[I have taken the liberty to post the following transcript of a Grace to You broadcast from John MacArthur. You can read it on the original website at http://www.biblebb.com/files/macqa/70-22-2.htm. Postscript: I should add that my opinion of MacArthur has changed significantly since I posted this article. MacArthur's views on Lordship Salvation confuses sanctification with justification and implies sinless perfection. (See: The Gospel According to John MacArthur). Therefore, I have to put MacArthur himself in the heresy corner. That does not discredit what he has to say below about the errors of the Pentecostal/Charismatic Movement. Charlie, 8/14/2011].
"And they have created a fertile ground now for an all out assault on God, which is coming from some pretty heady places--the parade is being led by Christianity Today, a magazine, which finds a very open climate to question God. The new view of God is: God is not sovereign; God not only doesn't determine the future, He doesn't even know what it is; that God is about as clear about the future as you are. He has about as much control over it as you do. This is the redefinition of God!"
John MacArthur
The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-22, titled "Questions and Answers--Part 50." A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. Copyright 2001 by John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.
Question
I read an article in a "big city" newspaper, on the Pentecostal movement and I am still puzzled. These people, true believers, and if they are true believers, what are they doing in this movement: "Heal me right away or maybe I'll walk away from Jesus Christ." Can you shed some light on that?
Answer
You are opening up a huge issue here of the Pentecostal Movement. The Pentecostal Movement, as a movement, defined by its unique characteristics, is not Biblical. Now, understand what I am saying. I am not saying that all the people in it are not Christians, some of them are, but those things that define the Pentecostal Movement are not Biblical. It is not Biblical to say, that speaking in tongues is a sign of receiving the Holy Spirit, and if you haven't spoken in tongues you haven't received the Holy Spirit--that is not Biblical. It is not even Biblical to encourage people to speak in tongues, as if that in itself, was some spiritual gift that everybody had to have. It is not Biblical to believe that God is going to heal you. It is not Biblical to believe that some people have the power to heal and can go into great places and knock people over, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and that they wield this great supernatural power.
So, what I am saying is: the defining characteristics that label Pentecostalism "Pentecostalism" as apart from general Orthodox Christianity, are not Biblical. So the movement is defined by things that aren't Biblical. If you, for example, compared it to the Reformed Movement. What distinguishes Reformed Theology is an accurate theology; it goes back to the Reformation and it's based on an accurate understanding of theology. What distinguishes Pentecostalism is an inaccurate, wrong interpretation of Scripture, and all the distinctives are not accurately interpreted from Scripture. So you have a movement defined unbiblically. At the heart of it, I think, there are masses of people who are unconverted--unconverted--who couldn't explain the gospel, the way you heard it explained tonight. They could say that Jesus died for their sins and rose again, but they have no idea just exactly how God used the death of Christ to satisfy His justice and grant righteousness to those who believe. They do not understand anything more than a very shallow and thin grasp of the gospel.
Many of them (and this has been reiterated to me by people who have come to our church, from other large Pentecostal churches in the area) live under a strange and bizarre doctrine that they never articulate, but it is definitive in the movement, and it is the doctrine of the "Sovereignty of Satan." It is inherent, at least to contemporary "Charismania"...Pentecostalism, by the definition of the current Charismatic Movement, and the Pentecostals and the Charismatics are so blended now, you can't separate them...but, it is inimical to that system to believe that Satan is sovereign--not God. God would like people to be saved but He is not sovereign in salvation. God would like to keep people saved but He can't, so people can get unsaved on their own. God would like to solve the problems in the world but the devil keeps messing things up. People in that movement are taught that when you get sick: it's the devil. When your little baby gets sick: it's the devil. When you lose your job: it's the devil. When it's announced to you that you have heart disease or you have cancer, or you have some other problem; when one of your children goes astray, whatever it is: it's the devil. And so, you are living, literally, under the sovereignty of Satan in a mode of constant fear. That's one very unbiblical element of that, so you're always trying to "bind Satan;" you're always trying to cast out demons. God, in Pentecostalism becomes the victim. It is a strange kind of thing where there is this pervasive fear of Satan. Parents who can't sleep, who live with anxieties and fears that the devil is going to come in and make their baby sick at night. Or the devil is going to get in their house, and they have to pray the devil out, or the demons out of their house, or bind Satan some way. This is utterly unbiblical. We as believers have nothing to fear from Satan, in the ultimate sense. It is God Himself who has made the blind and the lame, it says in the Book of Exodus.
The enemy of God, who is Satan, is God's servant. I don't know if you have ever thought of it that way, but the devil is God's servant: he can only do what God allows him to do, and his borders and boundaries are established by a sovereign God. There are some people who came to our church from out of this kind of background, and they happened to come on a Sunday (I think), and when they heard me preach on the sovereignty of God, they said it was the most liberating thing they had ever heard--to find out the "God" was sovereign, that God was in charge, was totally opposite everything they had ever heard. Now that is an aberrant theology that says that.
Pentecostalism, also because of its belief that people today can have the same gifts that the Apostles have...Benny Hinn and whoever the "healers" are, he's sort of the prototypical healer today, it started out with A. A. Allen, and Oral Roberts, and down to Morris Cerullo, and on and on it goes...Jimmy Swaggart and Benny Hinn, and whoever it is. Benny Hinn is the latest edition of con men in that area. This idea, that they believe that these men can do what the Apostles did: they have the power to heal, the power to cast out disease...I heard Benny Hinn say, with my own ears, I heard it, "that if you have somebody in your family die. Leave their body in the living room, take their body over to the TV, drape their arms over the TV, because God is going use me to raise the dead through the television!" I can't think of a more insensitive thing for a man to do, than to have some poor bereaved person drag the corpse of their family member and drape them over the television, under some bizarre illusion that Benny Hinn is going to heal them through the TV set--it's cruel, is what it is! But that is only the extreme form of cruelty. There is a cruelty that goes along day after day, week after week, with this bizarre expectation of healing, and then this false staging of supposed healings, that continue to raise people's hopes, and all that does is create false hopes that are dashed to pieces. And much of the fallout of that movement is people who reject the gospel, reject Christ, because they didn't get what they were promised they would get.
