From the Messianic Foundations series by Kevin Williams. A look at the life-changing reality of Messiah, the Living Water, who indwells every believer.

Imagine a cold, icy winter, the kind that seeps into the marrow and makes the body shiver. Walking along the streets, you exhale, and your breath freezes in the air; you inhale, and draw the frigid reality into your lungs. Head down, arms wrapped tightly across your chest, you barrel forward, feet crunching on the ice beneath, each step draining the warmth from your already numb toes. But soon this atmosphere is exchanged for another, as you walk down steps into a warm, refreshing pool, life flowing back into your icy joints as you join in the ancient rite of your people. This observance, which stretches back to Mount Sinai, is the mikveh, and you have stepped into the Mayim Chayim, the Living Waters. The chill is almost gone now, swept away by the warm, inviting waters. You submerge, drowning out all the sounds and sensations of the arctic world, and enter into the muffled quiet of the reservoir, the womb-like environment from which you entered into the world.

Would not that kind of daily refreshing be worth looking forward to? It would be a welcome relief in a harsh environment, a physical reminder of the spiritual promises of God.

In the world of Orthodox Judaism, this event is called the mikveh, the immersion. It is the root and origin of the Christian practice known as Baptism. Some believe John the Baptist invented baptism, but ritual purification by water is nearly as old as time itself.

Literally, the mikveh is identified as a collection of water, a pool of sorts, which has gathered by God’s design. That is to say, there was no human intervention, no one dug a hole, no one collected water in jars to fill the pool. This collection of waters might be a river or a sea. The water source came about as part of the Almighty’s plan, which gives it the nomenclature: Living Water.

Genesis 1:9 speaks of the waters being “gathered together.” The Hebrew term used here is mikveh, a source for Living Water. In Genesis chapter 7, we have the account of Noah’s Flood, when the Most High chose Living Water as the vehicle to cleanse the earth. In Genesis 35:2, Jacob commands his household to destroy their idols and to “purify themselves.” The Jewish sages understand this purification as none other than the mikveh.

Literally, the mikveh is identified as a collection of water which has gathered by God’s design.

Virtually from the very beginning, this concept of the mikveh and Mayim Chayim plays and important role, a role which carries over into the rest of the Torah—the five books of Moses. In what parallels the “born again” experience of the modern Christian, Jewish theologians look at the crossing of the Red Sea in Exodus 14, as a mikveh. Certainly the sea qualifies as a pool of Living Waters, and the crossing of the Hebrews demonstrated not only God’s immense provision, but likewise, a separation from that which defiled them, Egypt, and that which gave the nation of Israel new life, the crossing through the midst of the waters. Today, we are not far from that event ourselves. In 1 Cor. 10:1-3 we read, “For I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that our fathers were all under the cloud and all passed through the sea; and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea” (emphasis mine). Our immersion places us on the same shores as those Hebrews in Exodus 14. They were a redeemed people, now able to rest from slavery to Pharaoh. Soon, they would have God’s instructions at Mt. Sinai. And then, they would be on their journey to the Promised Land. If this was true for them, then how much more so for us through the redemption of our High Priest, Yeshua the Messiah? We have been redeemed, washed clean, brought into rest from bondage, we are learning about God and His ways, and we are enroute to the eternal Promised Land!

Marshall Shelley and Eric Reed, “Finding the Grace Gates: An interview with Pastor Joseph Garlington” Leadership (Spring 1999), pages 22-28.

Pastor Garlington is the pastor of Covenant Church of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and a frequent speaker and worship leader at Promise Keeper events nationwide. “Finding the Grace Gates” focuses on the role of pastors as the “lead worshiper” of their congregations. Pastor Garlington relates many personal stories and experiences in explaining how to help people recognize holy moments (what Garlington calls “God moments”) in worship. He expounds on the term repristination, a word borrowed from the writings of Garry Wills, as he explains how worship must be renewed for every generation for them to properly understand its meaning. The role of the lead worshiper, he says, is “to lead by example”, and to “…not get in the way.” The key is leading people into an awareness of God’s presence and then teaching them to linger in it. Garlington stresses the importance of teaching people to find “grace gates”. “When I am most conscious of my inadequacy, my dependence upon God, and upon His sufficiency, that’s when I have a ‘grace gate’—the inrush of the grace of God for me for a particular reason, a particular season in my life… . My responsibility as lead worshiper is to help my congregation find the gate. You get a thousand people in a room and there’s somebody out there who has broken the law. And there’s somebody else who’s had the best week ever, and there’s everything in between. I have to get these people to understand that they all have access to the presence of God.”

