THE PHYSIOLOGICAL BASIS OF CHARISMATIC
BAPTISM -- The
"baptism in the Holy Ghost" is a fleshly experience brought about by a
combination of super-emotionalism, hypnotism, and religious hysteria, mainly induced by
the sheer force of psychological suggestion. Depending upon the emotional makeup of the
individual, the experience may be low key, or very high key. Thorough the years this
fleshly baptism has left a heart-breaking trail of wreckage in lives, marriages, homes,
and churches.
In this "hypnotic crisis" the subject accepts whatever is
suggested or commanded. He (she) is made to believe that they are experiencing the
"baptism of the Holy Ghost" and that they have the gift of tongues.
This
erroneous concept enters the subconscious, resulting in permanent damage. The mind is
subconsciously set in these errors, which become virtually impossible to correct by
means of scriptural truth or reasoning--as anyone who has attempted to do so will affirm.
There are a number of means utilized to produce this neurological
breakdown, such as beat music, repetitive hand-clapping and singing, thrilling
testimonies, exhortation, and manipulation of the body. Through such previous
conditioning, or even the individual's desperate seeking, "the baptism" is
sometimes experienced when alone--suddenly, and seemingly without cause.
Whatever the means, when the climactic physical condition is
attained, the cerebral nervous system is overpowered by the highly stimulated
ganglionis--or automatic nervous system, which is centered in the solar plexus.
This
charismatic baptism is often described in such words as these, "A ball of
fire seemed to form in my stomach." This is the source of the baptism of
experience--the mind shut down, the automation system out of control, with the
subconscious coming to the surface.
THE PHYSIOLOGICAL BASIS OF CHARISMATIC TONGUES -- When an individual
is brought into this abnormal state of the baptism, his vocal mechanism is stimulated by
the out-of-control nervous action, resulting in an irrational babbling. This gibberish is
never a language, although parts of syllables are sometimes heard due to the ecstatic
stimulation of the uncontrolled vocal chords. Once the nerve pattern has been established,
this chattering may be exercised at will.
Some claim to have recognized foreign languages brought forth by
tongues speakers, but this has never been proven. In isolated instances there may have
been foreign words or syllables uttered. These slip out of the released subconscious,
words picked up consciously or subconsciously in the past, a la Bridey Murphy.
Sometimes there is a deliberate falsification concerning such language
"verification."
THE PHYSIOLOGICAL BASIS OF CHARISMATIC
HEALING -- These same psychotic
conditions are the necessary stock-in-trade of the "healers," in
order to effect their hypnotic and neuro-manipulations. Once the
"patient" is conditioned and hands are laid upon him (her), often
forcefully, they usually experiences a feeling of shock and heat surging up
through the body, followed by a release of tension.
This is the same reaction of the lower
ganglionic nerves that produces the charismatic baptism, and tongues.
But this "electric" charge never comes from the hands of the
healer! It is the ecstatic climax of the over-wrought (often easily
wrought) plexus centers which are located along the spinal column and in the
solar plexus of the victim. It is the resulting climax of the psychoneurotic
hysteria built up by the healer, the song leader (exhorter), the music, the
crowd, and the individual's need and expectation.
This psychic contagion is often manipulated
apart from the use of physical contact by the healer. A pointed finger
accompanied by a commanding voice are enough to trigger this short-circuiting
of the overloaded nervous system. Many testify to being healed in this
way, but they are simply experiencing a temporary psychic catharsis of a neurotic
symptom. Others prevaricate (fake it), in an effort to gain the
spotlight or to help the cause.
No one today has the gift of healing; that
was included among the sign gifts retired at the close of the apostolic
age. God heals supernaturally today when it suits His purpose for the
individual. He also heals in response to prayer when it is according to
His will in the matter. But for the most part He heals through His own
natural laws and by remedial means practiced by the medical profession.
God does not heal through professional healers, nor those amateurs who claim
to have the gift of healing!
