Is being slain in the Spirit biblical?

This is not a Biblical expression —or a Biblical phenomenon. When people talk about being ‘slain in the Spirit’ they normally refer to situations where, often through the influence of a ‘healer’, people lose control of themselves and fall over, normally backwards. They claim that these experiences are brought about by the Holy Spirit. However, the many Bible passages speaking of the Holy Spirit and His power never mention any experiences of this type. In fact, they are in direct contradiction to the character (Q.7) and the work (Q.9) of the Holy Spirit as described in God’s word.

Verse 28 very appropriately follows: "He that hath no rule over his own spirit is like a city that is broken down, and without walls." The servant of the Lord must know how to practise a proper restraint, a godly, sober balance. For, while it is true that the Spirit of God gives special gifts to the saints of God, and we may count upon His power and grace in the exercise of that gift, yet our own spirits have a decided and important part in this. God has so ordained it that His Spirit works in conjunction with the true subjection of those whom He uses. If this is lacking, the gift will be abused. Some have even dared to claim that they were so completely under the power of the Spirit that they were carried to a point of not realizing what they were saying; and then when faced with errors in what they said, excused themselves by claiming the leading of the Spirit! This is grossly sinful, as though the Spirit of God would lead a man to lose control of his own spirit! But Scripture is plain: "the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets" (1 Cor. 14:32). If we neglect this true self-judgment, self-restraint, and proper discretion, we shall be exposed and deprived of our defense, as a city without walls; and given up to disorder, as a city broken down. Methods of this kind have been too often used to bolster a weak and failing testimony, but the results are such as to make disorder out of weakness, rebellion out of failure.

These “tarrying” meetings are based upon a misconception of Scripture. In practice they are marked by scenes worthy of Bedlam. Men and women lose control over themselves, and act like maniacs. Indecent postures often result. Strange physical feelings take possessions of those who “let themselves go.” How any serious Christian can countenance such things is incomprehensible.

“The Pastor prays with each sufferer, and lays his hand on their head, and usually the person prayed for seems to stiffen out and fall prostrate, lying on the ground in a State of semi-consciousness.” (p. 180)

One experienced Christian worker, who attended Pastor Stephen Jeffreys’ meetings in the Colston Hall, Bristol, told the writer that he was convinced that the power was hypnotism. Another eye-witness said that the Pastor would take the head of the sufferer in his hands, jerk the head this way and that for a moment or two, and then the person would fall stiffly to the floor, more or less unconscious. The testimony printed by themselves as to Principal George Jeffreys’ methods points the same way.

Then another thing laid down (ver. 32) is that the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. Because what some of these Corinthians maintained (judging from the blow that is struck at it here) was that they could not interfere with prophesying. If any had the Spirit to speak, they must speak. Paul says to them, You are talking as men might who are possessed by spirits; that might be the case with a man under a demon; but is it so with the Spirit of God? The Spirit of God never puts a man, as it were, into a vice. He in His operation makes it no kind of necessity. In a moral way, He may lay it on the heart; but never do we find that a man is absolutely tied and obliged to speak. Balaam might have been in an extraordinary manner forced to give an utterance, just as his ass then spoke under that imperative power; but surely no one would speak of either as being analogous to the action of the Holy Ghost in God's assembly.

But verses 32 and 33 are a necessary addition here. Let no one be so carried away in his speaking as to claim he could not help himself from speaking as he does. This is not the general method of the Spirit of God. We may see such an exceptional case as that of the false prophet Balaam (Num. 23,24), where he was compelled of God to bless rather than curse Israel, as he had desired; but in the assembly the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets themselves. One is at all times to have rule over his own spirit, being fully responsible for what he says. For the Spirit of God works in full conjunction with the spirit of the prophet, using him with the fullest coordination of his own capabilities, intelligence, personality, conscience, emotions. An evil spirit cannot do this, but seeks to so control his victim that the victim has no rule over what he says, and often does not even know what he says.

(Vv. 32, 33). Moreover, the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets, a statement that excludes all idea of being moved by an uncontrollable impulse. With men speaking under the power of demons it would be otherwise, resulting in unholy excitement and confusion. God is not the Author of confusion, but of peace. Any scene of confusion in the assemblies of God's people is clearly not of God.

Now follows a most extraordinary spectacle. With one accord the band of ruffians fell backward to the ground. Most people, who fall, fall forward. But here not one but all fell backward. Surely in this we see the fact that the Lord was immune from personal violence as long as His hour had not arrived. Here at the very close of this period we find Him invulnerable.

There is also a resemblance between this scene and what took place at the conversion of Saul of Tarsus. Then his companions saw the light but did not hear the words that were spoken though they heard the sound. Here the men with him saw nothing but they were filled with trembling, and fled to hide themselves. Fallen man cannot stand in the presence of God, and even a saint — whether Daniel in the Old Testament or John in the New — falls down 'in a deep sleep', or 'as one dead'. We know God as our Father, but we must never forget His supreme majesty as God.