The Supernatural Character of New Testament Christianity

Copyright © 2010, 2019 ¹

by
Percy Gutteridge

“Why look ye so earnestly on us,
as though by our own power or holiness
we had made this man to walk?” — Acts 3:12²

In the last chapter we were introduced to The Sevenfold Holy Spirit — the Spirit of life, the Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of burning, the Spirit of holiness, the Spirit of power, and the Spirit of love. The time has come to ask, “What difference does it make to us?”

Let’s consider how the blessèd Spirit brings His hallmark to our lives as Christians. Without this Person who is the Promise of the Father, whom Paul calls “the Spirit of Jesus Christ”³ (Philippians 1:19) and “the Spirit of Christ” (Romans 8:9),⁴ Christianity is just another religion. But when He is present and active, we see and experience the supernatural character of New Testament Christianity.

Two interconnected scripture passages about the Holy Spirit provide a powerful introduction. The first is the prophecy in Joel 2:23-29:

Then with Pentecost comes the fulfillment of this precious promise of God, recorded in Acts 2:

God made a wonderful, prophetic promise through His servant Joel, then fulfilled that promise at Pentecost, and He continues to fulfill this promise in us when we receive our true, personal Pentecost. Since it is this promise — and its fulfillment — which lays the basis for the supernatural character of New Testament Christianity, let us specially consider the heart of that promise, in Joel 2:28—

And it shall come to pass afterward
that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
your young men shall see visions.

Thank God we do not believe in a human religion; we believe in a God-given one! The truth that God has revealed to us is by direct inspiration, brought down from the Father by the Holy Spirit and for Jesus’ sake. There is a great difference between human religion, which can be quite moral and good, and true spiritual religion. In the old days people would talk about “getting religion,” but at the time it meant getting a real, vital spiritual experience. Either you were an unbeliever, or you had religion. Of course, there were a few who professed to have religion, but it was only human religion; and they were despised both by unbelievers and by those who had genuine, warm, loving, Holy Spirit-inspired Christianity.

Genuine Bible Christianity Is Supernatural!

Human religion is marked by a very special omission — it has no supernatural character. Human religion is marked by its dumbness; that is, God doesn’t speak. Human religions, whatever they are, whether Mohammedism,⁵ or Buddhism, or Christianity, or Judaism, or something else, are marked by their dumbness because they are of human origin. As I have already stated, they can include a very significant amount of morality such as keeping the Ten Commandments; and that applies to all religions that are generally moral religions. Nevertheless they are dumb: God doesn’t speak.

Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:2, “You know that you were Gentiles, carried away to these dumb idols, however you were led.” The idols were dumb. All heathen religions were dumb — their gods didn’t speak. The priests spoke on behalf of their god, but that god didn’t speak. Elijah made this very clear in the story of the great sacrifice that he made when he opposed the priests of Baal, as recorded in 1 Kings 18:22-30. Notice what Elijah says:

That’s typical of human religion. The god of human religion never answers. But with true and genuine Christianity, such as is taught in the Bible and is manifested by the indwelling Holy Spirit, we have a God who answers.

Now there is one significant thing about this tremendous sacrifice that Elijah called for when all the people had backslidden. Elijah said to the people, “The God who answers by fire, He is God.” All the people said, “Yes, that’s right. We accept that: let Him be the God who answers.” And God answered Elijah by fire.

It’s important to carefully note the steps in which such an offering was prepared. Always the wood was put in order; then the victim, the sacrifice, was put on the wood; and then the fire was applied. It was exactly that way with Abraham when he was called to offer his son Isaac. They took the wood and put it on the altar that Abraham had made; then he bound his son and put him on the wood on the altar. Abraham was going to sacrifice his son, and then apply the fire; but God called from heaven (Genesis 22:9-12).

Yes, the order is important! First, the sacrifice goes on the altar, and then God sends the fire. Just so, consecration must always come before the fire of the baptism in the Holy Ghost. God will not send the fire on an unconsecrated person. You can seek the baptism for this or that or the other, but unless you are wholly given to the Lord your God, unless you are willing to give yourself wholly to Him, you will have false fire that has been manufactured by someone else, and it won’t stand the test. God’s fire will always stand the test. Every true baptism in the Holy Ghost will stand any test that human beings or the devil apply to it, and it will last. It is impossible to put God out. But there must be a full consecration.

