With a flood of books, articles, conferences, and a generous supply of guidelines toward a richer spiritual life, it is widely propagated in our days that the church — and specifically the church of the Reformation — has lived for too long in a state of “Geistvergessenheit,” (the Spirit is forgotten) — and that it is high time that we pay renewed attention to the Holy Spirit.

In itself this is nothing new. This idea was already present in the second century in the Montanist movement. During the Middle Ages Joachim of Fiore (c. 1135-1202) exclaimed, “The time of the Father and the Son is past, and the time of the Spirit has arrived”. Spiritualist preachers in the century of the Reformation (and on the fringes of it) were after the same thing. After all, the direct interaction with God by inspiration of the Spirit was regarded as greater than the mediation of earthly, created agencies such as the church and the Word. From time to time it still happens that a similar desire arises out of the lethargy and indolence of the Church — as it is often experienced, not unjustly — and reaches out with prophetic fervour, calling the Church with prophetic fervour to surrender to the Spirit and to his gifts. In the 1990’s, when Parmentier assumed the chair of charismatic theology at the Free University at Amsterdam, he believed that Joachim of Fiore had a valid point, and that in our days too it is high time for greater attention to the Spirit.¹ For too long the Church has stood by a Christocentric view as the basis for the life of the congregation and of the believer.

It seems as if after the Pentecostal movement, which began its triumphal procession from Los Angeles exactly one century ago, and after the charismatic upheaval in the mainstream of the churches in the 1960’s — first among Protestants, later also in the Roman Catholic Church — a charismatic approach has now begun to enter also into the more orthodox Reformed churches. Various reformed denominations in the Netherlands join in proposing, among other things, a plea for more openness to the work of the Spirit (e.g., in the monthly paper CV-Koers).

It is quite clear to me that their plea certainly does not seek to replace the central place of Christ with that of the Spirit. It is also recognized that there are reasons for vigilance against excesses. However, greater openness to the Spirit, and especially to the gifts of the Spirit, is proclaimed as the medicine for the church. This view is, more than with some others, also present with C. van der Kooi who presently occupies the chair of systematic theology at the Free University.

In the meantime, calls have been heard — justifiably — for a reflection on the proper and pure relationship between church and charisma. This question is rightly at the core of what we are about to consider today.

1. Church and Charisma: the Relevant Principles

In regard to the question about the relationship between church and charisma, we first will need to dig a little deeper. We need to focus on the matter of: who is God, and what is man. This will provide us with an essential illumination of who the Holy Spirit is, and also of the Spirit’s goal and objective with the church. For that reason we will concentrate first of all on the relationship between the triune God and us as his people.

1.1 The triune God and Us

 Holy Scripture makes it clear that we cannot say anything meaningful about man unless it is also about God.² At the moment that God creates man he also reveals something essential about himself. God says: “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness” (Gen. 1:26). This marks the position of man in God’s creation. Man, who is the only one of all living beings to resemble God, is given the task of exercising authority over the earth. In this kingly responsibility he is man, and belongs to God. Although he is a creature himself, he is actually more on the side of God than on the side of the other creatures.

God intended for man to be a reflection of his own fullness. God wanted to have a creature in creation that would be responsible, and therefore also approachable and accountable.

As sinful people we experience every day that we have lost this high position. Yet we are reminded of it. In the Bible, God himself also seems to look back with longing and sorrow at man as he had created him. In Psalm 8 we hear the poet, inspired by God’s Spirit, exclaim that God has made us as almost divine. That is not only a reference to a lost Paradise, it is also an indication of a way back, as God has already given the perspective on it in Genesis 3:15, the so-called mother-promise.

God’s Word reminds us of man’s origin — to the fact that it was apparently normal for the LORD God to come and walk in the garden of Eden with man. We hear it in the words that God speaks at the moment that man has become disobedient. While man is hiding in the garden, God says, “Where are you?” (Gen. 3:8-10).

An intimate relationship with God is part of the nature of man. Even when this has been destroyed by sin, God does not relinquish that goal. Everything that follows in the Bible is evident of it.

