THE DEVELOPMENT OF NINETEENTH CENTURY HOLINESS THEOLOGY
Melvin E. Dieter
The Historical Milieu
A few years after he was elected bishop in 1844, Leonidas L. Hamline wrote to a friend that he was more convinced than ever that there was an inevitable conflict on the doctrine of holiness impending in the Methodist Episcopal Church. As a warm friend of the growing holiness revival in the church, he looked forward to the struggle with anticipation. He observed, that when foes of holiness were still, it meant that friends of holiness were idle.1 About ten years prior to the bishop's remarks those who had strong concerns for the cause of holiness in the church had begun to stir themselves in special efforts for a more vigorous promotion of Christian perfection or entire sanctification. Immediately, those who were not in sympathy with either the teachings or the methods of new movement began to voice their fears concerning it. The conflict which Hamline anticipated was ready to break into the open about the time of his observations given above. Controversy was to be one of the primary contextual elements within which the theology of the Holiness revival was to develop throughout the century.
Early opposition to the new holiness promotion in the church rose out of the fear that any formal organization on behalf of a doctrine so central to Methodism, smacked of a potential for schism.2 (Perhaps the fact that one of these warnings came from a man who later was to become bishop constituted an early indication of his future exaltation, for in those times a good nose for the least tendency toward organizational irregularity was a gift which often seemed to commend one to the office.) In spite of Jesse Peck's words of caution in 1852, organizations and agencies for holiness promotion proliferated both within and without Methodism. It is true that three decades later the separation of the "come-outers," or more radical elements of the movement seemed to confirm the divisive propensities which some saw in the revival; but the movement as a whole did not leave Methodism in any great numbers to form new holiness churches until the end of the nineteenth century. Significant numbers of holiness pastors and lay persons chose to remain in Methodism. These holiness Methodists continued to relate to the newly formed Holiness churches through the numerous associations and camp meetings which became the coordinating centers of the movement. Such centers still bring both groups together today.
The institutional tensions created within the tightly disciplined Methodist ranks of the nineteenth century by the activities of the holiness adherents may, in themselves, provide an adequate reason for the church's rejection of not only the more radical elements of the revival, but even many of its moderates. Aggressive holiness bands, circles and associations with their local, county, state, and national organizations, replete with presses and periodicals sprang up everywhere. As in most such divisions within the American churches, however, there was also the charge of doctrinal deviation. The fact that the chief concern of the special efforts was the promotion of Christian perfection, the central and special doctrine of the Wesleyan movement merely intensified the doctrinal confrontations which accompanied the revival throughout the century.
The task in this brief review is to
try to identify points of theological transition in the developing teaching of the
holiness revivalists and the component elements which may have fed into such changes. From
time to time, papers presented to this society have spoken to those questions.3 The
nature and extent of any perceived modifications or deviations are now being reviewed more
intensely because of the general revival of Wesley studies within the on-going Methodist
Holiness Movement, within Methodism in general, and within the ecumenical Christian
community. With due deference to Peter Berger, we can say that there is a rumor going the
rounds of the theological world that sanctification and Christian perfection may still be
vital components in any theology which can support a truly Christian witness to God's
redemptive involvement in His hurting world.
The Palmer Theology
The starting datum for our discussion of a holiness theology is the scholarly consensus that the doctrines of Christian perfection which the Methodist Church espoused during its formative decades in the new American nation were essentially those passed on to it by the standard works of Wesley, Fletcher, Clarke, and Watson along with the always popular biographies of early worthies such as Bramwell, Carvosso and Rogers.4 Holiness advocates consistently and persistently appealed to these as their authority base along with their final appeal to Scripture. Phoebe Palmer's introduction of her "altar terminology" and "shorter way" into the Methodist understanding and promotion of the doctrine marks the point at which new directions begin to emerge from this standard milieu of Wesleyan perfectionism. Palmer and her sister, Sarah Lankford, were prominent lay persons in the burgeoning center of Methodism in the equally burgeoning city of pre-Civil-War New York. They helped to launch early Methodist overseas missions with their enthusiastic financial and moral support. Phoebe was one of the leading lights in establishing the Five Points Mission on New York City's east side. Contemporary interest in her life and ministry centers on the pioneer role she played in modeling and defending the right of women to a place of public ministry in the church. But she and her physician husband, Walter were best known for the Tuesday Meetings for the Promotion of Holiness which began to meet in their home in 1835 as a women's class meeting. The meetings quickly became the center for holiness promotion within Methodism and beyond.5 Soon after the meetings, then under the direction of her sister, had moved to their home, she herself professed to enter into the experience of entire sanctification as the Wesleyan doctrine came to be known in the holiness movement.6
Out of that experience and a study of the Bible, she put together a series of Old and New Testament passages to create a new scala sancta by which the Christian believer could be cleansed from all the remains of inbred sin and enter into the Canaan land of perfect love. It represented a blend of the accepted Wesleyan standards mentioned above in interaction with other forces at work creating the currents of revivalism and reform which had been surging through the national experience of the day.
