The Charismatic Movement

DIBS is neither pro-charismatic nor anti-charismatic. It is just non-charismatic. What concerns us is not so much whether people claim to practice charismatic gifts, but whether they observe the Biblical commands governing those gifts. We do, however, hold in general to the following points.
  

On the Charismatic gifts

• The view that charismatic gifts have ended is based on deductions from possible interpretations of Scripture. However, the Bible does not explicitly and unequivocally state that they have ended. Therefore, we cannot be dogmatic in holding that they have ceased. In fact, we should never be dogmatic about deductions drawn from possible interpretations of Scripture.
    
• In the New Testament period the genuineness of spiritual gifts (such as prophecy) was to be tested by whether those gifts and those who claimed to have them conformed to the teaching of the Bible and its standards of spirituality. While it might be easier to just decide ahead of time that all charismatic gifts have ceased and are therefore not valid, the proper approach is to evaluate each instance of them just like the New Testament believers had to. The same thing goes for those who claim that charismatic gifts have not ceased. Rather than blindly accept all instances of charismatic activity as valid and of God, each instance is to be evaluated. Analysis, not bias, is to guide our opinion of the gifts.
    
• Scripture commands, "Forbid not to speak in tongues." This command was not subsequently revoked in Scripture. Christian organizations that separate from people who speak in tongues (or who similarly perform other charismatic gifts) without first evaluating the person or his actions are in violation of the Biblical command and are guilty of legalism (teaching for doctrines the commandments of men).
    
• If a person is convinced that he has experienced a special gift from God, and if it draws him closer to God with a greater hunger for the Word and a greater zeal for obedience, then his experience should probably not be made an issue of debate. However, neither should he expect others to accept his testimony of having experienced something from God. They have no more obligation to believe him than he has to convince them.
    
• The vocabulary one uses to express his experiences does make a difference. For example, where non-charismatic believers might say that God laid it on their heart to do something, charismatic people might in the same situation say that God told them to do something. Yet, when pressed to explain what they mean by "told," they will admit that there was nothing audible, but that they felt a deep conviction to do something and that they assumed it was from God (which is just what the non-charismatic people say about their experience).
    

Tongues

• Tongues are not a necessary result or proof of salvation or sanctification. Even in the Apostolic era, not all believers experienced tongues. Those who insist that tongues are necessary for salvation, or that the gift is necessary for sanctification are guilty of adding works to both of those blessings of God.
    
• Tongues were always real languages. The utterances of those claiming to speak in tongues can therefore analyzed linguistically. Modern attempts by linguists to analyze the alleged tongues of charismatic people have resulted in the conclusion that what they are speaking does not have the minimal necessary components of languages.
    
• Tongues are only to be spoken before others if there is a translation given. Failure to have the tongues translated is a violation of Scripture.
    
• One's personal experience in charismatic gifts is no proof that they are genuine or from God. Scripture, not experience, is to be the basis of our beliefs. Groups including atheists, spiritists, and those from other religions speak in tongues. The only thing their experiences prove is that they have had an experience of some kind and from some source. But the experiences by themselves do not prove to us whether they are from God, from self, or from Satan. Although God does not give stones to His children who ask for bread, His children can (after asking Him for bread) pick up stones on their own and try to eat them. It would be folly, however, for them to insist that the stones must be bread since God doesn't give stones to His children who ask for bread.
    
• Tongues is the least of the gifts and the least edifying. Since speaking 5 words with the understanding is better than speaking 10,000 words in tongues, believers are encouraged to seek the better gifts.
    

Healing

• God does heal in response to praying in faith. However, genuine faith must be understood as being sure of what one knows to be true. Faith is not intense desire, wishing, or hoping. Biblical faith is being certain that something is God's will. Faith does not force God to do things. Rather it is accepting what God has revealed to already be His will. Faith follows where God is already leading, it does not lead God where we want to go. When people say they have prayed for something in faith that they would receive it, but then did not receive exactly what they asked for, that is clear proof that what they thought was faith was really just intense wishing.
    
• Healing is not always God's will. When it is not His will, He has a wonderful purpose for allowing it.
    
• If someone were to have the genuine gift of healing, it would be very clear. Current day "faith healers" have frequently discredited themselves by staging healings, charging for their healings, and not being able to document instances of healing any better than secular hypnotists. Genuine healings have been documented, but seldom if ever are they produced with the participation of "faith healers."
    

Prophecies

• If someone has the genuine gift of prophecy, then two things are guaranteed by Scripture: 1) every prophecy he makes will take place with 100% accuracy, and 2) his teaching will not include any heresy.
    
• In New Testament times genuine prophecies, even though they were revelations from God, were seldom incorporated into Scripture. The argument that, since Scripture is complete, prophecies must therefore have ceased (since otherwise they would have to be incorporated into Scripture) is false. Believers, upon hearing a prophecy from someone with a genuine gift of prophecy, were not obligated to blindly believe and obey it. They were first required to judge (evaluate) the prophecy.
    

Other gifts

• The New Testament does not present to us things like "holy laughter" or "being slain in the Spirit" as spiritual gifts or acts produced by God. The only New Testament examples of people who were awake losing voluntary control of themselves are of those who were either demon possessed or drunk. Scripture commands us to be sober minded. When it tells us to not be drunk with wine but to be filled with the Spirit, it is wrong to conclude that being filled with the Spirit is somehow similar to being drunk with wine. The Bible does not say, "Don't be drunk with wine; be drunk with the Spirit." Rather, the contrast includes not only the cause, but also the effect: "Don't be drunk (the negative effect) with wine (the negative cause), but be filled (the positive effect) with the Spirit (the positive cause)." One of the fruit of the Spirit is self-control, which is just the opposite of anything like being drunk. Since even lost people who go to some of the major charismatic meetings where these activities take place sometimes experience these things too, it is difficult to believe that they are experiencing anything more than self-induced hysteria. But again, even if they are convinced that they have experienced a genuine gift from God, and even if they are experiencing a genuine gift from God, they under no Biblical obligation to try to convince others, nor are others are under any obligation to believe the genuineness of their experience.