I’ve noted before that I like to begin my devotional time in the morning by reading either a classic or a book by someone dead. Recently I’ve been working my way through Herman Bavinck’s Saved by Grace: The Holy Spirit’s Work in Calling and Regeneration. This work, which is separate from his four volume Dogmatics, focuses on the controversy in his day surrounding immediate regeneration and presumptive regeneration.
Since I have Anabaptists on the brain, I thought it would be worthwhile to quote Bavinck’s discussion on Anabaptist mysticism (which I’m not equating with the Neo-Anabaptists). After noting that the Anabaptists often referenced an internal light or inner Word as their authority, Bavinck comments more broadly about mysticism.
Bavinck disagrees with this kind of mysticism, but he does not think it is without any short-term positive results.
Having given this warm commendation, Bavinck goes on to state the danger of Anabaptist mysticism.
The pattern has been repeated many times. People start to pay less and less attention to Scripture, saying it has errors or it can’t be understood or it’s less spiritual than the Spirit within us. Exuberance, courage, and activity follow as people feel alive and less shackled by “tradition” and fixed propositions. With their new found inner truth, these people grow dissatisfied with sermons, notions of authority, and Church-as-we-know-it. More exuberance. But eventually the excitement wears off. The activity dies down. What’s left is the internal Word, which, it turns out, is no different from our own opinions, convictions, and desires.
Without an outer, objective Word, the internal Word always gives way to rationalism, because in appealing to our inner sense of things, we end up just appealing to our own reason. Over time, then, Scripture is increasingly silenced, as we continue doing and thinking what we want, and Scripture is consulted only to confirm what we already “know.” The result is a cold, lifeless church, without the power of God or the truth of God’s word.