Christ, she said, is the Christian's altar. Exodus 37 told her that whatsoever toucheth the altar shall be holy; therefore, every Christian believer who is willing in faith to present himself or herself, without any reservation whatsoever, as a "living sacrifice" (Rom. 12:1, 2) upon the altar provided by the finished work of Christ is entirely sanctified and cleansed from all sin.7 The clear promises of Scripture are the voice of God because the Spirit is speaking them to us. Action upon a divine promise in faith constitutes the assurance that the promise is fulfilled in us.8 In this, she seemed to be blending the act of faith and the assurance of faith into one. Her more theologically disciplined friends warned her of this tendency.9 She did believe, however, that the testimony of the inner witness of the Spirit which Wesley strongly emphasized would accompany the witness of God's faithfulness quickly if not immediately to those who cast themselves completely upon Christ for full salvation. The Bible also taught her that without holiness no one will see God and that our sanctification is His will for us; furthermore, "now" is always God's time for acceptance of his gracious offers of salvation. Therefore, the failure to act on these words of promise issues in unbelief, and unbelief issues in sin and disobedience. She also insisted that when persons experience the blessing, it is their duty to confess it and zealously seek to bring others into the same experience.10
Time will not allow us to get into all of the complex questions which are raised here, but we can sense that something has changed theologically. Although each of Mrs. Palmer's assumptions and statements can be documented with almost identical statements in Wesley himself,11 at the very least, there has been a shifting of the focus for understanding the tension between the Wesleyan polarities of growth and crisis in relation to coming to perfection in love. It is obvious in her message that the "moment" of revivalist appeal, the immediacy of response anticipated lest the hearer demonstrate unbelief and fall into condemnation by delay, the entire cleansing in the moment of total consecration . . . all tended to shift the point of balance away from that which Wesley had maintained and moved it closer to the crisis polarity and away from the gradualism and growth which formed the other pole of his dialectic. The experience of Christian perfection as the beginning of the life of growth in holiness rather than the culmination of its mature graces became the focal point of the Christian life. This tended to revise the continuum of salvation within which Wesley had envisioned the experience. Phoebe Palmer had done for the crisis element of Wesley's perfectionism what William Warren Sweet said that Finney had done for the conversion experience; she had made perfection in love the beginning of days instead of a point somewhere at the culmination of struggle and growth.12
It appears that Wesley himself in the later decades of his ministry moved in his own position closer and closer to the crisis polarity of his crisis process teaching on the attainment of Christian perfection. His letters of spiritual counsel and to his preachers and others from the 1760's to his death indicate this. Consequently, Palmer's followers could make use of copious portions of Wesley's writings to affirm the essential Wesleyanism of their position.13 Phoebe Palmer herself guarded her statements with some sense of balance. Nathan Bangs, who attended her meetings and frequently led them, pronounced her teachings essentially Wesleyan.14 She knew Wesley and the other standard authors well and did not extend some of the implications or possibilities of her "altar" teaching to the extreme degree which some of later followers did who were immersed mainly in the revivalistic milieu. The latter commonly had considerably less acquaintance with the theological context within which certainly Wesley and even she understood the dynamics of the work of sanctification.
But the most important key to the theological transitions taking place here may lie in Palmer's claim that what was taught in the Tuesday Meetings was not in the final analysis the teaching of Wesley, Fletcher, Clarke, or Watson, but rather the teaching of the Bible. The intent and meaning of Scripture, on her points of concern at least, were clear and definite. Wesley would have had no problem with her appeal to Biblical authority, but there is no doubt that her readiness, within the context of the revivalistic preaching of her day, to proof text her understanding of the experience of entire sanctification and how to attain it by what she considered the plain answers of Scripture set a pattern of closure in complex issues which Wesley and maybe Fletcher would not have readily allowed. Wesley often hesitated to bring every difficult Biblical question to a point of final resolution; there was room for a tension within Scripture itself which could be lived with without allowing for any uncertainty as to the way of salvation or the gracious nature of God. One of the most forceful illustrations of the nuances of theological distinction which are present here is the response which Wesley made to questions on free will and the sovereignty of God in relation to individual salvation. He said that he would not say that persons cannot come to God if they will but neither would he say that persons could come to God whenever they will.15 The consequence was that after all the Scripture which argued the question had been presented, one still should not be too ready to assume that all persons who read the Word of God or hear it preached will receive its truths in equal and similar fashion or see the same clear path of faithful response. Phoebe Palmer's "altar terminology" like the "Four Spiritual Laws" used in many sectors of evangelism today was often abused by the assumption of a kind of automatic operation of Scripture: To read or to hear the words is to know God's will. It was at this point of what constitutes "light," that the "shorter way" may have been relying on an epistemology which was different from that which Wesley relied upon.
The charges that there was something
here that was un-Wesleyan may have arisen out of theological sensitivities at that point.
If there is any truth in this, however, the questions raised did not prevent the rapid and
widespread adoption of "Altar Terminology" within Methodism and throughout the
broader holiness movement. Even today, one could hardly preach the virtues of the totally
consecrated life without hearing the overtones of "laying all on the altar."
Phoebe Palmer had forged a simple syllogism which allowed higher life evangelists to
present Christian perfection to the masses in the language of American revival. The altar
motif became a permanent part of evangelical spirituality. These new revivalistic emphases
on consecrated life contributed significantly to the dramatic outburst of revival in
1857-58; the Layman's or Fulton Street Revival gathered up many of the perfectionist
dynamics created by the Finney-Palmer holiness revival,16 generating momentum for
the post Civil War movement.
