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A Biblically based commentary on current issues that impact you
Sola Scriptura for Charismatics vs. the Madness of Mysticism
by K. Jentoft
The ministry of the Holy Spirit is central to living Christianity. Charismatics have emphasized the working of the Holy Spirit in their lives and see His power as what separates them from "dead religion." It is true that he Holy Spirit must be present and active in the life of a believer; this is the very claim that the Reformers made, especially Luther. The reformers and Charismatics agree on this. They disagree, however, on something just as crucial – their understanding of how the Holy Spirit comes and how He is active in the lives of believers. This understanding of how the Holy Spirit exercises His authority in both individuals and the church is where Charismatics have wandered from the foundations of the Reformation.1 The Reformation was built upon sola scriptura which means "the authority of scripture alone." More completely, sola scriptura asserted that the Bible as God's written word is:
>self-authenticating,
>clear to the rational reader,
>its own interpreter ("Scripture interprets Scripture"),
>sufficient of itself to be the final authority of Christian doctrine, teaching and guidance.
This concept was the bedrock of the Reformation and the source of the other four solas; sola fide (faith alone), sola gratia (grace alone), solus Christus (Christ alone), soli Deo Gloria (to the glory of God alone). While most Charismatics consider themselves to be believers in "sola scriptura" and have words to that effect in their church statement of faith, in practice many deny it. How? By the way in which they describe how the Holy Spirit exerts His authority in their lives and churches. Let us be clear. Both the reformers and Charismatics agree that possessing an intellectual understanding of the gospel and agreeing that it is true does not constitute saving faith. In other words, to acknowledge the authority of scriptures and the truth of gospel does not necessarily make one born again nor does that person necessarily have the Holy Spirit. Both Luther and Charismatics complain of "dead churches" that are devoid of the Holy Spirit and agree that "anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to Him" (Rom. 8:9). But how does what is dead become alive and active in the Holy Spirit? What are the means of the Holy Spirit's activity and power? Sola scriptura claims that the means is the scripture, the external Word written and preached. Charismatics believe that the means include internal feelings, impressions, and subjective experiences. The pursuit of the Holy Spirit through the Charismatic means is a rejection of sola scriptura and a return to the Catholic paradigm that new revelations of men are from the Holy Spirit and have authority. The goal of this article is to show that this conflict is not "new" nor is the Charismatic paradigm the result of some new "outpouring" of the Holy Spirit unique in our time. This error was not even "new" in Luther's time five hundred years ago; it was destructive then and the repeat edition prevalent in our time continues to harm people today – and the remedy remains the same, sola scriptura.
The Means
The process or mechanism through which we interact with the Holy Spirit is crucial, a key element in understanding sola scriptura. According to John 16:13 when the Holy Spirit comes, "He will guide you into all the truth." John 14:26 tells us the Holy Spirit will teach us all things. Galatians 5:18, 25 addresses this same concept, "if you are led by the Spirit…If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit." This mechanism of "being guided by," "being taught by," "being led by," "living by," and "walking by" the Holy Spirit is the means, the way the Holy Spirit carries Christians and rules in their lives – it is how He exerts his authority. Christians who submit to His means exhibit the fruit of His rule in their lives. Charismatics believe that the means by which the Holy Spirit operates in their lives is through internal impressions, feelings, thoughts and "anointings." The presence of the Holy Spirit is "felt" or perceived internally and His leading is sensed subjectively by those seeking to be led by Him. Evidence of this is seen in their worship services where the goal is to "feel the presence of God" – God being the Holy Spirit (as Jesus is bodily in Heaven with his Father).
The Charismatic means are seen in the pursuit of internal "words" or revelations which people feel are from the Holy Spirit. Those means are seen when someone gives a "personal meaning" to scripture which is devoid of context and the meaning of the original author. Those means are also seen in prayers where they invite the Holy Spirit to come and manifest His presence as an internal feeling or sensation. I am not implying that the goal of this pursuit of the Holy Spirit is bad. In fact, the goal of the Charismatics' pursuit of the Holy Spirit is a clearer understanding of God's guidance, will and direction for individuals and the congregation – people seeking God's answers to their questions and afflictions. To their credit, they want to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit in their lives and act as the Holy Spirit leads them to accomplish God's will in their lives and on this earth. But, because their means are flawed, this pursuit of the Holy Spirit leads to error instead of to their goal; it leads to delusion instead of truth.
Catholic Mysticism and Charismatic Means
The battle Luther fought was not against a "dead church" with no manifestations of the spiritual – some dry hierarchy of church government denying the supernatural. Luther's battle was about spiritual revelations and the means by which the Holy Spirit ruled His church. It obviously had much to do with the papacy, as seen below. Reformers fought the papacy because this system looked to their own revelations as having authority equal to the scriptures. They claimed the Holy Spirit directly inspired their leader and his claims.