Thus we come to know Abraham, God’s friend (2 Chron. 20:7; Isa. 41:7; James 2:23). In him all the generations of the earth will be blessed (Gen. 12:3). God’s covenant with his people is directed toward that blessing, which primarily implies this intimate interaction with God.

It is therefore full of meaning that God’s Son comes to earth, that he becomes man and addresses sinful people as his friends (Luke 12:4; John 11:1-3, 11; 15:14-15). In the high- priestly prayer, Jesus appeals to his Father that God’s love for such people may mean as much as the Father’s love for his only begotten Son (John 17:23-24, 26).

This has everything to do with the profound significance of God’s Trinity. We could speak about this at much greater length, however for now it can only be kept brief.³ The Bible is filled with references of how the Father, Son and Spirit are related to one another in perfect harmony in all their divine existence. We meet the Father who sends his only begotten Son to atone for our guilt. We get to know the Son who humbles himself and follows the path of suffering and death (Phil. 2:5-8), a way in which he learns obedience from what he suffered (Heb. 5:8). And then there is the Spirit, poured out by the Son of the Father (Acts 2:33; 15:8). The richness of the Trinity becomes apparent when we are given to realize all that salvation entails. When God’s Spirit is poured out on people, how close does God come to us! At Pentecost the Spirit comes to dwell in people. Where sinful people come to faith, there they receive the Holy Spirit as God’s seal on the renewal of their hearts (Eph. 1:13, 4:30). But then it is never about the Spirit exclusively. The church may know this specifically, being now a temple of the Holy Spirit, further referred to as “a place where God dwells by his Spirit” (Eph. 2:22). The temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Cor. 3:15; Eph. 2:21) is also the people of God (2 Cor. 6:16; Heb. 8:10; 1 Peter 2:9-10) and at the same time the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:27; Eph. 1:23; 4:12, 16; 5:3; Col. 1:18). The work of the Spirit is always full of Christ and full of the knowledge of the Father. The church is fully involved with the triune God. And when the Spirit dwells in the church, it is — as Augustine formulated it — as the love and at the same time the gift (donum et caritas) of the Father and of the Son.

The work of the Spirit specifically represents the restoration of the intimacy between God and man, as God had already intended it at the creation of man. I said earlier: God intended man to be a reflection of his own fullness! This includes this relationship between God and as it had been intended.

There, then, do we find the core of the spirituality that we need to know about: in the restored relationship between God and man.

As we focus today on the meaning of the charismata for the life of the Church, coupled with the question of what the attention to these means for the spiritual experience of the believers, we would do well to keep a close eye on the aspect of the relationship between God and man. This could well be a benchmark of the highest order in the encounter of what I will now refer to as “reformed” and “charismatic”. In our spirituality everything is aimed at the relationship with God, or at the experience of our humanity in deeper and higher dimensions.

1.2 The Relationship is Recognized in Faith and Grace

One of the attractive aspects of the new attention to the charismata is the human-centered character of the message, with its experiential approach to beinghuman. I do not want to qualify this immediately in a negative way! On the contrary: the possibilities of experience of man, his “antennae” for his emotions, reasoning and will with all the relevant sensory aspects, are given to us by God! All these things belong to being human.

However, when we explore the biblical contexts of God’s dealings with man and from there look at the longing for experience among Christians — or should I say “among men”? — then you meet with a strong desire for “experiences” which, since the Fall of man, are no longer attuned to the relationship with God, but to the fulfillment of our own possibilities and to the importance of our own personality.

Anyone who delves a little into the literature of charismatic Christians knows that there is a form of charismatic spirituality that recognizes little of the sinfulness of man, of the prayer of the tax collector (Luke 18:13), or of the perspective of Psalm 32 or 51. The spiritual life, above all, proclaims that you are not all that bad, and that you are important. The steps you take in the way of Jesus produce great things: demonstrations of glossolalia (speaking in tongues) or prophecy can teach a person how he is ready for special experiences. Once you start, the Spirit takes over...⁴

It is not difficult to see what characterizes the religious experience, and how the charismata can play a role in it. The special gifts of tongues, prophecies and healings, based on the special experience of the baptism with the Holy Spirit, signify in the first place a great bonus of experience. And quite understandably, this has a significant force of attraction.

