Charismatic gifts

01
Jun
2026

Introduction to Healing

 For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. (I Cor 15:53)

I have begun to discuss some preliminary matters related to the charismatic gifts. I now intend to delve into a discussion of individual charismatic gifts. The first two will be healing and miracles, and I will take them together. But before I discuss healing specifically, I want to give Biblical background on healing in general. I hope this background will help you avoid some common misunderstandings of Biblical healing.

The Christian faith certainly involves spiritual matters.  One cannot deal with God without getting spiritual, for God is spirit (Jn 4:24).  But throughout history, the Christian faith has also been emphatically material.  One cannot wholly deal with human beings without being so, for no matter where we go, all the humans we encounter have bodies.  Thus, any practical religion will at some point talk on the physical level.  To fail to do so is to fail to deal with real life. 

Now when the Christian faith talks about the human body, it does so quite positively.  The body was God’s idea, not ours.  He cares so much for the body that he issues commands like “rest it” and “don’t kill it” and “don’t defile it.”  He tells us that our body is a member of Christ Himself and the temple of His Spirit (I Cor 6:15, 19).  And Scripture is clear that when we die and are free from our current bodies, we shall inherit new ones (I Cor 15).  The Christian faith is a religion for the body and quite heartily parts ways with religions like Christian Science and Buddhism, which claim that ultimacy is to be found only when we realize freedom from the body.  For Christianity says that when we humans are as good as we are going to get, we shall have bodies.  The Christian faith would outright deny the notion that a person becomes more spiritual by becoming less physical.  Indeed, perhaps one could say that a person cares even more about the physical as he becomes more spiritual.  The more clearly we see God, the more clearly we see humans.  This, then, is the first thing I wish to say about healing:  the Christian faith is unabashedly pro-body.

But the Christian faith also plainly recognizes that the body is corrupt.  It is good but it is tainted.  It is a good thing diseased.  The flesh is weak.  When the human race fell, the body fell with it.  It is not merely intangible souls and spirits but all of creation that was “subjected to frustration” and that needs to “be liberated from its bondage to decay” (Rm 8:20-1).  Humans are holistic creatures.  Bodily desires can corrupt the soul that enthrones them, but decisions of the soul can equally enslave the body.  Ask an alcoholic.  Scripture may talk of the body and soul as different entities (e.g. Mt 10:28), but they are not entirely separate entities.  The corruption of the soul has brought about the corruption of the body.  There is a link between sin and death (Gen 2:16-17; Rm 6:23).  Every funeral is a heavenly statement that God will not allow sin to last and that sin will bring us only to ruin.  It is an earthly reminder of the ultimate futility of self.  God never intended something eternal to spring from something sinful. 

Thus, the curse of the fall has brought death, but it has brought more than death, for death has her partners.  Pain, toil, disease, decay are all part of the package (Gen 3:16-19; Rm 8:20-1).  The fall did not take a healthy creation and kill it off in full bloom.  Instead, it took a healthy creation and made it sick.  The world we now see and know is not the world that was meant to be.  When sin was introduced into the universe, the chemistry was altered, a rod was thrown into the cogs, a virus infected the whole body.  Everything went sour.  The universe ceased to operate as intended.  It is now dysfunctional, diseased.  And with the grand dysfunction of the universe came the common dysfunction of the body.  Pain and sickness are as much a result of sin as death is.  They are God’s little reminders of our mortality.  They are subtle foreshadows of what is yet to come.  The flu is nothing more than death in an embryonic stage.

Now when I say that sickness and death are all a result of sin, I am not necessarily saying that Mrs. Conkwell’s rheumatism is a result of some dastardly deed she did in her past.  There can be a direct link between a specific sin and a specific malady as can exist between, say, adultery and syphilis.  But there need not be.  A blind man is not necessarily blind because of his sin (John 9), and a little girl can contract AIDS through no fault of her own.  The relationship that exists between sin and disease is not so much with sins specifically as with sin broadly.  Righteous men suffer (like Job) and wicked men can prosper into old age.  But all people at some point, wicked or righteous, experience the pains of the human condition.  And the human condition is what it is because of sin.

So then, sin has infected the universe like a virus and has brought with it certain natural symptoms.  Among these are pain, disease and death. 

