I agree with MacArthur that many charismatic teachers (particularly those with television programs) take too much license to expound the written Word beyond what it says.
However, the greatest theological minds I have learned from have been those who believed in the gifts of the Spirit, and some of them exercised those gifts.
Such scholars as N.T. Wright, Craig Keener, John Piper, Howard Snyder, Howard Ervin, Russell P.
Spittler, Gordon Fee, Dr. Michael Brown, Sam Storms, J. Rodman Williams, and Michael Green all believe in the continuation of spiritual gifts, yet they are respected teachers in the
evangelical academic community.
In a word, MacArthur places an overemphasis on the power of the intellect to discern spiritual things. This is something that A.W. Tozer took dead aim at while he was alive. Here are some notable quotes by Tozer on this score:
Spirit can embrace intellect, but human intellect won't comprehend spirit.
You can be straight as a gun barrel theologically and as empty as one spiritually.
We need to learn that truth consists not in correct doctrine but in correct doctrine PLUS the inward enlightenment of the Holy Spirit.
For a man to understand revealed truth requires an act of God equal to the original act which inspired the text.
For those who may not know, Tozer was an author and pastor in the Christian & Missionary Alliance Church. He was an autodidact (self-taught) who received honorary doctorates from Wheaton and Houghton.
1 Corinthians 1-3 makes clear that spiritual discernment is necessary to grasp spiritual realities.
And apprehension of spiritual things requires revelation (or "illumination") by the Holy Spirit (Matt. 16:17; Luke 10:22; 2 Cor. 4:6; Gal. 1:16).
While the use of the intellect is a factor in the study of God's Word, the intellect in itself is insufficient for receiving light and life from the Scriptures.
Receiving spiritual truth in the intellect and receiving it in the heart belong to two different realms. T. Austin-Sparks remarks:
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We cannot make too much of this matter of revelation, illumination, seeing. It is basic in salvation (Acts 26:18). It is essential to effective ministry (2 Cor. 4:6) and it is
indispensable to full knowledge and full growth (Eph. 1:17)...
The kind of seeing to which we refer is an epoch, an encounter, a revelation, a crisis.
There is no power on this earth which could have changed that rabid, fanatical, bigoted Saul of Tarsus, a "Pharisee of the Pharisees," into "the apostle of the Gentiles (Rom.
11:13)...
Argument would not have done it. Neither persuasion nor persecution nor martyrdom would have effected it. But it was done! That "conversion" stood the test of all
persecutions, sufferings, and adversities possible to man for the rest of his life...
Indeed, a fundamental and preeminent work of the Holy Spirit has to do with spiritual enlightenment and supremely as to the significance of God's Son, Jesus Christ. It is all in the Scriptures, but still our eyes may be holden...
We can be governed by objective truth. It can be "the truth"--orthodox, sound, Bible truth. We can be governed by that simply because it is taught; we do it objectively. But there is something more than that. There is such a thing as the Holy Spirit taking hold of the truth of God and making it something that lives in us...
Many Christians are just Christians: that is, after they are saved, their Christian life consists in doing as they are told by the minister because it is presented to them as the thing they should do. But there is a much higher level of life than that. The thing is right, but it is altogether transformed when the Holy Spirit brings it home to us in an inward way, and adjusts us to it. We no longer do it because it has got to be done: we do it because the Lord has done something in us, and shown us that that is the thing that He wants done...it is no more mechanical, it is vital!
In like manner, A.W. Tozer sums up the issue with his usual seminal insight:
Fundamentalism has stood aloof from the liberal in self-conscious superiority and has on its own part fallen into error, the error of textualism, which is simply orthodoxy without the Holy Ghost. Everywhere among conservatives we find persons who are Bible-taught but not Spirit-taught. They conceive truth to be something which they can grasp with the mind.
If a man holds to the fundamentals of the Christian faith, he is thought to possess divine truth. But it does not follow. There is no truth apart from the Spirit. The most brilliant intellect may be imbecilic when confronted with the mysteries of God. For a man to understand revealed truth requires an act of God equal to the original act which inspired
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the text. ... "Now we have received, not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit which is of God; that we might know the things which are freely given us of God.”
For the textualism of our times is based upon the same premise as the old line rationalism, that is, the belief that the human mind is the supreme authority in the judgment of truth. Or otherwise stated, it is confidence in the ability of the human mind to do that which the Bible declares it was never created to do and consequently is wholly incapable of doing. Philosophical rationalism is honest enough to reject the Bible flatly.
Theological rationalism rejects it while pretending to accept it and in so doing puts out its own eyes.
Few there are who without restraint will open their whole heart to the blessed Comforter. He has been and is so widely misunderstood that the very mention of His name in some circles is enough to frighten many people into resistance.
It is no use to deny that Christ was crucified by persons who would today be called fundamentalists. This should prove to be disquieting if not downright distressing to us who pride ourselves on our orthodoxy. An unblessed soul filled with the letter of truth may actually be worse off than a pagan kneeling before a fetish. We are saved only when our intellects are indwelt by the loving fire that came at Pentecost. For the Holy Spirit is not a luxury, not something added now and again to produce a deluxe type of Christian once in a generation. No. He is for every child of God a vital necessity, and that He fill and indwell His people is more than a languid hope. It is rather an inescapable imperative.