The Holy Spirit’s ministry
to the Christian (whether in sickness or in health) is to conform him to
the image of the Lord Jesus Christ, and that upon the foundation of his
eternal security. No "healers" ever manipulate from that
solid ground!
The modern "gifts" of
tongues and healing have a common source. They are not of the Holy
Spirit, but of the flesh, and function primarily in the realm of the nervous
system.
Whether carried on at a somber
cathedral altar, on a spectacular TV program, or in a wild tent meeting, there
is no basic difference. None but the psychosomatic condition is affected
by healers. Now and then some sufferers may be relieved of their neuro-induced
symptoms, but actual healing or organic sickness never occurs by such means.
Doctrine
The basic claim of the healing
movement is that healing is included in the Atonement, that it is not God’s
will for Christians to be sick, but that all should be in perfect
health. This premise has been based on Isaiah 53:4–6: "Surely he
hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him
stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our
transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our
peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed … the Lord hath laid
on him the iniquity of us all."
The word "borne" refers
to our Lord’s life-identification with our earthly griefs and sorrows.
The words "with his stripes we are healed" set forth the result of
our Lord’s death-identification with our iniquities. He shared with us
the former in His life on earth, but He was made to be the latter in His death
on the Cross.
"In the book, If You Need
Healing Do These Things, the author says, ‘Healing is in the Atonement,
therefore it includes all.’ This error would be avoided if people had
a fair knowledge of dispensational truth, and would remember that the removal
of the entire curse placed upon the human family is in the Atonement.
But we have not received all that was wrought out for us in the
Atonement. We are still ‘waiting for the adoption, to wit, the
redemption of our body’ (Rom. 8:23)."—B. F. Cate1
"God can, and does, heal
today, but not always. He is not committed to a covenant promise today,
but is perfectly free to exercise a proper discrimination regarding the
spiritual advisability of doing so where His people are concerned. No
believer who has a history with the Lord will deny that He has used physical
weakness and sickness as a means to develop the graces of the Holy Spirit and
a spiritual dependence upon the power of God.
"At the same time there are
many who have prayed earnestly for deliverance and have received it. I n both
cases the Lord works on the principle of the highest benefit to the believer,
which is his or her spiritual and growth." —C.
H. Maskery.2
Concerning God’s principle of
the highest benefit to the believer: "Hudson Taylor once told me that his
greatest spiritual blessings had come to him in connection with his various
sicknesses; and later he made the remarkable statement to me that all of the
most important advance movements which had taken place in connection with the
China Inland Mission, including its inception, had come as a direct result of
some physical breakdown through which he had been called to pass."—Henry
Frost.3
Diagnosis
Just how correctly diagnosed are
the cases of cancer, TB, blindness, deafness, etc., that healers claim to have
cured? "It is extremely easy for a layman to be misled regarding
the exact nature of a disease. No layman is qualified either to diagnose
his own sickness, or to determine whether he is completely healed.
Public testimonies of healing at moments of great excitement and emotional
stress are worthless. For that matter, even doctors are occasionally
deceived. We have all known cases where doctors disagree."—W.
H. Boggs, Jr.4
"Few physicians of even
life-long practice are really good diagnosticians; perhaps there is none of
whatever eminence who has not been more than once wholly deceived in the
nature of the disease he has been called upon to treat—as the autopsy has
proved."—B. B. Warfield.5
Psychosomatic Illness
It has been admitted from the
platform of a large healing campaign that seventy percent of all who apply for
healing cards are suffering from psychosomatically induced symptoms.
Mayo Clinic claims it to be an even higher percentage in their medical
work. Of those who are screened and thus admitted to the healing line, a
certain number actually do experience some relief.
One often hears healing claims
concerning goiters, tumors, and cancers, such as, "They disappear right
before your very eyes!" But—"There was a woman in St. Luke’s
Hospital, New York City, who had a tumor, to all, even the most skilled,
diagnosis. But the tumor simply disappeared on the administration of
ether and the consequent withdrawal of nervous action."—B. B. Warfield.6
"First of all, the majority
of the patients cured under such conditions (Lourdes) are neuropaths.
