brings the Spirit into our lives and enables us to regard the creator with the confidence enjoyed by Jesus—‘Abba, dear Father’. [1]

To add anything to faith-in-Jesus puts God in our debt, destroys his chosen method of having fellowship with us, places us again under the law and its curse, expels the Spirit and reintroduces the flesh. The apostle’s severest warnings are for those who denigrate faith-alone-in-Jesus or who add anything to it.

Love, the uniquely Christian attitude of concern for others, is impossible to the person in the flesh (5:18-21). Rather, the Spirit comes in response to faith-in-Jesus (5:5); faith energizes love (5:6) because the fruit of the Spirit (who is attracted by faith-in-Jesus) is love (5:22).

A spiritual, others-centred life is possible only for the person who lives by faith-in-Jesus. The old Pentecostal who demands tongues speaking in addition to faith-in-Jesus or the neo-pentecostal who prescribes ‘subsequence-consequence’ in addition to faith-in-Jesus may do well to meditate on the implications of Paul’s letter to the Galatians and his denunciation of additions to faith-in-Jesus.

The conversion watershed: 1 Corinthians 6:11

In context the apostle is referring to men whose starkly evil behaviour will exclude them from the kingdom of God—idolators, thieves, drunkards, etc. He continues, dramatically, ‘and such were some of you’. ‘Were’ indicates, first, that such evil was a pattern for some of his readers and, second, that a sharp break in the pattern had occurred. What, we may ask, happened?

You were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God (6:11).
Washed, sanctified, justified are in the Greek aorist tense which signifies a single or complete event. These events, then, marked the break with the old patterns. The verbs are variously describing initial Christian commitment (perhaps baptism?). ‘Washed’ (from their sins), ‘sanctified’ (set apart for God in holiness), ‘justified’ (forgiven) describe different facets of what it means to become a Christian.

The instruments of these verbs are, firstly, the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, that is, the name as God’s victory in Jesus over evil (see Acts 10:43), and secondly, the Spirit of our God. Habitual sinners are washed, sanctified, justified by the name of the Lord Jesus and the Spirit of God.

The point is that a great single event is being described. It appears to us that in practice many neo-pentecostals put so much emphasis on the alleged baptism that Christian conversion sounds tame indeed. The apostle had a profound respect for the unbreakable power of sin, so that for him effective repentance and a knowledge of God as ‘dear Father’ were the real evidence of the leadership of the Holy Spirit in a man’s life. It is because a less-than-Pauline view of the power of sin prevails today that conversion to Christ is so casually regarded. We believe the New Testament teaches that Christian conversion by the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God is the baptism with the Spirit of God prophesied by the Baptist.

The Holy Spirit as arrabon: 2 Corinthians 1:21-22

In context Paul is saying that he is a man of his word because God is true to his word. God’s fidelity is demonstrated in the Son of God who fulfils all God’s promises. More, his fidelity is also demonstrated by his manner of dealing with us now in our relationship with the Son of God.

Now he that stablisheth us with you in Christ, and anointed us, is God; Who also sealed us, and gave us the earnest (arrabon) of the Spirit in our hearts (2 Cor. 1:21-22, RV).
The rather stilted but accurate Revised Version distinguishes between the tenses of the verbs. ‘Stablisheth’ is present tense, indicating God’s ongoing work of imparting certainty in our hearts about Christ. We could paraphrase thus: ‘He who makes us sure about Christ’ (literally ‘Christ-wards’) is God. God continues to impart his certainty because of the decisive event in the past whose many facets include: ‘anointed’, ‘sealed’, given the ‘earnest’ (arrabon) of the Spirit. These three verbs are aorist and point to the decisive event of Christian conversion. Thus we could refer to the text: ‘He who continues to make us certain about Christ, having anointed us, sealed us and given us the first instalment of his Spirit in our hearts, is God.’

‘Anointed’ (= ‘Christed’) in the original is clearly cognate with ‘Christ’. As priests and kings were anointed with oil and ‘the Christ’ anointed with the Holy Spirit, so also are Christians ‘anointed’ (‘Christed’) with the Holy Spirit. What is meant by this? We suggest that the meaning is: ‘God… anointed us as his people.’ He appointed us to be his ‘Christ’. In 1 Corinthians 12:12-13 the body of believers = the ‘Christ’. We conclude that to be ‘Christed’ = to be baptized into the Christian congregation. The purpose of the ‘anointing’ would then be for the mutual ministry of caring and edification within the body of the local congregation with a view to growing up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ. (See Eph. 4:15; 2 Cor. 1:21; 1 Cor. 12:12-13; 1 Cor. 6:13-20.)

