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 am trying to understand how to articulate or teach to someone in the Charismatic Movement about the following: When they are taught a story in the Old Testament, like Israel being in bondage, they'll build a construct out of that and then say, "We were born into this bondage principle," And then they will build a theology out of that, and I don't know how to articulate: "No, what you just did was wrong. You misapplied Scripture. You built a construct out of thin air."
Answer
This is an excellent question. This is their "stock and trade"...This is their "stock and trade." They can't interpret the Scripture accurately and come up with their theology--it's not there! So, where are they going to get it? Well, they have to invent it off of analogies, spiritualization, and allegory. This is standard stuff. Most of those people have no Biblical education--no formal education in the languages of Scripture. They do not have a sound hermeneutic, that is, a principle for interpreting the Scripture: Historical, Grammatical, Literal interpretation, because it would never yield their system! So what happens is, they use analogies to create their theology.
This is not new, but this is endemic in the Charismatic Movement. They will interpret portions of the Scripture: the gospel or whatever, in a straightforward way. You know, Jesus went here, did this, said that, said that--that's pretty straightforward.
But they will go to the Old Testament and "novelty is king" in the Charismatic Movement....right? I mean, they are like those people in Athens who always wanted to hear "Some...new...thing!"--tickle their ears. Now, how are you going to come up with a new thing if you just have the old Bible? Well, you have got to find stuff that's not there, but you have got to use the Bible to do it. One of the things that I commented on in my book Charismatic Chaos was a pastor, a prominent Charismatic pastor in Southern California. He did a series on the Book of Nehemiah. You know what Nehemiah is about...right? It's a story about Nehemiah who was the cup bearer to the king in the captivity in Babylon. The king makes a decree: the people can go back; they go back under the leadership of Nehemiah--they build the wall. Right? They rebuild the city of Jerusalem, and Israel, after 70 years of captivity is back restoring its nation again, and Nehemiah is there. Right? Everybody is building their little section of the wall, and some of the guys are armed, and they got the enemies, and Sanballat and Tobiah trying to thwart the work. You know the story. The story is about Israel going back and rebuilding its country and its city and its wall, and sort of reestablishing its nation again.
Well, this series on the Book of Nehemiah, went like this:
Nehemiah is the Holy Spirit. The broken walls are the fallen walls of human personality. The building of the wall is the rebuilding of human personality. The mortar between the bricks is "tongues." The pool (there was pool referred to in Nehemiah, in the city), the pool is the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Now, there is what the Book of Nehemiah wants to teach! Nehemiah, a.k.a. the Holy Spirit, wants to come into your fallen life, dip you in the pool of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit, and rebuild your life through speaking in tongues! This was like eight tapes of this. And you know, people are sitting there saying , "This is deep. I have never seen that!" You know why they have never seen it? It's not there! It's not there! But you see, the average person in the pew says, "Wow! This is fabulous insight!
This is bunk! This is a misrepresentation of Scripture, but this is the "stock and trade."
I remember years ago, when some guy came in for counseling here, and he said, "I am in a real bad situation." This actually occurred.
MacArthur: "How did you get into that situation?"
The guy with the problem: "Well, I married the wrong woman."
MacArthur: "Well, why did you marry her?"
The guy with the problem: "Well, it was the sermon my pastor preached."
MacArthur: "Really? What was the sermon?"
The guy with the problem: "It was on the walls of Jericho."
MacArthur: "The walls of Jericho?"
The guy with the problem: "He [the pastor] said, the principle of Jericho is, that anything you want, you march around it seven times and it'll fall to you!" "So, there was this girl and I really wanted her."
And so, literally, he found himself in a position where he could go around her seven times! And the walls of her heart would fall down and they did and they got married. No wonder the guy was in trouble. But see, that kind of novelty is the "stock and trade" of that Movement.
Let me tell you how serious this is, and I want you to understand this--this is like Bible Codes. This is attributing to God things God never said! And that, my friend, is serious stuff!
You are not going to be telling people, "This is what God meant," if this is not what He meant! That's pretty serious stuff. The only way you can deal with people like that is to say, "How is it that you know that it means that?" And their answer is going to be, standard answer: "The Lord...told me!" And now you've got no revelation confined here...you've got Pandora's Box--opened up!
How do you answer people like that? I think you answer them "right between the eyes"--"this is an aberrant, unacceptable form of interpreting the Bible! This kind of spiritualizing, allegorizing is serious error. In fact, that kind of stuff...I used to talk to pastors about this..."if you are going to interpret the Bible like that, then you don't need the Bible! You don't need the Bible! You could use anything! You could use "Little Bo Peep"
You could say, "You know the other night I was reciting 'Little Bo Peep' and the Lord showed me what it meant. Little Bo Peep, she was little, but God can use the little!" You get the drift? "Little Bo Peep, she lost her sheep. All over the world sheep are lost! People are lost! Did you ever met lost people? Lost people over here, and lost..." That's exactly what they do! "And she didn't know where to find them! Have you ever felt like that...you just don't know where to find them?
You laugh at that, but that is the "stock and trade" of that kind of preaching. "Ah, but they'll come home!" I haven't figured out what to do with the "waging their tails behind them."
But I mean, we laugh at that, but that's the point is that the hermeneutic is aberrant to start with, and the only way to deal with that is to say, "That is not an adequate way to handle the Scripture." I have said this so many times to students, "The Bible is real people, actual history, normal language." You can't be spinning off these wild fantasies at the expense of Scripture, and saying this is what God meant by what He said, because you are putting words in the mouth of Almighty God, and that is not a trivial matter!
Added to Bible Bulletin Board's "MacArthur’s Questions and
Answers" by:
Tony Capoccia
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