Spiritual Psychosis
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FAULTY PROOFS
FOR CHARISMATICS
NEED TO
RECEIVE POWERS VIA APOSTLES
INTRODUCTION
The Charismatic movement is an important force in modern Christianity. In many places, Charismatics
are the only Churchgoers with any enthusiasm or fervour. The movement promises encounters with the
Holy Spirit who does miracles in your life and changes your life which gives
you assurance that Christianity is true.
Like every apologetic for the
Church it fails.
PENTECOSTALISM
A Charismatic is a person who has the Holy Spirit who gives him or her
special gifts. A Charismatic is anyone
who is open to the Spirit. All
Christians are Charismatic. There are
two kinds of Charismatic activity. The
first type comprises natural happenings which are considered to be the works of
God. An example will be the nice feeling
that may follow prayer or finding the right tablets for your bad tummy. The second type looks supernatural or is
meant to be shown off as supernatural with its speaking in tongues and other
forms of what many see as madness. But
we are only interested in the latter type.
The gifts of tongues the latter
kind of Charismatic harps on about being able to do is speaking in tongues,
interpreting tongues, letting the Spirit speak through her or him, casting out demons and so on.
Charismatic activity appears both
in the Old and New Testaments. Most religions
are into charisms.
Witches practice a ceremony called Drawing Down
the Moon in which a priestess becomes a channel for the Goddess to speak
through.
Many Catholic saints allegedly
exercised dramatic charisms including clairvoyance.
Joseph Smith, the founder of
Mormonism, led his Church into Pentecostal fanaticism such as speaking in
tongues and visions.
The fanatical Anglican priest,
Henry James Prince, practiced Pentecostalism in the 1840s before he decided
that he was the embodiment of the Holy Spirit.
Aimee Semple
McPherson was into speaking in tongues and charismatic healing. She built the
John XXIII prayed for a new
Pentecost and some years later the Catholic Pentecostal craze dazzled the Roman
Church and became an important attractant for new converts.
The latest charismatic craze is
the new charism which began in
Charismatic Christianity is full
of excitement and fun. It gives people
the chance to socialise. Those with
alleged gifts enjoy feeling special and are overflowing with confidence in the
Spirit. It attracts people to the Church
and binds them to it. The Churches
support the movement just to get power.
They have claimed to have examined the Charismatic Movement to see if it
has God’s approval. If this is true then
they know it is just hocus-pocus. The
Devil is the indirect ruler of the Charismatics if he
exists!
The Charismatic movement thrives
on ignorance and emotive manipulation so it is dangerous. There are plenty of stories of Charismatics going off the rails completely. Many are self-styled exorcists and dabble in
exorcism which makes them a danger to the mentally disturbed. It also scares the others into blind
submission to the leader of the group and the religion. The Charismatic doctrine that they can see
into the consciences of others is appalling.
It makes people feel ashamed and uncomfortable and could develop the
mental disorder of going over-scrupulous develop in them.
The Charismatic cannot believe
that the Charismatic movement’s prophets are capable of error. Why? Holding that God speaks
through fallible prophets is not being true to the Bible or to the doctrine of
the wisdom of God. So to save face about their
unbelief in scripture they have to pretend their prophets do not err. The
Charismatics have to act as
if the messages of the prophets dropped down out of heaven on gold plates. A proper charismatic group has to be
authoritarian. It needs to be a cult to
be genuine about the gifts.
FAULTY PROOFS FOR CHARISMATICS
In Joel 2, God promises that before the end of the world he will pour out
his Spirit on all flesh causing young men to have dreams from God and young
women to prophesy and there would be visions.
Charismatics
think they fulfil the prediction – without reason. They can see from the context that it is to
happen after
Charismatics
might object that Peter said the Pentecost experience of the early Church was
the beginning of the fulfilment of the prophecy (Acts
Charismatics
take some verses or supernatural gifts out of context to make them say the
opposite.
Matthew 10:1-23: Jesus gives the
seventy the power to do marvels like healing the sick and casting out
demons. But he did not say that these
healings and exorcisms were to be miracles.
He may have just been telling them to help others in the same way a
non-Charismatic Church would do it which is by praying and good deeds.
Mark 16 is supposed to promise
Charismatic powers to all who believe.
