Pilgrimage of Joy …

LIFE IN THE SPIRIT
W. Carl Ketcherside

In these days I am often asked in public forums how I explain the traumatic experience which I described in the previous chapter. It is not a satisfactory reply to say that I do not explain it, but simply recount it. Our brethren have been conditioned to think there must be a specific explanation to everything. The explanation must harmonize with and conform to our traditional thought patterns or be summarily rejected or laughed out of court. I know how they feel for I once felt exactly the same way. Nothing can possibly happen beyond our power of comprehension. If we could not explain it, it obviously did not happen. One who said it did was either deceived or a deceiver.

I am grateful that God’s grace has made it possible for me to outgrow that kind of arrogance. Now I can be like the man who was healed by Jesus after having been blind from birth. He was subjected to the third-degree and given a Star-chamber grilling by the local Pharisees who would rather have him blind than healed by someone as unorthodox as Jesus. He was ignorant about a lot of things as they related to the “how”. But he said, “One thing I do know: I was blind and now I see.” That was not enough for the Pharisees, so they threw him out of the local congregation, which is “par for the course” when there are Pharisees around. Jesus heard about it and looked him up, realizing that He was closer to the one on the outside than to those on the inside.

At first I said nothing to anyone about the soul-satisfying entrance of Jesus and the inward supper-sharing experience every day. I just continued to feast with Him and He with me, rejoicing in the Spirit. You must remember that I grew up among good brethren who prayed out of a sense of duty. It was a command, a legal requirement, an act of worship. You had to go through the act to be safe. If you neglected it God would clobber you. We did not so much pray as we “said prayers.” I do not think we expected anything to happen, and it generally did not. If it did we regarded it as a fortunate accident.

As time went on and I was driven by the Spirit within to make myself vulnerable by going among those from whom I had been isolated, the fruits of the Spirit were beginning to be detected in my advocacy of love, joy and peace, as opposed to accusation, challenge and debate. At first no one thought it was real. They freely predicted it would not last and that I would eventually return to sanity and be as mean as I was before. But since I had spent some time in “Arabia” before I returned to “Jerusalem”, by the time I began to write on my growing conviction as to the fellowship of the reconciliation, a new wave was beginning to sweep across the religious strand. Eventually it would affect both the Catholic and Protestant establishments and wash over into every segment of the restoration movement.

It ushered in what came to be known as the “charismatic age” although this was a serious misnomer. The more profound student of the new covenant scriptures will at once recognize there can be no charismatic age, for the simple reason that there has never been a non-charismatic age. The work of God has always been made possible by the gifts of God. The Spirit is no less powerful and no more inactive in one century than another. He does not activate in spasms nor motivate in spurts. He has always been the life of the body and will be while the Son sits at the right hand of the Father.

But a lot of branches which had become lifeless and devoid of fruit were led by cultural conditions (I think) to open up their heart to the will of God for the first time, and as a result of fervent entreaty, were filled with the Spirit. They mistook this filling with the baptism of the Holy Spirit and were ecstatic over the boldness and inner might which became theirs. As a result, when I was asked what had brought about the change in my attitude, and I reluctantly described what had transpired, I was repeatedly interrogated as to whether I had received “the baptism of the Holy Spirit.”

The answer is simple. I did not. I consider the baptism of the Holy Spirit a one-time experience to bring the body into union, as I regard baptism in water a one-time experience to bring me into union with the body. Before the one body existed, mankind was divided into two great classes. One of these was nigh, the other was far off. One was called the circumcision, the other the uncircumcision. On Pentecost, the representatives of the Jewish nation received the baptism of the Holy Spirit. At the home of Cornelius, several years later, the representatives of the Gentile nations received the “like gift” as did the Jews at the beginning. Jesus became the peace who made both one. He reconciled both unto God in one body by the cross. Both then had access by one Spirit unto the Father.

