| July 25, 1999 |
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The Christ-centeredness of Smail’s Pentecostal-charismatic experience was featured in his teaching from the very beginning. In fact, a young woman interpreted his first public glossolalic utterance with these words: “There is no way to Pentecost except by Calvary; the Spirit is given from the cross” (p.105).
Jesus The Baptizer
“Nothing more surely defeats the purpose of any love gift than for the recipient of it to put the gift before the giver. Yet such a danger is decidedly real where spiritual gifts are concerned. There can easily arise a morbid ‘gift-consciousness’ that dwells upon either the real or the fancied possession of some spiritual gift far more than upon the life of fellowship with the Giver.”
—Donald Gee
The Pentecostal-charismatic doctrine of Spirit-baptism is premised upon the activity of Jesus as the agent of the baptism. The fact that not one, not two, not three, but all four of the Gospel writers record John the Baptist’s proclamation that Jesus would baptize believers in the Holy Spirit, underscores the importance of this baptism and the One who performs it (Matthew 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33). Luke continues this theme in Acts, where he illustrates from Church history the experiential and conspicuous nature of Spirit baptism, as history discloses the Lord Jesus Christ as the mighty Baptizer of all mankind, Jew and Gentile alike (10:14-48; 11:15-17; 19:2-7).
The charismatic experience of the baptism in the Holy Spirit demands an encounter with Jesus Christ. A so-called “charismatic” experience that does not find its source in Christ the Baptizer does not exemplify the New Testament concept of Spirit baptism. A Christian does not go “around to the back door” to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit—he opens the front door, even as in salvation, and there is Jesus!
Harold Horton says that people “are always asking us about the gift [of tongues] and compelling us to discuss it.”
It is more than interesting that the most Christ-centered sect in the history of Christendom came out of Pentecostalism and remains Pentecostal. The “Jesus only” Pentecostals baptize in the name of Jesus only. For them, God is a threefold being (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit), but there is only one person, Jesus (Quebedeaux, II, p.40). Of the origin of the “Jesus only” doctrine, Pentecostal Steve Durasoff has reasoned that “the baptism in the Spirit had drawn many Pentecostals
closer to their Lord Jesus and they welcomed a doctrine that seemed to further exalt Him” (p.80; emphasis added). It is also interesting that some non-Pentecostals, in search of an explanation of the meaningfulness of the charismatic experience, decide that Pentecostals and charismatics have confused being born again with being baptized in the Holy Spirit (Hillis, p. 25). While those who have had both experiences understand a clear distinction, this reasoning affirms that, for these non-Pentecostals, Christ is seen at the center of the charismatic experience.
Tags: charismatic, christ, experience, focus, holy, praying, spirit, tongues
Category: Spirit, Summer 1999
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