Does God Want to Break Your Face? By David Martinez I might be accused of looking for the cat’s 5th leg here but lately a lot of people have been asking me what I think about so-called “dancing in the Spirit”. I don’t know why. I just can’t get away from people asking me about this. Apparently as the temperatures outdoors rise so does church people’s desire to do the Harlem Shake down the aisles. Here are just a few thoughts about it. First, the doctrine of “dancing in the Spirit” is an utterly indefensible doctrine. It is found NOWHERE in all of sacred scripture. Period. It never ceases to amaze me how touchy some people get about this. I have never seen so much passion invested in a doctrine for which not a single Biblical verse could be summoned to defend it. “But didn’t David dance in the Spirit before the Lord?!”, you say. To which I respond: show me where that is in the Bible. Inevitably people will point to 2 Samuel 6:14a, which says, “Then David danced before the Lord with all his might…”. However, do these people realize that the verse actually refutes, not proves, their case? Consider just three observations about that phrase: #1 – The verse doesn’t even mention the Spirit, much less “dancing in the Spirit” #2 – The verse says that DAVID danced, not the Spirit through him. HE danced. HE was the one moving his body. What could possibly be clearer? #3 – The verse says that David used his own might. It doesn’t even say that the Spirit had to empower him! David danced before the Lord with all HIS might, not God’s. This is important for several reasons, not the least is with regard to how we define our terms. Words matter. We need to know what exactly people mean by the phrases they use. Someone asked me today (again) if I believed in “dancing in the Spirit”. The questioner is a smart brother who I love. However, most of the times, when people ask me about this, I can’t help wonder what they mean by “dancing in the Spirit”. It is most unfortunate that what people usually mean is a type of movement that tends to happen in Pentecostal settings (though the experience is not confined to Pentecostal churches). Ask any number of people in Pentecostal churches and you will notice they define “dancing in the Spirit” as bodily movement that is controlled entirely by the Holy Spirit. Three elements are necessarily and inherently part of this: #1 – The experience is 100% controlled by the Holy Spirit. #2 – The person cannot have any participation whatsoever in it. In other words, it is completely uncontrollable. #3 – It is a form of worship. I could go on an on about the problems I have with this idea of “dancing in the Spirit”. For example, where in the Bible (or in experience, for that matter) is worship unto God ever involuntary? I can only find two: Romans 14:11 “…every knee shall bow…and every tongue shall confess to God” Philippians 2:10-11 “…every knee should bow…every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord…” The issue is that these two verses are very clearly not referring to the corporate worship setting in which the redeemed of God come together as a spiritual community to praise God. Rather, these verses have an eschatological flavor in which the curtain of the future is jerked backed and we are able to peer into the ultimate and final outcome of Christ’s glorious Kingdom. So my gentle refutation still stands: when is worship involuntary? I would argue that the moment worship becomes involuntary it actually becomes meaningless. What would become of a kiss or an “I love you” from your loved one if that kiss or phrase was totally and utterly controlled by you? I would suppose I’d rather that my darling keeps her kiss than to grant me one without her conscious will. Yet when the WILL is involved, is it not invigorating to be loved? A gift from a friend fills my heart precisely he didn’t HAVE to give me a gift. When my friend tells me he loves me, it means a lot to me because he doesn’t HAVE to say that. I know he is not an automaton who I must “wind up” to get some love from. What becomes of so-called “dancing in the Spirit” when the experience supposedly bypasses my mind and will? I think such claims of “I couldn’t control it” or “I don’t know what happened” actually divest worship of any true meaning. Add to this the fact that the Bible repeatedly appeals to our will when it commands us to worship God. Psalm 150:4b says “Praise Him with the…dance”. But if what the Psalmist means by “dance” is what many people mean by “dancing in the Spirit”, then what is the point of the him even telling us to do this? After all, isn’t “dancing in the Spirit” supposedly involuntary? How does that square off with the Bible passages that speak of dancing as something voluntary, conscious, and intentional (Exodus 15:20, Psalm 149:3)? Yet ANOTHER problem is this: I don’t see any fruit for all the trembling going on in church. I heard of a youth camp service just about two weeks ago in which a young girl almost broke her. She had to be taken to the hospital because of all the blood she lost. I was speaking to my friend the other day and he shared with me a horrific story of a young man who had to get stitches one time because of this “dancing in the Spirit”. I, David Martinez, witnessed a sister break her leg at the altar before my very eyes. My heart broke as paramedics had to wheel her out in a stretcher. People who want to hang on to the doctrine of “dancing in the Spirit” typically explain this away with one of two excuses. #1 – God was actually rebuking the person. #2 – That was not God. The person was in the flesh. Again, these are not inherently wrong. However, I