Are you consecrated? Or have you been calling for a fire that won’t come down because you are not on the altar? It is only to those on the altar that the fire comes down. When you are really on the altar and call upon God, He will send the fire. The apostles and the disciples waited at Pentecost until God sent the fire down. The true fire can’t be manufactured; in so many cases today a worked-up, man-made false fire is what we force upon people. We are to teach our people that God will baptize everyone who comes to Him; but you have to come wholly and put yourself wholly on the altar, and then you will get the genuine thing. Our God answers by fire. In human religion there is no answering.

What I am saying is that the test of real Christianity is its supernatural character. If there is no supernatural character with Christianity, it is not Christianity at all; it is just a philosophical conception which you call Christianity. It may match up with scripture. You may be correct in your doctrine. But if God doesn’t attend it with fire, with answers, with a supernatural character, then it is not real Christianity at all.

As Samuel Wesley lay dying on April 25, 1735, he said to his son John, the famous John Wesley, “The inward witness, son, the inward witness, this is the proof, the strongest proof of Christianity.” Paul says in Romans 8:16, “The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God….”

By contrast, David says in Psalm 115:4-8, about false religion and idols:

⁴Their idols are silver and gold,
The work of men’s hands.
⁵They have mouths, but they do not speak;
Eyes they have, but they do not see;
⁶They have ears, but they do not hear;
Noses they have, but they do not smell;
⁷They have hands, but they do not handle;
Feet they have, but they do not walk;
Nor do they mutter through their throat.
⁸Those who make them are like them;
So is everyone who trusts in them.

A non-supernatural Christianity is as spiritually dead as you are, and you are as dead as it is. Praise God for the vital supernatural character of real and genuine Bible Christianity!

The Real Thing

Now the devil copies God’s supernatural dealings, because the devil also is spirit. “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth” (John 4:24). So the devil copies God, for the devil seeks worship, too. The ambition of the devil is to get everyone to worship him; and that was one of the vital tests that came to Jesus. One of the great temptations was that the devil said to Jesus, “Fall down and worship me, and I will give you all the kingdoms of this world.” The devil imitates God, and seeks to be worshiped. He is “the god of this world” (2 Corinthians 4:4 kjv), that is to say, the god of the worldly of this world. He is a substitute for God. He seeks to replace God, so he seeks worship.

With Satan’s followers, there is also a supernatural manifestation. Wherever you find the occult (which is devil worship), there are always manifestations of the supernatural. In spiritualism there are such manifestations, but they always lead away from God. No spiritualism, or dealing with evil spirits, leads to God. No dealing with so-called mediums, those who have contact with discarnate⁶ entities, as they are called, will ever lead to God. On the contrary, all such dealings direct away from God, and God has put it on record in the Scripture that all occult involvement is an abomination to Him. There can be supernatural manifestations in spiritualism, such as bodies being manifested, made of ectoplasm⁷ drawn from the medium’s nature; or flowers appearing which some claim can be handled, but they melt away after the séance is over. These things are supernatural manifestations that attend demon worship, or Satan worship — but they are the supernatural of the evil one.

In our present day, of course, we are being challenged very much by the occult, by the demonic, and many millions are following the demonic because they have found no satisfaction in the Church. In the Church we offer them words; but do we offer them deeds? We tell them to submit to this or that or the other truth, but there is no supernatural manifestation from God to back it up. That is why God in these days is manifesting Himself in what people call the charismatic renewal. That is why millions have joined the charismatic renewal,⁸ because at last they are seeing God manifest Himself. “The God who answers by fire, let Him be God”; and we say, “Amen.” The Apostles recognized the necessity of this when after Pentecost they prayed,

And the answer to prayer was immediate:

We have a bold utterance when God confirms the word with signs following, when God speaks, because it means that at last we have gotten back into real, true, supernatural Christianity.

The other is philosophy, not Christianity. Philosophy is not attended with new birth; but true supernatural Christianity is always attended with an individual, supernatural experience where God Himself comes and dwells in the person, and where God Himself speaks and can do signs and wonders. The supernatural character of Christianity is its only and greatest attestation in this world.

The supernatural character of Christianity, and the matching pure life of the person who has it, are the two great testimonies which Peter mentioned shortly after Pentecost. Listen to Peter’s words as he testifies concerning the healing at the Beautiful Gate of the temple:

Yes, the lame man was healed through God’s power and holiness, not through Peter’s or John’s power or holiness. Nevertheless, holiness and power — the character of the life, and the manifestation of God through the life in its supernatural way — are the true manifestations of genuine Christianity, as this incident reveals. If this is a new concept for you, let’s explore it together.