But God is about the business of healing.  He is the great physician.  Now in order for any real healing to occur, the physician must treat not merely the symptoms but the source.  We do not really heal Mr. Rodriguez’ cancer by giving him pain medication.  We must actually remove the tumor.  And such is what God has done with the human race.  His solution to the human condition has been to remove the root cause of our problems.  He has not made us comfortable in our sinful state (that would do no good) but has chosen instead to crucify it.  God has overcome death by overcoming sin; He has crushed pain and disease and decay by crushing sin; He has vanquished the curse by vanquishing sin. 

The cross is God’s remedy for the problems of the human condition.  It is the grand cure.  It is on the cross that sin is destroyed; and because sin is destroyed, all of the symptoms sin brings are destroyed.  The soul was redeemed, death died, and the body was restored on the cross.  The power for the healing of the body is now ours in Christ because the destruction of sin is now ours in Christ.  On the cross Christ bore our sins, but in bearing our sins He also “took up our infirmities and bore our diseases” (Is 53:4; Mt 8:17).  Redemption is for the body as well as for the soul; health is holistic.

The ultimate fulfillment of the healing of the body, of course, shall occur in glory, for then there shall be no pain or sorrow, no sickness or death.  The body will once again be at least what it was before the fall.  But there is also a healing here and now that is ours in Christ.  The church practices this healing in Acts, Paul speaks of present spiritual gifts of healing in the church (I Cor 12:9, 28), James tells the sick man to call the elders to pray and anoint him in the name of the Lord.  All of these are examples of a bodily healing that is available in Christ to the Christian here and now.  The physical healing of the earthly body is a gracious earnest of the complete healing and restoration that shall occur in glory.

As Christians, we apply the earnest by faith.  All through the gospels Jesus says, “Your faith has made you well.”  James says that it is the “prayer offered in faith” that will make the sick person well.  There is a connection between faith and healing.  Faith is how we appropriate the power of God.  We will not experience God’s healing if we do not believe God heals.  Therefore, because of the work of Jesus Christ, every believer has the right to request of God physical healing, and not only to request it but also to believe it.

And yet this does not mean that God heals every time.  Sometimes we can ask for the wrong reasons (Jas 4:3), sometimes we can ask without faith (Mt 17:14-20), sometimes God has a greater purpose in view, and sometimes we may have no idea why God does not heal.  God is God; He has the right to say “no” (II Cor 12:7-9) and is under no obligation to tell us why.

We, thus, need to understand both sides of this balance.  Healing is a gift given us in Christ.  We can pray with a right heart expecting God to heal, but we can never be sovereign.  We must always understand that God reserves the final say for Himself.

People err on one or the other side of this balance. Name-it-claim-it, prosperity gospel healers err by saying God heals every time and by having God and man switch places. Man becomes the master, and God must jump at man’s behest. Cessationists err by denying the full work of the Cross for today. God still heals. But He is not your servant boy. And sometimes He sovereignly chooses not to heal. When that happens, His grace is sufficient for you.

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12
May
2026

An Interpretive Help for Understanding the Charismatic Gifts

In my last blog I talked about the legitimacy of the charismatic gifts as well as some false doctrines surrounding those gifts.  Here I want to focus on the Biblical interpretation that brings about many of those false doctrines. 

Generally speaking,  when people believe a false doctrine about charismatic gifts, they do so on the basis of how they view the relationship between the Acts narratives and Paul’s explanations in I Corinthians.  In my experience, people who say that tongues are required for salvation, for the filling of the Spirit, or for a higher level of spirituality all believe that Acts and I Corinthians refer to the same phenomenon and that Acts gets priority.  Of course, my experience is a limited sample, but that is my experience.

So let’s talk about Acts and I Corinthians.  And let’s begin with some either/or thinking.  Acts and I Corinthians either refer to the same phenomenon or they don’t.  If they do refer to the same phenomenon, they do so with different approaches and genres.  Acts gives us descriptive narrative, and I Corinthians gives us explanation and command. 

Narrative tells us what happened at that time.  It does not necessarily tell us what should happen all the time.  Explanation and command, however, are designed intentionally to tell us how things work in general and how we ought to think and live.  Thus, if Acts and I Corinthians refer to the same phenomenon, then we ought to give priority to I Corinthians concerning how to think and live regarding charismatic gifts.  That is not to knock Acts.  It is the inspired Word of God.  But it is focused on what happened; I Corinthians, however, is focused on what should happen.  It is often tricky to get commands out of narrative, but it is not so tricky to get commands out of commands.

