A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article appears below. James I. Packer is Professor of Historical and Systematic Theology, Regent College, Vancouver. This article was quoted by George Mallone in the last issue of Channels. It appears here, in its entirety, by permission of Renewal magazine, a British publication (No. 62. April/May 1976).
Revival is a corporate experience of five things together, following a spell of widespread coldness and deadness:
God comes down, in the sense that he gives a deepened awareness of his inescapable presence as the Holy One, mighty and majestic, dwelling among his people. Revival experience begins with being forced to realize, like Isaiah in the temple, the intimacy of the supernatural and the closeness of the living God.
God’s Word comes home, in the sense that the Bible, its message and its Christ re-establish the formative and corrective control over faith and life that is theirs by right. In revival the divine authority of the Bible is realized afresh, and Christians find that this collection of Hebrew and Christian literary remains is still the means whereby God speaks to them and feeds their souls.
God’s purity comes through: as God uses his Word to quicken consciences, the perverseness, ugliness and guiltiness of sin are seen and felt with new clarity, and the depth of one’s own sinfulness is realized as never before, so that the forgiveness of sins becomes the most precious truth in the creed.
God’s people come alive. Joyful assurance of salvation, conscious communion with a living Saviour, a spirit of prayer and praise, a readiness to share with other believers, and a love that reaches out to all in need, are the characteristic marks of revived Christians. Inhibitions dissolve, and a new forthrightness in utterance and initiative in action take their place.
Outsiders come in, drawn by the moral and spiritual magnetism of what goes on in the church.
Whence came this analysis? First, from accounts of revival in Scripture – the early chapters of Acts, plus the narratives of awakenings under Asa, Hezekiah, Josiah and Ezra (2 Chr. 15, 29-31, 34, 35; Ez. 9-10; Neh. 8-10). Second, from the theology of revival in scripture, in such prophets as Isaiah, Ezekiel and Zechariah, and such Psalms as 44, 67, 80 and 85. Third, from the annals of similar stirrings in the Protestant Evangelical awakenings of the eighteenth century under men like Jonathan Edwards in America and George Whitefield, Daniel Rowlands and John Wesley in Britain; revivals round the globe in the 1850s and again in the 1900s; and later movements like the East African revival, which began in the 1930s and still goes on. The family likeness of these movements, both to each other and to biblical prototypes, is remarkable, and makes a fascinating study.
What is the thrust of this analysis? It is that scripture shows, and history confirms, that revival is a distinctive and recurring work of God whereby he has again and again revitalized flagging churches and through the consequent evangelistic outflow vastly extended the kingdom of Christ. Revival, therefore, is the highest hope for the church on earth until the Lord comes to take us home. This thesis, I hasten to say, is not new; Edwards spelt it out more than two centuries ago, the first two generations of evangelical missionary pioneers held it almost to a man, and I am merely restating it for our time.
It is, I think, a fact that it is only Protestant evangelicals who use the word ‘revival’ as a theological term, and as a label for the hope which they cherish for the period preceding the Lord’s return. It is true that some evangelicals over the past century and a half have pessimistically abandoned this hope on the grounds of a somewhat esoteric interpretation of prophecy, but these can hardly be regarded as typical. For evangelicals generally, ‘revival’ is a glowing and evocative word of precise meaning, marked by hallowed associations from the past and precious hopes for the future. This reflects the impact of books like Edwards’ Thoughts on the Revival of Religion in New England in 1740 and Charles Finney’s famous Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1835), the most influential ‘revivalist’ handbook of all time, plus the familiar use of labels like ‘the Evangelical revival’ and ‘the Welsh revival’ for such breath-taking episodes as those of the mid-eighteenth century and 1904, plus two hundred years of prayer (not wholly unanswered, either) that God would grant new impetus in the church for the spread of the gospel.
Perhaps other sections of the church feel that ‘revival’ is a word so directly identified with historic evangelical interests that it will not serve to express their own hopes for the church. At all events, they prefer to speak of ‘renewal’ rather than ‘revival’. Ecumenicals seek ‘one church renewed for mission’, and charismatics proclaim charismatic renewal as both their hope and their present experience.
