What is holy laughter?

“For the first time I knelt at the altar on Sunday afternoon, March 17, the power began to seize me, and I laughed all through the following communion service. In the evening, about 11 p.m… after some little waiting I began to laugh, or rather my body was used to laugh with increasing power until I was flat on my back, laughing at the top of my voice for over half an hour.”*

About 1650 arose the “French Prophets” in the Forest of Cevennes. They claimed apostolic gifts and SPOKE WITH TONGUES. Scenes of the wildest confusion were witnessed. They would roll on the floor, foam at the mouth, go into fits of “holy” laughter of long continuance. They professed that babes of fifteen months were filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied. This movement was marked by gross immorality, and their places of assembly were designated as “public places of prostitution”.

About 1650 arose the “French Prophets” in the Forest of Cevennes. They claimed apostolic gifts and SPOKE WITH TONGUES. Scenes of the wildest confusion were witnessed. They would roll on the floor, foam at the mouth, go into fits of “holy” laughter of long continuance. They professed that babes of fifteen months were filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied. This movement was marked by gross immorality, and their places of assembly were designated as “public places of prostitution”.

Was not his soul lifted up to a heavenly ecstasy? Was he not led to a deeper enjoyment of the Scriptures? Was he not led out in earnest prayer? He was. Were these things wrong? Yet he found that mixed up with them demoniacal power and agency were at work. In short, the movement, spite of good things connected with it, was a snare of Satan. Satan had depths in it of which at first he had no suspicion. But when things began to develop, such as the fanaticism of the movement, the “holy” laughter, the unfulfilled prophecies, etc., he was too sincere a Christian to be duped. Hence his deliverance. Note these manifestations were connected in his experience, not with faithfulness, but with “unfaithfulness.”

Was not his soul lifted up to a heavenly ecstasy? Was he not led to a deeper enjoyment of the Scriptures? Was he not led out in earnest prayer? He was. Were these things wrong? Yet he found that mixed up with them demoniacal power and agency were at work. In short, the movement, spite of good things connected with it, was a snare of Satan. Satan had depths in it of which at first he had no suspicion. But when things began to develop, such as the fanaticism of the movement, the “holy” laughter, the unfulfilled prophecies, etc., he was too sincere a Christian to be duped. Hence his deliverance. Note these manifestations were connected in his experience, not with faithfulness, but with “unfaithfulness.”

It has often been said that the first reference to a matter in Scripture gives us the full thought of God in relation to it, and hence there is great blessedness in seeing that this first reference to weaning describes a scene of holy mirth and joy. I have no doubt that it is the day which morally was in the heart of Abraham, to which the Lord Jesus refers when He said, "Abraham rejoiced to see My day; he saw it, and was glad" — when the habitation of Abraham, through the exercise of weaning, was filled not with the laughter of irony or unbelief which had previously marked it, but the laughter of holy mirth. It is a laugh which is contagious, and having a place in our own hearts will spread to others, as Sarah said, "all that hear will laugh with me." What a blessed thing, dear brethren, to be so filled with the holy mirth which the incoming of Christ gives to the soul, that others are affected by its joy.

It is remarkable that it was God who gave the name Isaac ("laughter") to the son of the promise. We are apt to think that gloom and austerity are the characteristics of devotedness, but Abraham laughed in God's presence, and so far from being rebuked for it, his laughter, being an expression of faith, is approved in the naming of his son. The laughter of Sarah is the amused expression of unbelief, and she is sharply rebuked. Though the Oriental peoples are habitually grave, there is a great deal about laughter in the Bible, and mostly it expresses these two notions of happiness and contempt. "Blessed are ye that weep now: for ye shall laugh" are the comforting words addressed to His suffering disciples. But very different in meaning is the expression, "He that sits in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision."

Sarah is blessed with Abraham and is ennobled with a change of name. In the presence of these communications Abraham is filled with joy: for, doubtless, in this passage the laughter speaks of joy, not unbelief.

In the two incidents that follow we see the effect of the birth of the heir. In the one scene there are those who rejoice; in the other there are those who mock. Again, do not these two incidents strikingly bring before us the twofold effect of the birth of Christ? Sarah said, "God has made me to laugh, so that all that hear will laugh with me." Time was when her laughter was the expression of her unbelief; now it is the overflow of the joy of her heart. Moreover, her faith recognizes, and owns, that the birth of the son is so wholly of God, and lies so entirely outside the thoughts of man, that she asks, "Who would have said to Abraham, that Sarah should have given children suck?" So impossible was this to nature, that no man would have said it. Only God would have said it; and only One who is Almighty could carry out what He said.

This great truth had been foreshadowed in the Old Testament. Abraham had two sons. The one, Ishmael, born of Hagar according to the flesh; the other, Isaac, through promise. Hagar was a figure of the covenant from Sinai, that is, of the effort of the flesh by works of law to obtain the promise of God. Jerusalem, the then centre of Jewish religion, and her children still in bondage under the first covenant, were represented by Hagar and Ishmael. But Jerusalem on earth had been set aside by God (see Hosea 2:2, and Matt. 23:38), and the city of God now is Jerusalem above. All Christians were children of the heavenly city. The 27th verse only shows that when it will be again said to Jerusalem on earth, "Thy Maker is thy husband," and when she will rejoice in millennial days, she will then count Christians who have come in during the days of her desolation as her children; for from her, after all, came forth all the blessings of the gospel, even as Christ according to the flesh came of Israel. But during the days when she has no husband and is desolate, to go back to her is to go back to that which God has for the time rejected and set aside. If Isaac, the child of promise, is brought into the house, Ishmael must go out. The child of holy laughter - the laughter of faith - must displace the child of bondage and flesh, and this is Christianity. There Christ is everything. The Lord intimated early in His ministry that the new wine which He brought could not be put into the old bottle of Judaism, and in John's gospel it is apparent that He supersedes in His own person everything in which a Jew could boast.