Finding the Grace Gates provides many keen insights for anyone who leads worship or is interested in deepening their knowledge of Scriptural worship methods.

Reviewed by Joseph Joslin

Read the original article: www.ctlibrary.com/le/1999/spring/9l2022.html

N. R. Needham, 2000 Years of Christ’s Power, Part I: The Age of the Early Church Fathers (London: Grace Publications, 1998), 400 pages.

When I originally saw the title and the brief description of 2000 Years of Christ’s Power in a publisher’s catalog, I thought that I had found another historical study of the miraculous and the gifts of the Spirit throughout Christian history. 2000 Years is certainly Church history, but a historical defense of the gifts of the Holy Spirit it is not.

2000 Years was written by a professor of Church history that has lamented the disparity between the two genre of Christian histories that exist: works for scholars and oversimplified works for children. Finding no happy medium that presented a popular approach to Church history, Needham has attempted to do so with this series of volumes. Written such that this series could be easily translated or at least understood by those who have a limited understanding of the English language, this series will likely find its way into foreign English-speaking Bible institutes.

As a popular Church history 2000 Years is excellent. There are no untransliterated Greek words or untranslated Latin. Names often include a pronunciation key, geographic locations are explained such that you will not need an atlas handy. Although Needham is expecting a Western reader, an Eastern-Oriental viewpoint is expressed in such a way that it can be received and appreciated. Explanations of the society of the day and contemporary events are presented so that the Church is rightly understood in its cultural setting. In this first volume, Part 1, many of the misunderstood beliefs or difficulties of the early Church are approached so that they will make sense to any reader. Was Origen a heretic or did he make a lasting contribution to the Body of Christ? What did the champion of Trinitarianism, Athanasius, mean when he spoke about believers becoming God? Was Constantine the Great really a Christian? Why did the fathers of the early Church get so worked up over terms like nature, energy, person, and will? How does the liturgy of the early Church differ from what we practice today? Did pagan philosophy, such as Neoplatonism, affect the theology of the early Church? Each chapter is broken up into readable portions with a list of important Church and political leaders at the end followed by Needham’s own translation of select works from the Church fathers themselves. These readings from the Church fathers are especially valuable to give an introduction to the thought of the early Church.

The pastor or Bible student will find 2000 Years to be an able introduction to the history of Christianity. Many will find it more thorough than any histories they have previously read. The presentation is balanced, approaching the story of the Body of Christ from an evangelical perspective. For these reasons, this will make a valuable contribution to any student’s library.

Reviewed by Raul Mock

Gary S. Greig and Kevin N. Springer, eds., The Kingdom and the Power: Are Healing and Spiritual Gifts Used by Jesus and the Early Church Meant for the Church Today? A Biblical Look at How to Bring the Gospel to the World with Power (Regal Books, 1993), 463 pages.

Thirty years ago, when I graduated from a prominent evangelical divinity school, I prayed long and hard for a book like Kingdom and the Power to answer the objections that my seminary professors had raised against my Pentecostal experience. My parting shot from the seminary was a tutorial research paper that eventually evolved into my doctoral dissertation and later, book, On the Cessation of the Charismata. The cessationist professor read only about half of the project, assigned it a “B” and refused to dialog about its arguments and exegesis. At the same time, a close friend and fellow student with normally high grades, who is now the New Testament Professor at Edinburgh, fared even worse: he received a “C” on his thesis, “Signs and Wonders in the New Testament.” There was little discussion on the ideas presented, aside from an assertion from one committee member to the effect that along with Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons, Pentecostals should not have been allowed enroll at that school.