Post Civil War Developments
The second period of development in holiness theology was basically a period of the solidification of the concepts and conflicts which had developed in the Palmer period. The publication of several comprehensive summaries of the standard teachings of the church on the doctrine of Christian perfection, e.g. George Peck's The Scripture Doctrine of Christian Perfection Stated and Defended and Jesse Peck's The Central Idea of Christianity17 helped to set the stage of the theological debate and even intense controversy which surrounded the doctrine in the period. The details of the struggle are now more objectively known than they were by a previous generation thanks to the many scholars who have been probing nineteenth century religious history. The confrontations were often bitter as two increasingly divergent paradigms for understanding Christian perfection vied for the loyalties of Methodism. Wesley was used against himself as both sides in the conflict drew heavily upon one polarity or the other of his crisis growth dialectic of holiness. Holiness advocates in the church commonly took up crisis; their opponents emphasized process. Purity was put over against maturity; the "now" against the "not yet." The holiness advocates relied on Wesley's definition of sin as a known transgression of the law of God to defend their witness to perfection in love when at times they may not have left a perfect witness to it in their actions; the movement's critics contrasted the sometimes deficient actions of those who claimed to be conscious of no disobedience in their hearts with the high standards of Christian maturity which Wesley at times used to confirm the truth of the experience.18
The theological tensions were exacerbated by the vigor of the holiness revival as it took up and revived the camp meeting as the chief instrument of holiness evangelism with the organization of the National Camp meeting Association for the Promotion of Christian Holiness at Vineland, New Jersey in 1867. The call for a higher quality of Christian experience swelled in the Methodist churches and spilled over, continuing to interact with Oberlin and Reformed perfectionism to develop a network of holiness meetings and associations which contributed significantly to the Methodization of American religion in the nineteenth century. It spread to England, the Continent and to mission stations around the world.
A multiplicity of factors
(undoubtedly including some undue personal ambitions and injudicious actions) contributed
to the critical though not total separation of church and movement which occurred by the
turn of the century; but it was theological polarization and organizational tension which
played the leading roles. In the course of the struggle, some denied the Wesleyan
dialectic altogether by espousing some sort of Zinzendorfian theology which obviated any
subsequency of sanctification beyond the new birth.19 Others who disagreed with the
holiness movement's Wesleyanism marched on into the future intrigued by the new world of
continental theology. A second generation of Methodist theologians moved into the
churches' seminaries. For most of these, Wesley with his strong tinges of pietism and
puritanism became passe.20 As large numbers of holiness adherents left the churches,
most of Methodism seemed to breath a sigh of relief that the questions and the conflict
had both been muted. A long period of relative silence in the churches of Wesley on their
movement's central doctrine ensued.21
Pentecost and Holiness
If main-line Methodist theology had taken a noticeable turn away from Wesley to something new by the end of the century, so also, some contend, had the theology of the holiness revival.22 The first period of revival had put into place a theology of Wesleyan perfectionism which allowed its adherents to propagate their message with the rhetoric and methods of the revivalism of Finney. This new way of understanding and promoting the doctrine excited the intense debates and controversies concerning holiness within Methodism in the decades immediately following the Civil War. These, in turn, set the stage by the last quarter of the century for the next significant development in the theology of the revival. That transition was to bring Pentecostal motifs and rhetoric to the defense and promotion of the holiness cause.
It would have been most exceptional if the holiness movement where the emphasis on the present activity and power of the Holy Spirit had been promoted as vigorously as it had been at any time in the Church's history should not have begun to think that the revival had begun a new era of divine activity in the affairs of people and nations. The ideal of Pentecost and the certainty that the revival marked the beginning of a new "age of the Spirit" eventually became the dominant force in shaping the vision of the movement and its mission. This theological development was encouraged by strong religious and cultural forces such as the optimism and millennialism which were pervading the culture at the time.
We cannot give adequate attention to the influences of these wider movements upon the revival; rather, let us try to cut to what I believe is the heart of the theological questions involved. As early as 1857, a report on the Palmer's Tuesday Meetings picked up the Pentecostal and millennial theme. A participant saw in the meetings, "the germs, the dawnings of millennial glory." They were "strikingly imitative of the pentecostal," and, "similar to the upper room at Jerusalem, where the early disciples assembled with Mary, the mother of Jesus . . . till God gave them power from on high, the tongue of fire, . . . Is this the baptism now called for . . . ere the world blossom as the rose," he asked in conclusion?23 William Arthur's Tongue of Fire, published just before the Civil War, urged upon the churches the necessity for recovering the power of the Holy Spirit as it had been revealed at Pentecost and in the Book of Acts.24 The pentecostal theme continued to swell after the Civil War. L. R. Dunn, a Methodist holiness evangelist, wrote in 1871 that, "God is now wondrously moving among the nations . . .; a mighty upheaval is now going on; all men are looking on and wondering what will come out. O blessed, Holy Comforter, finish speedily Thy great work in the world."25 Holiness revivalists believed that in the renewal of the Pentecostal experience and gifts, the Church and world were experiencing the final stage of history before the consummation of all things in Christ. Terms such as "The Baptism of the Holy Spirit," "The Gift of the Ghost," and "The Promise of the Father" charged the religious atmosphere of American evangelicalism, both Calvinist and Wesleyan.
