4. The Crisis of Substituting for the Supernatural
Alliance Witness, 1980-03-05, P.24-25.

WHEN Jesus appeared to His disciples on a mount in Galilee after His resurrection and gave them the Great Commission, they must have been greatly excited.

Doubtless they were full of enthusiasm and zeal to do something big for the Lord. But Jesus said to them in effect: “Don’t do anything. Just pray and wait for power from on high.” It must have been very hard and humiliating for them to do this.

But at this critical moment the disciples decided to distrust their natural strength, zeal and determination and follow the Lord’s instruction to pray and wait for the coming of the Holy Spirit with His supernatural power. That was the wisest thing they could do.

Their faith and obedience were sorely tried when they prayed and waited for nine days and nothing happened. Nevertheless they persevered, and then on the tenth day, with the coming of the feast of Pentecost, the promise of the Lord was fulfilled. The Holy Spirit descended on them in the form of cloven tongues of fire.

The whole situation was gloriously and significantly supernatural.

First, the timing was supernatural. The disciples did not understand at first why they had to pray and wait for ten long days for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Later they realized that the delay was not merely a matter of God testing their faith; it went much deeper.

At Pentecost the Jews celebrate the giving of the Law by God to the Chosen People. It is therefore deeply meaningful that God chose this day for the coming of the Holy Spirit. It indicates that the Spirit of life was given by God to replace the Law of the letter and that the people of God are no longer under the bondage of the Law, but under the Spirit of life and grace.

On the other hand, the coming of the Holy Spirit was the fulfillment of Old Testament typology as seen in the feasts enumerated in Leviticus 23. One of these was the feast of Pentecost, at which a “new meat offering” was to be made to God, a wonderful symbol of the new quality of Christians wrought through the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.

Second, the beginning of the Christian church was heralded by the supernatural appearing of cloven tongues of fire on the heads of the disciples. This bestowed on them the fiery power of speech that convicted three thousand people of their sinfulness and turned them to God as the first fruits of the newly founded church of Christ.

Third, the tremendous spiritual power that was possessed by the new church, through the work of the Holy Spirit, was supernatural. This supernatural element was symbolized by the “rushing mighty wind” that accompanied the coming of the Holy spirit.

The wind reminds us of the wind in Ezekiel’s vision of the valley filled with dry bones (chapter 37). God commanded Ezekiel io prophesy to the dry bones. As he did so, a wind came to them as breath, and they received life and were transformed into a mighty army.

Viewed from this Biblical background, the rushing mighty wind at Pentecost is seen as symbolic of a strong breath of new life that transformed the early disciples into a mighty army of Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit. The Christians who were filled with the Spirit became strong in dedication, strong in faith, strong in prayer, strong in love, strong in overcoming sin and selfishness, strong in facing persecution, and strong in witnessing for the Lord. The weaklings before Pentecost became warriors after it.

Fourth, the speaking in tongues was supernatural. It was three things in one: fulfillment, prophecy and antidote.

The speaking in tongues was the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecy, as pointed out by the apostle Peter: “This is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; and it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh” (Acts 2:16-17).

It was a prophetic picture of the future spreading of the gospel under the power of the Holy Spirit to all nations, where different tongues are spoken. The seemingly strange phenomenon of speaking in tongues at Pentecost was a supernatural sign of assurance that God graciously gave to his church at the outset of its task of worldwide evangelism. This is of great encouragement to those who are engaged in evangelism and missions today.

It was an antidote to the confounding of languages that happened at the building of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11). The confusion of languages was brought about by sin-the self-exaltation of man against God, symbolized by the tower. With the confusion of languages came all kinds of confusion-moral, religious, family, social.

God, in His plan of salvation, sent the Holy Spirit into the world as an antidote to sin and to the confusion caused by sin. His bringing the redeemed people from all nations and ages into one bond of love in Christ is beautifully symbolized by the supernatural phenomenon of speaking with tongues. This means that all tongues unite in praising God and in proclaiming His great doings. Sin causes division, but the Holy Spirit bestows unity.