The papacy, too, is nothing but enthusiasm, for the pope boasts that "all laws are in the shrine of his heart," and he claims that whatever he decides and commands in his churches is spirit and law, even when it is above and contrary to the Scriptures or spoken Word.2
Beyond the pope himself, the Catholics also taught that special or elite Christians could also interact with the Holy Spirit directly through various practices called spiritual disciplines. Luther strongly opposed Catholic mysticism that taught people to seek God's presence inside themselves. Sola scriptura invalidated the Catholic traditions of mysticism that the church had embraced for hundreds of years including:
Direct revelations to popes and other "holy people."
"Contemplative prayer" which used eastern style meditation to empty the mind.
"Lectio divina" which used repetitive reading of the words of scriptures to empty one's mind.
However, this battle went much further than just revelations within the papacy. In fact, some of Luther's main battles for sola scriptura were against freestyle spirituality and revelations claimed by the new "Charismatics" emerging within the Protestants that embraced these mystical traditions. The Charismatics Luther battled were broadly called "enthusiasts" because of their excessive emotional zeal and "subjective" means to approach the Holy Spirit. These enthusiasts included Anabaptists and the followers of various leaders whom people perceived as having some special "anointing." Luther opposed both Catholic mysticism and protestant enthusiasts because they both rebelled against the authority of scripture. For Luther and the reformers, the Holy Spirit came to them and interacted with them through the scriptures alone not through internal feelings. Here is what Luther says concerning their freestyle spirituality:
It is good to extol the ministry of the Word with every possible kind of praise in opposition to the fanatics who dream that the Holy Spirit does not come through the Word but because of their own preparations. They sit in a dark corner doing and saying nothing, but only waiting for illumination, as the enthusiasts taught formerly and the Anabaptists teach now.3
Luther was not necessarily claiming that these people openly rejected or denied the scripture, but that they rebelled against its authority by rejecting the meaning originally intended by the author. The enthusiasts made scriptures say what they felt or wanted them to say through personal interpretations and allegory which they claimed were revealed to them by the Holy Spirit.
In these matters, which concern the external, spoken Word, we must hold firmly to the conviction that God gives no one his Spirit or grace except through or with the external Word which comes before. Thus we shall be protected from the enthusiasts — that is, from the spiritualists who boast that they possess the Spirit without and before the Word and who therefore judge, interpret, and twist the Scriptures or spoken Word according to their pleasure.4
Once freed from the tyranny of the Catholic Church, many of these enthusiasts continued the Catholic paradigm and rejected the legitimate authority of the Holy Spirit speaking through the scripture. They practiced freestyle Christianity interacting with the Holy Spirit through whatever means they felt inspired. These enthusiasts demanded interactions with the Holy Spirit outside of scriptures - revelations felt and perceived internally by individuals to be the "voice of the Holy Spirit." Luther attacked these "revelations" because they had no authority and resulted in people following their own imaginations.
For the Holy Spirit does not—as the enthusiasts and the Anabaptists, truly fanatical teachers, dream—give His instruction through new revelations outside the ministry of the Word.5
Error Costs
Luther knew this appetite for new internal revelations of the Holy Spirit was damaging to those who believed that inner words had authority. Luther witnessed the death of tens of thousands in the Peasant's War; people who were deluded into believing their own internal feelings and those of their "spiritual leaders" like Thomas Münzer were the Holy Spirit and should be obeyed. Münzer claimed the Holy Spirit gave him revelations that asserted his rebellion against Germany's leaders as God's will. Münzer even claimed God told him that his "righteous followers" would be miraculously immune to the weapons of their adversaries. His revelations were wrong, the peasants were slaughtered and Münzer was beheaded in 1525. Because of this tendency to mysticism, after he left Rome Luther opposed Protestant mysticism because it was as damaging to Protestants as it was to Catholics. Luther fought this Charismatic paradigm with as much vigor as He did the abusive Catholic Church – the mystical authority supporting them both was the same. Protestants simply replaced the Catholic pope with mystical feelings. Luther knew that sola scriptura was the certain authority that mysticism sought to undermine with internal revelations. Luther says:
Away with our schismatics, who spurn the Word while they sit in corners waiting for the Spirit's revelation, but apart from the voice of the Word! They say one must sit still in a corner and empty the mind of all speculations, and then the Holy Spirit will fill it.6
The modern Charismatic "paradigm" and their concept of the means to interact with the Holy Spirit is not new. The concepts Luther wrote against in the 1500s are the same issues Charismatics struggle with today. These Charismatics dilute the authority of scriptures with mysticism, internal feelings, or allegorical or personal interpretations of the scripture as how the Spirit communicates. Again, the Reformation considered the work and power of the Holy Spirit essential and crucial in the life of the individual and the church. However, the means that the Holy Spirit came to the church and exerted His rule – how the Holy Spirit interacted with Christians – this was Luther's battle.
