Hermeneutical Guidelines for thinking about Charismatic Revival Theology

As you can tell by now, I have been ploughing through Thiselton’s The Hermeneutics of Doctrine (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007) and posting on any gems I can find. In his chapter on the Holy Spirit, Thiselton explores and advocates that our understanding and communication of the doctrine of the Holy Spirit should derive primarily from Old Testament traditions, which become modified in the light of Christological, corporate, and eschatological horizons in the New Testament (p.416). The Old Testament Scriptures portray the work of God’s Spirit or breath as one of empowering individuals for special (and often salvific) tasks; and towards the later portion of the OT comes to be a marker of the eschatological age where the Spirit is shown as a communal gift for empowerment for transformation and renewed life. This gets carried forward into the NT, but with ‘Christological and eschatological extensions and qualifications’ (p.419). Thiselton’s one statement sums it up well: “The anointing by the Holy Spirit that becomes the gift of all Christians corporately is derived from the Christological anointing of Christ by the Spirit to bring in the reign of God.” (p.419). Thiselton then traces the thinking of the church fathers on this matter and shows how their thinking conforms and in fact develops the NT teaching into a stable doctrinal tradition. This tradition is then “challenged” by Pentecostalism and the Charismatic Revival (he does an excellent job in summarising the history of the charismatic movement including the three ‘waves’ of it from p.436-440). The main “challenge” is that the movement raises new questions which bring new horizons to our understanding of the doctrine.

Rather than providing simplistic answers, Thiselton carefully engages these new horizons with the ‘older’ established horizons. The result is a list of excellent hermeneutical guidelines for thinking about the charismatic revival theology (p.442-444).

1) An emphasis upon the ministry of the Holy Spirit reflects NT and Christian doctrine, provided that it is not abstracted and isolated from its Trinitarian frame. This is the firm and stable tradition which the church fathers have placed us on – they spoke of the Holy Spirit from a Christological and Trinitarian context. In this regard, Thiselton suggest that perhaps we should speak of Trinitarian renewal rather than Spirit renewal.

2) We have to be careful that our experience of vitality, dynamism, power and energy associated very often with charismatic revival theology does not lead to a loss of the dimension of pilgrimage, waiting, and self-discipline. To fall into this danger would be to compromise on the horizon of eschatology by relegating things to an over-realised eschatology.

3) Likewise, the delight that arises from an intimate and personal relationship with God through Jesus Christ in the Holy Spirit should not lead to an inward-looking pietistic individualism but to a shared concern for the church and for the well-being of society and the world.

4) The experience of newness of life, an awareness of the present and future, of surprise and creative novelty often expressed in a moment-by-moment “walking in the Spirit” must not lead to a disregard of tradition and history – The Holy Spirit acts in continuity with his own past work in earlier centuries.

5) The Holy Spirit renews the whole person. This includes the mind (which tends to be downplayed in charismatic renewal) as well as the emotions and bodily action (which tends to be overemphasised). Charismatic Revival must not lead to a mood of anti-intellectualism.

6) Healing happens “when and where God wills it.” Thiselton questions whether the terminology of the “miraculous” is the most accurate way of conveying God’s almighty sovereignty to act in or through causal processes or otherwise, as God chooses. He states this further: “Too weak an emphasis upon healing diminishes trust in the sovereignty of God; too strong an emphasis upon healing increases the anguish of the problem of evil and suffering for those (and their loved ones) who do not receive healing by other than medical means” (p.443), and can I add, who may not even receive healing in the end.

7) There is a need to distinguish between using a term like “baptism in the Spirit” on an exegetical basis to describe the authenticity of the experience denoted by that term. As Thiselton states: “it would be presumptuous to deny that sometimes Christian believers “catch up” on an experience of Pentecostal power and holiness at a stage subsequent to their initial coming to faith. But if the term “baptism of the Spirit” is used to describe this, this is not Paul’s use of the term. Such a claim would entail a misleading hermeneutic, based on a mistaken exegesis.” (p.444)

Thiselton ends off his whole chapter with this deep hermeneutical paradox – the more we engage with signs of the Holy Spirit, the more we risk losing the very goal of the Spirit’s work, namely to illuminate Christ, the cross, and the future resurrection as the heart of the gospel (p.450).

Excellent hermeneutical guidelines for us to evaluate Charismatic Revival theology, not only as a whole movement, but also as individuals who may have had varying points of contact with it!