There is a charismatic form of spirituality that is full of experiences, but which cannot be traced back to the relationship I mentioned earlier. Therefore, I do not want to emphasize the possible extremes on the path of a charismatic spirituality, where a warning against going off the rails would be appropriate, but rather focus on the biblical norms that characterize the spiritual life. I am convinced that these are the norms that have everything to do with the relationship between God and man.

Understandably, there is an experiential angle to that relationship. The Bible is not talking about a theory of the knowledge of God! It is about real people — and also about the living God!

But there are points of recognition.

Faith

The first of these, as already can be heard in the Old Testament in the language of the covenant, lies in the verb “to believe”. Between Abraham and the LORD there was faith in God’s Word, which was counted to him as righteousness (Gen. 15:6). Between Israel and the LORD there was also the Word of God’s promise. What the people had to hold on to in faith was not an image, not a sign, but the promise. And of course the proof of God’s faithfulness followed, as was shown at the exodus.

In the New Testament things are no different. Jan Veenhof once said that faith in the gospel is the central experience of a Christian. The question may be whether it is necessary to speak of a “central experience”, but that the concept of faith is central in the New Testament is clear without me needing to elaborate on it.

The concept of “faith” indicates what is foundational for a Christian.

In John’s Gospel the message of Jesus is sounded repeatedly that anyone who believes in him is saved and has eternal life (John 3:15, 16, 18, 36; 5:24; 6:29, 35, 40, 47). To believe means to have access to full salvation. In Acts it is no different. There too, “believing” is involved in one’s total salvation (Acts 8:37; 10:43; 13:48; 16:31). In Paul’s letters we see the same thing. The message of Romans 1:16-17 played such a large role in Luther’s reformation for good reason. In one and the same breath it deals with gospel, faith and life. The expression “from faith for faith” means “the all-encompassing significance of faith as the new  mode of man’s existence” (H. Ridderbos).

In short, we can say that in the New Testament faith is about the core of the Christian life. What spiritual life is cannot be explained without putting the core in the word “faith”. And such faith does not just correspond partially to being a Christian, or to the lowest level of it, no — faith corresponds to full salvation.

So, what kind of life is this? The apostle Paul says some remarkable things about this when he emphasizes to the Corinthians: “for we walk by faith, and not by sight” (2 Cor. 5:7). “Faith” therefore means that we depend on something that is not within the reach of our experience. Faith is always related to something outside of us, i.e., to the promise of God, to the Word.

There is something in this that we can recognize. You might even call it experience. But then it represents an experience of the certainty that is not based on our experience. In any case, it is not our own self that is at the centre, but the Lord Jesus Christ. And that is absolutely recognizable for a Christian. It is part of the richness of his life to say: “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Gal. 2:20; see Phil. 1:21: “for me to live is Christ”; Col. 3:4: “Christ who is [y]our life”; 1 Cor. 2:2: “I decided to know nothing among you but Jesus Christ and him crucified”).

Here one finds a difference between biblical — if you will: reformed — thinking and the great stream of charismatic experience. What matters most: is it about knowing the Lord and his trustworthiness or is it about a spiritual quality of life that brings within my reach a series of experiences of abundance, of miracles, of a higher mode of existence?

If Christ is in fact our life than it is through faith that we do not just have something, but everything! ‘The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing...” (Ps. 23:1). The relationship of trust between a sheep and the shepherd brings about this certainty. Faith in fact relates to the fullness of salvation. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, also causes a person to share in this by grace.

Grace

Whereas since the days of Luther and Calvin we have learned to speak in terms of sola fide and sola gratia, we are well aware that these two aspects are interconnected. Just as they do not exist without sola Scriptura and solo Christo.