Jesus told the eleven apostles: “Go into all the
world and preach and publish openly the good news (the Gospel) to every
creature [of the whole human race]. He
who believes [who adheres to and trusts in and relies on the Gospel and Him
Whom it sets forth] will be condemned.
And these attesting signs will accompany those who believe: in My name
they will drive out demons; they will speak in new languages; They will pick up
serpents; and [even] if they drink anything deadly, it will not hurt them; they
will lay their hands on the sick, and they will get well” (16:15-18).
Charismatics
say that it promises miraculous powers to all who believe in the apostles’
word.
Notice that the text does not say
that some of the people will have the charisms but
all. The persons who get them seem to be
those who actually got the word from the apostles directly. It cannot mean all Christians since the
Christians directly converted by the apostles as well as these original converts because it is
plain to be seen that they cannot all pick up serpents and drink poison without
harm. Charismatics
cannot do it either.
It does not state that the charisms will last until the end of time.
The canon of the Bible is the official
list of books believed to be authored ultimately by God. Many orthodox preachers deny that
Mark 16:9-20 which is where the promises occur belongs in the canon thinking
that it is a heretical forgery. If it
was, then it was written by one who hoped that people would read the absurdity
of it and go off Jesus. It may not have
originally been part of the gospel. Many
ancient manuscripts don’t know of it.
The Codex Sinaiticus and the Codex Vaticanus don’t have it.
It seems that Mark ends abruptly at 16:8.
In John
Jesus allegedly promised his
Church that the Holy Spirit would be with his Church forever and lead it into
all truth (John
Being indwelled by the Spirit
does not mean you are a miracle working Charismatic. When Paul recorded that some Charismatics can do things like speak messages from God or
heal unlike others he showed that you can have the Spirit but no charisms (1 Corinthians 12).
The Bible says that Jesus is
always the same (Hebrews 13:8) and Charismatic appeal to this teaching to argue
that if Jesus gave charisms once he does it
still. It just means that Jesus is the
same kind of good person not a person who stubbornly takes no account of
changing and even immoral attitudes. A good person has
to make changes for the best.
Nowhere in the Bible is there
proof that the charisms are still to be
practiced. To try and practice them is
to add to the Bible which is forbidden.
APOSTLE PAUL’S CHARISMATISM
The early Christian Church was into charisms,
miraculous powers, in a big way (Acts 2, 8).
Paul recommends and praises the charisms in 1 Corinthians 12-14 and makes regulations about
them in chapter 14.
Now, a charism
might have a natural explanation and still be a charism
for religionists consider all things to be presents from God. But Paul probably regards his flock’s charisms as unnatural when he includes the working of
miracles as one of them. He says that
the least charism, tongues, speaking gibberish, can
be interpreted by an inspired person meaning that something supernatural is
happening so when that one is a miracle so are the better ones.
Paul needed to regulate the
charismatic activity to prevent chaos and confusion (1 Corinthians
Another proof is in Paul’s
statement that the spirit of one who speaks in tongues can be praying without
them knowing what they are praying about (1 Corinthians
The fundamentalist anti-Charismatics lie that these people were praying in real languages that they knew (page 18, Speaking in Tongues). This lie is told for an excuse to get speaking in tongues as it is practiced today seen as heresy. Modern Charismatics cannot speak in French unless they have learned French first. Many fundamentalist bodies don't like the free-spiritedness of charismatism. They see its ways and theology as a danger to fundamentalist power.
His benightedness
grows until he gets to
Paul’s Pentecostalism was
heretical for the Old Testament averred that God would only speak through
prophets who wouldn’t misrepresent anything he said or make mistakes. Read it in Deuteronomy 18. An honest God couldn’t do otherwise. But Paul’s charismatic prophets could issue
oracles that were not of divine origin (
Or does Deuteronomy refer to
prophets who give revelation that counts as scripture unlike the charismatics who only give revelations in support of
scripture? Paul means all prophets for it
does not specify one kind of prophet.
What use would charismatic prophets be if we could not listen to them
until we checked them if what they said was in the Bible? It would be better to read the Bible
ourselves in the first place. The
testing standard used then was the Old Testament. It was not easy to derive Christian doctrine
from it so there would have been little or no testing of the prophets. And it is certainly true that Jesus was not
foreseen in the Old Testament and that the idea that it contains the gospel is wrong which was
another complication. It is most
probable that Paul never insisted that the message must be checked alongside
the Old Testament. This means that all
earliest Christianity had to spiritually live on was posthumous revelation from
the enigmatic risen Christ whom they had never seen.