‘Sealed’ speaks of an external mark on a document denoting completion of a transaction and change of ownership. ‘Sealed’ well describes the watershed between the old and new life. We will discuss this further.

‘Earnest’ [2] (arrabon) refers to a deposit given as a security or pledge of full settlement. We pay a deposit on a homesite to secure it for ourselves and as a guarantee that we will settle in full when the legal procedures have been fulfilled. The full and final payment is the redemption of our bodies when Christ returns and the Spirit raises us up (Eph. 1:14; Rom. 8:11). The arrabon makes the neo-pentecostal doctrine of post-conversion out-pouring of the Spirit impossible. Arrabon excludes the possibility of a doctrinally significant interim Spirit event. This is not to say that the Spirit is inactive in our lives in the time between the arrabon and the end. Throughout that time the Spirit is rebuking us, encouraging us, reviving us, and sanctifying us. However the New Testament offers no programme for these interim activities of the Spirit.

We do not doubt that many neo-pentecostals have enjoyed a genuine post-conversion experience of the Holy Spirit, perhaps accompanied by glossolalia. Perhaps it has been an experience of revival or reassurance. Christians all through history have enjoyed various post-conversion experiences. The difficulty is that in the last two decades it has become customary in neo-pentecostal circles to identify such experiences as ‘the baptism in the Holy Spirit’.

We rejoice to hear the testimony to the Spirit’s work in Christian brethren though we regret that the New Testament title ‘the baptism with the Holy Spirit’ is applied to an experience after conversion. By giving this title to their experience the neo-pentecostals in effect (and usually in practice) demand that every Christian undergo their particular experience, since this title has the weighty sanction of the word of God. We appeal to the neo-pentecostal: ‘Do not deny your experience, but please call it something else.’ So long as the neo-pentecostal calls a post-conversion experience ‘the baptism’ God’s people will continue to be divided on this issue.

Grieve not… be filled with the Spirit: Ephesians 1:13-14; 4:30; 5:18 ff.

In the first of these references in Ephesians (1:13-14) we are reminded of Paul’s emphasis in Galatians 3:1-5 as well as 2 Corinthians 1:21-22.

Christ: in whom ye also, having heard the word of the truth, the gospel of your salvation—in whom, having also believed, ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is an earnest of our inheritance, unto the redemption of God’s own possession… (Eph. 1:13-14, RV).
The three verbs italicised are in the aorist tense, the first two are participles and the third is an indicative. This construction usually stresses that the action of the participle is prior to that of the indicative. Does this verse then support ‘subsequence’ as the AV perhaps suggests and as neo-pentecostal writers maintain? [3] Dunn in a recent monograph has written, ‘The aorist participle does in fact usually express antecedent action, but it is the context not the grammatical form which determines this. And the context here indicates that we should take the two verbs as two sides of the one event: it was when they believed that God sealed them with the Spirit. As in Galatians 3:2, man’s step of faith is met by God’s gift of the Spirit.’ [4]

We have already discussed the thought of the Holy Spirit as ‘seal’ and ‘earnest’. He becomes ours when we hear and believe in Jesus through the gospel. The former thought expresses new ownership while the latter expresses our urgent expectation of final redemption. The apostle nowhere describes an interim Spirit-event programmed by God for every Christian, even though a person’s daily experience of the Spirit is authentic. Nothing else than the redemption of our bodies is set before us as the object of our hope after conversion. The two mountain peaks are conversion and final redemption. With the former behind us noting is to obscure the latter as the object of our hope.

The second and third reference in Ephesians contain present imperatives about the Holy Spirit. Such references inform us what our interim attitudes to the Holy Spirit should be. God has sealed us with the Spirit. We now belong to him. (See also 1 Cor. 6:19-20.) The two texts contain the imperatives.

Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, in whom you were sealed unto the day of redemption (4:30, RV).
Stay filled with the Spirit (5:18, own translation). [5]
Both present imperatives introduce ethical sections. Taken together, a pattern of Christian behaviour emerges which befits the person who now belongs to God. The Spirit who has sealed us, whom we are not to grieve, and by whom we are to be controlled, is the Holy Spirit.

It is a matter for regret that so few churchgoing people live by the words of the apostle. We sadden the Spirit and rob God of his glory by failing to fulfil these simple but challenging words. Every part of our life, every human relationship, is touched on by Paul in these latter chapters of Ephesians.

Neo-pentecostals believe in the conservation doctrine of sanctification and Christian holiness. They claim that the ‘baptism’ is for power to witness. [6] In other words they sever power for witness from godly behaviour. And yet in all the Pauline corpus the apostle never enjoins power for witness. His emphasis is on godly behaviour, to the brother in Christ and to the outsider. The believer is indeed to seek the salvation of the unbeliever but his speech is to be accompanied by a godly life. (See 1 Cor. 10:27; 11:1; 1 Pet. 2:11-12; 3:1-6.)

