Eilish Agnew tells of the journey of her understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit
My grandparents on my mother’s side were old-time Pentecostals.
They had their traditional theology of ‘baptism in the Spirit’ accompanied by ‘speaking in tongues’ and although our family eventually joined a Baptist church, after my parents’ conversion in the 1950s we attended a Pentecostal fellowship for some years. As a result I was exposed at an early age to Pentecostal teaching, although the word ‘charismatic’ was not part of my vocabulary until much later. However, in the early 1960s I became aware that members of many non-Pentecostal denominations were beginning to experience ‘speaking in tongues’ and other phenomena, linked for many of them with an experience identified as ‘baptism in the Spirit’. The term ‘neo-Pentecostalism’ initially used to describe their beliefs and experience was eventually replaced by the now-familiar term ‘charismatic movement’.
Meeting with God
During my years in the Pentecostal church I was greatly attracted by the concept of ‘meeting with God’ which was often emphasised, especially during the ‘tarry meetings’ of an annual summer camp.
In retrospect, I have questioned the validity of this (very sensory) experience – was it a valid encounter with God or was it a psychological phenomenon brought about by an intense mental and emotional focus on experiencing God in a tangible way?
Second class Christians?
Now, as then, I in no way doubt my sincerity or the sincerity of these believers – traditional Pentecostals who were fundamentally orthodox – and I believe God in his Providence used them during some difficult teenage years. However, even then – and especially later – there were things that disturbed me. One of these was the implicit assumption that those who were not ‘baptised in the Spirit’ (accompanied by speaking in tongues) were somehow second-class Christians. (It is perhaps only fair to comment that in more recent times I have found rather similar elitist attitudes among some Reformed brothers and sisters!).
I also found myself questioning whether much of the phenomena identified as spiritual gifts were indeed authentic New Testament gifts of the Spirit. Nor could I square with my own developing understanding of biblical truth the elevation of women to positions of considerable authority in terms of leadership, to the extent that it seemed gifted young men were often overlooked or even discouraged (however unintentionally) from participation in ministry. Even more perturbing was the preoccupation in some circles with the demonic – dramatic ‘exorcisms’ increasingly becoming the order of the day. Eventually, with real sadness because of some special friendships, I distanced myself from the Pentecostals.
Unhappy
Exposure to ‘charismatic’ groups over the years did nothing to resolve my basic misgivings. Although during some 15 years as a missionary I worked alongside and enjoyed fellowship with charismatic colleagues (and would have been identified by many fellow missionaries as ‘a balanced charismatic’!) I became increasingly unhappy with much of what I observed and experienced – exaggerated claims of miraculous healing (and sadly no truly biblical theology of suffering); a preoccupation with supernatural phenomena; a love of the sensational; prophetic pronouncements that remained unfulfilled, and so on. (I am not suggesting that such extremes are true of every charismatic church or individual but over some 40 years of observing the movement I believe these characteristics are widespread).
What is baptism in the Spirit?
Not the least of my concerns was how I should understand the term ‘baptism in the Spirit’. This became a particular issue for me during the years overseas when I was helping to prepare new Christians for church membership. The position held by the church-planting team with which I worked was that initiation into the body of Christ was threefold: conversion (personal saving faith); water baptism (the outward symbol of personal faith); baptism in the Holy Spirit (God’s seal upon personal faith). However, this third element of ‘baptism in the Spirit’ was defined not merely as an inner, largely unconscious, work of the Spirit, but rather as a conscious and dynamic encounter with God, during laying-on-of-hands with specific prayer for the Spirit’s outpouring (although, unlike traditional Pentecostalism, there was no insistence that the candidate should ‘speak in tongues’).
Grappling with the issue
For a long time I grappled with this whole issue of ‘Spirit baptism’, attempting to reach a satisfactory, Biblically-valid understanding which would reconcile Paul’s statement in 1 Corinthians 12.13 (‘By one Spirit you were all baptised into one body’) with the belief that only those who received a conscious outpouring of the Spirit’s power in the charismatic sense were truly baptised in the Spirit. Eventually I came to the conclusion that the dilemma was more a matter of semantics than anything else. In other words, when Pentecostal or charismatic believers used the term ‘baptism in the Spirit’ they were essentially describing a spiritual experience, with the emphasis on a dynamic, empowering encounter with the Spirit; while non-charismatics were referring to a spiritual position, with the emphasis upon the believer’s incorporation into the body of Christ (which many would equate simply with regeneration and conversion).
John Piper
Much later I was to stumble across a somewhat similar but more theologically satisfactory resolution of the problem, offered by John Piper (YouTube – e.g. The Baptism of the Spirit, Pastor John Piper, as well as other ‘desiring God’ sermons on the work of the Spirit). Piper appears to understand the term ‘baptised in the Spirit’ not so much as a technical expression that refers to one specific and particular part of the Christian life, but rather as a broad overarching description of the entire saving, sanctifying, empowering work of the Spirit. Hence he suggests that at any point in our Christian experience we may experience a fresh ‘baptism’ in the Spirit, in the sense of being plunged, immersed or overwhelmed in the Spirit of God.
Doctrines of grace
There were other riches to be found in Piper! Reading his books and listening to his sermons, then the discovery of authors such as Don Carson and Wayne Grudem, as well as returning to older writers like Martin Lloyd Jones and J. I. Packer, led to a fresh understanding of the ‘doctrines of grace’. Around the same time I was working alongside a pastor and his wife with Reformed sympathies in my home church in Ireland and later, in God’s providence, enjoyed similar rich and stimulating ministry during a year’s sabbatical study in Nottingham and then while working in Edinburgh. I experienced these wonderful Biblical truths much as someone staggering through shifting sands suddenly finds solid rock beneath his feet. What joy!
Not really a cessationist
There have been times, given the regrettable extremes in some quarters, when I have been tempted to totally discard any vestige of charismatic theology or experience and identify myself as a fully-fledged Five Point Calvinist cessationist! However, I have a problem – or rather two. First of all, although my understanding of Spirit baptism has changed, I find the cessationist argument with regard to spiritual gifts less than convincing (the reasons for that would demand another article and others can argue that case much more convincingly than I). Secondly, I cannot deny that – in spite of the regrettable extremes I have witnessed – a Sovereign God has also given me the privilege of experiencing the activity of his Holy Spirit in my personal life and the lives of others in ways which do not fit neatly with a cessationist view. (That is not to say of course that I believe such things are the norm for the church in any and every situation).
Where I am
So, to conclude, I have to describe myself at this point as ‘cautiously open’ – that is, open to everything that God in his sovereignty may want to pour out upon my life, both for personal spiritual enrichment and for the building up of the body of Christ; yet cautious when it comes to accepting everything that purports to be of the Spirit as an authentic expression of his work. In other words, I want to heed Paul’s warning not to quench the Spirit, while also testing everything (1 Thessalonians 5.20; 21) and all the while desiring to excel in gifts that build up the church (1 Corinthians 14.12).
I would be interested to know if others have undergone a similar journey to mine.