Times have changed since the 60s. The shrinking proportion of evangelicals who still maintain that spiritual gifts have ceased with the apostles are much more willing to dialog—if only because increasingly they now find themselves in a theological Alamo, where there are constant defections and increasing apathy on the part of the defenders. In the last decades, the debate over the gifts of the Spirit has become much more sophisticated exegetically and theologically. Many non-charismatic evangelicals today seem to be more willing to receive, or at least read, the new exegetically-grounded works of Pentecostals and charismatics.

The Kingdom and the Power is a work that represents a theology in transition from categories framed by traditional Protestant theology to ones more naturally expressed in scripture. Accordingly, Kingdom effectively avails itself of the breadth of scholarship from the last 60 years (see especially, pp. 24-28) as the numerous endnotes will attest, though without compromising the authority of its biblical grounding. The work presents itself as a polemic against critics of the Third Wave renewal generally, and cessationism in particular (p. 16). More significantly, the book’s extended scholarly argument represents a long step toward a comprehensive theology for the movement. Kingdom moves beyond its theological polemic, “Exegetical and Theological Studies,” in Part I, to Part II, to express its pastoral concern involving real-life application to ministry, and, in Part III, toward contributions from the disciplines of history, psychology, social anthropology and missiology. Seven appendices treat narrower issues dealing principally with cessationism.

Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy: Rediscovering Our Hidden Life In God (San Francisco: Harper San Francisco, 1998), 428 pages.

I look forward each year to the April issue of Christianity Today that features the 25 best books published in the past year. Reading through that list becomes my passion until the next list appears.

This year’s list proclaimed Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy to be the best of the best, and so it is—a must read for everyone who is a serious citizen of the Kingdom of God. Willard presents the Sermon on the Mount to the reader in a superbly reasoned order that I found too overwhelming to absorb except in short bites. I found myself constantly provoked to stop and ponder the blessings, meditating on the believer’s heritage which Willard puts forth so well in a profound, but simple way.

I made reading this book part of my daily early morning devotional time with the Lord, and I constantly found that I would use the ideas that Willard presented throughout the day as I interfaced with others.

Dallas A. Willard (1935 – 2013)
Image: Dieter Zander / dwillard.org

Willard likens life in the kingdom of man to flying an airplane upside down, compared to the informed citizens of the Kingdom of God who by natural choice and superior knowledge fly their planes right side up. Willard finds reality in the invisible world and unreality in the visible world. At one point he writes that “nothing fundamental has changed in the knowledge of ultimate reality and the human life since the days of Jesus” He goes on to say that “The number of theories, ideas and teachings that have emerged in recent centuries have not the least logical bearing on the ultimate issues of life and existence.”

Willard states the obvious but often ignored fact that Jesus is the smartest person to ever live on this earth; He is more than a nice person who spoke quotable pretty words. Indeed Jesus is competent to be trusted in every human endeavor, in every matter you will ever face. There is no one else to rely upon for better research and knowledge. Jesus has the best information on everything and is by far the most reliable resource on the things that matter most to you.

Willard builds on the foundation; Jesus, the only rock worth standing on. He then unpacks, examines, grapples with and applies what Jesus said we are to do. Let me put it this way, “You cannot do what I do, unless you do what I do.” If you aspire to be like Jesus, The Divine Conspiracy will be an immense help in seeing what true Christlikeness is all about.

Reviewed by H. Murray Hohns

First edition cover of The Charismatic Theology of St. Luke from Hendrickson (1984).

Roger Stronstad, The Charismatic Theology of St. Luke (Hendrickson, 1984), 83 pages.

For many years Pentecostals have been known as doers of the Word, but not as theologians who write of it. Roger Stronstad is among a growing body of scholars seeking to change this and provide a solid theological basis, within an evangelical hermeneutical framework, for Pentecostal preaching and teaching.

Stronstad assumes Lucan authorship, both for the gospel that bears Luke’s name and for the Book of Acts, and considers them to be two volumes of one book. He also correctly believes that Luke is not only a master historian, but also a theologian. In stating this, he does not avoid the issues regarding the relationship between Pauline and Lucan theology but argues brilliantly that Luke, who wrote more of the New Testament than anyone else, including Paul, must be taken seriously as a theologian in his own right. Consequently, he argues, Luke’s theology must not be subordinated to Paul’s, but stands on equal footing. Luke, not Paul, must therefore interpret Lucan phrases such as “baptized in the Spirit” or “filled with the Spirit”.