It would be unfair to single out the neo-pentecostal for omitting this emphasis. Zealous fundamentalists generally appear to have little understanding of the relationship in the New Testament between ethics and evangelism. But it is the neo-pentecostals who have made a theological principle out of severing the two.

Become what you are: Colossians

Paul wrote to the Colossians because false teachers had undermined the uniqueness of Jesus, placing him among an angelic hierarchy. He was merely part of the ‘fulness’ or collection of aeons which comprised the deity above. Further, they had instructed men on the necessity to submit to ordinances about abstaining from the elements of life, especially food and drink. The apostle counters this teaching by insisting that Christ is before all things and that all things consist in him. All the fulness dwells in him (see 1:15-19). Moreover, through his death and resurrection, men are completely reconciled to God. Paul stretches human language to the limits to convey on the one hand the unique pre-eminence of Christ, and on the other our own absolute salvation and safety in him. (See, e.g., 3:3-4; 2:13-15.)

Paul combines these related absolutes in one text:

For in him [Christ] dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and in him are ye made full… (2:9-10, RV).
At this point we must note a feature of the New Testament. On one hand we are reckoned as ‘complete’ or ‘perfect’ in Christ. Yet our lives still have the marks of the old nature and we are forced to live out our days in ‘this present evil age’.

The apostles address us as still sinful yet possessing the Holy Spirit. We are exhorted to ‘become what we are’, in the sense of what God holds us to be, namely ‘complete’ or ‘perfect’. The motive on which such exhortations are based is that God regards us as already complete. We are never called upon to be good in order to obtain; it is because of what we already possess from God that the claims of godliness are pressed on our consciences.

Thus it is the task of the minister to
… warn every man and teach every man in all wisdom, that we may present every man mature in Christ (1:28, slightly altered).
The neo-pentecostals betray little awareness of this Biblical ‘become what you already are’. Paul’s purpose for men after conversion is maturity, to which he makes ethical exhortations. The purpose of the neo-pentecostals for men after conversion is the ‘baptism’.

According to their doctrine the baptism is the instrument of a man’s fullness; they thus miss the significance of Colossians 2:9-10. In practice the baptism becomes the source not only of power for witnessing, but also deeper relationships with God, love of the scriptures, etc. The fullness is located apart from Jesus, and subsequent to our experience in him. The way to fulness or the baptism is inevitably ‘steps’ or ‘conditions’. In our opinion, despite disclaimers to the contrary, neo-pentecostal Christology falls short of that of the New Testament, since they find Jesus insufficient for their power needs. Inevitably therefore the ‘ought’ or ‘ethics’ of their system belong to those expressly repudiated by the apostle (2:20-23).

The Holy Spirit and the Body of Christ: 1 Corinthians 12

We hold that the phrase ‘the body of Christ’ reflects the dynamic idea of meeting together. Some usages of the phrase refer to his people described as already in the heavenlies. As such their meeting is continuous. The majority of usages refer to the assemblies of believers here and now. As such their meetings are intermittent. The key ideas appear to be meeting together in Jesus’ name, and the exercising of gifts within an organic group animated by the same Spirit. Such a group is variously described as ‘temple’, ‘bride’ and ‘lump’. Paul customarily addresses such an assembly as a church (Greek: ekklesia). He only once uses the term to describe something other than a local church (‘I persecuted the church of God’, repeated three times: 1 Cor. 15:9; Gal 1:13; Phil. 3:6) and here it is quite possible he is referring to the church in heaven with Jesus, since Jesus asked Paul on the road to Damascus, ‘Why do you persecute me?’

The whole idea is dynamic. It is people together caring for one another, belonging to one another, serving one another, edifying one another. To belong to a church is not to belong to an institution but to be a member of a body, to be part of a living dynamic whole, which belongs to Christ. Paul goes so far as to say that the body of Christ, the local congregation, is Christ (1 Cor. 12:12-13).

The Holy Spirit alone makes it possible to confess ‘Jesus is Lord’, so great was the previous grip of idolatry (12:2-3). The same Spirit also imparts the various gifts from the Lord Jesus to believers in fellowship for the good of all (12:4-11). One and the same Spirit baptizes men into one body, the Christ, even though their gifts are diverse (12:12-13). Conversion/confession, endowment, incorporation—all are from the Lord through (or by) the Holy Spirit.

