Finding a Way to Believe
As we traverse through our Bestowed series (studying the work of the Holy Spirit among us through giving spiritual gifts and shaping our stories), last Sunday we bounded down an uncommon trail in the modern Church’s conversation surrounding spiritual gifts. A conversation about the Supernatural.
As we learned, the modern list of spiritual gifts is actually a conglomeration of four separate lists from the Apostle Paul’s writings – Romans 12:4-8, Ephesians 4:11-12, 1 Corinthians 12:27-30, and 1 Corinthians 12:7-11.
In context, these first three lists are a summary of ministry roles and functions, but Paul makes a distinction in the fourth list – 1 Corinthians 12:7-11.
He says in 1 Corinthians 12:7, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good…” and then provides a specific list of gifts – or more clearly, abilities or enablements – that occur and are distributed when the Holy Spirit is specifically present.
As differentiated from a general guidance or empowerment of the Holy Spirit in our natural gifts or roles/callings, the Holy Spirit gives these supernatural gifts as signs or markers of His Presence among us.
This word “manifestation” refers to the Old Testament where, as we’ve previously studied, we learn how the Holy Spirit is Omnipresent (all present, everywhere, all the time) and also comes in Manifest presence (personal, potent, often-felt, weighty presence) in certain places and times—and particularly among the people of God as they worship Him rightly (ie. the cloud of glory filling the Tabernacle of Moses, and Solomon’s Temple).
Paul notes that this “Manifestation of the Spirit” (not plural but singular) is experienced as the Holy Spirit releases the gifts/abilities listed in 1 Corinthians 12:7-11 – and Paul adds the repeated note that these abilities are “of” or “through” or “by” the One, Holy Spirit.
In this sense, the group of believers meeting together are “one”, a unity, like the tabernacle or temple where God Himself can rest. In that space, where in the Old Testament the cloud of glory would rest in lightning, thunder, and power—in the New Covenant, we now receive and respond to His Presence—and such a personal power moves in us.
This reminds his New Testament hearers that though there are a variety of abilities enacted, these are happening when the God, the Holy Spirit, is manifest in the room of many believers. These are not separate manifestations, but a many-voiced manifestation of the Presence of God.
As we pondered together, this led to a natural question for our culture:
When we look at the List, what do we think about the supernatural-ness of these spiritual abilities?
Does it deter us?
Is it intriguing?
Is there a suspicion of past abuses?
Is there a longing to experience how the Holy Spirit can express Himself through us as believers, aimed “for the common good”?
And therein opened a wider vista—the larger conversation—not just regarding spiritual gifts, but what we think of the supernatural realities of the Bible and the Christian life as Jesus displayed and offers.
The issue for spiritual gifts is, as we’ll notice below, that Western American Christianity has a strong inherited Naturalistic bias. That even though we subscribe to the Scriptures—we often don’t know what to do with the supernatural aspects of our faith, including those more supernatural abilities.
And/or we’ve so extremized the notion of the supernatural that it’s either naive, fear-filled, or merely entertainment worthy.
Regarding the spiritual gifts, this means we often neglect, discount, or totally disagree with, the supernatural enablements of the Holy Spirit.
In the end of his famous work, Miracles, C.S. Lewis dives into the conversation between:
Naturalism - belief, ultimately, that Nature is the total system, a closed universe
and
Supernaturalism - belief, ultimately, that with Nature there is Something else.
I encourage you to take some time to consider the reflections below. These enrich the sermon content and will make more sense if you’ve listened through it. If you’d like to listen, check it out here.
C.S. Lewis & the Supernatural
As we begin to understand that the Supernaturlist view is the Biblical view of the authors, I want to highlight for us a few of the reflections in the epilogue from Miracles as Lewis concludes, after 15 chapters, the truth and logic of the Supernaturalist view. I think this will give us grounded insight for pursing understanding of the supernatural view as integral for all the ordinary and extraordinary in the New Testament church:
Firstly, he says,
“My work ends here. If, after reading it, you now turn to study the historical evidence for yourself, begin with the New Testament and not with the books about it.”