The baptism of the Holy Spirit is never mentioned again in the word of God. It was unrepeatable because it was unnecessary. The good news was to the Jew first and also to the Greek. After it was established that both must enter into the new relationship and be justified by faith, there was no further need to exhibit the baptism. I reject, as untenable for me, the interpretation of 1 Corinthians 12:13 which makes this equivalent to what occurred in Jerusalem and Caesarea. Before me, as I write, lies a copy of the Pentecostal Evangel. It contains’ an article by G. Raymond Carlson, Assistant General Superintendent of the Assemblies of God. The title is “The Charismatic Movement Today.”

The article contains many good things. It is extremely well written. But it uses the term “Baptized in the Holy Spirit more times in three pages than it is mentioned in all of the letters to the individuals and saints, as written by the holy apostles. It also makes repeated reference to “the Pentecostal experience.” With all due respect to our friends who differ with me, there is no such thing. Pentecost marked the birthday of the earthly phase of the kingdom of God. There can be but one birthday, although there may be many anniversaries to remember or celebrate it. The writer should probably call his “a Corinthian experience,” since those who claim the experience distinguish what happened on Pentecost from what happened in Corinth. I do not personally recognize the difference. But I can readily understand why one would not want to be too closely identified with Corinth.

I am quite convinced that the Holy Spirit has dwelt in me since the day I validated my faith in Jesus by being baptized into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. He was God’s gift to me according to His promise when I was granted the forgiveness of my sins and was justified by His grace. The Holy Spirit is the present possession of every child of God in this whole wide world. But I was ignorant that He was my Comforter, my Advocate, my Helper. At first I was taught that the Spirit was the Word. We confused Him with the Bible which tells us about Him, because of an unfortunate and tragic misunderstanding of John 6:63. When gradually forced to relinquish that mistaken notion we drove Him into a corner, bounded by the first century and the lifetime of the apostles, and sheared Him of all power in the present.

Driven to the wall by my own weakness and unbrotherly attitude, when I opened the door of my heart to invite Jesus to come in, the Spirit was freed from the bondage and limitations of my own littleness and unworthiness, to pour out the love of God in my heart. I no longer had to try and “finish by my own power” what had begun by the Spirit (Galatians 3:3). Having said this, I want to clarify my position with reference to those brethren who claim “the baptism of the Holy Spirit.” I am not upset by their descriptive terminology even though I think they are mistaken.

It seems to me that many of them confuse the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the filling of the Holy Spirit. There is a real and valid difference between the two. I’m not certain that those within the scriptural context prayed for the baptism of the Holy Spirit, although the filling of the Spirit is connected with prayer and manifests itself in a sense of boldness in speaking God’s message, as in Acts 4:31. The baptism of the Holy Spirit was to create a new body; the filling of the Holy Spirit is to renew the members of the body. The experience of the Spirit is more important than what one calls it, just as any deed is more important than its designation. One who is not free to make mistakes is not free to make anything else. So I do not propose to engage in strife about words. Regardless of how one labels what happened to him to produce a closer walk with God I am thrilled that it happened. The result is a blessing and I rejoice in that.

In my case the happening drove me to more than six years of prayerful, and sometimes tearful, re-examination of my whole religious philosophy. I was forced into painful introspection and meditation. It was agonizing to have my idols torn from their pedestals. I came to realize that I had been wrong all of my life in my usage of the scriptures to condone and defend our divisions. When the true meaning and significance of the fellowship began to enter into my consciousness, it was as if a huge burden had been lifted. But that did not come until weary years had passed, and meanwhile I was still abroad. Worse yet, I must return to America and face brethren who had experienced no change. The more charitable of them would come to think I had lost my mind. Many of the others would conclude that I had denied the faith and was worse than an infidel. I would see the day in which I was misrepresented, lied about, and actually hated of men because of His name’s sake!