When we think of the relationship with the triune God, then the grace of it is essential. It refers to the undeserved character of this relationship, as well as on the fact that God is the initiator. It is not us who are seeking him, but he who seeks us, sinful people. The proclamation of the gospel comes from him (see 2 Cor. 4:15). It is his good pleasure (2 Cor. 6:1, 2). Often it is called “glorifying in grace” — and this involves glorifying the name of Christ in the believers (1 Thess. 1:12). It is always about him. Grace is “the grace of that one man Jesus Christ” (Rom. 5:15; 1 Cor. 1:4; Gal. 2:20, 21; Eph. 1:6, 7; 2 Tim. 1:9).

God’s doors are opening up for us. But not to bring glory to us, or to make us into something great, but to teach us in the style of John the Baptist: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30).

This is how faith functions, and this is how grace functions through the Holy Spirit. It is not about man who needs to become important with his acquired spiritual qualities, but the aim is that the Lord Jesus Christ and his Father become the most important. His undeserved grace, which is bestowed to sinful people, makes them agree with Paul that he could not and would not glory in anything but the cross of Calvary. At the same time this means an indissoluble bond: “to me to live is Christ” (Phil. 1:21). Nothing that could be counted as gain for himself or in the eyes of men was worth cherishing. Rather, all of this became as loss. Knowing Christ Jesus as my Lord surpasses everything. For his sake I have given up everything, says Paul (see Phil. 3:7-11).

This is also why he can wish king Agrippa and governor Festus that they — on account of his testimony of Jesus Christ — will be as well off as he is, except for the chains he carries (Acts 26:29).

1.3 What Are Charismata?

It may be clear from all this that with these basic principles also the highest perspectives of the experience of God’s church are presented. When it comes to the charismata, we should not lose sight of this relational character of spirituality, nor should we ignore the involvement and dependence on the Holy Spirit in Christ.

In the texts in John 14-16 that speak of the Paraclete (the Comforter/Helper/Advocate), all the emphasis is on the personal character of the Spirit of truth.⁵ It is especially about the promises that indicate what he will be for the disciples and for the church after Jesus is taken away. J. Veenhof puts it this way in his beautiful study, The Paraclete: “The specificity of the Johannine portrayal of the paraclete lies in the resemblance of the Spirit to Jesus. In fact, everything that has been said about the paraclete is also said elsewhere in the gospel about Jesus.”⁶ The reality of the experience of the Comforter, as Van ‘t Spijker rightly says, lies in the relation with Christ through faith.⁷ With the actual fact of Pentecost, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the continuity of the salvation that has come to us in Christ is assured. This is the redemptive-historical significance of the announcements of Pentecost in the Gospels. It is not surprising that the gifts of the Spirit are not mentioned here. In light of the fundamental things that are already made clear in the Gospels, it can be said that the charismata are more on the periphery of the personal Christian life, although these charismata carry the greatest significance for the life of the church.⁸

Something can be said about the function of charismata especially from Paul’s writing in 1 Corinthians 12-14. Naturally, we need to do so by way of summary.⁹ In Paul’s teaching, charismata are not qualities that provide added value or importance to a person; they are gifts to be used in service. The core concept is here the oikodomè, the building up or edifying of the church. By focusing on one’s own personal experience, speaking of the charismata of tongues and prophecy as “experiences” is in conflict with the way Paul speaks of the gifts in this letter. His polemic was in fact directed precisely against those in Corinth who regarded the one greater than the other (see 1 Cor. 1:7). In Corinth a sound perspective needed to be given to the body of Christ, which was lacking in the unspiritual handling of the spiritual gifts, as Paul had to point out.¹⁰