The Church of God (Anderson, Indiana) reformation movement which was born out of the crest of the first wave of post Civil War holiness evangelism in the late 1870's believed that the Holiness revival was the instrument which God was using at the end of history to bring the true church to the purity and the unity which human organization and creeds had denied to it. "The Age of the Spirit," had come in which the one invisible Church, hidden among the many sects of the time would finally be revealed as the one true visible "Church of God." It had been organized by the Spirit and not by human devices.26 Their understanding of the church as the dwelling place of the Spirit, their emphasis upon Spirit Baptism, upon the primacy of Spirit leadership and organization of the church, their insistence that men cannot ordain those who have been called by the Holy Spirit but rather, merely recognize the Spirit's sealing of the individual, all are indications of an ethos which pervaded the revival.
The more traditional groups such as the Church of the Nazarene or the Pilgrim Holiness Church which came out of the revival a generation later failed to join them in their radical anti sectarianism. Nevertheless, they exhibited the same "age of the Spirit" motifs which formed the heart of the Church of God reformation movement. God within them, individually and in their fellowship collectively, through the sanctifying Spirit molded their concepts of the nature of the fellowship, the purity of the church, their concept of the ministry and the qualifications which is required, ministerial education, and the mission and place of the church in the world and in history.27
Let me suggest then that the adoption of Pentecostal and Baptism of the Holy Ghost paradigms as the major vehicle for the expression of Holiness thought and preaching by the close of the century was no introduction of an unnatural or un-Wesleyan element into the holiness tradition; rather, it was a natural outgrowth of a weighted factor in Wesley's own teaching on Christian perfection and the work and witness of the Holy Spirit in persons and in the world which demanded theological explication that the traditional structures of Reformed theology could not support. In this new understanding of the possibility of a different relationship with God and a new release of Christ's life through an immediate and personal experience of the fullness of the Holy Spirit's presence, Wesley moved beyond the benchmarks of Lutheran and Calvinistic theology thereby tending naturally and easily, if not necessarily toward more ready explication of the dynamics of Christian perfection in terms of Pentecost and Spirit baptism and fullness.
Donald Dayton and Timothy Smith, among others, have suggested some of the possible sources of the shift to Pentecostal themes toward the end of the century. These theses which suggest that some of the roots of this change may be found in Asa Mahan and Charles Finney are certainly valid.28 They are commonly found in Phoebe Palmer herself.29 But in the Methodist holiness movement at least, there seems to me to be no more obvious source for them than in early Wesleyanism itself-in Wesley and Fletcher. Although the stream of authentic Wesleyan continuity which allowed Pentecost and Spirit baptism to become so significant an element in holiness theology flowed from Fletcher's writings rather than Wesley's, I believe too much has been made of purported differences between the two at this point. There is no good evidence that Wesley withheld his imprimatur from the general scheme of Fletcher's pentecostal interpretation of Christian perfection. His only objection was that by using "Spirit baptism" language, as he did, Fletcher might create the impression that all Christians had not received the Spirit in the initial experience of justification.30 But as to Fletcher's main themes of the significance of dispensations and Pentecostal motifs in relation to both the theological implications of Christian perfection and the means of entering into the experience of it, Wesley seemed to raise no other objection. Explicitly, in sermon and letter, and implicitly, in what he did and did not do as he edited some of Fletcher's writings on these themes, he accepted, or at the least, had no great concern about the implications of Fletcher's understanding or use of them.31
In this Wesleyan Theological Society, the Baptism of the Spirit issue and its relationship to the Holiness traditions is more than academic, for it is obviously bound up in the warp and woof of the historical identity of the movement and the denominations to which many in the Society belong. In recent years, some of the most serious dialogue we have engaged in has been occasioned not only by a growing theological maturity which allows us to look at ourselves with more openness and honesty, but by the realization that the question is no longer merely an in-house discussion. Nor is it an issue which involves only Methodist, Holiness, or some Wesleyan Pentecostal traditions. The theology of the Spirit is now a major concern of much of Christendom.32 I am suggesting that our Wesleyan traditions may be torn as they are in trying to respond to these questions because Wesley himself in his doctrines of the present possibility of a Christian perfection in this life and the direct witness of the Holy Spirit in Christian experience, crossed a line which demanded a different understanding of the dispensations of grace from that commonly accepted in Protestant circles. It was this reality which nudged Fletcher and many others in the tradition into logical tension with the understanding and teachings of Luther and other reformers. It may be that the source of the differences in interpretation among students of Wesley as they try to explicate is his own teachings on the Holy Spirit. Their varying and sometimes contradictory views may arise, in part, because of Wesley's own attempts to defend and define his doctrines within categories that are more appropriate to Reformed teaching than to the explication of the personal relationships with God and Christ in the Spirit inherent in his doctrine. Fletcher apparently sensed the problem and turned to his Pentecostal hermeneutic. Wesley did not hesitate to applaud the move.33
Without some understanding of this shift, I believe we will fail to appreciate what really is involved in the tensions on these questions that exist and have always existed in the movement itself as well as those "hair's breadth" but crucial distinctions that exist between Wesleyan and Reformed theological development on these issues in spite of broad areas of general agreement on other evangelical doctrines. Whatever Biblical, or experiential or Reformed, or Anglican, or Catholic, or patristic and Eastern Orthodox sources may have informed Wesley's doctrinal synthesis on Christian perfection and the Holy Spirit, it seems to have set up a built-in point of irritation if not contradiction with the Reformation understanding. If there is any verifiable historical evidence for this thesis, as I am convinced there is, it may help us judge more wisely why the dynamics of Pentecost and Spirit Baptism may not only be useful but perhaps desirable, for explicating the dynamics of a holiness or even a Wesleyan Methodist theology of Christian perfection.