Second edition cover of The Charismatic Theology of St. Luke: Trajectories from the Old Testament to Luke-Acts from Baker Academic (2012).

He then moves to develop a theology of the Spirit within the Lucan corpus. Anchoring his pneumatology in the Old Testament, especially the Septuagint, Luke draws many motifs and comparisons regarding the activity of the Spirit, and explaining that Jesus was the ultimate anointed of God. He also contrasts the difference in the activity of the Spirit from the Old Testament to the New Testament, citing Joel 2:28 ff. as a watershed. Here he emphasizes that in the Old Testament the Spirit only came upon certain individuals, and in the New Testament he is poured out on the entire community of believers, regardless of gender or social class.

While the book has many strengths, there are two weaknesses; one theological and one practical. First, while he makes a strong case for the Baptism in the Holy Spirit being an experience separate from the initial experience of salvation, that it is vocational in nature, he does not adequately deal with the issue of initial evidence for the Baptism. One would expect more on this. Second, the author uses many difficult terms and large words, making the use of his book next to impossible for laymen and the growing number of preachers in developing nations who are trained by English textbooks but only speak and read English as a second, third, or even fourth language.

In all, this work is a solid contribution to Pentecostal theology and successfully answers the critics who claim that Pentecostal theology is exegetically weak. I recommend this book highly with the suggestion that it should be in the library of any serious student of the Holy Spirit and the Word .

Reviewed by Dave Johnson

Publisher’s page: http://bakerpublishinggroup.com/books/the-charismatic-theology-of-st-luke-2nd-edition/340170

Professor Synan begins with a broad view of some of the positive press coverage the Pentecostal/charismatic movement has received in recent years. He mentions the 1998 Newsweek poll that 75 percent of evangelical Protestants have “personally experienced the Holy Spirit,” and the statement by religion writer Mary Rourke, “with almost no fanfare, the U.S. is experiencing its most dramatic religious transformation in this century.”

Vinson Synan

Synan then mentions these seven trends: (1). Great growth continues: Pentecostals have planted over a million churches worldwide in this century and are still growing. (2). Worship becomes more charismatic: the Pentecostal style of worship has entered the main stream of non-Pentecostal churches and especially among those open to the contemporary gifts of the Spirit but who do not call themselves Pentecostal. (3). Pentecostal preaching creates megachurches: The largest and fastest growing churches throughout the world are predominantly Pentecostal or independent charismatic. (4). Cultural accommodations?: “Are Pentecostals lowering their holiness standards just to attract even larger followings?” (p. 61). Synan says, “Although some churches and pastors in the United States and Europe may be softening their standards on such things as movies, tobacco and alcohol, almost all stand firmly for biblical standards on such questions as abortion, pornography, illegal drugs and homosexuality” (p. 62). Rather, Pentecostalism in the United States is taking historic steps to heal racial divides. (5). Convergence movement: Former Pentecostal and charismatic pastors joined together in the early 90’s to form a movement that attempts to combine evangelical preaching and the gifts of the Spirit with liturgy and sacramental expressions. Synan notes that while this is a notable trend, there are still many more leaving churches that are more liturgical and sacramental to join “enthusiastic, fast growing Pentecostal and charismatic churches” (p. 62). (6). The New Apostolic Church Movement: C. Peter Wagner believes the age of the “Post-denominational” church has dawned. Synan says that this new apostolic movement is made up almost completely of Pentecostal/charismatic churches and leaders even though Wagner himself downplays the experience of the Baptism in the Spirit and the teaching that the “initial evidence” of this baptism in praying in tongues. (7). Revival manifestations: Synan says that, “Since about 1992, waves of revival with distinctive manifestations” of the Spirit’s presence “have swept through the church world” (p. 64). He briefly contrasts the “Toronto Blessing” revival with the Pensacola outpouring.

The fourth chapter of the Praying in the Spirit Series.