The simple principle of being able to understand what is being said, as Paul applies to glossolalia — after all, it does not build up if no one knows what is said — makes this clear. The tendency to flaunt the special ability of glossolalia as a higher value of those who have this gift thus falls flat entirely.¹¹ Prophecy therefore makes more sense because it involves understandable language. It is logical that also with this gift the tendency to have something higher, something more exceptional, conflicts with Paul’s message in these chapters. Ernst Käsemann, in a study of the specific nature of the charismata, made the remark that this is the difference between them and the pagan pneumatiká (which originate in a demonic spirit): “the legitimacy of the charismata does not lie in the fascination of the supernatural, but in the edification of the church”.¹² This is also in keeping with the comment of J.P. Versteeg, who represents Paul’s emphasis as follows: “With the manifestations of the Spirit, people in the church at Corinth wanted to put themselves in the foreground as spiritual people. However, the charismata are given in order to allow others to benefit.”¹³

The earlier-mentioned Parmentier referred to the charismata in a beautiful way as “the bodily functions of the church”. His impetus for a charismatic theology is nevertheless characterized by a focus not so much on the church as on the special spiritual possibilities of life through the Spirit.¹⁴

In this context, it is rather remarkable that also in recent publications concerning the gifts, which arose from the pleas in CV-Koers, an experiential side is especially sought, even though in an exegetical contribution, Gifts for the Church, a clear description can be found: “possibilities which the Holy Spirit gives to the believers to help in the progress of the kingdom of God, to the well-being of all people. The origin of these gifts is the Holy Spirit, the centre is Jesus Christ, and the goal is the edification of the church and the welfare of all the members” (Age Romkes).

There is ample reason, based on the wide range of gifts mentioned by the New Testament in 1 Corinthians 12, in Romans 12 and in Ephesians 4, to regard this orientation to the body of Christ as the norm, and where someone desires a gift as a higher spiritual experience, to speak of “being conceited”, as Paul does. The central significance that Christ has for believers should make it impossible for anyone to become fixated on their own gifts. That is why Paul also exhorts to “not to go beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up in favour of one against another...What do you have that you did not receive?” (1 Cor. 4:6-7). Paul also writes in this vein in Colossians 2:18-19, where Paul warns against people who boast of visions they have seen, such as angelic apparitions. Apparently, the apostle is not impressed by such testimonies. We only need to hold fast to the Head, to Christ! There, too, he talks about being puffed up.

Note how reticent the apostle is when he thinks of the qualities of himself, which, after all, could easily be elevated to charismata: his studies, his great devotion to the service of God, his unrelenting zeal for the righteousness of the law. However, everything that might be classified as “gain” or “profit” to him he learned to count as loss for the sake of Christ. Why? Because knowing Christ as my Lord transcends all of this (see Phil. 3:5-8). He applies faith in Christ and the grace of Christ as the touchstone of his functioning as an apostle. And then, if his service means anything, he says: “it is not I, but the grace of God that is with me” (1 Cor. 15:10). This remark could not hurt the Corinthians with their pre-occupation with the “enriching” possibilities of the charismata.

It is not insignificant that the term charisma contains the word charis, which in the first place means grace.

2. New Insights?

2.1 Further Discussions Needed?

The title of my lecture contains the words “new insights?” Therein lies the possibility of making a few more comments in connection with the recent pleas for a greater openness to charismatic spirituality.

I have to conclude that the conversation is not easy. In fact, a conversation or discussion hardly ever arises. It is basically a question of whether from a reformed spirituality “yes” can be said to a greater openness to a charismatic practice of faith, or not.

When someone has given a reasonably careful analysis of charismatic thought and practice, and on that basis arrives at a rejection of this openness, then it is said: “His warnings are to be taken to heart. He really looked into the matter carefully, but he should have a greater openness to this way of being filled with the Holy Spirit.” Then we have not made much progress.

When it is said about the of the sola gratia, sola fide, sola Scriptura and solo Christo, (the rich foundation of the reformation), “We will lose these foundations in a charismatic pattern of thought”, then we certainly have something that needs to be discussed. Not in order to cling conventionally to what has always been true among reformed people, but because it concerns a biblical test of our spiritual life. I have to say that in various publications I have expressed a clear conviction in this regard,¹⁵ however on the part of those who argue for a charismatic integration into reformed thought and life, I have had very little response, in the style of “you don’t need one of those, he’s only against everything.”