As I said, the defining elements of the movement itself, what gives it its identity are unbiblical, and yet at the core there are many in the Pentecostal Movement who are Christians who understand the gospel. If you just took all the "Pentecostal stuff," the "Charismatic stuff" out, there would be a core understanding of the gospel there, so I believe that some of them are Christians. The Lord knows how many, but it is my own conviction, that the vast majority are not. And also, that those people who purvey and ply the trade, particularly in the media, know they are deceivers, and they are very effective at it--raising millions of dollars. One such preacher alone, T. D. Jakes, took in, personally, last year, 63 million dollars! They are trading on a certain desperation. That's why Jesus, when He sent out the Seventy, said, "go and heal, but take no money." If you can heal people--you can be instantly rich. People get instantly rich who can't heal, but pretend they can.
But at the heart of it, if you can just strip the trappings, there are some who know the gospel truth. So I guess I would say, somewhere in that movement there is a true body of believers, not to be confused with the Movement, which is full of schemers, and dreamers, and con men, and people with aberrant theology, and false teachers who take advantage of people. And then people in the middle: there's the serious, very serious errors of the Word-Faith Movement: Fred Price, Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, etcetera, Marilyn Hickey, Joyce Meyer, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, who have an aberrant view of the nature of Christ. They are the ones who say, that on the cross Jesus became a sinner, had to go to hell and suffer for His sins for three days, and then the Father let Him come out of hell, and that is when He was raised. They turned Jesus into a sinner who had to be punished for sin. This is a frightening view of Christ. Also, Kenneth Copeland is the one who said, "That Jesus wasn't any more God than he is!"
So you have aberrations all the way down the line. Of course, because the movement is defined by its experiences and its phenomena, they don't ever deal with the aberrations. Nobody polices the movement. You can turn on "Channel 40" [Southern California UHF TV Station], and you can see them...they will literally advocate anything! They would advocate absolutely anything. Anybody can come on there and say anything they want about God, anything they want about Christ, anything they want about the Holy Spirit, anything they want to say about the work of God, any interpretation of the Bible will stand. But what you can't do, is go on "Channel 40" and say somebody is wrong--that's intolerable! And so that's why in some of their books, they call me a "Heresy Hunter." There is one book that has a whole chapter on me as a "Heresy Hunter"--well, I am! And I thank them for the compliment! [Applause]. I don't have any axe to grind with those people, I just am committed to the truth, and I want to bring the truth to those people. It's really one of the wonderful realities that "Grace to You Radio" penetrates into those people, who don't come to this church, but they turn on the radio, and they get the books. The book, The Charismatics, that I wrote back in 1978, I think it was, later on we wrote a new one called Charismatic Chaos . Those books have had a great impact, and continue to have an impact on the hearts of people who are questioning the movement--they're in it, they are questioning the reality of it.
As a final thought, one of the give-a-ways that there is something seriously wrong with the movement is its breadth. It embraces anybody, and anything, and any view of anything that purports to be of God. If you just say, the Lord told you this, or the Lord told you that, or you had a vision, or you saw this, or you heard voices, or the angels told you--if you have the experience, you supposedly experienced some of this supernatural phenomena, it will embrace you. The movement will take you in no matter how bizarre your theology is.
I remember when Benny Hinn first wrote his first book, called Good Morning Holy Spirit (I think it was), and in the book, he had nine members of the Trinity. It's not even good English to have nine members of a Trinity! You can have a double-quartet plus one, but you can't have a Trinity with nine people--it's not a Trinity. But in the book, he had nine members of the Trinity. He had the Father having three parts (three persons), the Son having three persons, and the Holy Spirit having three persons, totaling nine. I said to the publisher, who was having lunch with me, wanting to sign me to a book contract. I said to him, "Why in the world did you publish that book?" "Why would you publish that?" And with a look of incredulity he said to me, "What do you mean? We publish everything!" He didn't even understand the question! It didn't even connect, for "What do you mean? We publish everything!" And I would say, that has been pretty much the reality with the Pentecostal Movement, there is just no borders, at all.
The way the "movement" has perpetuated itself--it's an infection in the Body of Christ that is spreading rapidly. It's a kind of "Spiritual AIDS." AIDS is a deficient immune system, and this kills the Church's immune system! The Pentecostal/Charismatic Movement kills the immune system, because it makes it a sin to question their theology. You see, the only way error can survive is if truth doesn't prevail--right? It's the only way. The only way error can survive is if truth does not prevail. So how do you get the truth out of the way? You have to silence the people who speak the truth. So how do you do that? You have to turn them into "bad guys"--those people with discernment, those people who speak the truth, those people who draw lines that are Biblical. You have to turn them into the "bad guys" the non-spiritual.
I remember a radio program, where a man who was prominent in the Charismatic Movement said, "I don't know much about John MacArthur, but I know one thing, he doesn't possess the Holy Spirit." And that was on a radio talk show, and that created an interesting dialogue. I was being vilified as someone who didn't possess the Holy Spirit, was not therefore of God, simply because I called into question some of their unbiblical teaching. And what has happened is, they have been saying this long enough; they have been working their way into the mainstream of Evangelicalism simply by attacking the critics, and silencing the critics, and most people just rollover.