It was Thomas Hobbes who reminded the world that words are the counters of wise men, the coinage of fools. The wise man knows that two people can use different words and mean the same thing, just as they can use the same word and mean different things. Nonetheless when different words are used the presumption is that something different is meant. Is that so here? As one who is convinced that revival as defined is the modern church’s deepest need, and that to seek anything less for God’s people in 1984 is to fiddle while Rome burns (Rome here covering Protestantism and Orthodoxy too!), I ask the question with some anxiety. How close do ecumenical and charismatic renewal come, both in idea and in experience, to evangelical revival?
It seems clear that the ecumenical notion of renewal (taking that first) has only a limited overlap with the evangelical concept of revival. The ecumenical notion is broader, for it includes a new reforming energy, Bible-directed and self-critical, in the realms of technical theology, liturgy and the church’s human structures. The historic notion of revival has only ever touched these matters incidentally; it has tended to focus all attention on the quickening of individuals in their relationship to God, their fellowship with each other, and their outreach ministry, sometimes even in avowed antithesis to these other concerns. (Which of course was a mistake – the concerns of reformation are not opposed to those of revival, but should be classed among them.) Yet the historic evangelical notion of revival goes deeper, for it highlights the crucial truth that there is no significant quickening at any point at all save through a personal visitation of the living God, apart from which Christians, whatever they do, will never ‘cut ice’ for God in this fallen world.
It is tragic that exponents of ecumenical renewal seem blind to this truth. For where God’s quickening visitation is not sought nor found, everything suffers – theological renewal is just a word-game, union of churches and renewing of structures just a power game, and liturgical change just a new formalism in place of the old. Indeed, it seems true to say that for lack of God’s quickening visitation all the seemingly creative movements of our time which ecumenical spokesmen have hailed as signs of renewal are currently withering away.
The biblical and theological renewal, so-called, which was sparked off over half a century ago through Karl Barth, is fragmenting and sinking deeper and deeper into subjectivisim. The liturgical movement, having sponsored a vernacular mass in Roman Catholicism and the ‘you-who’ style of worship in Protestantism, seems to have shot its bolt, while the church union movement, which achieved its objective in South and North India and will soon do the the same for the small Christian community of Sri Lanka, has for the present run out of steam everywhere else.
Without suggesting for a moment that any of these movements, or any other items in the present-day ecumenical programme, are worthless or wrong-headed in themselves, I cannot avoid the conclusion that they have neither quickened the church spiritually in any fundamental way, nor contributed much to the evangelizing of the world in our time; nor, while they are pursued without regard for the need of revival, are they likely to be more fruitful in the future than they have been thus far. This is a verdict which I would rather not have to pass, but it seems inescapable.
What, now, of the idea and experience of charismatic renewal? How does this appear from the standpoint of an evangelical theology of revival? Several things need to be said.
First the charismatic movement is young, multiform in practice, not theologically unanimous (Protestant and Roman Catholic charismatic theology are by no means identical, and spokesmen have acknowledged the movement as a spirituality seeking a theology), and moreover still rapidly developing from within. So one can only generalize about it with great caution.
I am writing as one who has read its literature, shared its worship (Protestant forms), admired its adherents, criticized its theology (Protestant and Catholic versions), and defended its spirituality; I think I am as well qualified as the next man to attempt generalizations, but others will have to judge this when they see what my generalizations are. (In any case, whatever I say, I have no hope of pleasing everybody!)
Second, the familiar accusation that some charismatics are immature, unstable, escapist, obsessive, credulous, unrealistic, angular, opinionated and divisive must be admitted to be true. But this proves nothing, because there are non-charismatic Christians of whom the same things are equally true. These qualities are human weaknesses brought to the movement rather than engendered by it. Whether standards of discipline and care within the movement are such that these weaknesses get recognized and Christians suffering from them are helped to move beyond them seems to be a question which would have to be answered differently in different circles, just as it would in the non-charismatic world.
