The Highway Forums General Discussion Open Forum Are Charismatics Christians?

There is little doubt that what you were taught was inconsistent with what was practiced. To affirm the validity of the ecstatic (revelatory) gifts is to deny a closed Canon. This is something which Charismatics/Pentecostals cannot defend against and one of the stronger arguments against their view(s). Since the alleged "tongues" and "prophecies" come via a direct communication of the Holy Spirit, then this is therefore new revelation and inherently inerrant and infallible. Wayne Grudem has been challenged on this point by Richard Gaffin and has failed miserably to try and defend his view.

Over 30 years ago, when the Charismatic phenomena came sweeping through New England, where I was living at the time, we had a couple of women who claimed the Holy Spirit "revealed" things to them, which they wrote down. Because of the source of these "messages", they were given much attention and considered to be authoritative. I was but an infant Christian, but it was the Holy Spirit Who opened the written Word of God to me which taught such things were not of God and to summarily reject them. Funny how God the Spirit can speak out of both sides of His mouth, isn't it? On the one hand, the inspired, infallible, and inerrant written Word can teach one thing and on the other, allegedly "speak" to people things which are contrary to what He inspired to have written.

1 John 4:1 (KJV) "Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world."

In His Grace,