The Charismatics
who admit they are not infallible when they get their revelations are
heretics. They pay lip-service to the
Old Testament as the word of God. Jesus
would have been a fraud if he wanted a
Paul knew that many who listened
to the prophets would have had no way of being sure that what they revealed was
already in the standard revelation they were obliged to accept that is in the
Bible. They could not use the measuring
standard well. If a prophet told them
that Jesus was born of a virgin and they couldn’t prove that it belonged to the
infallible standard then that prophet was the same to them as the prophet who
writes in the Bible who received the news from God that Jesus came from a
virgin and that this version of his origin must be believed.
Paul’s approval for the charisms
despite their errors implies that miracles justify no religious doctrine and
that God is often untruthful all of which proves that his religion was one of
blind faith though he despised blind faith when he condemned blind belief of
various kinds. Blind faith is a great
evil and a threat to all that is noble.
If God is good and is truth then the Devil was behind the outbreak of
Christianity and its charisms.
The Corinthians prophets even
tried to block others prophesying by prophesying themselves. It is an error to tread on the toes of
another prophet by prophesying too much so that that he or she cannot get their
tongue in edgeways. God must be making errors
then despite being all-powerful and all-knowing! Or you might want to say
the conflicts are indicating
that God does not approve of the prophets who have a message from God and can't
get a chance to say he for he would not be preventing them if he did
approve.
Paul ruled, “If an inspired
revelation comes to another who is sitting by, then let the first one be
silent” (1 Corinthians
Paul reminded his followers that
the spirits of the prophets among them were under their own control (
The Charismatic activity that got
Paul’s sanction was a hoax – sometimes wilful and sometimes brought on by
religious madness or hysteria.
REASON VERSUS CHARISMATICS
The charisms must be hoaxes when they endorse
false doctrine. Christianity is a
religion that cannot be true and has no credible evidence for the resurrection
of Jesus which is its foundation and yet the religion is supported by charisms.
Or are the charisms
real but given to their practitioners by Satan the Devil? One might think, “The Devil would not be
stupid enough to grant charisms which mimic the holy
ones to Charismatics in heretical groups to promote
error if they have enough of the truth to being their members to salvation.
That would really be shooting himself in the foot for
God will be able to defeat his plan. Satan's
aim is to bring them down to Hell forever for any other aim is not worth the
trouble. If an organisation that teaches
a sufficient amount of the truth has charismatic powers and is heretical then
it is certainly faking them. But if the
miracles are real and the religion cannot be true then it is a mistake to hold
that it can have saving power. Anyone
who belongs to it will be damned in Hell forever if there is a Hell.” But evil can thrive so Satan will get
something out of it even if he will be defeated big time.
The Bible says God does miracles
to show what religion has the truth (1 Corinthians
The Charismatics
are very ecumenical. Protestants and
Catholic Pentecostals join together in an hour or two of what outsiders see as
screeching and babbling nonsense and receiving childish messages from God. Other Pentecostals who teach that the true
religion should be separate from false religions are infuriated by all this.
Pentecostal ecumenism logically
makes one religion as good as another and error is as good as truth. The Bible God detests this activity for he claims
to be the truth and to be jealous. God
would not encourage it by giving people of different religions the same gifts
when they get together for their meetings.
THE ABOLITION OF THE CHARISMS
The only place where the Bible says anything about the charismata being
taken away is in 1 Corinthians 13.
Paul writes in it that, “Love never fails [never fades out or becomes obsolete or comes to an end]. As for prophecy (the gift of interfering the divine will or purpose), it will be fulfilled and pass away; as for tongues, they will be destroyed and cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away [it will lose its value and be superseded by truth]. For our knowledge is fragmentary (incomplete and imperfect), and our prophecy (our teaching) is fragmentary. But when the complete and the perfect (total) comes, the incomplete and imperfect will vanish away (become antiquated, void, and superseded).” The perfect is not full union and knowledge of God in Heaven so perhaps it means the Christian scriptures being completed. The New Testament never promises any new prophet or pope or infallible Church but promises, by implication, new Christian scripture that will some day be finished and closed. The completion of the New Testament, in other words, with the book of Revelation. Paul uses the word teleios for perfect which he used to mean the perfect communion with God that will take place after the end of the world but it cannot mean that here. In Heaven and with God you would have to have all the charisms to make the union with him possible. But he said they would pass away to allow the perfect to happen. Paul saw salvation in terms of union with God.
