Scripture or Experience?

People crave mystical experience, and the Charismatic seduces them by providing it. This is not a new practice. Seduction toward evil and away from God has been prevalent throughout the history of the church since the fall. The Bible records many instances where spiritual leaders exploited people to build their kingdoms. The Lord called out the abuse of prophets and priests, saying, “They dress the wound of my people as though it were not serious” (Jer. 8:11).

The charismatic movement operates with a variety of mystical phenomena in its bag of deception. People go to heaven, go to hell and come back; People are slain in the spirit and do all kinds of bizarre things; People receive private messages directly from Jesus. And, all kinds of healing and miracles are claimed – from mobile data plans and empty gas tanks topped up, to puppies and people being raised from the dead. They claim and believe they have reached a higher level of comprehension which is nothing but Gnosticism.

The charismatic movement believes in an open canon, and there is no limit to theology. Everyone comes up with new revelations from heaven. They resist theology, they resist doctrinal truths in the scripture. For them, the truth is based on the external experience, bogus claims of miracles, signs, and wonders. They build their teaching based on private experience and not on the Scripture. Their truth comes from the experience, and they try to get the Bible to fit their experience. Authentic experience happens in response to the biblical truth and not the other way. Anything that cannot be verified with the revealed truth of the Word of God is not authentic, and not of God. Too many of their experiences are detached from the truth and lead to false conclusions.

They use scripture as proof-text and twist it to fit some novel opinion. The Charismatic friend whom I had an encounter with a few months ago, told me that we do not need to study the Bible, and theologians are just wasting their time studying and defending scripture rather than evangelizing. There is no other movement or doctrine that exists today that is more hostile to the Reformation doctrine of biblical sufficiency than the charismatic movement. According to Charismatics, you just read the Bible and the Holy Spirit will tell you what it means.

Dr. Bill Hamon, founder of a Charismatic prophetic ministry advises people to forget the reasoning, forget theology, disregard the common sense and be mindless when attempting to discern the truth.

Charismatic mysticism and subjectivism cause huge confusion in the church. Each one comes up with their own interpretation and they do not divide the word of truth rightly. The science of proper interpretation of the Word is neglected, and they mindlessly sit and wait for the “nervous and jumpy feeling” in their upper abdomen area. What kind of bizarre notion is that? If I may add to it, if you want to hear from the Holy Spirit, do not eat any gassy food, don’t ever take Tums or Pepto-Bismol or Gaviscon, that will mess up the Holy Spirit’s communication process. And, if you’re pregnant, or having anxiety it may be very hard for you to distinguish and discern this “jumpy or uneasy” sensation!

Beloved, these people are dreamers who reject biblical authority and indulge in their sinful appetites. Five hundred years ago reformers fought against the errors of proper biblical interpretation. Now the major battle is not with the Roman Catholics, but with the seductive Charismatic theology. The core doctrines of that movement are fundamentally incompatible with the principle of sola Scriptura. They don’t believe that the Bible contains everything we need for spiritual maturity and growth in grace and the pursuit of God’s glory. According to them there is no “Full Gospel” without the Pentecostal gifts and miraculous signs and wonders. That is a direct assault on the sufficiency of Scripture.

Miracles, signs, and wonders do not bring anyone to the true faith. They only add counterfeit Christians to the church. It is the Word of God that has the power to save souls. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16). Scripture is authoritative, it is reliable, and it is sufficient. Take heed this advice, “Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. But shun profane and idle babblings” (2 Timothy 2:15-17).

The individual’s experience of God cannot be regarded as the final authority. Each may have the right of private judgement, conviction and conscience, but that does not mean that each is equally right! There cannot be some combination of Scripture, tradition, reason and experience as the final authority. Final authority lies in Scripture alone, for in Scripture alone we have the Word of God.