Now the Bible teaches that there is something in God which is like emotion. ... God has said certain things about Himself, and these furnish all the grounds we require. “The Lord thy God in the midst of thee is mighty; he will save, he will rejoice over thee with joy; he will rest in his love, he will joy over thee with singing” (Zeph. 3:17). This is but one verse among thousands which serve to form our rational picture of what God is like, and tell us plainly that God feels something like our love, like our joy, and what He feels makes Him act very much as we would in a similar situation; He rejoices over His loved ones with joy and singing.
Here is emotion on as high a plain as it can ever be seen, emotion flowing out of the heart of God Himself. Feeling, then, is not the degenerate son of unbelief that is often painted by some of our Bible teachers. Our ability to feel is one of the marks of our divine origin. We need not be ashamed of either tears or laughter. The Christian stoic who has crushed his feelings is only two-thirds of a man; an important third part has been repudiated. Holy feeling had an important place in the life of our Lord. “For the joy that was set before Him” He endured the cross and despised its shame. He pictured Himself crying, “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.”
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The work of the Holy Spirit is, among other things, to rescue the redeemed man’s emotions, to restring his harp and open again the wells of sacred joy which have been stopped up by sin.
Excerpted from The Divine Conquest by A.W. Tozer.
In this connection, MacArthur has a chapter on "true spirituality" in Charismatic Chaos.
I agree with him that cute clichés that depict spirituality in terms of being "zapped" (for example) are silly.
Because the subject of spirituality is so vast, however, I would recommend the following books which provide a comprehensive biblical treatment of the subject of biblical spirituality:
The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee The School of Christ by T. Austin-Sparks Life on the Highest Plane by Ruth Paxson Unto Full Stature by DeVern Fromke
These volumes bristle with extraordinary insight on what spirituality entails from a New Testament perspective.
In light of their content, I find MacArthur's understanding of spirituality somewhat shallow.
For example, deep awareness of sin is the beginning of spirituality; it is not the mark of it as MacArthur suggests.
The book of Hebrews defines perfection as the state in which there is no consciousness of sins.
A spiritual person is one whose entire being is governed by the Spirit of God. Their soul and body are ruled by God's Spirit through their regenerated spirit.
Walking in the Spirit is walking in love, and hence, walking free from the defiling elements of the flesh. It is a walk of the cross and death to self.
To begin such a walk, one must be cleansed of all sin to the point that she or he is free in their conscience. We must begin at God's starting point, which is the work and value of the blood of Christ to cleanse the conscience.
It is only when one's conscience is purified by faith in the blood of Christ that he or she can exercise the faith required to walk in the Spirit. For this reason, Romans 3-5 (which deal with
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the blood of Christ) precede Romans 6-8 (which deal with our co-death with Christ and the indwelling Spirit).
A.W. Tozer was someone who sounded the alarm on the lack of spirituality and spiritual depth in the Body of Christ during his day. And he wasn't aiming his guns at the charismatics.
Sadly, MacArthur treats the desire for spiritual power and a greater (intuitive) knowledge of the Lord as a shortcoming.
Certainly, if one's motivation for spiritual power is selfish, God condemns it. However, God has called the church to be built up into Christ the Head, to advance God's kingdom on earth, and to cause Satan's kingdom to suffer loss.
These are major facets of God's Eternal Purpose.
Here are just a few exhortations of Scripture that conflict with MacArthur's thesis:
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness for they shall be filled...
Let us go on unto perfection...
If we follow on to know the Lord ...
That I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings...
Despite Paul's vast knowledge of Christ, Paul realized that he could not exhaust the unfathomable depths that are in the Lord Jesus.
Paul's supreme goal was to know Christ in increasing measure and to receive an ever-growing unveiling of who He is.
Consequently, near the end of his life, Paul continued to press on toward a fuller apprehension of the Lord Jesus, whereby the cry on his lips was "that I may know Him," that I might reach
"forth unto those things which are before," that I might "press on toward the mark for the prize of the high calling" (see Phil. 3).
These are not the words of a novice, but of a seasoned apostle.
The fullness of Christ is what drove him.
Along this line, T. Austin-Sparks remarks,
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That ever-growing conception of Christ was the thing which maintained Paul in life, and maintained Paul's ministry in life. There was never any stagnation with him. He never came to any point or place where there was the suggestion that now he knew. What he seems to say is this: I do not know anything yet, but I see dimly, yet truly, with the eye of the spirit, a Christ so great, so vast as to keep me reaching out, moving on. I press on; I leave the things which are behind; I count all things as refuse for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus, that I may know Him...
How often have we heard Christians say that they are only interested in "the simple Gospel," "the Gospel of salvation," and that they are not interested in "deeper teaching or truth." Paul would have been both surprised and grieved to hear such language, for his "Gospel" was one, and he would say that the fullest and deepest revelation is the Gospel. There can only be tragic and grievous loss and weakness resulting from failure to see that "the whole counsel of God" is the Gospel.
To downplay and criticize a genuine desire to know our Lord in greater capacity and to receive clear direction from God's Spirit in greater measure is contrary to the exhortations and
examples found in Scripture.
Certainly, spiritual contentment and complacency would have drawn from Paul the strongest reproof. And it did so from Jesus in the book of Revelation. I'm speaking of His bone-chilling sentiments about lukewarmness.
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