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It is important to stress the consistency of Dr. Lloyd-Jones when considering this matter. Pro- and anti-charismatics have been anxious to get him ‘on-side’. Anyone who can quote him with approval gathers kudos and can claim bragging rights. There are those who assert that he changed his opinion as the new Pentecostalism showed signs of growth and vigour which caused some alarm to more traditional Christians. We may trace the beginnings of the Charismatic Movement to the opening of the sixties in the U.S.A. and a few years later to Anglican clergymen like John Collins, David Watson and Michael Harper, who went to consult Lloyd-Jones regarding their spiritual experiences. Was he influenced by them to the extent that he changed his standpoint? Let him speak for himself. Preaching in 1964 he affirmed, ’I am more or less repeating from this pulpit what I was saying nine years ago. People seem to think that this is some strange new doctrine.’ It remains to ask how can unction, anointing, be recognised. It is not often that Martin Luther (or indeed any of the Reformers) are used as illustrations of what today is called the baptism with the Spirit, yet Dr Lloyd-Jones has no hesitation in referring to him as a man ‘baptized and filled with the Spirit’. It is by no means certain that Luther would have used the term, and probably would not have used it in the same sense as many do today, but it is hard to think of him as accomplishing what he did without some such supernatural endowment as that described by the Doctor. In answering the question Lloyd-Jones points us in two directions. Firstly, ‘The first indication is in the preacher’s own consciousness.’ The Apostle ‘knew something was happening, he was aware of it. You cannot be filled with the Spirit without knowing it . . . It gives clarity of thought, clarity of speech, ease of utterance, a great sense of authority and confidence . . . an indescribable sense of joy.’ Secondly, the people ‘sense it at once; they can tell the difference immediately. They are gripped, they become serious, they are convicted, they are moved . . . They know at once that something quite unusual and exceptional is happening.’ So why did my friend and his wife arrive at such different conclusions? Perhaps I was unfair in asking them separately. No doubt I should have
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