On the evening of March 30 I left Belfast for a brief interlude in England. Taking the cross-channel steamer for Heysham at night, the next morning I caught the train to Ulverston where I found Brother Walter Crosthwaite waiting. In two months he would celebrate the sixtieth anniversary of his first public message in defense of the gospel. I found him still busy teaching the Word, corresponding with the saints, and editing Scripture Standard. The five days and nights spent in the home of this godly patriarch of the faith will linger in my memory as one of the most fruitful periods of my earthly sojourn.

We sat before the little grate fire and talked for hours. Never a moment of it was wasted upon trivia, but the subtle humor and tremendous fund of anecdotes and reminiscences of an old soldier who bore the scars of spiritual conflict made the hours pass all too rapidly. It was hard to tear myself away to mount the stairs to the little triangular bedroom where I slept, and after a few hours’ repose I arose eagerly to go downstairs and resume our conversation. I am sure that these few days with a veteran in the service were desperately needed to enable me to withstand in the trying years in which I would face growing opposition while trying to divest myself of the party spirit. The morning I left Brother Crosthwaite walked with me to the station. As we clasped hands both of us knew we would never talk again on earth. I wiped the tears away as I boarded the train.

Albert Winstanley and Will Hurcombe were waiting on the platform as the train pulled into Wigan, and they conducted me to the hospitable home of Leonard and Doris Morgan where Nell and I had stayed four years before. I spoke at a different place each night—Scholes, Argyle Street at Hindley, Blackburn, Ince, Albert Street in Wigan—and souls were added to the Lord. Each day Albert and I went from house to house, exhorting the saints, pleading with the unsaved, and comforting the afflicted. Through the mists of the years I can still see the faces of the brethren —Stephen Winstanley, Leonard Morgan, Carlton Melling, Harry Wilson, John Pritt, and a host of others. Many have departed to be with the Lord, but as I write this, some are still camped on this side of Jordan waiting to enter the promised land.

My arrival back in Belfast on April 12 was propitious. The Evening Telegraph announced a baccalaureate address for the Reformed Presbyterian Seminary to be delivered to the graduates on April 12, by Dr. James Campbell, M.A., of Larne. The subject of the discourse was to be “Psalms, Hymns and Spiritual Songs.” The paid advertisement said the speakers would also discuss the reason for the church’s opposition to the use of instrumental music in public praise. I went early and found myself in the company of aged professors from the school, most of them in clerical garb. For almost thirty minutes I was privileged to converse with the instructors in Hebrew, Greek, Homiletics and Church History. Not one was less than seventy years of age and all were richly endowed with scholastic degrees.

The moderator introduced me to the graduates. I was much impressed with one who had prepared himself to go as a missionary to Syria. I met Dr. Campbell before he spoke and he insisted that I address the assembly briefly following his formal speech. Our meeting created a contact which we kept alive for five years through exchange of letters.

The text of his speech was Colossians 3:15-17. He contended against the use of uninspired songs as expression of public worship, equating hymns and spiritual songs as descriptive of certain types of psalms found in the old covenant scriptures. In his outspoken opposition to the use of instrumental music he declared that it was never really introduced until the 13th century, and then by an apostate church. He asserted that the only acceptable instrument for offering praise was the human heart indwelt by the Spirit of God, and said that every reformer worthy of the title had always seen the need of removing the organ and other human instruments as an indication of the serious attempt to return to the ancient order.

In the closing moments of his speech, the learned Presbyterian decried the use of choirs, solos, and quartets in the praise service. He asserted that public praise in the time of the apostles was always congregational. It was always rendered to God and never used to entertain men. In a rather impassioned peroration he besought the graduates going forth into the world to resist the tug of the spirit of this age and seek to imitate the holy apostles rather than the unholy world about them.

He was dressed in somber garb with a long black clerical coat and with knee breeches fastened with silver buckles. His feet were clad in the gaiters common to clergymen in the land. As I sat and listened it was not difficult to imagine that Thomas Campbell had returned after all these years, again to address the Belfast Synod, as he was wont to do in days of yore.