I can give you an illustration. In, about 1980, after I had written the book, The Charismatics, which was a bomb when it came. It was the first book that was out really definitively taking on that movement, and it just hit with thunder, but it was really an important statement. At the time, Moody Monthly, was a monthly periodical put out by Moody as sort of a standard, fundamental, Evangelical magazine. They said, "This is so important, we want to serialize the book." So the magazine picks up the book, they put the cover of the book on the cover of the magazine, which had a circulation of...I don't know, let's just say for the sake of argument, 150,000. During the time they serialized the book it went up 50%, so maybe to 225,000--tremendous response, and this book was a direct attack on that issue. And Moody, at that time, says, "This needs to be heard, this is discernment." Today, if I say on "Grace to You" anything negative about the Charismatic Movement--the Moody Broadcasting Network will remove it from the broadcast! Because what has happened over a period of time is that Evangelicalism has just rolled over, because we have been vilified so much as being unloving, and heresy hunters, and divisive, and so they literally have shouted, long enough and loud enough to silence people. And they have found their way into the mainstream, and now they dictate what is "Politically Correct" to say within the body of Evangelicalism.
Now that Evangelicalism is so softened up theologically; now that we have this case of AIDS, this immune deficiency that can't fight off error--we can't stop the influx of disease--theological disease. The latest is called the "Openness of God" (I am digressing, but I need to take you there for a minute). Have you been reading about this? This is the last place you can attack. They have attacked the Person of the Holy Spirit. They have attacked the Person of Christ. They have attacked the gospel. They have attacked the authority of Scripture by adding to Scripture revelations, and visions, and Words of Wisdom, and Words of Knowledge, and on and on and on..... And they have created a fertile ground now for an all out assault on God, which is coming from some pretty heady places--the parade is being led by Christianity Today, a magazine, which finds a very open climate to question God. The new view of God is: God is not sovereign; God not only doesn't determine the future, He doesn't even know what it is; that God is about as clear about the future as you are. He has about as much control over it as you do. This is the redefinition of God!
I said to someone the other day, "That is the end! Jesus has to come soon! Where else do you go, when you have attacked the nature of God?" I have a chapter in a new book that came out called, What Ever Happened to the Reformation? I wrote one chapter, R. C. Sproul wrote one, a bunch of us wrote them, and Sproul in his chapter says, "Call yourself a Christian if you want, but if you have the wrong view of God--you're a pagan!" You're a pagan! That's idolatry! That's the last place you can go in heresy, is to reinvent God! That climate to do that, I think is largely aided and abetted by the utter disinterest in doctrine that has been created by this Charismatic pressure--Pentecostal pressure.
So, at the same time I say that, there are people in that movement who are Christians, and most of the Evangelical Church doesn't have the discernment to know how to sort all of that out, and many of these people don't either. They are subject to their leaders--like Hosea says, "Like people, like priests." They can't rise above it, and so they just sort of take it in, but in their hearts they are truly trusting Christ for their salvation. Surely there are true believers in that movement. I have said this before: You can take the Charismatic Movement; you can take the "Seeker-Friendly Church Growth" Movement, and somewhere in those movements there is a true church, not to be confused with the crowd.
But I think when you look at the legacy of the Charismatic or Pentecostal Movement, in history looking back, it is not going to be, "Oh, they were speaking in tongues," that's true, but speaking in tongues, to me, is a minor detail. In fact, I have even gone so far as to say, "If you have the choice between going in your closet and mumbling in tongues, and going out and gossiping--go in your closet and mumble in tongues! So I don't want to overstate the importance of that.
I don't think history is going to look back and define the impact of Pentecostalism in tongues; I don't think it'll look back and define it in terms of healings, since everybody who goes into that movement, with any kind of honest, analytical, and critical approach, and tries to find healings can't find them, and that's documented many, many times over. But what is going to be history's verdict on the effect of the Pentecostal Movement, is that the Pentecostal Movement caused the Church to become disinterested in sound doctrine. And that ultimately, is the greatest impact, and that's Spiritual AIDS--the Church no longer has a functioning immune system to recognize deadly error.
Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:
Tony Capoccia
Bible Bulletin Board
Box 119
Columbus, New Jersey, USA, 08022
Websites: http://www.biblebb.com/ and http://www.gospelgems.com/
Email: tony@biblebb.com
Online since 1986
"And they have created a fertile ground now for an all out assault on God, which is coming from some pretty heady places--the parade is being led by Christianity Today, a magazine, which finds a very open climate to question God. The new view of God is: God is not sovereign; God not only doesn't determine the future, He doesn't even know what it is; that God is about as clear about the future as you are. He has about as much control over it as you do. This is the redefinition of God!"
John MacArthur
The following "Question" was asked by a member of the congregation at Grace Community Church in Panorama City, California, and "Answered" by their pastor, John MacArthur Jr. It was transcribed from the tape, GC 70-22, titled "Questions and Answers--Part 50." A copy of the tape can be obtained by writing, Word of Grace, P.O. Box 4000, Panorama City, CA 91412 or by dialing toll free 1-800-55-GRACE. Copyright 2001 by John MacArthur Jr., All Rights Reserved.
Question
I read an article in a "big city" newspaper, on the Pentecostal movement and I am still puzzled. These people, true believers, and if they are true believers, what are they doing in this movement: "Heal me right away or maybe I'll walk away from Jesus Christ." Can you shed some light on that?