When even Paul stated
that divine revelation is hard to grasp the way God wants, it follows that when
he reported seeing the risen Jesus that he could be saying that Jesus rose but his interpretation of what the resurrection was
could be wrong. Language could be too
crude to express the reality. It advises
anybody who says the tomb was empty and Jesus raised his whole body up to be
careful for nothing is exactly as it looks.
Paul’s statement undermines the evidence Christians offer for Jesus and
therefore the ability of Jesus to give charismatic gifts that are, in truth,
supernatural.
The Charismatic interpretation
of what Paul wrote has the charisms lasting, at least in potentiality if
not actuality, until the next age: the Heavenly age which they say is the
perfect he means. But the Bible denies this stating that the charisms are “the mighty powers of the age and the world to
come” (Hebrews 6:5). There will be more charisms
in Heaven than on earth. The next age is the age
in which all people will be safe in the world of Heaven. Paul believed the charisms
would end on earth permanently with the coming of the perfect and then after
that they would happen in Heaven.
It is significant that Hebrews
2:3,4 speaks of the Charismatic miracles as if they
are a thing of the past. It does not say
it is just about the apostles’ gifts either so all miracle-workers are meant
such as the man who was not a part of Jesus’ religious group who cast out
demons in Jesus’ name (Mark 9:38,39).
Some Charismatics
say that the reference to the charisms passing away
in 1 Corinthians 13 just means that the gifts will not be exercised for a long time for they were
ignored throughout most of Christian history not that they would be withdrawn.
Is this interpretation right?
It cannot be proved that Paul
meant that the gifts would simply fall into misuse. He says cease and not neglected. When he said that the charism
of love would never cease and the rest would, the charism
would lead to the other charisms if they were still
on offer. Paul said that speaking in
tongues would cease and the word he was used for ceased was pauo
which means stopping never to start up again and they will not stop until the
perfect comes. Millions of Christians
have always believed in divine guidance as in inspiration. If this guidance is from God and not their
imagination then Paul was wrong. But
perhaps the Christians were wrong for looking to an inner light instead of
letting God guide them through the authorised scriptures. The Bible promises that God does it that way
and Paul would not have intended to exclude that charism.
Since Paul told his flock not to
forbid tongue-speaking and prophecy (1 Corinthians
The Bible claims that the message
of Jesus was thoroughly confirmed by the signs and wonders of Jesus and the
apostles (Mark
When Paul wrote that the
apostates of the future would listen to seducing spirits it is most probable he
had false charismatics in mind (1
Timothy 4:1). To avoid being
seduced one would need to be supervised by the apostles or those who have been
designated by the apostles. No
supervisor can qualify today for the apostles are gone.
According to the Bible, the
charismata no longer exist.
By the time of Irenaeus there was only one person saying that charismata
still existed in the Church and that was Irenaeus
himself and he was only reporting what others were saying about these miracles
(page 11, Counterfeit Miracles).
The powers had gone by then. When
the early Church departed from them so easily – even if the godly gifts were
abolished there were natural and satanic counterfeits that would have been
retained - what else did it part from?
There is no evidence that the powers continued after the apostles (page
29). St John Chrysostom
declared that there were no miracles in his day (page 47). Augustine reported miracles but he was a
crank who believed in predestination and even that peacock’s flesh was
incorruptible and would never decay and claimed to have seen this with his own
eyes (page 77). When he could not see
what was real with his own eyes how could he be trusted in relation to what
anybody else saw?
Medjugorje is a place where there have been apparitions of the Virgin Mary reported
since 1981. With some – not all - experts saying Medjugorje really is a place of miracles and the Bible opposing
this Virgin’s support and endorsement for the Charismatic Movement, it is clear
that if there is anything happening there then some opponent of the God of
Jesus Christ is behind it. It reflects
badly on the charismatics if their gifts cannot make
them perceive who this lady really is.
NEED TO RECEIVE
POWERS VIA APOSTLES
The Bible never says that there is any other way to receive the charisms of speaking in tongues and doing miracles except
through the laying on of hands by the apostles.