We are baptized with the Spirit into Christ, ‘Christ’ being understood as the body of Christ present and local as well as future and heavenly (2 Cor. 1:21; 1 Cor. 12:12-13; 1 Cor. 6:13-20). For what purpose does the Lord baptize us thus with the Spirit into one body, [7] ‘the Christ’? His purpose is that we are to belong to one another, despite deep socio-racial difference (‘Jews or Greeks, slaves or free’); and that we are to minister to one another as in a body despite the diversity and non-interchangeability of gifts.

It seems to us that it is the neglect of this teaching about the Holy Spirit which explains how otherwise orthodox Bible-teaching churches manage to remain so loveless and so conspicuously lacking in the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

We do not discover any teaching here about a subsequent baptism by the Holy Spirit to provide gifts for the body of Christ. Rather, as people are taught about belonging to a body and participation in its life of mutual upbuilding, they discover in reality the truth of 1 Corinthians 12.

Conservative evangelicals have, in our opinion, been far too clergy-orientated. We thoroughly endorse their emphasis on the importance of teaching and evangelism by properly equipped ministers, but we regret that the plain meaning of scripture about life in the body has been so neglected. Institutionalized and orthodox Christians may have a great deal to learn from the corporate nature of the neo-pentecostal meetings and their joy and vitality together.

It is interesting to observe, however, that there are ordinary congregations where the significance of the church has been studied and where caring, sharing, joyful communities have emerged. Christians have acted on the resources God has given them; they have not needed to seek a new experience to grant them this.

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1. Some neo-pentecostal writers, e.g., Stafford Young, What is the Baptism in the Holy Spirit?, pp. 7-8, attempt to find ‘subsequence’ in Galatians 3:14:
that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.
We note the following points:
(a) His assertion that the ‘we’ = Christians as opposed to Gentiles disregards the fact that the Galatian Christian readers were Gentiles. The whole point of 2:16-4:6 is that Gentiles are sons of Abraham through faith-in-Jesus apart from circumcision. Paul’s ‘we’ merely stresses that the Gentile Christians were, by faith-in-Jesus, as fully Christian as a Jewish Christian like himself. Thus in 4:3 he, a Jew, can so identify himself with Gentiles (who are now Christians) as to include himself in their ‘former idolatry’.
(b) The second ‘that’ does not introduce a second concept quite removed in time from the first. The second ‘that’ is explanatory. It acts as a bridge or an ‘=’ sign. It is important to read the whole argument, 2:16-4:6, where the message is that faith-in-Jesus brings justification (which Abraham and his true sons enjoy). Justification makes men sons of God. God gives his Spirit to his sons.
2. RSV: guarantee. Modern Greek uses this word of engagement for marriage. See further G. Kittel, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Eerdmans, 1967, Vol. 1, p. 475.
3. E.g., Stafford Young, What is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit?, pp. 7-8.
4. J. D. G. Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit (SCM Press Ltd., London, 1970), p. 159. Dunn gives two pages of evidence as to the context of Ephesians 1 and he refers to the definitive Burton, Moods and Tenses (p. 61), as an authority for the priority of context over grammar.
5. The present tense of 5:18 precludes the possibility of a ‘second’ experience. The text is calling for continual submission to the leadership of the Holy Spirit as expressed by the elements of behaviour which follow. Hence these are daily experiences.
6. In practice they claim much more for the baptism.
7. Some neo-pentecostal authors (e.g., J. Baker, Baptized into one Spirit, p. 17, and S. Young, What is the Baptism in the Holy Spirit? p. 3) translate 1 Corinthians 12:13 as ‘in one Spirit we were all baptized with respect to one body’, thus allowing the neo-pentecostal doctrine of a subsequent experience of the Spirit ‘for the benefit of the body’. It is true that the Greek preposition eis can mean ‘into’ or ‘with respect to’. Context must decide how eis is to be understood. (See C. F. D. Moule, Idiom Book of the New Testament (CUP, London, 1963), p. 69.)

Paul’s argument is that God desires unity for the Christian congregation despite the diversity of its membership. To this end he binds the body metaphor to his readers. The context does not support the view of Baker or Young that we are baptized with the Spirit with respect to the body and the exercise of gifts within it. Rather, we were baptized with the Spirit into a body with respect to its unity (see v. 12). In this view we follow every major English translation of the Bible (AV, RV, RSV, NEB, Phillips, TEV, Knox, etc., but not the Jerusalem Bible which is indeterminative). Another neo-pentecostal, J. A. Schep, Spirit Baptism and Tongues Speaking (Fountain Trust, London, 1970), p. 12, following the translators’ consensus also takes eis as meaning ‘into’. Baker and Young are out on a limb.
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