Who Needs Revival?

Some years ago, I was visiting a small rural church in Michigan where a preacher delivered a message on revival. His text was Genesis 26:18.

And Isaac digged again the wells of water, which they had digged in the days of Abraham his father; for the Philistines had stopped them after the death of Abraham.

He argued passionately that what we need more than anything else in these times is revival. In fact, revival would solve every significant problem that exists in our nation, our churches, and in the lives of God’s people everywhere. Near the end of his message, he summarized with these words. “Our nation needs revival, God’s people need revival, we here—we all need revival… I need revival.”

The message illustrates a widespread way of thinking about revival and a common pattern in pulpit use of the term. But three problems with this usage call for our attention.

Problem 1: this use of “revival” isn’t actually biblical

It’s a surprise to many that the word “revival” does not occur in the KJV, though variants of the word like “revived” and “reviving” occur 16 times (variations of the word occur thirty times in NASB, twenty times in ESV and nine times in NIV). All of the OT references translate the Hebrew chayah (Strong’s 2421) or its noun form michyah (Strong’s 4241). These words are usually translated “lived” or “living,” though they cover a wide range of meaning related to the idea of life. The two NT references come from zao (2198) or anazao (326), words that have essentially the same range of meaning as the Hebrew terms.

Since the underlying Hebrew and Greek words are so flexible, their meaning is based mostly on context. A table following this article lists the references and portions of the passages containing them.

A survey of the passages in their contexts reveals that “revival” in Scripture occasionally includes a spiritual dimension but these cases are few in number. All of those with a spiritual dimension refer to the nation of Israel enjoying renewed material and geopolitical blessing from God in the context of renewed interest among God’s people in knowing and doing His will.

However, in each of these cases, the “revival” occurs in the lives of those who have never previously known a life of faithful obedience to God. In other words, the individuals who are “revived” are unregenerate idolaters before the “revival” occurs. On the individual level, “revival” is the same thing as conversion in these passages. On the national level, it is a return to a prior condition: a time when the nation as a whole knew God and was faithful to Him.

We may conclude, then, that Scripture does not refer often to “revival” in a spiritual sense but when it does, it refers to the conversion of unbelievers (in large numbers). Though fundamentalist-heritage ministries do use the term in this way, we clearly do not limit it to this sense. This is because the Bible’s use of “revival” is not the driving force behind how we use the word.

Problem 2: this use of “revival” is inconsistent

The preaching in that rural Michigan church prompted a series of questions in my mind. Was it likely that the American public, all believers as a group, everyone in the building that day, and even the preacher all desperately needed the same thing? If we all needed the same cure, did this imply that we were all in the same condition? And if the preacher was in the same condition as the loose-living, godless, self-indulgent public he had decried throughout the message, why was he in the pulpit preaching to us?

Of course, we understood that wasn’t what he meant when he said, “I need revival,” but what did he mean? The event epitomizes a second problem with popular use of “revival.” We tend to be vague and confusing on the subject.

Over the years I have witnessed the use of “revival” to refer to all of the following:

1. many people repenting and believing the gospel
2. a major shift in society toward clean living
3. large numbers of Christians who have turned away from God for a long time repenting and “getting right with God.”
4. a significant increase in visible excitement among believers about “the things of God” (spiritual fervor)
5. a lot of believers walking aisles to repent of a wide variety of things large and small
6. a dramatic, visible working of God that results in large numbers of transformed people
7. whatever will fix whatever is wrong with this or that church or ministry
8. any significant shift back toward how things were in the good old days
9. the ultimate answer to all that is wrong or can be wrong with life, the universe and everything

Clearly some of these overlap, and some of them are not views of revival anyone would admit to, but even items 7 through 9 are uses of the word I have witnessed on more than one occasion. The question they prompt is this: If our use of “revival” is only loosely related to the biblical use of the term, and we use it in so many different ways, how has this come about?

Simply put, our view of revival in fundamentalist-heritage ministries tends to be folkloric. When we hear the word “revival” we do not think of biblical principles so much as historical events. We think of the Great Awakening, the Puritan and Wesleyan revivals in England, the great Welsh Revival, the Laymen’s Prayer Revival. We think of Whitefield, Edwards, Finney and Moody.

Our collective awareness of these historical movements brings with it the lore of revival. Taverns went out of business, preaching sessions and prayer times went on for days without interruption, businesses closed to allow more to attend services, and thousands were born again.

No doubt, much of the lore is true, and if some accounts are not factually accurate they’re still descriptions of what people genuinely believed was happening. But these events are, nonetheless, history, not theology. They are experiences, not biblical precepts. We do not know how much of what occurred was of God or how much was merely human, or what, at the judgment, will prove to have been wood or hay rather than gold.

We know that the reality of past revival “just goes to show” something, but, as always with history, what it goes to show is open to interpretation. It may posses some of the authority of human expertise, but it can’t legitimately claim the authority of Scripture.

This folkloric understanding of revival is problematic in at least two ways. One, it tends to confuse means with ends and byproducts with essence. Two, because the folkloric view is history and not Scripture, there is always the risk that our efforts to reproduce a historical situation will get in the way of pursuing biblical goals. Perhaps we should focus on our biblical marching orders and let God decide whether history ought to repeat itself?

Problem 3: this use of “revival” is ineffective

Maybe the word “revival” should not be stricken from our pulpit vocabulary, but this much is clear: There are perfectly good biblical terms for all the things that are truly wrong with people as well as what they should do in response.

Scripture commands us to make disciples of all the nations and teach them to obey Christ (Matt.28:19-20). It also instructs us to be His witnesses both near and far (Acts 1:8) and teaches that we are dependent on the work of the Spirit for any effectiveness in these efforts. Only a gracious act of God can quicken those dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1). That obligates us to pray that God will bring unbelievers to repentance and faith in the gospel. So, if our aim as preachers and teachers is to urge hearers to pray that many people would repent and believe, why not say so? These are biblical terms and far more clear than urging people to “pray for revival.”

The Bible also calls wayward Christians to clean up their act. If our goal in ministry is to urge believers who have wandered from God to return to Him, why not challenge them in biblical terms to stop being carnal (1 Cor.3:1-3), stop living like vain-minded unbelievers (Eph.4:17ff) or simply to wake up and quit sinning (1 Cor.15:33-34)? These terms are far more clear and on-point than saying “we need revival.”

Scripture actually leads us to believe that apathy and disregard for the will of God are a rare and unnatural condition among believers (1 John 3:8-9). Many are immature, but most are growing. It’s part of being alive. If this is the case, most believers do not need to return to a Lord from whom they have strayed, nor do they need a great stirring of spiritual fervor. What they need is to grow, to learn whatever is next to learn, and to do whatever is next to do.

These are usually small steps and quiet ones, and are not “revival” in either the biblical or the folkloric sense. There is a place for “fervor,” as a reflection of genuine commitment (Rom.12:11), but lack of fervor is not most believers’ biggest problem, and “revival” is not what most of them need.

If we want to urge normal Christians to do what’s needed in their lives, why not challenge them to grow in grace and knowledge (2 Pet.3:18), or to pursue a love that abounds in knowledge and discernment (Phil. 1:9), or to be increasingly holy in the fear of God (2 Cor.7:1), or to stop being mere consumers of teaching and start being teachers (Heb.5:12)?

Scripture is full of clear and powerful expressions of what’s lacking in believers’ lives, and every one of these expressions is preferable to “we all need revival.”

Conclusion

So who needs “revival?” In the biblical sense, those who have fallen away or who have never known Christ need it, but even in reference to this select group, Scripture prefers to put the need in different terms. And in the much broader folkloric sense of “a large scale working of the Spirit with the result of radically transformed lives,” the average Christian does not need “revival.” What he or she needs is progress, growth, and maturity.

Variants of “Revive” in KJV