Rags in the Torch

And be not drunk with wine, wherein is excess; but be filled with the Spirit. EPHESIANS 5:18

Corrie ten Boom was a great user of props. Among the most memorable was a torch — a flashlight, to her American audiences — which she would hold up and switch on. Nothing happened. It was not broken, she explained. It had only one battery in it, and it needed two. She could not put the second battery in, because the torch was stuffed with rags. Then, one by one, she would pull the rags out and name them. The illustration appears in several of her recorded addresses on Ochorus, including How to Forgive, The Greatest of These Is Love and The Love of Christ, and it carries her whole teaching on the Holy Spirit.

Two batteries

The first battery, she said, stands for the moment when a person first says a real yes to Jesus — sees that he is a sinner, sees that Jesus is his Saviour, and asks Him into his heart. That is the new birth, and it is the beginning of everything. But it is not everything. The second battery is the fullness of the Holy Spirit, and it is this, she insisted, that makes a Christian a light in the world.

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. MATTHEW 5:14

She pointed out, with typical directness, that the Bible does not merely suggest that Christians be filled with the Spirit. It commands it. And she called it one of the most joyful commands in Scripture.

Naming the rags

Why are so many believers not filled? Because the heart is full of rags, and the rags are unconfessed sins. Here she became very specific, and the specificity is what made the illustration bite. She named bad temper, and read the warning of Hebrews about a root of bitterness that defiles many. She named pride. She named feelings of inferiority, and startled her hearers by calling them pride too — a refusal to accept one’s God-given limits. She named worry, jealousy and criticism of other Christians, which she thought one of the commonest rags in the church. She named forgotten promises, unforgiveness, stubbornness, lying, lust and disobedience. In some tellings she added occult practices.

Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: and see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. PSALM 139:23–24

She liked to speak of decent sinners and decent sins — the respectable faults that do not shock anyone but still block the light. A little self-pity. A small untruth. She would pull out what looked like one last rag and find it was a banknote. That, she said, was not a sin; it was only in the wrong place. Money belongs in the purse, not in the heart. But it too can keep the Spirit out.

Out with the rags

What is to be done with the rags? Her answer was the gospel. Confess them, forsake them, and be cleansed.

He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy. PROVERBS 28:13

She insisted that confession must be honest. We must not excuse our sins, she said, because God forgives sins, not excuses. We must say, yes, Lord, I have lied, I have been proud, forgive me. And confession must be joined to repentance — a real turning away. She told of a pickpocket who, on being converted, announced that he now stole only a few watches a week instead of dozens. That, she said, is not repentance.

When the heart is cleansed, she taught, it becomes a dwelling for the fullness of the Spirit. And the evidence of that fullness is not first a feeling or a gift, but fruit.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. GALATIANS 5:22–23

The glove and the hand

She had another prop for the same truth. She would hold up an empty glove and point out that it could do nothing. Put a hand in it, and it could cook, write and work. It is not the glove that does it, she said, but the hand in the glove. We are gloves; the Holy Spirit is the hand. And a hand only partly in the glove cannot use it. Every finger must be filled.

Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. ZECHARIAH 4:6

The same conviction lay behind a contrast she drew often: the Christian life rests on trusting rather than straining, and on what Christ has already done rather than on what we manage to do. She did not mean passivity; she was the least passive of women. She meant that the power for the Christian life is not our effort but the Spirit’s life in us.

He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive.) JOHN 7:38–39

Where to read with care

Corrie moved, in her later years, in circles that valued the gifts of the Spirit highly, and she was welcomed in charismatic and Pentecostal settings. She spoke about the Holy Spirit at the Lausanne Congress in 1974. In Tribulation she welcomes the spread of spiritual gifts, including tongues, across the churches, and tells a story she had heard of a missionary under brainwashing in China who was set free when he began to speak in tongues. She also taught, in a booklet called Defeated Enemies and elsewhere, that occult practices open the door to demonic oppression, and that believers can cast out demons in the name of Jesus.

Christians differ on these matters, and some of her readers will not follow her in all of them. The story of the missionary, told at second hand, cannot be tested. The wise course is to hold to what is plain and central in her teaching — that every believer is commanded to be filled with the Spirit, that unconfessed sin quenches Him, and that His fullness is shown in love and holiness — and to weigh her particular claims about gifts and demons against the whole of Scripture.

But all these worketh that one and the selfsame Spirit, dividing to every man severally as he will. 1 CORINTHIANS 12:11

As He will. The Spirit is not a force we operate but a Person we obey. Corrie, at her best, knew that well.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Pray Psalm 139:23–24 slowly, and write down whatever rags the Lord brings to mind.

2. Take the list and confess each one specifically, without excuses. Then tear it up.

3. Ask whether money, or anxiety about money, has found its way into your heart. Put it back in the purse.

4. Ask God, simply and on the basis of His command, to fill you with His Spirit today. Expect the evidence in fruit rather than feelings.

5. If you hold strong views on spiritual gifts, for or against, read 1 Corinthians 12–14 at one sitting and ask whether your views are as balanced as Paul’s.

A PRAYER

Holy Spirit, You have been grieved by the rags I have kept in my heart. I name them now, and I confess them without excuse.

Cleanse me by the blood of Jesus, and make my heart a fit dwelling for You.

Fill me, as You have commanded. I am only a glove; be the hand in every part of me.

Let Your fruit grow in me — love, joy and peace — and make me a light in a dark place. Amen.