You will know genuine Christianity by its supernatural character; it is attested by that character. Do you realize that no Hebrew in ancient days would have recognized an anointing of the Spirit unless there had been a supernatural manifestation? Every time in the Old Testament where you find the Holy Spirit coming down and clothing a person with His might and power, when the power of the Spirit comes upon that person he always prophesies or works miracles.

You cannot find an instance where it is not so. God gave the person visions or prophecies or miracles in every case. Numbers 11:25 says,

In the Old Covenant, the Spirit rested upon people to manifest Himself; He did not dwell in people. Under the New Covenant the Holy Spirit dwells in people. God Himself dwells in us!

Here is another instance of the Holy Spirit coming upon someone in the Old Testament: When King Saul was anointed to be king, as he went from Samuel God gave him another heart, and he met a company of prophets. When the company of prophets met him and the Spirit of God came upon him, Saul prophesied, as recorded in 1 Samuel 10:10.

In every case there is a wonderful significance of God speaking through the lips of a human being in a supernatural way. We belong to a supernatural Christianity. And we must attest it; we must say so. We must not deny the supernatural character of our Christianity. Our Christianity is not true Christianity unless it is attested by God when He answers by fire upon our hearts and through our lips.

Who Is Included in Joel’s Prophecy?

What is the significance, then, of the prophecy in Joel? Let’s compare it with the experience of the seventy elders and Moses. It is the same Holy Spirit outpouring, just with different people. Now look at the difference in the people. The Holy Spirit came upon the seventy elders, all older, responsible men, princes of their tribes, picked out for their virtue, their sobriety, their honesty, and their experience.

But what is God saying in Joel?

And it shall come to pass afterward
That I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh;
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your old men shall dream dreams,
Your young men shall see visions.
– Joel 2:28 –

Do you see the difference? The promise is that the Holy Spirit will be poured out not only on the princes of the congregation, not only on the elders of the community, not only on the elders in the church, or in the assembly; no, the Holy Spirit is to be poured out upon everyone, young and old, men and women. As Peter made so clear at Pentecost:

Yes, God calls everyone. “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish” (John 3:16).

God’s promise is to everyone. God is willing to give His Holy Spirit to all who will come. So there is to be a general outpouring. Moses forecasted it in Numbers 11:29. A young man had come to Moses and reported that two of the elders not present with Moses were prophesying in the camp. Nevertheless, the Spirit had come upon them. Joshua’s response to the young man’s report was, “Moses my lord, forbid them.” But Moses countered with a notable statement: “Oh, that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!” There was no jealousy with Moses. He was willing to share his experience with everyone. Moses foresaw that the time was coming when all God’s people could be prophets.

Moses himself was a great prophet.¹⁰ In the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, which were written by Moses, there are some tremendous prophecies. His prophecy over the twelve tribes of Israel may be read in Deuteronomy 33. And it is this same Moses, the Lord’s prophet, who said, “Oh, that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put His Spirit upon them!”

So God is reiterating Moses’ prophecy when He says through Joel, “It shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh” (Joel 2:28). The baptism in the Holy Spirit is not a privilege for a few people. It is a necessity for every one of God’s children. The baptism in the Holy Spirit is not something you have to wait and seek for if you feel like it. Without it you are not really in the stream of truly supernaturally endowed Christians. You are not, unless the Holy Spirit indwells you, really born of God and in the Church at all. You are outside the Church. So it is a great necessity.

I am not saying that special manifestations of the Spirit are a necessity. Some say such a thing, and that is an error. I am saying that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, that true Holy Spirit baptism, transforms you into a supernatural person, God-endowed, so you have the ability to prophesy. Every one of God’s true children is a prophet. Every one. As Moses said, “Oh, that all the Lord’s people were prophets!” As Joel said, “On all flesh.”

“All flesh.” Paul confirms it in 1 Corinthians 14:31: “You can all prophesy one by one.” And I say to you, “You may all prophesy one by one”; so why don’t you do it? When was the last time that God gave you a prophetic word? When was the last time that God gave you an utterance of the Holy Ghost? When was the last time that God gave you a revelation, the revelation of a doctrine, the revelation of a word from Himself? “You can all prophesy one by one.” How it transforms a congregation when we recognize that we can all prophesy (not all at once, of course — God forbid! — for it must be “one by one,” “decently and in order”¹¹).