Answer
You are opening up a huge issue here of the Pentecostal Movement. The Pentecostal Movement, as a movement, defined by its unique characteristics, is not Biblical. Now, understand what I am saying. I am not saying that all the people in it are not Christians, some of them are, but those things that define the Pentecostal Movement are not Biblical. It is not Biblical to say, that speaking in tongues is a sign of receiving the Holy Spirit, and if you haven't spoken in tongues you haven't received the Holy Spirit--that is not Biblical. It is not even Biblical to encourage people to speak in tongues, as if that in itself, was some spiritual gift that everybody had to have. It is not Biblical to believe that God is going to heal you. It is not Biblical to believe that some people have the power to heal and can go into great places and knock people over, by the power of the Holy Spirit, and that they wield this great supernatural power.
So, what I am saying is: the defining characteristics that label Pentecostalism "Pentecostalism" as apart from general Orthodox Christianity, are not Biblical. So the movement is defined by things that aren't Biblical. If you, for example, compared it to the Reformed Movement. What distinguishes Reformed Theology is an accurate theology; it goes back to the Reformation and it's based on an accurate understanding of theology. What distinguishes Pentecostalism is an inaccurate, wrong interpretation of Scripture, and all the distinctives are not accurately interpreted from Scripture. So you have a movement defined unbiblically. At the heart of it, I think, there are masses of people who are unconverted--unconverted--who couldn't explain the gospel, the way you heard it explained tonight. They could say that Jesus died for their sins and rose again, but they have no idea just exactly how God used the death of Christ to satisfy His justice and grant righteousness to those who believe. They do not understand anything more than a very shallow and thin grasp of the gospel.
Many of them (and this has been reiterated to me by people who have come to our church, from other large Pentecostal churches in the area) live under a strange and bizarre doctrine that they never articulate, but it is definitive in the movement, and it is the doctrine of the "Sovereignty of Satan." It is inherent, at least to contemporary "Charismania"...Pentecostalism, by the definition of the current Charismatic Movement, and the Pentecostals and the Charismatics are so blended now, you can't separate them...but, it is inimical to that system to believe that Satan is sovereign--not God. God would like people to be saved but He is not sovereign in salvation. God would like to keep people saved but He can't, so people can get unsaved on their own. God would like to solve the problems in the world but the devil keeps messing things up. People in that movement are taught that when you get sick: it's the devil. When your little baby gets sick: it's the devil. When you lose your job: it's the devil. When it's announced to you that you have heart disease or you have cancer, or you have some other problem; when one of your children goes astray, whatever it is: it's the devil. And so, you are living, literally, under the sovereignty of Satan in a mode of constant fear. That's one very unbiblical element of that, so you're always trying to "bind Satan;" you're always trying to cast out demons. God, in Pentecostalism becomes the victim. It is a strange kind of thing where there is this pervasive fear of Satan. Parents who can't sleep, who live with anxieties and fears that the devil is going to come in and make their baby sick at night. Or the devil is going to get in their house, and they have to pray the devil out, or the demons out of their house, or bind Satan some way. This is utterly unbiblical. We as believers have nothing to fear from Satan, in the ultimate sense. It is God Himself who has made the blind and the lame, it says in the Book of Exodus.
The enemy of God, who is Satan, is God's servant. I don't know if you have ever thought of it that way, but the devil is God's servant: he can only do what God allows him to do, and his borders and boundaries are established by a sovereign God. There are some people who came to our church from out of this kind of background, and they happened to come on a Sunday (I think), and when they heard me preach on the sovereignty of God, they said it was the most liberating thing they had ever heard--to find out the "God" was sovereign, that God was in charge, was totally opposite everything they had ever heard. Now that is an aberrant theology that says that.
Pentecostalism, also because of its belief that people today can have the same gifts that the Apostles have...Benny Hinn and whoever the "healers" are, he's sort of the prototypical healer today, it started out with A. A. Allen, and Oral Roberts, and down to Morris Cerullo, and on and on it goes...Jimmy Swaggart and Benny Hinn, and whoever it is. Benny Hinn is the latest edition of con men in that area. This idea, that they believe that these men can do what the Apostles did: they have the power to heal, the power to cast out disease...I heard Benny Hinn say, with my own ears, I heard it, "that if you have somebody in your family die. Leave their body in the living room, take their body over to the TV, drape their arms over the TV, because God is going use me to raise the dead through the television!" I can't think of a more insensitive thing for a man to do, than to have some poor bereaved person drag the corpse of their family member and drape them over the television, under some bizarre illusion that Benny Hinn is going to heal them through the TV set--it's cruel, is what it is! But that is only the extreme form of cruelty. There is a cruelty that goes along day after day, week after week, with this bizarre expectation of healing, and then this false staging of supposed healings, that continue to raise people's hopes, and all that does is create false hopes that are dashed to pieces. And much of the fallout of that movement is people who reject the gospel, reject Christ, because they didn't get what they were promised they would get.
As I said, the defining elements of the movement itself, what gives it its identity are unbiblical, and yet at the core there are many in the Pentecostal Movement who are Christians who understand the gospel. If you just took all the "Pentecostal stuff," the "Charismatic stuff" out, there would be a core understanding of the gospel there, so I believe that some of them are Christians. The Lord knows how many, but it is my own conviction, that the vast majority are not. And also, that those people who purvey and ply the trade, particularly in the media, know they are deceivers, and they are very effective at it--raising millions of dollars. One such preacher alone, T. D. Jakes, took in, personally, last year, 63 million dollars! They are trading on a certain desperation. That's why Jesus, when He sent out the Seventy, said, "go and heal, but take no money." If you can heal people--you can be instantly rich. People get instantly rich who can't heal, but pretend they can.
