I began with a conversation between several venerable
church leaders about the propriety of dancing in church.
As happens so often, in this conversation the focus had
shifted from the truth about the Holy Spirit to the
appropriateness of apparent manifestations of the Spirit. It
is too easy to become enmeshed in discussion about the
sometimes rather strange, so-called manifestations of the
Spirit, and to allow all too obvious errors and mistakes to
distract us from the real issue of whether the Holy Spirit is
still at work among God’s people today.
Raising hands, dancing and clapping are all commonly
found as expressions of worship in Charismatic
congregations, so much so that one long-standing member
of my church once confessed to me that she had thought
that the expression ‘charismatic’ actually meant ‘people
who raise their hands when praising’! Even those who
understand and exercise the gifts and ministries of the Holy
Spirit can easily become misled by focus on external signs
and expressions of worship. The truth is that expressions
such as dancing or hand-raising are not listed anywhere as
gifts or ministries of the Holy Spirit. However, as much as
our self-consciousness or our ‘Britishness’ might be
uncomfortable with it, these expressions are completely
Biblical, and could be described as natural outpourings of
joy, which is a fruit of the Spirit.
Praying with raised hands is a practice found in both Old
and New Testaments. For instance, in Psalm 63 verse 2,
David has a glimpse of the power and glory of God and it
has a profound effect as we see in verse 3:
“Because your love is better than life, my lips will
glorify you and I will praise you as long as I live,
and in Your Name I will lift up my hands.”
Whilst some might argue that David’s expression of
worship should hardly be regarded as the norm for
Christians today, God didn’t seem to mind as much as we
do. As a matter of fact, David, even in the old covenant,
walked very close to God, and I suspect knew more about
true worship than most of his critics might admit.
In Psalm 134 we read:
“Praise the Lord all you servants of the Lord, who
minister by night in the house of the Lord, lift up
your hands within the sanctuary and praise the
Lord.”
Still there are cries that this is merely fanaticism; cries
which hail, largely from a group of people who constantly
claim to refer to the Bible as their guide. The Word of God
strongly indicates that we should lift up our hands in praise
to Him and that David, in moments of high praise to God,
demonstrates his worship by lifting up his hands. Paul too,
in 1 Timothy 2 verse 8, asks that, “All men everywhere,
should pray, lifting up holy hands.” Was David or Paul
acting in a trite or unbiblical manner?
Another recent expression of worship is that people have
been dancing in Church – a practice which has again
caused eyebrows to be raised and comments to be made
about such disgraceful behaviour in Church. You will
remember the story I told about the group of church leaders
discussing this very topic. I challenged them to respond to
the Biblical command to “Praise the Lord with dancing.”
They had no response.
You can see the problem. Psalm 149 and 150 both say that
we should “Praise the Lord with dancing.” Lots of people
try to duck the issue, some by saying that they are dancing
in their hearts. Whilst I am aware that we don’t take our
lead from the world, it appears to me that other people
dance with their legs. If God says, “Preach the gospel,”
we would not argue that we should do it in our hearts but
we would employ our mouths. Similarly, if the Word says,
“Praise the Lord with dancing,” is there an alternative
understanding which we can bring to bear upon such a
simple command of God? Is it right that some should raise
such high criticism against those whose praise overflows in
raising hands or dancing?
In Lamentations 5 verse 15, the writer equates the cessation
of dancing with grief and slavery, creating the absence of
joy:
“Joy is gone from our hearts; our dancing has
turned to mourning.”
Now if joy is a fruit of the Holy Spirit, (Galatians 5 verse
22), is it unreasonable to expect that the expression of His
presence with worshippers will include dancing? Is it such
a disgrace, or is it the working of grace within us, which
could free us sufficiently in Christ that we should praise
Him with our whole being?
However, whilst hand raising and dancing are generally
associated with forms of worship found in charismatic
fellowships, as I said earlier, neither hand raising nor
dancing are recorded as gifts of the Holy Spirit, but are just
the smallest requirement of scripture concerning our praise.
This then begs the question: if the Word asks such a simple
thing, who then understands? Is it he who obeys the Word
of God and finds joy in worship, or is it he who can come
up with a clever theological argument which will support
his position of intransigence?
Many maintain that the church should be a place of
reverence and awe, silence and respect; a place of tradition
and history. There is certainly some place for this in the
church. We are not to take our relationship with God, or
our worship of Him lightly. Our God is supremely mighty
and powerful and a healthy reverence is necessary – as
Proverbs chapter 1 verse 7 tells us, “The fear of the Lord is
the beginning of knowledge.” But in the Bible, God’s
people displayed their respectful response to God’s
awesome power in ways that were just as physical as the
dancing and raised hands that they used to express their
joyful response to his love and faithfulness.
Moses was a man who had powerful encounters with the
Lord. In Exodus chapter 3, God appears to Moses from
within a bush. Moses is told to take off his shoes because
the place he is standing is Holy ground. I can’t imagine an
epidemic of shoe-removal breaking out in our
congregations today, and yet when we seek to enter God’s
presence in worship, surely we are standing on Holy
ground. Some response is required of us. Later, on Mount
Sinai, Moses asked God to show him his glory, and in his
graciousness, the Lord agreed to pass by Moses, as he hid
in the cleft of a rock. What was Moses’ response? “Moses
bowed to the ground at once and worshipped.” (Exodus 34
verse 8). This response of kneeling or bowing down in the
presence of the majesty of God is found many times in the
Bible. Some of the very churches which dismiss the idea
of dancing or raising hands in worship will positively
encourage kneeling during prayer or the eucharist. Can we
have one part of God’s word without the other?
In reality, all of these physical expressions of worship
should be seen as manifestations of the response of our
hearts towards the love, faithfulness, awesomeness and
salvation power of the Lord. Many people who would not
dream of raising their hands in worship will happily throw
their hands in the air and even jump up and down when
their favourite sports team wins an important match. Does
God really deserve something less than the passion we
would show for eleven men in matching shirts kicking a
ball into a goal? If we can comfortably respond with
stillness to the awe provoked by God’s majesty, then it is
only right that we can sometimes respond with movement
to the joy provoked by God’s great love. If that response is
never in us, then perhaps we should question whether the
joy is truly in us.
Advocating more freedom in the way we worship is not,
however, the same as saying that anything goes. Many
who argue against the gifts of the Spirit in today’s church
cite examples of bizarre and ludicrous claims and practices
amongst some charismatic Christians as evidence that all
such manifestations are false, and perhaps even dangerous.
I have of course witnessed several charismatic blunders,
along with strange utterances, which I do not believe were
conceived in the heart of the Lord, and I have witnessed
some of the damage caused by words of counsel given in
the Lord’s name, but without wisdom or understanding.
This however, in no way negates the Word of Truth, from
which I have never discovered a single word of evidence to
suggest that gifts have ceased. If charismatics do or say
things which are wrong then, in love, their leaders should
discipline them. False prophecies and exaggerated claims
should be dealt with, but the Word of the Lord still stands.
Cessationists caution against taking experience as our rule.
In the same way, a wrong experience does not disprove the
Word of God. If sick people are healed in the name of
Jesus Christ and the Word of God does not say that this
will happen, then we are untrue to the Gospel of Jesus
Christ. However, if the Word says that the sick are healed,
then to deny it is to be untrue to the Word. Experience
will constantly prove what is written but it should never
amend it. The Word of God is not subject to men, nor to
their interpretation. It is eternal, immutable and
unswerving, being neither diminished by narrow
mindedness, nor expanded by fantasy. It remains, of God,
that which is written.