Thus the whole situation of Pentecost was supernatural. What happened was only the beginning of the story of the early church, which was filled with the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit as recorded throughout the book of Acts.

In my study of Acts, I have discovered that there were at least fifteen important events in the history of the early church that took place under the explicit guidance of the Holy Spirit. The book could rightly be called The Acts of the Holy Spirit through the Apostles of Christ.

In reading through Acts, I have sensed an atmosphere of expectancy in the early church that supernatural manifestations of the power of God would take place at any time.

The book of Acts is only the first chapter of church history. Now almost two thousand years have passed, during which God has repeatedly manifested His grace and power in supernatural ways.

I cannot but feel that the Christian church today has, to a large extent, swung away from the supernatural pattern of the apostolic church and has settled down on the borderline of a naturalistic approach. She pays lip service to the supernatural in Christianity but conducts her activities almost exclusively along natural lines.

Are we not justified in desiring a new and more Biblical orientation in our attitude to the supernatural? It is not enough to have an open mind to the supernatural. We need a positive mind toward it; that is, we should actively seek for it and build up an atmosphere of expectancy of it.

The Bible tells us that the evil one will be more active in the last days, exercising his supernatural powers to a greater extent than ever. Few of us doubt that we are now living in the last days, and we see signs of Satan’s intensified working on every side. It is foolish to try to fight Satan with our natural powers and resources. We simply are not his equal. We are bound to be defeated if we carry on our warfare on the natural level.

There are reasons for students of Bible prophecy to believe that God, in his provision for the particular need of the last days, will give a special portion of the power of the Holy Spirit to His people before the second coming of Christ.

But we should be aware also that Satan has always been active in counterfeiting God’s best gifts to His people. This is especially true in regard to the gift of the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Disorderly and even ruinous counterfeits have appeared again and again in church history and have caused disasters.

Even in the Spirit-filled apostolic church at Jerusalem, under the watchfulness of Peter, Satan influenced the hearts of Ananias and his wife, Sapphira, and used them to counterfeit a great self-denying act of dedication. The book of Revelation tells us that in the last days Satan will he able to perform miracles that will deceive even Christians.

But we need not be put off by these things. If we are, we are again falling into the trap of Satan, whose strategy is to either deceive us with counterfeits or to scare us away from the good things of God.

Nevertheless, we must be very careful to screen everything with the Word of God, which is the touchstone of all things. We can positively seek after the best gift from God on the one hand, and on the other hand coolly apply the test of the Word to everything before we receive it.

We are neither to be pressed into anything nor scared away from anything. We should act on faith that it is the will of God to give us the best, while we are sure that it is also the will of God for us to stand on His Word and not be deceived by anything.

Our goal is to receive the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit, not merely the signs. If it pleases God to give us the signs, well and good. If God gives only the substance of what we seek for, that also is well and good.

If a person already has the power and fruits of the Holy Spirit, there is no need for him to seek after the signs. If he already has the signs, he should check to make sure that he has the real thing-the power and fruits of the Holy Spirit-and shows them in his life and service.

There is another point that is worthy of our special attention. We should not try to press others to seek after supernatural signs of the fullness of the Holy Spirit. If we think the signs are important, we should leave it to God to give them through our prayer. If it is the will of God for a seeker to have the signs, He will give them. If it is not the will of God and we press it, we will do much harm, as church history has proved. We should believe that God can accomplish His own purpose without our pressing.

The most important thing is that we rely on the Word of God no matter how we feel. The Word judges everything-church traditions, our preaching, our methods, our policies, our theories, our feelings, our value concepts, our standards, our experience.

Finally, we should leave room for God to disagree with our way of understanding and interpreting His Word. He is a God of surprises. He can surprise us as He surprised Moses and Peter.

Dogmatics can be so dogmatic that it leaves no room for God Himself to exercise His sovereignty. We often find man more dogmatic than the Word of God. Humility is always needed in interpreting the Bible.