Sola Scriptura or Popes (one, many or me)
If we reject Luther's concept of sola scriptura we reject the Reformation – regardless of what is in a statement of faith. Rejecting scripture alone means serving popes and returning to the foundations of Catholicism. God's will, in that case, is revealed to men by the Holy Spirit through freestyle revelation and it leaves us with only one question: which pope are we to serve? The Catholic one, a new "anointed" leader, or perhaps we should set ourselves up as a "personal pope" receiving revelations for ourselves?
Dr. Karlstadt was one such leader in Luther's day teaching people to be quiet and listen to the voice of the Holy Spirit speaking inside them – he called it "self abstraction." The means he emphasized was an "inner word" that was "felt" and he compared that to an external word that was spoken or read. His means are the same ones embraced by Charismatics today. This is what Luther says:
But should you ask how one gains access to this same lofty spirit they do not refer you to the outward gospel but to some imaginary realm, saying: Remain in "self abstraction"7 where I now am and you will have the same experience. A heavenly voice will come, and God himself will speak to you. If you inquire further as to the nature of this "self abstraction," you will find that they know as much about it as Dr. Karlstadt knows of Greek and Hebrew. Do you not see here the devil, the enemy of God's order? With all his mouthing of the words, "Spirit, Spirit, Spirit," he tears down the bridge, the path, the way, the ladder, and all the means by which the Spirit might come to you. Instead of the outward order of God … and the oral proclamation of the Word of God he wants to teach you, not how the Spirit comes to you but how you come to the Spirit. They would have you learn how to journey on the clouds and ride on the wind. They do not tell you how or when, whither or what, but you are to experience what they do.8
Luther rightly condemns this Charismatic teaching. Why? Because our internal feelings do not have the authority of God. God's Word has the authority of God; it is the means by which the Holy Spirit speaks to us individually and as a congregation. The Holy Spirit speaks to us with an external voice found in the words of scripture, as we read it or hear it preached, and He empowers these same words to change our hearts and actions. Here is Luther speaking on the role of the Holy Spirit described in John 16:1, "For He will not speak on His own authority, but whatever He hears He will speak."
Here Christ makes the Holy Spirit a Preacher. He does so to prevent one from gaping toward heaven in search of Him, as the fluttering spirits and enthusiasts do, and from divorcing Him from the oral Word or the ministry. One should know and learn that He will be in and with the Word, that it will guide us into all truth, in order that we may believe it, use it as a weapon, be preserved by it against all the lies and deception of the devil, and prevail in all trials and temptations. For there is, after all, no other way and no other means of perceiving the Holy Spirit's consolation and power, as I have often demonstrated from Holy Writ and have often experienced myself.9
The Reformation view of how the Holy Spirit works through church leadership was centered on the concept of sola scriptura. The activity of the Holy Spirit working through these leaders was viewed through the lens of sola scriptura, not mysticism with personal revelations or modern prophets. Scripture was the means by which the Holy Spirit interacted with the individual and the congregation. This is where they heard the certain voice of God. The message taken from Scripture and the words of their songs of worship, taken from scripture, were the means by which the Holy Spirit was active in their worship. While Luther may not have believed in a literal millennium, He did understand through the Scripture the rule of the King by way of the Holy Spirit at our present time.
The Holy Spirit establishes a wide difference among teachers and gives the right rule by which the spirits are to be tested. He wants to say that there are two kinds of teachers. There are some who speak on their own authority; that is, they evolve their message from their own reasoning or religious zeal and judgment. The Holy Spirit is not to be that kind of preacher; for He will not speak on His own authority… In this way Christ sets bounds for the message of the Holy Spirit Himself. He is not to preach anything new or anything else than Christ and His Word. Thus we have a sure guide and touchstone for judging the false spirits.10
I believe that scriptures clearly promise a literal Messianic Kingdom for Israel that will come to pass with Jesus reigning in Jerusalem for a thousand years as the actual king over the entire world. Sola scriptura is the means by which the Holy Spirit rules now in the lives of individuals and the church and is the visible precursor to the coming reign of the literal kingdom of God that will be manifested in the second coming. Rejecting sola scriptura for freestyle spirituality in the name of the Holy Spirit is rebellion against this kingdom. It is the actions of an enemy of God. Matthew 7:21:
"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. Many will say to Me on that day, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; DEPART FROM ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.'"
Issue 112 - May / June 2009
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