But at the heart of it, if you can just strip the trappings, there are some who know the gospel truth. So I guess I would say, somewhere in that movement there is a true body of believers, not to be confused with the Movement, which is full of schemers, and dreamers, and con men, and people with aberrant theology, and false teachers who take advantage of people. And then people in the middle: there's the serious, very serious errors of the Word-Faith Movement: Fred Price, Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagin, etcetera, Marilyn Hickey, Joyce Meyer, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera, who have an aberrant view of the nature of Christ. They are the ones who say, that on the cross Jesus became a sinner, had to go to hell and suffer for His sins for three days, and then the Father let Him come out of hell, and that is when He was raised. They turned Jesus into a sinner who had to be punished for sin. This is a frightening view of Christ. Also, Kenneth Copeland is the one who said, "That Jesus wasn't any more God than he is!"
So you have aberrations all the way down the line. Of course, because the movement is defined by its experiences and its phenomena, they don't ever deal with the aberrations. Nobody polices the movement. You can turn on "Channel 40" [Southern California UHF TV Station], and you can see them...they will literally advocate anything! They would advocate absolutely anything. Anybody can come on there and say anything they want about God, anything they want about Christ, anything they want about the Holy Spirit, anything they want to say about the work of God, any interpretation of the Bible will stand. But what you can't do, is go on "Channel 40" and say somebody is wrong--that's intolerable! And so that's why in some of their books, they call me a "Heresy Hunter." There is one book that has a whole chapter on me as a "Heresy Hunter"--well, I am! And I thank them for the compliment! [Applause]. I don't have any axe to grind with those people, I just am committed to the truth, and I want to bring the truth to those people. It's really one of the wonderful realities that "Grace to You Radio" penetrates into those people, who don't come to this church, but they turn on the radio, and they get the books. The book, The Charismatics, that I wrote back in 1978, I think it was, later on we wrote a new one called Charismatic Chaos . Those books have had a great impact, and continue to have an impact on the hearts of people who are questioning the movement--they're in it, they are questioning the reality of it.
As a final thought, one of the give-a-ways that there is something seriously wrong with the movement is its breadth. It embraces anybody, and anything, and any view of anything that purports to be of God. If you just say, the Lord told you this, or the Lord told you that, or you had a vision, or you saw this, or you heard voices, or the angels told you--if you have the experience, you supposedly experienced some of this supernatural phenomena, it will embrace you. The movement will take you in no matter how bizarre your theology is.
I remember when Benny Hinn first wrote his first book, called Good Morning Holy Spirit (I think it was), and in the book, he had nine members of the Trinity. It's not even good English to have nine members of a Trinity! You can have a double-quartet plus one, but you can't have a Trinity with nine people--it's not a Trinity. But in the book, he had nine members of the Trinity. He had the Father having three parts (three persons), the Son having three persons, and the Holy Spirit having three persons, totaling nine. I said to the publisher, who was having lunch with me, wanting to sign me to a book contract. I said to him, "Why in the world did you publish that book?" "Why would you publish that?" And with a look of incredulity he said to me, "What do you mean? We publish everything!" He didn't even understand the question! It didn't even connect, for "What do you mean? We publish everything!" And I would say, that has been pretty much the reality with the Pentecostal Movement, there is just no borders, at all.
The way the "movement" has perpetuated itself--it's an infection in the Body of Christ that is spreading rapidly. It's a kind of "Spiritual AIDS." AIDS is a deficient immune system, and this kills the Church's immune system! The Pentecostal/Charismatic Movement kills the immune system, because it makes it a sin to question their theology. You see, the only way error can survive is if truth doesn't prevail--right? It's the only way. The only way error can survive is if truth does not prevail. So how do you get the truth out of the way? You have to silence the people who speak the truth. So how do you do that? You have to turn them into "bad guys"--those people with discernment, those people who speak the truth, those people who draw lines that are Biblical. You have to turn them into the "bad guys" the non-spiritual.
I remember a radio program, where a man who was prominent in the Charismatic Movement said, "I don't know much about John MacArthur, but I know one thing, he doesn't possess the Holy Spirit." And that was on a radio talk show, and that created an interesting dialogue. I was being vilified as someone who didn't possess the Holy Spirit, was not therefore of God, simply because I called into question some of their unbiblical teaching. And what has happened is, they have been saying this long enough; they have been working their way into the mainstream of Evangelicalism simply by attacking the critics, and silencing the critics, and most people just rollover.
I can give you an illustration. In, about 1980, after I had written the book, The Charismatics, which was a bomb when it came. It was the first book that was out really definitively taking on that movement, and it just hit with thunder, but it was really an important statement. At the time, Moody Monthly, was a monthly periodical put out by Moody as sort of a standard, fundamental, Evangelical magazine. They said, "This is so important, we want to serialize the book." So the magazine picks up the book, they put the cover of the book on the cover of the magazine, which had a circulation of...I don't know, let's just say for the sake of argument, 150,000. During the time they serialized the book it went up 50%, so maybe to 225,000--tremendous response, and this book was a direct attack on that issue. And Moody, at that time, says, "This needs to be heard, this is discernment." Today, if I say on "Grace to You" anything negative about the Charismatic Movement--the Moody Broadcasting Network will remove it from the broadcast! Because what has happened over a period of time is that Evangelicalism has just rolled over, because we have been vilified so much as being unloving, and heresy hunters, and divisive, and so they literally have shouted, long enough and loud enough to silence people. And they have found their way into the mainstream, and now they dictate what is "Politically Correct" to say within the body of Evangelicalism.
