Praying in the Spirit: Focus of the Charismatic Experience: Tongues, the Holy Spirit, or Christ?

Jesus calls the Spirit “another Counselor,” the Spirit of truth who will remind the disciples of Jesus’ words and works. Thus, the Holy Spirit does not draw attention to Himself, but points to Jesus. In John 16 Jesus says, “But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you” (verses 13-14). The believer who allows the release of the Holy Spirit in his or her life finds him or herself drawn to Jesus as never before. Certainly, the Spirit is not to be slighted, for He is coequal with the Father and the Son, but His purpose or mission is to strengthen the Church for spreading the good news of Jesus. The Holy Spirit testifies of Jesus. So, while we sing “Praise the Name of Jesus,” we can also sing, “Come, Holy Spirit, We Need Thee.”

“Any work that exalts the Holy Ghost or the ‘gifts’ above Jesus will finally land up in fanaticism,” wrote Pentecostal pioneer Frank Bartleman in 1906. “Whatever causes us to exalt and love Jesus is well and safe. The reverse will ruin all. The Holy Ghost is a great light, but focused on Jesus always, for His revealing” (p. 86). This has been the belief of mainstream Pentecostal-charismatic theology from its birth to the present. The Spirit will always draw attention to Jesus. Christ will always be exalted by the Spirit’s work. When people are glorified, when programs are glorified, when movements are glorified, we can be sure that it is not the work of the Spirit of Christ (W. Horton, p. 173). Pentecostal-charismatic theology demands that Jesus be glorified. If there is one book that puts to rest the charge of Spirit-centeredness, it is charismatic Thomas Smail’s book Reflected Glory. In the following passage, Smail concludes that it is in fact the Spirit who transforms us into the very likeness of Jesus (2 Corinthians 3:18):

 

A Spirit who could derogate from the glory of Christ crucified in order to promote a more dazzling glory of his own, who passes by the sufferings of Christ in order to offer us a share in a painless and costless triumph, is certainly not the Holy Spirit of the New Testament. He glorifies, not himself, but Christ, and therefore his mission is to reveal the full glory of Calvary, and to bring us into possession of all the blessings that by his death Christ has won for us. Here also the work of the Spirit is to take the things of Christ and show them to us, so that, in the way appropriate to us, we may reflect his glory and be shaped into his likeness.

(p.105)

Tags: charismatic, christ, experience, focus, holy, praying, spirit, tongues

Category: Spirit, Summer 1999