In Acts 8, we read that the Samaritans had to do without the gifts until
the apostles laid hands on them. Simon
Magus sees the miraculous results at the apostles’ hands though he was a
Christian for a while himself meaning that he saw nobody else doing it. So in all probability nobody else could
really do it. And this is proven by the
fact that Acts details that they did everybody one by one rather than getting
the people who received the power to pass it on themselves to save time. Then Simon goes and offers Peter money to
acquire the power to give the gifts by laying his hands on people. The fact that Simon Magus had formerly been
popularly regarded as the power of God and a powerful miracle-worker (which the
Bible attributes to magic and occultism thus giving what must have been tricks
a supernatural status) before his conversion which shows what kind of innocent
and naïve and gullible mentality existed in those days among the people of
Jesus. We don’t have anybody like that
now! That Simon had any money to offer
is strange since the Bible says the apostles insisted on a communistic system
in which nobody owned anything. The
apostles must have given him special treatment and let him be exempt because he
would not have let them know he had money otherwise. Then he is severely reprimanded. So since the apostles are not around anymore
nobody can have charismatic powers that are really from God.
Some object, "Nobody laid hands on the apostles. The apostles received the Charismatic powers at Pentecost when the Spirit came down on them. God can give the charismatic gifts without requiring you to receive them through an apostle laying hands on you. God was not strict about the laying on of hands being the method of transmission."
This is the reply. The apostles may have received the Holy Spirit by him directly descending upon them. But that doesn't mean that the laying on of hands on people to give them the charismatic gifts of the Holy Spirit may not be confined to the apostles alone. The apostles received the Holy Spirit and the charismatic powers in a very obviously supernatural way that day. Acts says that only the apostles were able to speak in tongues that day. Laying on of hands is only a method of transmission but God worked the same effect through sending the Holy Spirit on the apostles. There was nobody to lay hands on them. If laying hands is the only method then God had to make an exception for there was nobody to do it. The exception proves the rule. The way the Holy Spirit came down first does not imply anything about how the Spirit's powers should be transmitted. The spirit can only be transmitted to give magic powers through the authorised divine channels who have to lay hands to transmit it. Nothing in the Bible conflicts with this interpretation.
None of the verses that speak of the Holy Spirit being received by faith say that we can receive the charisms that same way.
Jesus in Mark 16 where he promises gifts to
believers does not say they will last forever.
The fact that no charismatic can drink poison these days and go on as if
nothing has happened which is one of the gifts it promises proves that they
were temporary. James 5 which says that
the sick man will be raised up by anointing with oil says nothing about
curing. Raised
up means spiritually healed. The pastors
were to heal the sick spiritually by praying for them and not physically. And even if it were physical the shall be raised up promise means only if it is God’s
will. The Bible says the charisms were granted to confirm the message of the
apostles and show that it was from God (Mark
The New Testament book of Acts speaks of the apostles curing everybody who came to them. Yet we read later that Paul complains of sickness and advises Timothy to take a little wine to help his stomach! This supports the belief of many that the apostles had powers to heal only to get attention drawn to the gospel and to help them establish Christianity firmly. Later these powers faded and disappeared altogether.
The Christians cannot claim to
have Pentecostal powers when the Bible does not confirm it. They are adding to the Bible.
The lowest charism
which is speaking in tongues is abolished according to tradition. St John Chrysostom
said that the gift of tongues was no longer around in his day.
CONCLUSION
Charismatics and Pentecostals are deluding themselves are are playing ouija board but with their brains and hearts and certainly not with their logic!
WORKS CONSULTED
BIBLICAL EXEGESIS AND CHURCH DOCTRINE, Raymond E Brown, Paulist Press,
CHARISMATIC CHAOS, John F MacArthur, Zondervan,
CHARTING A COURSE THROUGH CHARISMATIC WATERS, Cecil Andrews, Take Heed
Publications,
CHRISTIANITY IN CRISIS, Hank Hanegraaff,
Harvest House Publishers,
COUNTERFEIT MIRACLES, BB Warfield, The Banner of
Truth Trust,
FOUR GREAT HERESIES, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord,
LOOKING FOR A MIRACLE, Joe Nickell, Prometheus
Books,
NO LAUGHING MATTER,
SPEAKING IN TONGUES, John R Rice, Sword of the Lord,
THE CHARISMATIC CHALLENGE Seamus Milligan, Evangelical Protestant
Society,
THE HOLY SPIRIT TODAY,
THE
BIBLE VERSION USED
The Amplified Bible
28/09/2008