I would like to set forth the proposition that Fletcher's attraction for Pentecostal and Spirit baptism motifs was a natural, if not necessary, consequence of Wesley's own complaint with the Reformed understanding of the possibility of perfection in love in this life. When Wesley allowed the possibility of a denouement point prior to death and glorification in which the individual may be made free from sin and free to love God with his whole heart, he broke with the fundamental Reformation understanding of history and eschatology.
He shifted the tension point between
the eschatological "not yet" and the realizable "now," which Karl
Rahner, in discussing the same theme in his little book On Prayer calls the "moment
of temporal eternity."34 In itself, this may be said to have begun to load Wesley's
holiness dialectic of growth and crisis with a radical change factor leaning toward the
crisis polarity. It will be my contention that the factor lends some logic to his
tendency, as his own ministry progressed, to emphasize the "now" and the
"moment" in his continuum of salvation and sanctification. Furthermore, this
leaning moved naturally toward the Spirit Baptism language of Fletcher which also
emphasized the moments in the Acts accounts and the moment which was central to the
shaping of the revivalistic perfectionism which we saw taking place in the immediate pre-
and post Civil War period in the Methodist and other holiness movements. The discussion
which follows will illustrate how difficult it is to fit the implications of Wesley's
affirmations into the traditional structures of time and history commonly utilized in
Reformation thought.
The Age of the Spirit
Jürgen Moltmann's recent discussion of the relationship between trinitarian theology and the Kingdom of God may provide us with a theological vantage point to explore some of the implications of this theological shift. It may also help us to see the logical consequence which subsequent use of Pentecostal and "Age of the Spirit" themes represented. As interesting as Moltmann's main thesis concerning the relationship between a truly trinitarian theology and human freedom may be, that is not the point which touches our concerns most directly; it is his insights into the importance of the work of Joachim of Fiore and his concept of "the age of the Spirit" which hold special relevance to us.35
Moltmann notes the continuing importance of
Joachim's understanding of history; it lies in his integration of Augustine's concept of
history as consisting of seven ages corresponding with the pattern of the seven days of
creation with the Cappadocians' trinitarian understanding of history as successive
dispensations of the age of the Father, the age of the Son, and the age of the Holy
Spirit. Joachim's eschatology combines the seventh or final period of history, the Sabbath
rest period of Augustine, with the "Age of the Spirit" concept of the
Cappadocians. Moltmann contends, contrary to the claims of Thomas Aquinas, that this
succession of sovereignty in history does not signify the dissolution of the Trinity in
history. The full Trinity was active in each of the ages, although one was
sovereign.36 Joachim's idea of a last great revelation of the Spirit before the
ushering in of the perfect Kingdom of God is, of course, much older than his development
of it; it is rooted in Joel's biblical promise of the coming of the Holy Spirit as well as
in the Paraclete passages of the Gospel of John, and the whole of the Acts of the
Apostles. Ever since the Montanists, prophetic reform movements in the church have drawn
upon this textual syndrome at some point or other.
Joachim's scheme is as follows:
The mysteries of the Holy Scripture point us to three orders (states or conditions) of the world: to the first, in which we were under Law; to the second in which we were under grace; to the third which we imminently expect, and in we shall be under a yet more abundant grace . . . The first condition is therefore that of perception, the second, that of partially perfected wisdom, the third of fullness of knowledge. The first condition is the bondage of slaves, the second is the bondage of sons, the third is liberty. The first in fear, the second in faith, the third in love. The first in the condition of thralls, the second of freeman, the third of friends. The first of boys, the second of men, the third of the aged. The first stands in the light of the stars, the second in the light of dawn, the third in the brightness of day. . . . The first condition is related to the Father, the second to the Son, the third to the Holy Spirit.37
The Kingdom of the Spirit is made up of people who have been reborn by the Spirit. They become people of the Spirit whose experience of the Spirit is immediate. The Spirit guides, the Spirit teaches, the Spirit appoints, everyone is taught by the Spirit.
Moltmann acknowledges that there is also a trinitarian pattern in the Reformed understanding of Christ's kingly office: the regnum naturae, the regnum gratiae, and the regnum gloriae. There is a difference, however, between these three categories and the trinitarian pattern of Joachim. His three kingdoms or eras actually come before the final consummation of all things; in fact, the kingdom of the Spirit is the final era of history and leads to the fourth kingdom. This fourth kingdom is the kingdom of glory, the consummation of history itself in the kingdom of the triune God.
Moltmann diagrams the difference between the Lutheran and Calvinistic understandings of history and Joachim's as follows:
Joachim:
The kingdom the kingdom the kingdom the kingdom
Orthodox Protestantism:
Regnum regnum regnum
If these three eras of Joachim are not taken as a merely modalistic pattern of history, but are seen, as Moltmann suggests, as a trinitaritian interpretation by which the kingdom sovereignty of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit respectively mean "continually present strata and transitions in the kingdom's history,"40 then his understanding becomes a useful means of getting at some of the subtle theological differences which have caused evangelicals of the Reformed tradition and evangelicals of the Wesleyan tradition to come so close to each other on ecclesiological and eschatological questions without being able to define exactly what the differences are which seem to preclude completely comfortable corresponding responses to such issues. The differences reflect a different understanding of pneumatology in its intimate relationship with both of the above doctrines.