Robert W. Graves wrote Praying in the Spirit (Chosen Books) in 1987, when it received great reviews from a number of Pentecostal/charismatic scholars and leaders including John Sherrill, Dr. Vinson Synan, Dr. Gordon Fee, Dr. William Menzies, Dr. Howard Ervin, Dr. Walter Martin, and Dr. Stanley Horton. It is the great privilege of the Pneuma Review to republish it here.

I was in a meeting recently where a man began to offer a prophetic word, but before he finished a woman interrupted him with a message in tongues. It was obvious for several reasons that she was out of order: (1) She interrupted the speaker; (2) she disrupted the service; (3) her utterance in tongues was not interpreted; and (4) her utterance was more in the form of an emotional outburst than a clear, distinct pronunciation of syllables.

It is the last of these reasons that forms the subject of this chapter. What exactly is the nature of the prayer language? Is it an emotional or ecstatic utterance beyond the speaker’s control? Is it a language or is it gibberish? If it is a language, must it be an actual foreign language?

Throughout 1 Corinthians 14 the King James translators qualified the word tongues by prefacing it with the word unknown, which does not occur in the Greek. Anti-Pentecostals, who are quick to point out this insertion, believe that “tongues” are the divinely imparted gift of speaking a foreign language without having learned it; that the gift of tongues was not unknown “gibberish,” but rather a human language known somewhere in the world. Others have interpreted this to mean that the King James translators probably meant the language was unknown to the one speaking it, and may have been known somewhere in the world or may not.

In this guest editorial, Pastor Mur shares his memories of being filled with the Holy Spirit and how he was reminded of this blessing of God while reading Robert Graves’ article, “The Focus of the Charismatic Experience” that appeared in Summer 1999.

Robert Graves’ excellent article on “The Focus of the Charismatic Experience” (Pneuma Review Summer 1999, Vol 2 No 3) gave new life to some of my memories. His words brought me back to 1961 when I was thirty years old and knew absolutely nothing about Protestant theology. Back then I thought that the person who had painted “Jesus Saves” on the rocks overhanging the NJ Turnpike was crazy. A friend, who I thought might help me with my career, invited me to go hear Billy Graham. At that meeting I was gloriously saved, one of those story book conversions.

A few months later, I was enrolled at the Philadelphia College of the Bible, a cessationist institute which required each student to sign a pledge that they would not go near a Pentecostal church. That was fine with me. For while I had somewhat revised my opinion about the person who painted “Jesus Saves” on the rocks, I was “safe” in Bible College, and I wanted no part of the devil, demons, holly rollers or weirdoes that ignorantly claimed to be part of the church.

The Bellevue-Stratford Hotel, in Philadelphia’s City Center, in 1976.
Image: Wikimedia Commons

Alas, I unknowingly went to a Pentecostal service and ended up challenged to seek the Baptism in the Holy Spirit including its initial evidence of speaking in tongues. That quest proved far more difficult than I first thought, and I ended up attending all sorts of meetings where I heard that the Spirit was falling. One memorable evening I went way out into the Pennsylvania countryside to hear Sister Seville preach. She said that the Ethilopian (her word, repeated many times that night) would never change his color and a leopard would never change his spots. Since I knew that signs and wonders followed the preaching of the word, I endured through her message, but I went home the same as I had come, still unfilled.

Finally on July 4, 1964 in the Academy Room at Philadelphia’s old Bellevue Stratford Hotel, the site of a Full Gospel Businessman’s meeting featuring Kathryn Kulhman, God rewarded my quest. I was filled with His Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues. This prayer language I have exercised daily and more often for 35 years. During that time my life, values, ideas and hopes all have changed as I grew into maturity in the Kingdom of God. Those years included a career beyond my dreams in engineering, which even brought national recognition. Ten years I was a part time student at Fuller Theological Seminary. I watched as my wife was miraculously and instantly healed. I have also had the opportunity of serving on the pastoral staff at two of Foursquare’s (International Church of the Foursquare Gospel) largest churches and on Foursquare’s national finance committee. I have known these blessings and more, many more.

Part 1 of Tongues and Other Miraculous Gifts

Part 2 of Tongues and Other Miraculous Gifts

Part 3 of Tongues and Other Miraculous Gifts

Part 4 of Tongues and Other Miraculous Gifts

Richard M. Riss presents evidence for the operation of the gifts of the Spirit throughout the Church Age.