How very different our meetings would be if every one of us were free before the Lord to be taken up by His Spirit, to give out an inspirational word that has been revealed by the Most High — “that all may learn and all may be encouraged” (1 Corinthians 14:31). Wouldn’t you like to belong to an assembly like that? Wouldn’t you like to belong to such a congregation where God can choose anyone and use them? Well, you do, if you only realized it. You must put it into practice. Oh, the need!

“For the promise is to you and to your children, and to all who are afar off, as many as the Lord our God will call.” And so we find that God gave the Holy Ghost to Jews and Gentiles, in order to prove that the Holy Ghost is for everyone. God has said that He will give every one of us a supernatural character.

“Your young men shall see visions.” Young men, when was the last time that you had a vision? “Your old men shall dream dreams.” If you are an older person, when was the last time that God gave you a dream that was significant? I don’t mean a dream that comes “through the multitude of business,”¹² or from undigested cheese that you ate before you went to bed. I mean what Daniel calls “visions of your head upon your bed” (Daniel 2:28). This is the promise of God, the supernatural character of the Christianity that we now enjoy.

Have you ever investigated what a vision is? A vision is prophecy, only in a picture form. God can give prophecy in various ways. Remember, prophecy is an inspired utterance revealed to you by the Most High. Prophecy is not preaching.

Prophecy is not, as so many believe, a sermon that is prepared in a study, with a concordance and a dozen commentaries. That’s how millions of ministers prepare their message for Sunday. There are vast numbers of books on homiletics, vast numbers of books on Biblical exegesis, and vast numbers of books that give sermon illustrations, especially funny ones to keep the congregation awake. There are vast numbers of Bible dictionaries and preachers’ commentaries. I am not saying they are wrong. I am only saying you do not need them to hear from God when you have the baptism in the Holy Ghost.

Preaching has to be inspirational, of course. But, oh, the difference when you are truly baptized in the Holy Ghost and God opens His word to you in secret! How different that is from that slogging process of trying to dip out something new, and finally falling back on Spurgeon’s Sermons. In England they use a lot of Spurgeon’s sermons, and then dish them up again. I even heard a limerick that was supposed to have been penned by a great dignitary of the Church of England (of the sort who don’t like the Baptists, of whom Spurgeon was one of the chief):

There once was a Baptist named Spurgie,
Who greatly disliked our liturgy.
But his sermons are fine,
I use them as mine,
And so do the rest of the clergy!

But you couldn’t call that inspiration, could you? So “preparing a sermon” is entirely different from receiving from the Lord an inspirational word which wasn’t even thought of until waiting on the Lord and loving Him while worshiping Him in spirit and in truth.

Prophecy is a message directly from the Lord in the language known to the people who are listening to the speaker. That’s what happened at Pentecost — it was all prophecy. The people heard in their own tongue; that’s prophecy. Because of the large number of Jews who came from various places, God let them hear the prophecy as a most wonderful, glorious, supernatural manifestation. God enabled some of these one hundred and twenty present at Pentecost, whoever they were, to speak out the words of God, in praises to Him, in the actual tongue of a number of the people who were listening.

Those messages in tongues as recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 2, were actually prophecies, because there was no interpretation; and God says wherever a message in tongues is given, there must be an interpretation. There was no interpretation at Pentecost, because the people understood what was being said. “We hear them speaking in our own tongues the wonderful works of God” (Acts 2:11).

But prophecy can be either in your language or in another language; if it’s in another language, that’s an added miracle. It’s all inspired by God. In the church God occasionally gives someone a message in a tongue which no one understands. God has said that when that happens, He will provide an interpreter. So there should be those among us whom we recognize as interpreters. We don’t make them so, but God has made them so. God is able both to give a message in a tongue that the speaker doesn’t know, and also to give someone the interpretation of that tongue, though he or she doesn’t know the language which is being spoken.

The interpretation (I speak from experience) wells up in you. You just know what that person is speaking about. You don’t know the language. It is not a translation; it is an interpretation. But you do know what God is saying to His people, and you give it forth as inspirationally as the person who gave the message in a new tongue. The new tongue is another form of prophecy. So prophecy can be either in the language of the people, or it can be in another language that has to be interpreted, or it can be given in the form of a picture — a vision. It’s a prophecy just the same.

Let’s take a look at visions. Joel says, “Your young men shall see visions.” The picture that the young man, or the young woman, or the older person, sees, is given by God. As they see that vision and give it out, God will honor that congregation again with an interpretation, “if there be… an interpreter, one among a thousand,” as Job 33:23 kjv makes clear.¹³

This is God’s wonderful way. Doesn’t this make us feel that God is near? And His visions are so absolutely marvelous. When God gives the vision, the detail is perfect. God opens the vision, often when we have been together in prayer, and then God gives the interpretation. Both are amazing, because when the vision is given out, we don’t know what it means; but then when the interpretation is given out, we understand, and the two fit together like two halves to make one glorious whole. Praise God for a church where the people believe in the supernatural character of Christianity!