How each tradition might respond to the concept and nature of an "age of the Spirit" affords us a good example of the difficulty and the light which an interpretation of Joachim such as Moltmann's may shed on the problem. If one follows the motif of the three periods of Christ's reign rooted in the Reformed tradition, there is actually little room for an understanding of such a dynamic operation of the Spirit in history. There is less likelihood that the very concept of an "Age of the Spirit" can be developed as it was either by Joachim or by the Holiness and Pentecostal traditions. The theological framework simply is not there. There is no place for a trinitarian concept of such a period of Spirit sovereignty and activity which constitutes part of the history of the kingdom within time.
Reformed theology has portrayed magnificently the liberating Christ and the grace of the redemption to life which he brought through His cross; the kingdom of the servant Redeemer is the grand theme of the kingdom of grace But the themes which arise out of Pentecostal and post Pentecostal milieus or "the age of the Spirit" are not commonly a part of Lutheran or Reformed understanding of history and time. Luther himself may have realized this lack when he complained that there was too much of the preaching of the cross and not enough of the preaching of Pentecost in the messages of his preachers.41 Lutheran and Reformed theologies also follow a trinitarian pattern in that the kingdom of the Father opens up all of creation to the future; so, too, the kingdom of the Son opens up the future to men and women by freeing them to be servants of God and no longer slaves to themselves and the world. The Son makes us free for freedom. The activity of the Spirit, however, is either subsumed in the age of grace and of the Son or in the final Kingdom and consummation of all things in the age to come.
What, then, is the nature of the Kingdom of the Spirit if it is in time and not in glory or subsumed in either or both the age of grace and of glory? Moltmann contends that,
The kingdom of the Spirit is experienced in the gift conferred on the people liberated by the Soothe gift of the Holy Spirit's energies. That is the reason why the kingdom of the Spirit is as closely linked with the kingdom of the Son, as the kingdom of the Son is with the kingdom of the Father. In the experience of the Spirit, we lay hold of the freedom for which the Son has made us free. Through the mediation of Christ, we experience a kind of 'direct presence of God': God in use in God. The mystics were right to call this 'the birth of God in the soul.' Through faith and by listening to his conscience, a person becomes God's friend. In the powers of the Spirit, the energies of the new creation are experienced, too. In the Spirit, that new community comes into being which is without privileges and subjection, the community of the free. In the Spirit, the new creation in the kingdom of glory is anticipated. As the beginning and 'earnest' or pledge of glory, the kingdom of the Spirit is directed towards the kingdom of glory; it is not itself already that kingdom's fulfillment.42
It would be difficult for any historian of the nineteenth century Wesleyan Holiness Movement or of the later Pentecostal movement to fail to discern the parallel development of the movement's understanding of their eschatology and the nature of salvation history with that of Joachim. The intonations and intimations of this summary would have set well with many holiness leaders. They believed that if the churches continued to ignore the implications of the Pentecost event and the signs of a new spiritual age, the reformation of the church would remain incomplete and its mission unfulfilled.
The tendency of these movements to finally relate the movements of the Spirit in which they felt they were participating with the consummation of history shaped every aspect of their thinking, especially their concept of the church and its mission. It is not surprising then that John Fletcher, the intimate of Wesley and the first systematic theologian of the Wesleyan movement, should turn to a trinitarian dispensationalism similar to that of the Cappadocians and Joachim to develop his hermeneutic of Wesley's doctrine of Christian perfection centered as it was on the Pentecost event and the age of the Spirit. Nor is it surprising that John Fletcher's identification of the experience of entire sanctification as Wesley taught it with the "baptism of the Holy Ghost" should have become the dominant motif for understanding and proclaiming the doctrine at the time that the Holiness churches were seeking to formulate an understanding of the nature and mission of the church. Fletcher defines the 'Pentecostal Church' as "the 'kingdom' of believer made perfect in love."43 The millennial ethos which was woven and interwoven in all aspects of American culture and politics in the nineteenth century merely encouraged this emphasis upon the "age of the Spirit" which was to usher it in.
The songs and hymns of a spiritual movement often offer the deepest insight into its mood and theology. One of the many songs which catch up the movement's eschatological vision of the church is Francis Bottome's Pentecostal hymn, "The Comforter Has Come." It swells all the notes of victory and triumphalism which marked the ethos of the revival:
O, spread the tidings round, wherever man is found,
The long, long night is past, the morning breaks at
last;
And hushed the dreadful wail and fury of the blast,
And o'er the golden hills the day advances fast!
The Comforter has come!
Refrain:
The Comforter has come! The Comforter has come!
The Holy Ghost from heav'n, the Father's promise giv'n.
O' spread the tidings round, wherever man is found,
The Comforter has come.44
A new pneumatology was developing based on a different concept of history than that accepted by the traditional Protestantism. The limits of this paper will not allow me to outline the difficulties, complexities and even risks of calling for a new or at least fuller development of the pneumatological questions raised by the classical theology of Wesleyan Methodism and the Holiness movement. The task is to formulate a theology of Pentecost and of the Spirit which is grounded in salvation history and therefore keeps close to the theology of the cross which is central to the evangelical Biblical faith of the Reformers and to Wesleyan evangelical Biblical faith as well. Constant awareness of the Wesleyan quadrilateral with special concern for the overarching authority of the Scriptures must accompany the process at every point or the extremism and even fanaticism which has frequently be risen in the past will be repeated. The theology must be thoroughly trinitarian and yet reflect adequately the experience of God the Spirit in the church and individual Christian life as well as in the broader creation and culture.