Now that Evangelicalism is so softened up theologically; now that we have this case of AIDS, this immune deficiency that can't fight off error--we can't stop the influx of disease--theological disease. The latest is called the "Openness of God" (I am digressing, but I need to take you there for a minute). Have you been reading about this? This is the last place you can attack. They have attacked the Person of the Holy Spirit. They have attacked the Person of Christ. They have attacked the gospel. They have attacked the authority of Scripture by adding to Scripture revelations, and visions, and Words of Wisdom, and Words of Knowledge, and on and on and on..... And they have created a fertile ground now for an all out assault on God, which is coming from some pretty heady places--the parade is being led by Christianity Today, a magazine, which finds a very open climate to question God. The new view of God is: God is not sovereign; God not only doesn't determine the future, He doesn't even know what it is; that God is about as clear about the future as you are. He has about as much control over it as you do. This is the redefinition of God!
I said to someone the other day, "That is the end! Jesus has to come soon! Where else do you go, when you have attacked the nature of God?" I have a chapter in a new book that came out called, What Ever Happened to the Reformation? I wrote one chapter, R. C. Sproul wrote one, a bunch of us wrote them, and Sproul in his chapter says, "Call yourself a Christian if you want, but if you have the wrong view of God--you're a pagan!" You're a pagan! That's idolatry! That's the last place you can go in heresy, is to reinvent God! That climate to do that, I think is largely aided and abetted by the utter disinterest in doctrine that has been created by this Charismatic pressure--Pentecostal pressure.
So, at the same time I say that, there are people in that movement who are Christians, and most of the Evangelical Church doesn't have the discernment to know how to sort all of that out, and many of these people don't either. They are subject to their leaders--like Hosea says, "Like people, like priests." They can't rise above it, and so they just sort of take it in, but in their hearts they are truly trusting Christ for their salvation. Surely there are true believers in that movement. I have said this before: You can take the Charismatic Movement; you can take the "Seeker-Friendly Church Growth" Movement, and somewhere in those movements there is a true church, not to be confused with the crowd.
But I think when you look at the legacy of the Charismatic or Pentecostal Movement, in history looking back, it is not going to be, "Oh, they were speaking in tongues," that's true, but speaking in tongues, to me, is a minor detail. In fact, I have even gone so far as to say, "If you have the choice between going in your closet and mumbling in tongues, and going out and gossiping--go in your closet and mumble in tongues! So I don't want to overstate the importance of that.
I don't think history is going to look back and define the impact of Pentecostalism in tongues; I don't think it'll look back and define it in terms of healings, since everybody who goes into that movement, with any kind of honest, analytical, and critical approach, and tries to find healings can't find them, and that's documented many, many times over. But what is going to be history's verdict on the effect of the Pentecostal Movement, is that the Pentecostal Movement caused the Church to become disinterested in sound doctrine. And that ultimately, is the greatest impact, and that's Spiritual AIDS--the Church no longer has a functioning immune system to recognize deadly error.
Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and Answers" by:
Tony Capoccia
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23 comments:
I substantially agree with John MacArthur's critique of the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement. However, he fails to properly distinguish between the different aspects of Pentecostal theology of salvation. For example, the classical Pentecostals generally do not say that other Christians don't have the Holy Spirit at all. Rather when they say other Christians "don't have the Holy Spirit" what they mean is that other Christians do not have the "baptism with the Holy Spirit," which is a second or third work of grace subsequent to salvation, depending on whether or not the reference is to baptistic Pentecostals or wesleyan Pentecostals.
I find the response somewhat interesting, however MacArthur commits the straw man fallacy several time. Not all Pentecostal believes what MacArthur calls Pentecostal movement. He should engage Pentecostal/Charismatic scholars like Gordon Fee, Sam Storms, Wayne Grudem, Doug Oss, Stanley Horton and the like. In addition, MacArthur dispensationalist presupposition leads him to his heretical cessationist position. Anyhow, I find his argument shallow and misrepresentative of the orthodox Pentecostal position. ceasationist position. Anyhow I find his argument shallow and misrepresentative of the orthodox pentacostal position.
Dispensationalists are not the only "cessationists" around. In fact, ALL protestants since the Protestant Reformation were cessationists until the Pentecostal revival broke out in 1900 or so. There are very few exceptions to this.
Also, having been a Pentecostal for 10 years or so myself, and having graduated from a Pentecostal Bible college in the Assemblies of God tradition, I think I am well qualified to speak to the issue.
First off, Pentecostalism is hyper-Arminian even to the point of pelagianism at times, particularly when they are following the theology of Charles Finney. Secondly, the Word of Faith movement permeates the pentecostal/charismatic movement to the point that the prosperity and health and wealth heresy has for all practical purposes taken over.
D.R. McConnell's book, A Different Gospel, documents well the fact that the Word of Faith movement originates from a syncretism of Christianity with Christian Science. I might add that the so-called miracles of the pentecostal/charismatic movement are mostly anecdotal/story type events with little medical or scientific documentation to substantiate them. Also, the term "miracle" has been so redefined as to allow almost any ordinary event to be called a "miracle" even though nothing substantially "supernatural" has occurred at all.
Basically, as MacArthur said, the pentecostal/charismatic movement preys on those who have a needy situation or are in desperate circumstances. Unfortunately, at the end of the day they are left with nothing while the false prophets continue fleecing the sheep.
God is sovereign over man's will. I further object to the way pentecostals and charismatics pretend to order God around like an errand boy. Someday they will answer to the Almighty for their pride and arrogance.