This is so, so right.
As we begin to think about the Supernatural gifts—it means we must run back to the Scriptures and ask the Father about this reality in His Word. His Word won’t mislead us (though sometimes our reasoning or tradition can).
Take a look at the life of Jesus, the Acts of the Apostles, the Letters they wrote to the Church….
Is there a supernaturality to this Christian story?
If so, what does that mean for us today?
How did Jesus expect that the Holy Spirit would lead us, guide us?
How could it “be better if I go…”? (Jesus’s own words) so the Father can send the Holy Spirit?
Secondly, C.S. Lewis gives some sage advice from his own years as an atheist and his conversion,
“And when you turn from the New Testament to modern scholars, remember that you go among them as a sheep among wolves. Naturalistic assumptions…will meet you on every side—even from the pens of clergymen.
This does not mean (as I was once tempted to suspect) that these clergymen are disguised apostates who deliberately exploit the position and the livelihood given them by the Christian Church to undermine Christianity.
It comes partly from what we may call a ‘hangover’. We all have Naturalism in our bones and even conversion does not at once work the infection out of our system. Its assumptions rush back upon the mind the moment vigilance is relaxed.”
I love this—it’s so humble and honest. Even theologians and pastors are in process of understanding the wholeness of God’s word. This confident humility is a fruit of the Holy Spirit in us.
Lewis’s tone reminds me of the quote I shared from Dr. J.P. Moreland, Biola Philosopher and considered one of the top 50 living philosophers today,
“Western Christians have absorbed more of a secular worldview than we’d like to admit, and many of them find miracle stories hard to believe or even embarrassing… ‘The crushing weight of the secular outlook…permeates or pressures every thought we have today.’”
C.S. Lewis articulated early on what Moreland affirms today. The perspective of a closed universe is inherited. And it’s shaped our way of seeing the world without realizing it. “Naturalism is in our bones.” It shapes how we see. It’s in how we study. It buffers how we think. Honestly, it can be hard, even controversial (especially in the academic world), to believe anything but Naturalism.
And still, some will instinctively worry, if I ascribe to a Supernaturalist view—what about science? Do I have to sacrifice knowledge and facts at the alter of supernatural faith?
The funny thing is, for the Supernaturalist, there is no disagreement between science and faith. Faith undergirds, even motivates science. It’s the Naturalist who is trapped in a false tension of science vs faith.
The Supernaturalist see the two-coexisting perfectly—God as the Creator undergirding all human discoveries about His ways. The alter flame of faith lights the world in which we learn. Trusting the Supernatural nature of Creation actually can free us up to trust God in all the natural ways before us.
Let’s end with a quote from Miracles, as Lewis brilliantly concludes his long conversation with an almost worried lament. His thoughts tease out for us the unfortunate pressure inherited Naturalism that can snuff out the living, breathing fire of faith.
“And yet...and yet...It is that and yet which I fear more than any positive argument against miracles: that soft, tidal return of your habitual outlook as you close the book and the familiar four walls about you and the familiar noises from the street reassert themselves.
Perhaps (if I dare suppose so much) you have been led on at times while you were reading, have felt ancient hopes and fears astir in your heart, have perhaps come almost to the threshold of belief—but now? No. It just won’t do. Here is the ordinary, here is the ‘real’ world, round you again.
The dream is ending; as all other similar dreams have always ended. For of course this is not the first time such a thing has happened. More than once in your life before this you have heard a strange story, read some odd book, seen something queer or imagined you have seen it, entertained some wild hope or terror: but always it ended in the same way. And always you wondered how you could, even for a moment, have expected it not to.
For that ‘real world’ when you came back to it is so unanswerable. Of course the strange story was false, of course the voice was really subjective, of course the apparent portent was a coincidence.
You are ashamed of yourself for having ever thought otherwise: ashamed, relieved, amused, disappointed, and angry all at once.
You ought to have known that, as [scholars say], ‘Miracles don’t happen’.”