That is to say, they are persons whose illness is to a preponderant extent due
to mental causations.
"Before a group of European
physicians in Paris in 1932, a French neurologist gave an incredible
demonstration of the potential power of suggestion. After the man who
was the subject had been blindfolded and informed that his right arm had just
been burned above the elbow, there soon developed, on the specified place on
his arm, a large red spot surmounted by a water blister. Yet the man had
not been touched by any object.
"After three years of
investigations, a special committee of the British Medical Association had
this to say in their report, ‘Divine Healing and Cooperation Between Doctors
and Clergy: As far as our observation and investigation have gone, we have
seen no evidence that there is any special type of illness cured solely by
spiritual healing which cannot be cured by medical methods which do not
involve such claims.
"’The cases claimed as
cures of a miraculous nature present no features of unique and unexpected
character outside the knowledge of any experienced physician or psychiatrist.
We can find no evidence that organic diseases are cured solely by such means
as spiritual healing. The evidence suggests that many such cases claimed to be
cured are likely to be either instances of wrong diagnosis, wrong prognosis,
remission, or possibly of spontaneous cure."’—V.
Edmunds and G. Scorer.7
God’s Will
Finally, we must consider God’s
will in the subject of healing. "God’s primary purpose for His children
is the forming of the image of Christ in them (Rom. 8:28, 29). Whether He
heals or not will depend upon which will contribute to the accomplishment of
that purpose."—A. Hay.8
"It takes a lifetime to
learn and really believe in our hearts that there is sometimes something
better than release from pain and sorrow, and that is a deep likeness to the
Lord Jesus Christ which means fruitfulness.
"I would witness to the fact
that the deepest, the most abiding spiritual lessons which God has been
pleased to teach me were learned in consequence of and during my various
experiences of sickness. This last is particularly true in respect to the
prayer-life, the praise-life, the life of dependence upon God, and the life
which chooses to live, not for the seen but for the unseen, not for the
temporal but for the eternal." —Henry
Frost.9
"As in the apostolic days so
now the desire exists for the manifestation of the Spirit in marvelous ways;
but a life sober, righteous, holy, lived in the hope of the glory to come, is
the more excellent way of the Spirit’s manifestation and undeniable proof of
His indwelling. The prayer should not be so much for this or that gift, or
this or that result, as for Christ Himself to be made manifest to us and
through us. The Apostle who was most filled with the Spirit sums all up in the
one great word, ‘For me to live is Christ."’—W. F.
Erdman.
"It is a serious mistake to
presume that the Christian can maintain a neutral or passive attitude toward
error. Contrariwise, he must oppose error as definitely as he embraces truth.
Error is never static or stagnant, but is always aggressive. For that reason
it has never died a natural death, nor can we ignore it to death.
"Error ceaselessly seeks to
corrupt, efface, and neutralize the truth, and to destroy all whom it enmeshes
in its tentacles. The grand reason then for opposing error is to retrieve
precious souls from its blight, and to deliver them from bondage to freedom,
from darkness to marvelous light."—W.
D. Miller.10
"Is it not significant that in groups
today in which the Corinthian errors regarding the gifts of the Spirit are
taken as normal and sought, there appear finally along with them the same
manifestations of carnality and disorder that were evidenced in the Corinthian
church?"—A. Hay.11
- The Nine Gifts of the Spirit Are
Not in the Church Today, p. 31.
- The Pentecostal Error, p. 30.
- Miraculous Healing, p. 45
- Faith Healing and the Christian Faith,
p. 22.
- Miracles: Yesterday and Today,
p. 188.
- Ibid., p. 188.
- Some Thoughts on Faith Healing,
pp. 88, 89.
- New Testament Order for Church and
Missionary, p. 195.
- Miraculous Healing, p. 45.
- Modern Divine Healing, p. 9.
- New Testament Order for Church and
Missionary, p. 195.