I was raised in a conservative Christian family. Some of my family were Baptist, some were Church of Christ. Needless to say that when my own spirituality gave way to sin, legalism abounded in my upbringing. Even when I began my own pursuit of Christ at age 16, I joined with a fundamentalist Baptist church because I didn’t know much else existed.
This was a great season for me, as I had never learned much of the Word of God, and the emphasis they put on teaching the scriptures enabled me to learn very quickly the core truths of the Christian faith. However, something was always lacking. Even as I began sharing the gospel, and slowly seeing some of my friends turn to Christ, I always longed for something more.
It was another four and a half years before I was baptized with the Holy Spirit and began seeing the power of God come into my life and ministry, but when it came, it changed everything! What interests me, today, is how the power of the Holy Spirit comes.
Which came first, the gospel or the gifts?
As I read the Bible, there seems to be two contradictory teachings on how the spiritual gifts would become active in the life of a believer.
The first is found in Mark’s version of the great commission, where he writes:
And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany [other versions say “follow”] those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
Mark 16:15-18; English Standard Version
Gifts Follow Gospel
What Mark seems to be saying is that when we go out to obey the Great Commission, sharing the gospel and making disciples, that the gifts of the Holy Spirit will just automatically come along to testify of the power of God. This makes sense, because as Paul states, “the kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in power” (1 Corinthians 4:20). I take this to mean that without the power of God at work in our efforts to share the Gospel, we are not giving the true gospel, or at least not the full gospel. However, the good news, it seems, is that when we simply obey the Great Commission, the power will come naturally; we do not need to do anything to bring it about.
I like that. It sounds so easy!
The problem is, that isn’t how things actually seem to work.
Gospel Follows Gifts
In my own life, I was a Christian and sharing the gospel regularly for many years, and never once saw the sick healed or demons cast out. I believed in those things. I even hoped for them to happen at times, but I never experienced them. There are many generations of Christians who would testify the same thing. Just read the biography’s of the “generals” of the faith, such as Smith Wigglesworth and John G. Lake.
Even the disciples, whom Jesus delivered the Great Commission to personally, did not just begin preaching publicly and then see the power show up. Jesus actually gave them another set of instructions, which seems backwards to this original position. Rather than telling them “preach the gospel and the gifts will follow,” as Mark teaches, Luke records that Jesus told the disciples to not attempt ministry until the Holy Spirit came on them with power!
And while staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; for John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from now…But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”
Acts 1:5-6,8; English Standard Version
So in one instance, Jesus tells them that as they go to make disciples the power will follow them, and in the other, Jesus tells them to wait for the power which will then enable them to make disciples.
So which is it?
The truth is, I think it is both. In each teaching, there is a dynamic presented by Jesus in which the foundation of both receiving the power of God and proclaiming the Gospel of Christ hinge on our response to His promise and His command. They become inseparable.
In the book of Acts, Luke tells us that the disciples were to wait for the fulfillment of God’s promise. They already had this expectation that the Holy Spirit would empower them to be Christ’s witnesses supernaturally. They had already got a taste of this in the earthly ministry of Jesus, and they had already touched the power of the Holy Spirit themselves, through Jesus, which enabled them to heal the sick and cast out demons. They expected the fulfillment of the promise that this Holy Spirit would one day come and baptize them, and then the power of God would remain on them, just as it did with Jesus.
Their waiting for the Holy Spirit to come was borne out of an expectation that He would come, and they didn’t just sit idly by twiddling their thumbs. They anxiously pursued the Lord in prayer to see the promise come:
Then they returned to Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet, which is near Jerusalem, a Sabbath day’s journey away. And when they had entered, they went up to the upper room, where they were staying… All these with one accord were devoting themselves to prayer, together with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus, and his brothers.
Acts 1:12-14; English Standard Version
This prayerful pursuit of the power of God isn’t incongruous with the Great Commission in Mark! He teaches that we are to be walking in obedience to preach the gospel to the whole of creation. That is not optional. Yet in discussing the gifts, Mark tells us that these signs don’t just follow a preacher, but they “accompany those who believe.”
It may be that to preach the gospel without the power of God is not just a failure to share the full gospel, as I stated before, but is actually a failure to believe it ourselves!
This was the case in my own life! I spent years believing that God’s power was alive and working out in the world, but I was also filled with so many excuses as to why it wouldn’t happen in my own life. I knew that God was healing the sick and casting out demons through those missionaries who live in the remote regions of the world, and I always believed their testimonies when they came to our church, but I was just a nobody kid living in America’s “Bible-belt.” We had a church on every corner preaching to gospel. The testimony of Jesus was surely well-established where I was, so why would God do something supernatural through a barely-saved teenager like me, when there was so much “evidence” of the gospel all around?