don’t like the intellectual laziness that accompanies much of this fly swatting. For example: How do you know when God is supposedly rebuking a person? More importantly, is there any evidence for God rebuking people this way in the Bible? Remember, the question is not if God can rebuke people. He can and He does. There are passages in the Bible in which God actually KILLS people, so what is a broken leg here or there? Then comes the question: can God do this during a service? Well, He most certainly can. In fact, I have a perfect example. In 2 Samuel 6:14 says that David danced before the Lord with all his might. However, that chapter doesn’t begin in such a rosy fashion. Read the beginning of the chapter and you will see that the people of God were celebrating while they were bringing the ark back home. At some point the ark looked as if it were going to fall over. Uzzah took hold of the ark and God killed him (v.6-8). To say that worship service was a “bummer” would be an understatement. God’s judgment on Uzzah was right in the middle of the “service” and it was catastrophic. So believe me, I do not think it is unbiblical that God could punish someone right in the middle of a worship service. However, what I do have issues with is that every time someone gets hurt “dancing in the Spirit”, people are quick to label it a “rebuking from the Lord” (Latinos would say “una reprencion”). Why do I have issues with this? Well, even in the case of God slaying Uzzah, there was a CLEAR message from the Lord. It wasn’t mysterious or up for grabs. Rather, EVERYONE got the clear message. In fact, David was even angry with God for what He did. Yet as the chapter unfolds you notice that David understood God’s message and did things the right way the next time around. Even in Acts 5:1-11, when God kills Ananias and Sapphira, the whole church understood the message. We know this because verse 11 says “…great fear came upon all the church and upon all who heard these things When God punishes a person, even if it is severe punishment, there is a loving message behind it. The fruit of such punishment is not only that the person (hopefully) repents of his or her sin, but also that the whole church grows toward holiness. However, what is the world is the message behind someone getting stitches or losing a tooth because he or she ran into someone “dancing in the Spirit”? What it the message? To attribute such things to God is actually offensive to me. Did you read that? I AM OFFENDED at the obscene depicting of my God as some explosively rancorous, abusively malevolent, and impulsively vindictive abusive father who busts His child’s lip in a volcanic moment of “I told you not to mess with me!” Away with such blasphemous depictions! Is God not infinitely worthy of being depicted as the God He is – the one who would rather GET a busted lip instead of GIVING one? If you don’t believe me then you should look at cross of Calvary once more. Then, of course, comes the whole issue of “well if the person is really dancing in the Spirit” he or she will not bump into anyone. I think this is again intellectually lazy, not to mention unbiblical. Here are two reasons why that thinking is nonsense. #1 – It presupposes the idea that the Holy Spirit is the one moving every muscle in the person’s body. But as I already tried to elaborate on: mindless worship is Godless worship. God doesn’t want us to simply lose control and consciousness. Rather He desires that we praise Him for the things He has done (Isaiah 12:5, Psalm 150:2). Jesus said, “those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 3:24). #2 – What shall we do with long passages of the Bible that are dedicated to putting decency and order (1 Corinthians 14:40) in the midst of worship gatherings in which supernatural things occur? We cannot afford the luxury of ignoring a single passage of the Bible or acting as if it did not exist. Read 1 Corinthians chapter 14 (the whole thing) and tell me if that describes a worship service in which God is moving every muscle in the room or if it sounds like God wants us to use our WILLS in a responsible fashion in church. God does not numb our tongue; He tells us to use our tongue responsibly. God does not make our bodies go crazy; He tells us to dance before Him. So what Biblical or logical warrant do we have for even using the phrase “dancing in the Spirit”? None. And what excuse do we have to say that God was judging the sister who got a black eye during worship? None. When the devotional is over at your church there should be no blood on the floor. The prophets of Baal hurt themselves and bled before their god (1 Kings 18:28), “but the fruit of the Spirit is…self-control” (Galatians 5:22-23) So do I believe in jumping, trembling, and “going crazy” during church? Actually, I do! In my next blog I will explore this topic on the positive side and explain what I believe happens when God’s presence “shakes” a person (Pentecostals, you are gonna like it because I will defend you guys). But for now I just wanted to establish a few assertions: there is no such thing as “dancing in the Spirit”, God wants us to actually DANCE before Him, I do not believe in God “rebuking” a person through such means as what was described above, and we have to stop being irresponsible in thinking that God wants to control our bodies. Leave spiritual possessions to spiritists, witches, voodooists, and Harry Potter. Being LED (not controlled) by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God (Romans 8:14) Long live the King...
Posted on: Tue, 03 Jun 2014 02:45:39 +0000
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