The Church began to address the theological task of explicating the meaning of Pentecost and the person and work of the Spirit long before Wesley and Fletcher opened up the questions this paper has addressed within our own tradition. Origen was one of the first to clearly phrase the question when he noted that "it is always the days [plural] of Pentecost." After Pentecost, a theologia crucis as traditionally understood in Reformation thought must be balanced by a Theologia spiritus.45 As McDonnell notes such a study would not create a narrow focus on the activity of the Holy Spirit but rather who He is; this in turn would lead into new understandings of ecclesiology and history on the one hand and of Christology and the Trinity on the other. The doctrine of the Spirit stands centrally between these two.46
If some Biblically and theologically viable understanding of the person and work of the Holy Spirit more consistent with these Wesleyan distinctives cannot be developed than the understanding which can be explicated with the traditional pneumatology then the tendency, which was already evident in the nineteenth century debates, to move back to a Reformation position will become the only option. If some of the concerns of this paper are valid, it may well be that in the process of correcting what we think are aberrations in the nineteenth century, we find we have also wiped out those major doctrines of the Spirit which Wesley believed had become Methodism's special responsibility to nurture within the broader Christian tradition.
To hastily seek to resolve the issues solely on the
basis of narrow, and even often valid, exegetical concerns or to dismiss it as un-Wesleyan
may be to miss the central dynamic of both the Holiness and the Wesleyan revivals. The
failure of the Holiness churches to adequately address this task out of the rich resources
of the Wesleyan quadrilateral will only weaken their influence upon evangelicalism as a
whole. They will melt more and more into the prevailing evangelicalism, shaped almost
totally by a Wesleyan Reformed tradition cast in its prevailing American modes. They will
have yielded much of the creative input they have contributed to evangelical religion
since the revival blossomed after the Civil War.
Notes
1 Beauty of Holiness
VIII (May, 1867), 154.
2 Guide to Holiness XXI (April, 1852), 113.
3 The Wesleyan Theological Journal, 13, Spring, 1978; 14, Spring 1979; and 14, Fall 1979, address this issue.
4 See John L. Peters, Christian Perfection and American Methodism (New York: Abingdon, 1956), Chap. IV.
5 Richard Wheatley, The Life and Letters of Mrs. Phoebe Palmer (New York: Walter C. Palmer, Jr., 1876), is the main source for Phoebe Palmer's life. To this date, the corpus of Palmer correspondence and papers has not been discovered if it still exists.
6 Wheatley, Palmer, pp. 36ff.
7 For typical summaries of her "altar typology," see Phoebe Palmer, The Way of Holiness (New York: Palmer and Hughes, 1867), pp. 52ff; the same, "The Act of Faith by which the Blessing Is Obtained" in J. Boynton, Sanctification Practical; a Book for the Times (New York: Foster and Palmer, Jr. 1867) pp. 115-130; "We Have an Altar," Guide to Holiness XXIII, May 1853, 158, 159.
8 Phoebe Palmer's "Letter" to Mrs. L. L. Hamline quoted in Wheatley, Palmer, p. 516. See also, Palmer Faith and Its Effects, or Fragments From My Portfolio (New York: Published for the Author at 200 Mulberry St., 1854), p. 190.
9 See Timothy L. Smith, Revivalism and Social Reform, American Protestantism on the Eve of the Civil War (Baltimore, The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1980 [originally published 1957]) pp. 126, 127; Abel Stevens, Life and Times of Nathan Bangs, D.D. (New York: Carlton and Porter, 1863), pp. 396-402; Melvin Easterday Dieter, The Holiness Revival of the Nineteenth Century (Metuchen, N.J.: The Scarecrow Press, 1980), pp. 28-32.
10 Melvin E. Dieter, Holiness Revival, pp. 35-37.
11 Phoebe Palmer, Incidental Illustrations of the Economy of Salvation (Boston: Henry V. Degen, 1855), pp. 36-42; John Wesley, "The Scripture Way of Salvation," Works of John Wesley (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, n.d.) VI, 53.
12 William Warren Sweet, The American Churches: An Interpretation (New York: Abingdon-Cokesbury Press, 1947), p. 126; Charles Jones, Perfectionist Persuasion: The Holiness Movement and American Methodism, 1867-1936 (Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, 1974) p. 5; Peters, Christian Perfection, pp. 112, 133.
13 Christian Perfection as Taught by John Wesley (Boston: McDonald and Gill, Publishers,1885), compiled by J. A. Wood with "Introduction" by Bishop W. A. Mallalieu, gathers together most of the Wesley proof-texts and passages.
14 Abel Stevens, Life of Nathan Bangs, p. 351; E. S. Jones, Sermons on the Death of Nathan Bangs (New York: Carlton and Porter, 1862) p. 27; Bishops Simpson, Mallalieu, and Newman testified to the essential soundness of her theology. See: Wheatley, c.v; George Hughes, Fragrant Memories of the Tuesday Meetings and Guide to Holiness (New York: Palmer and Hughes,1886) p. iv; and John A. Roche, The Life of Mrs. Sarah A. Lankford Palmer, Who for Sixty Years Was the Able Teacher of Entire Holiness (New York: George Hughes and Co., 1898), p. 11.