As I moved closer in my journey to being filled with the Holy Spirit and seeing the power come alive in me, I necessarily went through a major period of “discovery” that reshaped my beliefs. There were testimonies I began to hear of the power of God at work in urban America, not just the jungles somewhere. There were stories of revival in history, from the Great Awakening to Toronto. Then I began to hear of how God had done miraculous things in my own family’s history — such as when He miraculously healed my grandmother from appendicitis as a young girl through the laying on of her sister’s hands, after the doctors said nothing else could be done for her. I then began to hear of how my own friends were seeing hints of this power happening around them, from crazy (but accurate) prophetic words, to actual supernatural healings.
Even though I believed the gospel and was enrolled in Bible college to become a preacher, this process was taking me to a different place where God was chipping away at my unbelief. Once that path was cleared, there began to arise in me a hunger to see these things happen in my own life. I began praying desperately for God to give me the baptism of the Holy Spirit, without anyone to guide me or tell me what it would be like. (Remember, I was Baptist. Everyone I spoke to was discouraging this pursuit as futile or even an opportunity for demonic manipulations.)
One night at three in the morning, it finally happened. Sitting on the side of the bathtub in my college dormitory, I was overcome by the presence of God and began praying in unknown tongues. From that day on, everything changed.
The Necessity of Desire
The Apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian church, stating that “I do not want you to be uninformed” about the Holy Spirit’s gifts (1 Corinthians 12:1), and he spends the next three chapters discussing their use and purpose. The problem in that church was that there was a hyper-spiritualizing of people with certain gifts, and a neglect of others whose gifts were deemed less important. In some cases, there was flat out abuse of the gifts for self-glorification. However, contrary to the reaction of many modern teachings on the gifts, Paul never told the Corinthian church to cease using the gifts. Instead, he corrected them. He explains to them that the goal of every gift is love of others, and summarizes this argument by commanding them: ” Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts…” (1 Corinthians 14:1). In fact, this command to “earnestly desire” is repeated again in verse 39, concerning the gift of prophecy.
The words “earnestly desire” come from a single greek word, ‘zēloo,’ which according to Strongs Concordance means “to burn with zeal,” “to be heated or to boil with envy,” and “to desire earnestly; pursue.” It is a present, active, imperative verb, which means that we are commanded to be full of this desire all all times, and to actively be pursuing the gifts in our lives. Despite it’s possible vulgar connotation, the best example I have heard to explain this word’s intensity is that we are to “lust after” the gifts, like a young man in pursuit of a woman.
Paul’s language here, then, solidifies the argument that without a belief for the gifts, and a burning pursuit of them, we do not get the power, which enables us to be a witness. They will not passively come upon us.
This throws out the argument I hear from many cessationist friends that, “I am not opposed to the gifts, but God has never given them to me,” and “if God wanted me to do those things, He would give them me.” The truth is that He has shown us, in scripture, that we are to obey every command He gave the first disciples, which includes, “heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the leper, cast out demons,” and so much more. He has also shown us in scripture that to receive the power to do these things, we must pursue it. They do not come without hunger.
The Secret to More
Presently, I have the opportunity to share the gospel with thousands of people each year, in different nations of the world, and can honestly say there is nothing more satisfying than to see people give their lives to Christ. Nevertheless, I can also tell you that I am hungrier than ever for the power of God to work in my life and ministry! Dr. Randy Clark is famous for proclaiming, “there is more!” Well, I want more. I am not satisfied to see the power of God remain stagnate in my life, and I have come to expect greater things to come, as I grow in Christ.
So what is the secret? How do we get the “more?”
Stay hungry, and preach the gospel!
As we preach the gospel, it gives an opportunity for the power to come! It all begins when we are hungry and seeking, but it grows as we use the gifts of God in obedience to the Great Commission! As we go and minister to other, more comes. As more comes, our hunger grows, and we pray. As we pray, more comes, and we receive more power to go. The cycle continues on and on.
So to answer our original question, which follows which? Do the gifts of God follow the preaching of the gospel? Or does the preaching of the gospel follow the arrival of the gifts?
The answer is yes to both!
The scriptural pattern is that the gifts follow those who believe in the promise of God, and prayerfully burn to receive them. Once we receive them and use them in obedience to the Great Commission, they will grow and more will come!
The gospel and the gifts always follow one another, in both directions, because in the plan of God you cannot separate His power and presence from the Gospel presentation. You cannot fully share the gospel with another person in the absence of God’s power to reveal His Kingdom. And you cannot steward the gifts of God in you if you are not using them to share the gospel with others. The scriptures declare that you cannot have one without the other, so let’s stop trying. Let’s get hungry; let’s pursue the gifts, and let’s proclaim the gospel! We will be amazed at what God does through us when we do.
Photo by Nathan Bingle on Unsplash
