We all know that and agree with that. Is this a request that you want me to choose my words better?
No. It is important to ensure that you understand the distinction since I have long heard the foolish claim that “if anyone had the gift of healing today, they should be running through the hospitals healing everyone.”
I’m pointing out that God is the one who heals – according to His will, not the will of the person(s) through whom the power is manifested.
Look at the verse:
Acts 5:12 And by the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders wrought among the people; (and they were all with one accord in Solomon's porch.
Who was healing: "By the hands of the apostles were many signs and wonders" (done).
I suppose the Holy Spirit lied here, did not have an accurate choice of words, or maybe Luke misspoke and the Holy Spirit inspired it any way.
Your criticism is unwarranted.
Hardly. I pointed out that that God uses people as channels of His power and grace. You just missed the point.
Again it is you that are wrong here and seem to be criticizing for the sake of criticizing. Note carefully: Jesus healed all that came to him for healing. He never refused anyone.
Nonsense. John 5 clearly states that there was a great number of people waiting around the Pool of Siloam to be healed, but Jesus went to only one man to heal him. Jesus didn’t heal everyone.
Now you are technically correct that Jesus healed everyone WHO CAME TO HIM, but that is different than the point I am making. In the context of John 5, where Jesus explains that He does what He sees the Father doing, He is led to heal only one man.
Jesus did not refuse anyone who requested to be healed. Over and above that he healed some others as well. That is grace. The former is mercy.
Yes. It was a validation of His unique role in human affairs. The healings in the early church demonstrated that they were continuing the work of Jesus. As the church became established, the quantity of healings diminished, but that doesn’t mean that they have stopped or that the gift is no longer operative. In pioneer areas, God may heal more frequently than in the Western world to authenticate the message of the missionaries.
[I pointed out that Jesus healed by the power of the Holy Spirit and Jesus explicitly said He couldn’t do anything of His own power]
And that proves????
You shouldn’t place a higher burden on the disciples of Jesus than the one on Jesus Himself. A student is not above His teacher.
No you are not. The subject here is "the gifts of the Spirit."
Look at the title of the thread: "The Manifestation of the Spirit." You are presenting your own ideas which seem to be off topic. The word "manifestation" comes from 1Cor.12:7, following which the gifts of the Spirit are listed. Your model of healing is not listed there.
I’m sorry for quoting and referencing the Gospel of John. I didn’t realize that you reject it and don’t consider its teachings to have any relationship to 1 Corinthians.
An example of the gift of healing is given in Acts 5:16, where Peter healed ALL who came to him, no one excepted. That is a demonstration of the gift of healing. No one has that gift today. God heals, but no one has "the gift of healing," today. The two are very much different.
That’s a false distinction. Jesus manifested many gifts of the Spirit and did His miracles in the power of the Holy Spirit. We are called to live in the power of the Holy Spirit and are given gifts (empowerings) to continue the work of Jesus. I fail to see how you can make the distinction you are making.
Show me a post where anyone here would have given you that idea. Either that or recant your statement. It is a false accusation.
It is an implied assumption throughout this thread. It becomes explicit from time to time like Yeshua1’s most recent post to me where he says that those who disagree with him should “shut up or show” – meaning that the person who has the gifts exercised them completely by their own will and not by the direct leading of God. The argument I’m responding to now is partially based on that presumption.
Everyone here believes that.
I hope so. Not everyone seems to recognize the implications of that belief as demonstrated by the arguments they are making…
Again, a false accusation. Show me a post where people here believe what you just stated.
Your insistence that “no one has the gift of healing today” which was quoted in your previous message. You have a systematized belief (cessationism) which claims that the Spirit will not give the grace gift of healing to a believer today. Do you deny that that’s your position?
Keep in mind there are many cessationists here, so you should be able to find someone who believes the garbage you just posted.
To quote Nathan the prophet, “You are the man!”
I wrote:
That's why in the Book of Acts you see the Spirit giving tongues to those in the Upper Room (with tongues of fire, symbolizing that believers are now the Temple of God), to the Samaritans (without the manifestation of tongues) only when Peter and John came to lay hands of them (remember, they wanted to call down fire on the Samaritans previously, and the Spirit did not come upon the Samaritans until Peter and John were there to witness it so that they would know that God had accepted the Samaritans). Then the Spirit came upon the family of Cornelius and his friends even before Peter had finished his sermon (probably because Peter was going to tell them to become Jews and be circumcised - this incident figured prominently in the Jerusalem Council). Then the Spirit came upon the disciples of John with the manifestation of tongues (Acts 19:1-7) after they were baptized and Paul laid hands on them. Those disciples of John had an incomplete message/revelation and they learned about Jesus and that there was a Holy Spirit.
And so??
I am laying the scriptural foundation for what is coming next…
I wrote:
There are many people today who have an incomplete message of the gospel. They have accepted the light that they have been given and God is in the process of redeeming them through additional revelation and action in their lives. I believe that for some, there will be an additional experience of the Holy Spirit that is often described as "the baptism of the Holy Spirit" which will confirm their greater understanding of their place in the Kingdom of God, but it is not for everyone.
That is not what the Bible teaches.
Actually it is there in Acts where God-fearers such as Cornelius, the disciples of John, the Samaritans, and others go from an incomplete faith to a much more complete faith. For Cornelius and the disciples of John, it was accompanied by tongues. For the Samaritans, we are not told what evidence was given. The point is that the Spirit did not deal with people according to a formula.
I’m not even dealing with the Old Testament saints who entered into the Kingdom of God without even knowledge of Jesus and in the case of the earliest saints, without the Law.
Once a person understands the gospel he has the opportunity to accept it or reject it.
Sure, but sometimes the gospel comes slowly and in an incomplete fashion.
No "baptism of the Spirit" will confirm to an unbeliever a greater understanding. That in itself is heresy.
Yes, I agree.
I also have not made that claim. I wrote, “…will confirm their greater understanding of their place in the Kingdom of God…” Their greater understand of the Kingdom of God comes before their immersion in the Holy Spirit.
You changed the wording to make my statement heretical. I hope that was an honest mistake.
Who are you to make such judgments of character, and where do you get this from Scripture?
It is the natural extension of what I have shown from scripture before. Those who initially hear a much more complete gospel message will certainly be baptized in the Spirit when they initially follow Jesus.
Chapter and verse please.
God deals with people in different ways, according to their temperaments. If you read the Gospels (even the dreaded Gospel of John), you will notice that Jesus didn’t treat anyone just alike. He used different metaphors and explanations according to their temperaments and life situations. The same thing holds in the Book of Acts with the missionary journeys and the various cultures and individuals the early church encountered. Furthermore, Paul wrote different things to different churches according to their culture and pressing needs.
This is not difficult to understand. Anyone with a casual familiarity with the scriptures should know this.
The church did not display any of the gifts of the Spirit (so-called) for 1900 years. History is silent about them.
I would suggest that the church did manifest the gifts in some ways throughout the church age, although the “gift of tongues” as it is commonly practiced in Charismatic circles today did not seem to exist in Christendom. By the way, you need to fix your math. You claim 1,900 years when the Asuza Street revival occurred in 1905. You may be thinking of 1,800 years or less.
Then in 1905 this strange movement, now known as the Charismatic movement started up imitating the true gifts which were manifested in the first century.
Much of what happened in the Azusa Street revival doesn’t seem to be biblical, but it does match up to manifestations that had occurred previously in other places and times in Christendom, such as the Cane Ridge Revival in 1801.