If this were a personal frustration, I would not say it openly here. I know the path that has been given to express this. There is something very different going on than that. There is an error that is in the process of entering into the churches of the reformed confession. This, by the extent to which it is taking place, is actually a new development.

As a matter of fact I find little that is new in the advocacy for greater attention to these charismata. Or it must be that some theologians have changed their conviction, as is the case with Willem Ouweneel in his Meer Geest in de gemeente [More of the Spirit in the Church]. But he does not present a new story or argument. It is the defense of an old story, which he first fought against.

2.2 What Needs to be Central?

My focus is on what might be called a “blind spot”. In the meantime the theological reflection, which has only made a slow start in the history of the pentecostal and charismatic movements, has come to realize that there is no exegetical basis for the experience of a baptism in the Holy Spirit as a “second blessing”. In its stead conceptual frameworks have been introduced that attempt to safeguard the exhaustively-described ultimate experience, but which give it a different foundation.¹⁶ However, no one seems to question the character of these experiences.

In the history of the pentecostal revival in Wales of a century ago, this did actually happen, in a book by Jessie Penn-Lewis (together with Evan Roberts, the leader of this revival), entitled War on the Saints.¹⁷ She gives a warning against seducing spiritual powers that can accompany someone precisely when he is open to receiving the gift of the Holy Spirit. But the author does not come up with the idea of criticizing the theological notion of a second blessing. Many warnings have been issued against the content of the book, but these were not heeded or acted upon.

In the South African pentecostal movement Apostolic Faith Mission, the pentecostal dogma was abandoned that speaking in tongues would be evidence of having received one’s baptism in the Holy Spirit. They knew from experience that glossolalia also occurred in pagan and syncretistic religious movements, separate from Christ, and that for this reason it did not constitute any proof.

There is in fact a blind spot for questioning charismatic experiences as such. Also in the field of (faith-) healings there is every reason to think about the reality of “occult miracles”. The practices of people such as T.B. Joshua in Nigeria and Benny Hinn and others involved with the ‘Toronto blessing” call for the need of testing the spirits.

And then, according to 1 John 4, it is not so much about a theological discussion, but about the question of whether a phenomenon is from God or from the darkness. Is it not without reason that Paul warns in 2 Corinthians 11 — the chapter in which he also makes it clear that Satan himself presents himself as an angel of light (v. 14) — against receiving “another Jesus” or “a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted”? What concerns him especially also in the church of Corinth, which is leaning towards the “higher things”, is the fear that their thoughts will be led astray from the sincere and pure devotion to Christ (2 Cor. 11:3-4), just as the serpent with its cunning seduced Eve.

If there is a blind spot for these warnings, Jesus’s words in Matthew 7:21-23 may also come to mind. There was prophesying in Jesus’ name, the casting out of evil spirits, and many powers being performed — and yet the judgment is: I never knew you. l want to emphasize that this is not about opposing excesses, but about the principial question about the source of experiences. What is occurring in terms of charismatic experience is uncritically assumed to be the work of the Holy Spirit, even by people who carefully seek to be firmly reformed in their theological thinking.

As an example I would like to mention the great emphasis that is given in the New Wine movement from the NGK in Houten to prayer ministry, as introduced by Leanne Payne.¹⁸ The question of the origin of this thinking is relevant, where her relationship to the charismatic healers and psychotherapists Agnes and John Sanford and Morton Kelsey, who are expressly oriented to the work of C.G. Jung, is mentioned. The worldview of Jung is in fact, in Kelsey’s eyes, a necessary key to understanding the miracles of Jesus in the New Testament. Such an occult connection should at least give rise to questions.¹⁹

Many examples could be provided that give rise to further questions. My concern is not to highlight specific examples or excesses. Rather, it is about the pure and simple commitment to Christ. What matters here is grace and faith.

The criticism of the spiritual condition of the church may give ample reason for concern. However, for the proper medicine that builds the body of Christ, we need to go to the Spirit of Christ. And the gifts that he provides are found there where the only Name given unto salvation is heard and understood.