15 As quoted by Peters, Christian Perfection, p. 113.
16 Smith, Revivalism, Chap. IV; Dieter, Holiness Revival, pp. 57, 58.
17 (New York: G. Lane and P. P. Sanford, 1842), (Boston: H. V. Degen, 1856).
18 Randolf Foster's discussion in Chapters X and XI of his Christian Purity, or The Heritage of Faith (New York: Phillips and Hunt, 1869) illustrates these points.
19 J. T. Crane, Holiness, the Birthright of All God 's Children (New York: Nelson and Phillips, 1875).
20 Robert E. Chiles, Theological Transition in American Methodism, 1790-1935 (New York: Abingdon Press, 1965), pp. 65, 66.
21 Charles Ferguson, Organizing to Beat the Devil (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Co., 1971), pp. 283-85.
22 Donald W. Dayton, "Asa Mahan and the Development of American Holiness Theology" Wesleyan Theological Journal, 9, 1974, 60-69; "The Doctrine of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit: Its Emergence and Significance" Ibid., 13, Spring 1978; 114-126; Alex R. G. Deasley, "Entire Sanctification and the Baptism with the Holy Spirit: Perspectives on the Biblical View of the Relationship," ibid., 14, Spring 1979, 27-30; John A. Knight, "John Fletcher's Influence on the Development of Wesleyan Theology in America," Ibid., 13, 1978, 13-33; Herbert McGonigle, "Pneumatological Nomenclature in Early Methodism," ibid., 8, 1973, 61-72.
23 "Meetings for Holiness-Sectarianism," Beauty of Holiness VIII (December, 1857), 364-5.
24 William Arthur, The Tongue of Fire: or The True Power of Christianity (New York: Harper and Bros., 1856).
25 Lewis Romaine Dunn, The Mission of the Spirit (or The Office and Work of the Comforter in Human Redemption), (Carlton and Lanahan, 1871) p. 299.
26 John W. V. Smith, The Quest for Holiness and Unity, a Centennial History of the Church of God (Anderson, IN: Warner Press, Inc.,1980), p.96.
27 Seth Cook Rees's The Ideal Pentecostal Church (Cincinnati, OH: God's Revivalist Office.1898) is one of the most systematic outlines of how these concepts were regarded in the movement. Rees was one of the founders of the Pilgrim Holiness Church.
28 See n. 22 above; Timothy L. Smith, "The Doctrine of the Sanctifying Spirit: Charles G. Finney's Synthesis of Wesleyan and Covenant Theology," Wesleyan Theological Journal, 13, Spring 1978, 92-113.
29 Her Incidental Illustrations was written a year before Arthur's Tongue of Fire. See pp. 76-77 of the former.
30 "Letter of John Wesley to Joseph Benson, London, December 8, 1770, The Works of John Wesley (Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon Hill Press, 1979), XII, 416. For a thorough discussion of this point, see Laurence Wood, Pentecostal Grace (Wilmore, KY: Francis Asbury Publishing Company, 1980), pp. 201-203, 209-228.
31 "Sermon on the Death of Mr. Fletcher," Wesley's Works, VII, 436.
32 Cf. Killian McDonnell, "The Determinative Doctrine of the Holy Spirit," Theology Today, 39, July 1982, 142-161.
33 "John Wesley to Elizabeth Ritchie, January 17,1775, Wesley, Works XIII, 55: "Mr. Fletcher has given us a wonderful view of the different dispensations which we are under. I believe the difficult subject has never been placed in so clear a light before. It seems that God has raised him up for this very thing—. . . By confining yourself to those who write clearly, your understanding will be opened and strengthened. . . ."
34 (New York: Paulist Press, 1968), pp. 76-77.
35 The Trinity and the Kingdom, the Doctrine of God (San Francisco: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1981), pp. 202-213.
36 Moltmann, p. 203.
37 Concordia Noui Ac Veteris Testamenti Venice 1519, Lib. V, 84, 112. Translation by E. Benz Eranos-Jahrbuch 1956, pp. 314f, as quoted in Moltmann, Trinity and Kingdom, p. 204; ibid., p. 211.
38 Moltmann, p. 207.
39 Moltmann, p. 208.
40 Moltmann, p. 208.
41 Luther's Works, Vol. 41, Church and Ministry, (Phila.: Fortress Press, 1966), III, 114.
42 Moltmann, p. 211.
43 T. Crichton Mitchell, ed., The Wesley Century, Vol. 2 of Great Holiness Classics, (Kansas City, MO.: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1984), pp. 387-394: Wood, Pentecostal Grace, p. 187.
44 Clarence B. Strousse, ed., Hosannas to the King and Praise Service Hymns (Phila.: Pepper Publishing Co., 1901), p. 126.
45 Walter Brocher and Heinrich Buhr, Zur Theologie des Geistes (Pfullingen: Gunter Neshe Verlag, 1960), p. 5, as quoted in McDonnell, "Doctrine of the Holy Spirit," p. 146.
46 McDonnell, p. 159.
Edited by Jason Gingerich
for the
Wesley Center for Applied Theology
at Northwest Nazarene University
© Copyright 2000 by the Wesley Center for Applied Theology