Now a dream is entirely of the same origin, only it is given when a person is lying down; but it is the same thing as a vision. So do you see now that prophecy in your mother tongue, and prophecy in another tongue, and prophecy in a vision, and prophecy in a dream are all God teaching you His truth? Oh, that God would give many more of these gifts to His people, and attest the true supernatural character of the Christianity that we have come into and enjoy!

God has always worked this way. He did this, of course, in the Old Testament with Joseph, and with Daniel. They both had dreams. Joseph was a young man when he had dreams; Daniel was an old man when he had dreams. God can do what He likes! Others, like Zechariah and Ezekiel, had visions. Still others spoke direct words from God, like Isaiah. Yet whether dreams or visions or spoken utterances, all were prophetic messages from the Lord.

Once God wrote an unknown tongue on a wall in Babylon — no one knew what the language was, but God had His interpreter there. The interpreter, Daniel, came in and translated the message into the Chaldee language that the Babylonians knew — mene, tekel and upharsin — then explained what it meant — the interpretation. First he translated the unknown tongue into the three words of Chaldee; then he announced the God-given interpretation of what it meant.¹⁴ Usually the interpretation of a message in tongues is longer than the tongue, and God gives us an example of that here at Belshazzar’s feast. Are you seeing now what God has done, what He is doing, and what He is willing to do?

In the New Testament we also find God moving in these ways. We find Agabus prophesying about a great famine that will come, and it came in the time of the Emperor Claudius.¹⁵ That is revealing or foretelling prophecy. Others prophesied in the assembly, as Paul said, not for foretelling, but forthtelling — to encourage the saints, and to edify, which means to build up. So that’s a great purpose of prophecy, too. Your inspired word can establish and build up the saints, and comfort the weary. Oh, the blessing of true God-given prophecy! And, oh, that God would give us more prophecy! Oh, that we might have much more of this true spiritual manifestation!

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Too often today we are like the Pharisees — we believe in all the visions and prophecies in the Bible, but we don’t believe God does it today! That is exactly how the Pharisees were in the days of Jesus. They believed that God had given all these things to Israel to get them going and establish them, but now they had the Torah, so they no longer needed a direct word from God. Yet that was a complete untruth, because the Torah revealed that the time would come when God would pour out His Spirit upon all flesh, and they would prophesy.

So the Pharisees were wrong. And we have those in the church today, and I am afraid they are in the majority, who say that now we have the Bible, so we have no further need of prophecy; yet it is the very Bible that tells us that God gives prophecy, and prophecy is one of those precious gifts of the Holy Spirit. God wants us all, being baptized in the Holy Ghost, to prophesy in some way, maybe through a tongue, maybe through a spoken word in English, maybe through a vision or a dream. But God wants us all to share in this precious gift.

Have you ever noticed that the very last book in the Bible is one great vision, or prophecy? What do you find in it? Prophecy forthtelling, and prophecy foretelling. A lot of the book of Revelation is to build up the saints in the present. Jesus’ admonition to the seven churches in Asia Minor is for that purpose. But a lot of Revelation is prophecy foretelling what is to come to pass in the future, from the time John wrote it. Much of Revelation is vision, prophecy in vision.

Some of Revelation is in an “unknown tongue”; we haven’t been given the interpretation. When the seven thunders uttered their voices, John said that he was about to write, but God said not to write; so what they said is unknown to us. John wasn’t allowed to write it. So perhaps we shall never know; it was not God’s will that we should know. The book of Revelation is God’s closure to His great book, the Bible. It is a great book to establish the supernatural character of true Christianity.

Brothers and sisters, are you God’s prophets? Have you been baptized in the Holy Ghost? Then resident in you is that Almighty One, the Holy Spirit, who is the Author of prophecy. “Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit” (2 Peter 1:21), and holy men and women of God still speak as they are moved by the Holy Spirit. Ask God that you may fully enter into your ministry as members of the Body of Christ, into the true supernatural character of Christianity, especially in the church, in this precious gift of prophetic utterance and vision, for Jesus Christ’s sake. Amen.

Many thanks to Ann Gutteridge
(Percy Gutteridge’s daughter-in-law)
for the original transcription.

Endnotes: