What is revival?
Question 09037
The word “revival” stirs strong feelings in the church. For some, it conjures images of historic movements that transformed entire communities. For others, it evokes the manufactured emotionalism of modern conference culture, where hype is mistaken for the Holy Spirit’s work. The question deserves careful biblical examination, because what Scripture describes and what much of contemporary Christianity promotes under the banner of revival are not always the same thing.
What Revival Actually Means
The English word “revival” means, at its simplest, a return to life. In biblical terms, this describes a season in which God’s people, having drifted into spiritual lethargy, disobedience, or outright apostasy, are brought back to living, obedient faith. The concept is rooted in the Old Testament. The psalmist’s cry in Psalm 85:6, “Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?”, captures the essential shape of the idea. Revival is not the conversion of the lost in the first instance, though that often follows. It is the re-awakening of God’s own people to the reality of who He is and what He requires.
Habakkuk 3:2 expresses the same longing: “O LORD, I have heard the report of you, and your work, O LORD, do I fear. In the midst of the years revive it; in the midst of the years make it known; in wrath remember mercy.” The prophet stands in the gap between God’s past faithfulness and the present spiritual deadness of the nation, pleading for God to act again. This is the authentic posture of revival: a recognition that God’s people have grown cold, combined with an earnest plea for God Himself to intervene.
Old Testament Patterns
Scripture records several episodes that fit the pattern of revival, even where the word itself does not appear. Under King Josiah, the discovery of the Book of the Law in the temple prompted national repentance, covenant renewal, and the destruction of idolatrous high places across Judah (2 Kings 22-23). The text is striking in its honesty: the king tore his robes when the law was read because the nation had so completely departed from what God had commanded that the very existence of the written word came as a shock. What followed was not a programme but a response. The king led the people back to the covenant, and for a season the nation walked in obedience.
Under Ezra and Nehemiah, the returning exiles gathered to hear the law read publicly, and the people wept as they understood how far they had strayed (Nehemiah 8:9). Ezra’s prayer of confession in Ezra 9 is among the most searching in all of Scripture. These episodes share common features: the rediscovery or fresh proclamation of God’s Word, deep conviction of sin, public repentance, and a return to covenant faithfulness. None of them were manufactured by human technique. Each began with the Word of God being heard and taken seriously.
The New Testament and the Spirit’s Work
The New Testament does not use the word “revival,” but the reality it describes is consistent with the Old Testament pattern. Pentecost itself (Acts 2) represents the supreme outpouring of God’s Spirit, resulting in bold proclamation, deep conviction (“they were cut to the heart,” Acts 2:37), and the dramatic transformation of a frightened group of disciples into the most consequential movement in human history. The early chapters of Acts describe a church living in the full reality of what later generations would come to long for under the name of revival.
Paul’s letters to the churches address congregations that had already begun to drift. The Corinthians needed correction on virtually every front. The Galatians were abandoning the gospel of grace for legalism. The Ephesians were told they had abandoned their first love (Revelation 2:4). The pattern is consistent: the church drifts, the Word calls it back, and the Spirit empowers the return. This is revival in its truest sense, and it is always the Spirit’s initiative rather than a human achievement.
Historical Revivals and Their Lessons
Church history records remarkable seasons of spiritual awakening. The Protestant Reformation of the sixteenth century was, among other things, a revival of biblical doctrine after centuries of institutional corruption. The eighteenth-century evangelical awakenings under George Whitefield, John Wesley, and Jonathan Edwards transformed the spiritual landscape of Britain and the American colonies. The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905 saw entire communities radically changed, with public houses closing for lack of customers and magistrates presented with empty dockets.
These movements share recognisable characteristics. They centred on the proclamation of Scripture, particularly the doctrines of sin, grace, and the cross. They produced deep and often agonising conviction of sin. They resulted in changed lives, not merely emotional experiences. And they were, without exception, preceded by sustained, desperate prayer among a faithful remnant who recognised the spiritual bankruptcy of their generation and cried out to God for intervention.
What is equally instructive is that every historical revival eventually subsided, and in many cases was followed by a period of institutionalisation or excess. The Montanist movement in the second century began with genuine prophetic fervour and ended in separatism and strange teaching. Elements of the charismatic movement in the twentieth century followed a similar trajectory. This pattern is a sober reminder that revival is God’s prerogative, not a permanent state that human effort can sustain.
What Revival Is Not
Much of what passes for revival in contemporary Christian culture has little in common with the biblical and historical pattern. A conference with loud music, emotional altar calls, and dramatic testimonies is not revival. A church growth strategy that increases attendance through marketing techniques is not revival. The charismatic emphasis on manifestations, whether falling, shaking, laughing, or other physical phenomena, should not be confused with genuine spiritual awakening. The Toronto Blessing, the Brownsville Revival, and similar movements generated enormous excitement but also enormous controversy, and the fruit of many such movements has been decidedly mixed when measured against the standard of Scripture rather than the standard of attendance figures.
Revival cannot be programmed, scheduled, or produced by human technique. The language of “hosting revival” or “carrying revival,” common in certain charismatic and New Apostolic Reformation circles, treats the work of the Holy Spirit as something that can be managed and directed by human agents. This is a fundamental category error. The Spirit moves as He wills (John 3:8). The church’s responsibility is to be found faithful, prayerful, and responsive, not to manufacture what only God can give.
So, now what?
The longing for revival is entirely right. The state of the Western church warrants it. Biblical illiteracy, moral compromise, theological confusion, and the wholesale capitulation of many denominations to cultural pressure all cry out for the kind of divine intervention that Scripture and history describe. The believer’s posture should be one of honest self-examination, repentance where needed, renewed commitment to the Word, and sustained prayer for God to act. Revival begins not with the world but with God’s own people. The promise of 2 Chronicles 7:14, while addressed to Israel under the Mosaic covenant, captures the principle that echoes across the whole of Scripture: when God’s people humble themselves, pray, seek His face, and turn from their wicked ways, God hears and acts. The initiative is His, but the preparation of the heart is ours.
“Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?” Psalm 85:6