It is amazing that Mr. MacArthur can so casually lump together all pentecostals in this scathing diatribe. Just as among so-called "orthodox Christians", there is incredible variety. Who is he to pontificate about what may or may not be taught and received in the churches. It seems the so-called "orthodox" bear the burden in demonstrating that the signs that were to follow BELIEVERS (not just apostles) were to cease after the canonization of the New Testament. This is simply not demonstrated ANYWHERE in scripture. The gifts in operation among ALL the members of the churches of Jesus NEVER ceased. "Orthodox" Pharisees like Mr. MacArthur might understand things better were they to find themselves under the great weight of the glory of God. This would silence this "orthodox" UNBELIEF.
What gifts are you talking about? Pentecostals have generally redefined what a "miracle" or a "healing" or a "sign" is so that they can then pretend to duplicate it today. The fact of the matter is that not ONE single "gift" today can be demonstrated to be supernatural. Practically all of the "gifts" can be explained using naturalistic explanations. Moreover, television evangelists have been debunked many times over as using manipulative techniques involving hypnotism, false healings, and a host of other abuses. In fact, most people who are cured of cancer in those so-called healings wind up dying anyway.
So if results speak for the Pentecostal/Charismatic argument for the continuation of the "gifts" today, then I and most other critics have good reason to be skeptical.
Furthermore, as I noted in my comments above, I was involved in the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement for over ten years. I graduated from an Assemblies of God college in Lakeland, Florida and I was a member of the Society for Pentecostal Studies for couple of years during my seminary training.
I'm familiar with the arguments in favor of Pentecostal "miracles" today and I've seen them performed firsthand in countless revivals and church services over the years. They all have one thing in common: manipulation and exploitation of the audience and those who are seeking the healing or miracle. No, I think MacArthur's article is pretty straight forward despite his lack of firsthand or inside experience with the movement. In fact, MacArthur articulates what I could not bring to words when I was under such great peer pressure to go along with the false "gifts."
It is indeed sad that so-called Christians continue to perpetuate lies and deception in the name of Christ, taking advantage of the poor and needy and fleecing the sheep.
Furthermore, the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement has solid connections with Christian Science through the Word of Faith Movements false doctrines plagiarized by Kenneth Hagin from E.W. Kenyon. Not only is the movement full of false miracles and healings, it bases those activities on false doctrine syncretized from Christian Science. This link is also well documented, particularly in D. R. McConnell's book, A Different Gospel.
I pray that God will open your eyes to the truth before it is too late.
Auch!! is what can i say at all. First of all, New Testament is full of accounts and teachings to encourage the believers to be fill with the Holy Spirit to fulfill the Great Commandment Acts 1:8, Acts 2 and so on. Also we should not neglect the apostle Paul's teachings about to exercise the spiritual gifts that he emphasized in all his letters. And we should remember that Rabbis in Jesus time specifically covered Isaiah 53 not to reveal the Suffering Messiah, so that we also should not cover or hid the NT passages about the works of the Holy Spirit. My second auch!! is about the writers idea that "Satan is God's Servant" Ha ha ha!!! I thought Satan is God's enemy. He is almost telling that all the works of Satan is ordained by God Himself, because Satan is God's servant?!
And finally, we should be careful to condemn our fellow believers in other denominations as non-Christians or heretics only because they have different theology. Auch Auch. (Sorry for my bad English)
Well, I suppose you have the same power as God Himself if you can do what God can do. Let's see you create a universe or raise the dead, LITERALLY.
The burden of proof lies with you. If you can do miracles, let us see one.
And yes, Satan is merely a created angelic being who must ask God's permission before he has any power at all. Job 1 and 2 shows this clearly. I guess you think Satan is God's equal? This is a heresy known as "dualism." Hello! There is only ONE God. Satan is NOT God. He is an angel who REBELLED against God. Forgive my bluntness here.
If you do not believe God is in control of all that happens, how in the world can you believe in the supernatural miracles He does?
I come from a Southern Baptist background and have enjoyed McArthur's teaching on and off via radio for years. I have to say that there is so much more to Christianity than I have been previously exposed to. I would read the book of Acts and wonder what happened to these great validating miracles that are said to no longer be needed due to the already validated Bible. And the Holy Bible is completely valid, without error. Something else I have noticed is there is an increased interest in the supernatural in our society. More and more people are attracted to the occult and Satan's counterfeits. God is much more powerful than Satan. As said before, Satan can't do anything without God's Ok. God is completely sovereign and at the same time He gives us the ability to choose(Selah). Have a look at John 14:11-13. Here Jesus was talking about the miracles He performed, showing that He was really sent from the Father. He says those who have faith will do even greater things. It is up to your interpretation to decide what "greater things" are, but I have to say they have to be greater than the counterfeit. I'm not willing to limit God to my current experience, but will test everything with His Word.
Christie, no Christian doubts that God can do miracles at any time He chooses. However, that is not the same thing as saying that what we are seeing in Pentecostal and Charismatic churches today are actually "miracles, signs," or "wonders." I have been around long enough to see lots of this sort of rubbish and quite frankly, if what passes for "miracles" today is the same sort of "miracles" that happened in the Bible then we might as well all give up Christianity as fake.
What is going on today is mere smoke and mirrors, magic show, and misdirection. Modern healers have been debunked over and over again yet foolish people still insist on believing just based on anecdotal or storytelling evidence rather than true documentation and verification.
Secondly, the theology behind the Pentecostal "miracles" originates out of Christian Science blended with Christianity. I would highly recommend that you read "A Different Gospel," by D.R. McConnell. It's a highly enlightening book about the errors of the Word/Faith movement, which has infiltrated the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement to the point that it is everywhere.