The Moravians

The gift of tongues is sometimes associated with the Moravian Brethren, a remnant of the Bohemian brethren (followers of John Huss) who became newly organized after finding refuge on the estate of Count von Zinzendorf (AD 1700-1760) in Saxony in 1722, in a Christian community which they called Herrnhut. In 1727, Zinzendorf retired from government service to devote himself to leadership of this community. In August of that year, there was an outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Herrnhut. A Moravian historian wrote as follows:

Church history also abounds in records of special outpourings of the Holy Ghost, and verily the thirteenth of August, 1727 was a day of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. We saw the hand of God and His wonders, and we were all under the cloud of our fathers baptized with their Spirit. The Holy Ghost came upon us and in those days great signs and wonders took place in our midst. From that time scarcely a day passed but what we beheld His almighty workings amongst us.¹¹³

Herrnhut, 1765, in what is today eastern Saxony, Germany.

This account of the Moravian revival is not specific with respect to the signs and wonders that took place in their midst. Although the gift of tongues was not endorsed by the leaders of the Moravians, their opponents believed that they spoke in tongues.¹¹⁴

John Wesley

The Moravians were a direct influence upon John Wesley (AD 1703-1791), the father of Methodism, whose conversion in 1738 took place shortly after long talks with Peter Boehler, one of the Moravian brethren. Wesley’s response to a book published in 1748 clearly indicates his position with respect to operation of the gifts of the Spirit in his own day. Dr. Conyers Middleton, fellow of Trinity College, had written a book entitled A Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers, which are supposed to have subsisted in the Christian Church. Wesley spent twenty days, from January 4 until January 24 of 1749, writing a letter to Conyers Middleton refuting his thesis that there had been no miracles in the history of the church after the Bible had been written. With respect to the gift of tongues, Wesley wrote as follows:

Section VI.1. The eighth and last of the miraculous gift you enumerated was the gift of tongues. And this, it is sure, was claimed by the primitive Christians; for Irenaeus says expressly, ‘We hear many in the church speaking with all kinds of tongues.’ ‘And yet,’ you say, ‘this was granted only on certain special occasions, and then withdrawn again from the Apostles themselves; so that in the ordinary course of their ministry they were generally destitute of it. This,’ you say, ‘I have shown elsewhere’ (page 119). I presume in some treatise which I have not seen. 2. But Irenaeus, who declares that ‘many had this gift in his days, yet owns he had it not himself.’ This is only a proof that the case was then the same as when St. Paul observed long before, ‘Are all workers of miracles? Have all the gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues?’ (I Cor. xii.29-30). No, not even when those gifts were shed abroad in the most abundant manner. 3. ‘But no other Father has made the least claim to it.’ (page 120). Perhaps none of those whose writings are now extant—at least, not in those writings which are extant. But, what are these in comparison of those which are lost? And how many were burning and shining lights within three hundred years after Christ who wrote no account of themselves at all—at least, none which has come to our hands?¹¹⁵

Wesley’s defense of the existence of tongues in history continues at considerable length, ending with the observation that the gift of tongues had been heard of within fifty years of their time, among the French Prophets. He wrote:

Since the Reformation, you say, ‘this gift has never once been heard of or pretended to by the Romanists themselves’ (page 122). But has it been pretended to (whether justly or not) by no others, though not by the Romanists? Has it ‘never once been heard of’ since that time? Sir, your memory fails you again: it has undoubtedly been pretended to, and that at no great distance from our time or country. It has been heard of more than once no further off than the valleys of Dauphiny. Nor is it yet fifty years ago since the Protestant inhabitants of those valleys so loudly pretended to this and other miraculous powers to give much disturbance to Paris itself. And how did the King of France confute that pretence can prevent its being heard anymore? Not by the pen of his scholars, but by (a truly heathen way), the swords and bayonets of his dragoons.¹¹⁶

Wesley was undoubtedly aware of the presence and validity of the gift of tongues in his day, for Thomas Walsh, one of Wesley’s foremost preachers, wrote in his diary on March 8, 1750, “This morning the Lord gave me language that I knew not of, raising my soul to Him in a wonderful manner.”¹¹⁷