But I do not think that Acts and I Corinthians refer to the same phenomenon.  The reason people think they do is that the two books use similar nomenclature – baptism in the Spirit, speaking in tongues.  But the same word or phrase can have different meanings in different contexts.  That is a basic principle of language, and it is often an exegetical fallacy (to borrow Carson’s term) to read the same meaning into the same word or phrase in a different context.  Examples of this from the English language are legion.  In Scripture, the following words have different meanings in different contexts:  flesh, love, wisdom, world, judge, jealous, breath, know, drink, man.  I could go on, but you get the point.  What this means is that if you look only at the words themselves and not at the context, you are being irresponsible in how you handle the Bible.

To me, it is obvious that Acts and I Corinthians do not have the same contexts, and I do not think that claim is debatable.[1]  I Corinthians addresses an ongoing spiritual gift that one uses to build up the body of Christ.  It is a gift that not all who are baptized in the Spirit taste (I Cor 12:13; 27-31), and the use of the gift is within the context of the public worship service or assembly of believers and requires an interpreter.

Acts, however, gives no evidence of an ongoing spiritual gift to be used in public worship, and there is no mention of the need for an interpreter.  Instead, Acts relates one-time events in which the Spirit comes to a particular people — Jews (Acts 2), Samaritans (Acts 8:14-17), Gentiles (Acts 10:44-6), those who had been baptized in John’s baptism (Acts 19:2-6).  In addition, in Acts tongues are the sign of the baptism in the Spirit. 

The doctrinal problems ensue when people read Acts into I Corinthians.  Instead, they need to let Acts be Acts and I Corinthians I Corinthians.  The two books refer to different phenomena.  Acts is a narrative describing a special time in which God sent a specific sign when the gospel advanced to a new people group.  That sign was not a spiritual gift in the same sense as that which Paul describes.  I Corinthians discusses various spiritual gifts God gives for the purpose of building up the church — wisdom, knowledge, prophecy, teaching, helping, administration.  In I Corinthians, tongues is one among many such gifts, and the context is a plurality of gifts.  In Acts, tongues is not one among many gifts.  It is the sign of the Spirit. 

Thus, if Acts and I Corinthians do refer to the same phenomenon, we need to give priority to I Corinthians because its genre is actually intended to tell us how to practice the gifts.  If Acts and I Corinthians do not refer to the same phenomenon, we need to not read Acts into I Corinthians.  This approach will help resolve exegetical issues, like “are all believers baptized in the Spirit?” and it will resolve false doctrines like “one must speak in tongues to be baptized in the Spirit.”

Sometimes all we need is to approach Scripture with the Spirit of God and a commonsense sophistication that we would use to approach any other piece of literature. 

[1] I’m sure there will be people who will debate this nonetheless; there are people who deny the Holocaust.

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16
Apr
2026

The Charismatic Gifts

We are in the middle of a series on spiritual gifts. I have now discussed the major noncharismatic gifts the Bible mentions. But before I discuss the charismatic gifts individually, I want to talk about my approach to them generally. Since in Scripture, tongues gets most of the press, it will get most of the press here as well, but I do intend this discussion to apply more broadly than just to tongues.

When I was a young believer, I attended a charismatic church for a time.  I did not myself speak in tongues, so one day two men, concerned that I did not speak in tongues, visited me in my apartment for the purpose of getting me to speak in tongues.  To them, this was a vital spiritual issue, for they believed that the fulness of the Spirit (the baptism of the Spirit) involved speaking in tongues, and if I did not speak in tongues, I must not be filled with the Spirit.  They then coached me through the process.

“Just start verbalizing syllables,” they said.  “The Spirit will work with you.”

So I did, and they were amazed that the Spirit had fallen on me.

“That was not the Spirit,” I said.  “That was just me mouthing nonsense.”  I could tell that the Spirit had not come in any special way.  I had known the Spirit’s special presence, and that afternoon was not His presence.

Nonetheless, they insisted I was wrong and that the Spirit had fallen on me that afternoon.  The evidence?  I had spoken mumbo jumbo syllables, so it must be the Spirit. 

Suffice it to say that I did not stay long at that church.