The protest is similar to those in Acts 5 who complained of the apostles' filling Jersusalem with "their" doctrine. You should be concerned about the rise in the doctrine of Islam spreading everywhere.
There is no similarity at all. In fact, the Bible over and over warns us against those who perform false signs and wonders and use them to justify an unbiblical and false theology. If the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement is truly biblical, why can't the average Pentecostal explain the doctrine of justification by faith alone? Believing in miracles won't get you to heaven. Believing the Gospel WILL. It seems to me that Pentecostals are more interested in proving their "miracles" than they are in preaching the Gospel and leading people to Christ. In fact, they seem more interested in attacking their brothers and sisters in the Reformed and Protestant side of the Evangelical church and they hope to bulldoze their opponents out of the way rather than seeking common ground.
Será que o amado e conceituadÃssimo pastor não soube distinguir pentecostalismo do neo-pentecostalismo?
Digo isso pelo o fato de os pentecostais clássicos, não cometerem esses erros denunciados pelo pastor.
De qualquer forma, a doutrina pentecostal está inserida na pnelmalogia (doutrina do EspÃrito Santo).
Paz do Senhor!!!
Jean, I'm sorry but I don't speak Portuguese, although I do know a little Spanish.
However, from what I can figure out you are complaining that I have not properly distinguished between classical Pentecostalism and "Neo-Pentecostalism". That might be true but here in the United States there are few "classical Pentecostals" left. The vast majority have been corrupted by the Charismatic movement or "Neo-Pentecostals."
Gloria a Senor!
Below is the translation of Portuguese using Google Translator:
Will the beloved pastor did not know and conceituadÃssimo distinguish neo-Pentecostalism Pentecostalism?
I say this by the fact the classic Pentecostals, do not commit these errors reported by the pastor.
Anyway, the Pentecostal doctrine is embedded in pnelmalogia (doctrine of the Holy Spirit).
Peace of the Lord!
Jean,
The Pentecostal teaching focuses on the Spirit above all else. God is three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The proper focus of the Gospel is on the forgiveness of sins and our reconciliation to God through Jesus Christ, not on the Spirit or the gifts of the Spirit.
Sincerely yours,
Charlie
Jean, me desculpe, mas eu não falo Português, embora eu sei um pouco de espanhol.
No entanto, do que eu posso descobrir o que você está reclamando que eu não distinguiu entre o pentecostalismo clássico e "neo-pentecostalismo". Isso pode ser verdade, mas aqui nos Estados Unidos há alguns "pentecostais clássicas esquerda". A grande maioria ter sido corrompido pelo movimento carismático ou "neo-pentecostais."
Gloria um senhor!
Jean,
A doutrina pentecostal se concentra sobre o EspÃrito acima de tudo. Deus é três pessoas, Pai, Filho e EspÃrito Santo. O foco do Evangelho é sobre o perdão dos pecados e da nossa reconciliação com Deus através de Jesus Cristo, não sobre o EspÃrito e os dons do EspÃrito.
Atenciosamente,
Charlie
Great, now pentecostals are a spiritual aids. So, he just sell his books to us now. Isn't that kind of hipocresy? What did Jesus taughts about hipocrits, wasn't it that they're going to hell?
By the way, "cessacionism" is a false doctrine. It has no biblical back up and even good ol' John acknowledges it, and McDonald and so many of them, oh my...
If you want to post comments here, you will need to create a google id and identify yourself properly. If you're going to state an opinion, do not be afraid to stand by your words with your character.
The issue here is that the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement "claims" to believe in miracles, signs and wonders and the sovereignty of God. But the closer one looks the more one sees that the opposite is true. Rather, the Pentecostal/Charismatic movement makes man a god and makes God helpless to do anything. That, my friend, is idolatry.
I might add that God answers to no one:
Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases. (Psalm 115:3 ESV)
Our God is in
Psa 11:4 The LORD is in his holy temple; the LORD's throne is in heaven; his eyes see, his eyelids test the children of man.
he does all that
Psa 135:6 Whatever the LORD pleases, he does, in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all deeps.
Dan 4:35 all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, "What have you done?"
Mr. Anonymous, there is absolutely no statement in the New Testament or Old Testament that say that there would be an endless need for signs, wonders and miracles to confirm what Jesus and the Apostles preached. Furthermore, there is no one today who is an eyewitness to the ministry, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The office of apostle ceased when the last apostle died. Basically, the Charismatic/Pentecostal argument is a variation on the Roman Catholic view of "apostolic succesion."
But Abraham said, 'They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.' 30 And he said, 'No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.' 31 He said to him, 'If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.'" (Luke 16:29-31 ESV)
There are 2 good books which I believe soundly corrects and refutes the Pentecostal and Charismatic movement. These deal with their essential errors. 1 ) The Baptism & Gifts Of The Holy Spirit by Dr. Merrill F. Unger 2 )New Testament Teaching On Tongues A Biblical and Historical Survey by Dr. Merrill F. Unger. They deal their false doctrine of a so called second blessing and their false views on the sign gifts. The most evident thing to notice is how Pentecostals and Charismatics redefines the sign gifts. On this basis alone I call in to question that movement. It would be one thing if they understand and defined it in the same manner as I do but that is not what they do. While most Protestants understand it in the same way whereas Pentecostals & Pentecostals stand alone in how they defined the sign gifts. It is probably their Arminianism which makes them more prone to fall in to those types of erors.
Absolutely right. Synergism means they perform half the miracles by doing their part. God must be their heavenly bell hop and jump when they say jump? I think not.
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