Third, though I have not seen any full-scale theology of revival put out from a charismatic source (perhaps my reading is deficient), it seems clear that much that is central to the movement coincides strikingly with the historic evangelical concept. A few years ago it was hard to be sure that ‘charismatic renewal’ was more than a new pietistic individualism, like the old Oxford Group, based on a common experience of ‘baptism in the Holy Spirit’ and expressing itself by forming groups where this experience could be spread. Now, however, it really takes invincible ignorance to remain unaware that those whose goal is ‘charismatic renewal’ aim at a quickening of the whole church by seven means:
1) Rediscovery of the living God and his Christ, and the supernatural dimensions of Christian living (this, fundamentally, is what ‘baptism in the Holy Spirit’ and glossolalia are held to secure and safeguard).
2) Returning to the Bible as the inspired Word of God, to nourish one’s soul on it.
3) Habits of private and public devotion designed to bring the whole person, body and soul, into total, expectant dependence on the Holy Spirit.
4) A leisurely, participatory style of public praise and prayer.
5) A use of spiritual gifts for ministry in the Body by every member of Christ.
6) Thorough exploration of the possibilities of ministry through a communal life-style.
7) An active commitment by this and other means to reach out to the needy in service and evangelism.
The parallels between this and the evangelical idea of revival are plain.
Fourth, it is doubtful whether the devotional distinctives of ‘charismatic renewal’ are as distinctive as is sometimes thought. Does the glossolalic’s exercise of heart in praise and intercession really differ from that of the non-glossolalic? Do the convictions as to what God is saying which some cast into the form of ‘prophecy’ really differ qualitatively from those of other Christians who communicate them without casting them into that form? Does the difference between the slow, improvisatory, Bruckner-and-Wagner- like charismatic worship style and the brisker Bach-and-Mozart-like style of non-charismatic worship argue a different awareness of God?
Is it only charismatics who experience that strong witness to adoption, the Father’s love, and the hope of glory which seems always to be at the heart of what is called (unfortunately, because unscripturally, as I think) ‘baptism in the Holy Spirit’?
It is not obvious to me that the answer to any of these questions is yes, and I am much struck by parallels between experiences of praying privately in tongues and of contemplative prayer as taught by Catholic masters.
Fifth, the way to test whether ‘charismatic experience’, or any other form of professedly Christian experience, is a genuine manifestation of the Holy Spirit is to apply to it the New Testament’s own doctrinal and ethical tests. The doctrinal test is whether this experience leads to the honouring and magnifying of the Christ of the gospel (cf Jn. 16:14; 1 Cor. 12:3; 1 Jn. 4:1-6); the ethical test is whether it leads to Christlikeness of character (cf Gal. 5:22; 1 Cor. 13, in the context of 12-14), with boldness (parrhesia) in witness to the Lord Jesus (cf Acts 4:31) and joy in all things (cf Rom. 14:17; Jn. 15:11, 16:12-22). I am sure I have observed a great deal of charismatic experience, as I have of non-charismatic, which passes these tests with flying colours. And where such experience is found, there renewal is real.
Sixth, though I joyfully recognize much that bears the signature of the Spirit in the charismatic movement, as I also do outside it, I do not think that in Britain, at any rate, either its adherents or any other Christian grouping is currently experiencing revival, or anything like it. The galvanizing sense of God, and the humility, integrity, depth and power which this brings are simply not there: by which I mean, not here. This remains a day of small things, and we are still pigmy Christians.
It is my conviction that those who seek evangelical revival and those who aim at charismatic renewal should recognize the essential identity of their purposes; that they should accept each other’s spirituality as being genuinely from God – flawed by human weakness, no doubt, but yet authentically God’s way for those who follow it – and so should forsake Spirit-quenching attitudes of mutual suspicion and devotional imperialism; and that we should set ourselves to seek an outpouring of the Holy Spirit together.