Now you would think that after such an experience, I would be quite skeptical about the charismatic gifts, that I would consider modern manifestations of tongues to be phony.

To be sure, the manifestation of tongues I experienced that afternoon was phony.  To be sure, many manifestations of tongues and many theologies surrounding the charismatic gifts today are phony.  But the presence of false tongues does not negate the reality of true tongues, and the presence of an unBiblical theology and emphasis on charismatic gifts does not negate the reality of a Biblical one.

I have not personally spoken in tongues, but I honor Scripture, and because I honor Scripture, I believe in the reality of the charismatic gifts for today.

But because I believe in the reality of the charismatic gifts for today does not mean I endorse every theology of such gifts.  There is a lot of whacked out theology surrounding the charismatic gifts today.  This fact should not surprise us, for there was a lot of whacked out theology surrounding charismatic gifts in Paul’s day.  In fact, the only discussion in the New Testament of how such gifts should operate is in I Corinthians and consists of a correction of wrong practice.[1]

Therefore, the charismatic gifts are valid for today but not all theologies and practices of those gifts are valid. 

Let me discuss both sides of that coin.  First, the charismatic gifts are valid for today.

Some people, called cessationists, argue that the charismatic gifts were valid in Paul’s day but that they have ceased.  They appeal to I Cor 13:8-10, which says,

            As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as

            for knowledge it will pass away.  For we know in part and we prophecy in

            part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

They then claim that the perfect that was to come is the New Testament, and that now that we have the New Testament, we no longer need prophecies, tongues, and miracles. 

I shall not spend much time on this idea, but I find it highly strained.  First, to say that Paul had in mind a coming New Testament canon when he wrote I Corinthians is unlikely.  Second, one of the gifts that Paul says passes away is knowledge, and cessationists don’t usually include that in their list of gifts that ceased.  Third, the cessationists stop their quote too soon.  If you read on, you find that when the perfect comes, we shall see face to face and we shall know fully (v. 12).  We do not today see face to face or know fully.  Those events lie in the future.  Therefore, the perfect that Paul refers to is not the New Testament.  The perfect fits better with the return of Christ and/or Millenial reign, or perhaps even the final glorious state.  Those events make sense of the entire passage and not just one verse.  When that future time comes, prophecies will pass away and tongues will cease.

Thus, I find that the most natural way to read I Corinthians has the charismatic gifts still around today.

But that doesn’t mean that all theologies surrounding such gifts are Biblical.  Here are some examples.  These are all false doctrines.

1.  Some people tie salvation and tongues together and say you are not saved unless you speak in tongues.  This is heresy.  Fortunately, it is not as common as it used to be.  Tongues are not the sign of salvation.  If you ever encounter a church that teaches this idea, leave.  Now.  Don’t even wait for the end of the message.  Get up and walk out.

2.  Some people admit that you can be saved and not have tongues but insist that you cannot have the fulness or baptism of the Spirit unless you have tongues.  This was the theology of the church I attended for a short time many years ago, and this theology is garbage.  Paul, in I Corinthians is crystal clear that the Holy Spirit gives gifts to believers and that not all receive the gift of tongues (12:27-31).  He is also clear that some gifts are higher and more desirable than tongues (12:31; 14:1-25).  If the fulness of the Spirit comes only with tongues, then it must be the most important gift by far.  But it is not.  You can have the fulness of the Spirit without tongues.

3.  Some admit that you can have the fulness of the Spirit without tongues but that tongues still represent a higher level of spirituality or closeness with God.  This is nonsense.  In Paul’s discussion of spiritual gifts, the people whom Paul corrects the most for their immaturity are the people who speak in tongues or consider tongues to be higher.  In fact, you could make a strong case that one of Paul’s themes in his discussion is that all the gifts are valid and none of the gifts indicates special spirituality.  Paul says that true spiritual maturity is measured by love, not by the gifts (I Cor 13).  People who speak in tongues do not have a higher level of spirituality. 

I will talk about the proper practice of these charismatic gifts (and especially tongues) when I get to those individual gifts, but for now, I felt it necessary to at least address some macro issues surrounding the charismatic gifts in general. 

Such gifts are still valid today, but they can be misused.  But isn’t that true of all the gifts? 

[1] I am not convinced that Acts speaks of the same phenomenon as I Corinthians, and even if it does, I do not see the Acts descriptions as discussions of how the gifts should operate. 

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