Category: Holiness

The Pentecostal Perspective on Sanctification

Summarizing the Pentecostal doctrine on sanctification is either very easy or extraordinarily complex. The reason for this is the wide range of Christians that congregate under this umbrella and the corresponding wide range of application for this important aspect of the believer’s life. The doctrinal range extends from the very conservative two step positional-progressive sanctification to holiness as a second work of grace to be followed by baptism in the Holy Spirit.

Myer Pearlman (Knowing the Doctrines) provides the most general definition of the Pentecostal doctrine as including separation from sin and the world and dedication or consecration to the fellowship and service of God through Christ. This may translate into different practices among the believer groups; some will abstain from ‘wordly’ thing (e.g. tobacco, drink, short dresses) while others interpret this more liberally as simply the search for holiness according to specific biblical standards. In general however, the Pentecostal observes sanctification as occurring in the three familiar events. It is instantaneous at the moment of belief, where the new Christian is immediately set apart from sin. Sanctification is progressive as well, continuing throughout the term of one’s life as we are transformed into the likeness of Christ. Finally, using a term that can have a variety of definitions, there is entire sanctification. This final state is almost universally seen as occurring only at glorification when the believer passes into the immediate presence of the Lord.

Progressive sanctification is viewed as a tri-cooperative effort. Our progress comes through the work of the Holy Spirit, our cooperation as we surrender to His work, and through the Word of God (John 17:17). The Word of truth comes alive only through the intervention of the Spirit as He interprets for each believer how that truth applies to our lives. All of this combines to attain a maturity that God desires for us, continuing in this process until we return to our heavenly home.

Controversy arises when the doctrine of Baptism in the Spirit enters the discussion. Many of the Oneness (Jesus Only) Pentecostals take the extreme position that one cannot be saved (thus be sanctified) until receiving the baptism in the spirit and giving evidence through the gift of tongues. Trinitarian Pentecostals view the Baptism as a secondary event subsequent to regeneration. The Assemblies of God for example, sees the progressive sanctification and the visible change in their life as evidence of the infilling of the Spirit.

Conclusion

As stated in the initial paragraph, there is a wide range of belief in the Pentecostal congregations regarding sanctification and its application. For the most part, the combined instantaneous and progressive nature of this doctrine can be found in the statement of belief of nearly all of the churches. Ultimately, there is a common goal of holiness in the believer that is standard to all of the doctrines, something held in common with the Calvinist and Arminian doctrines as well.

The Wesleyan Perspective on Sanctification

Perhaps no doctrine of sanctification has undergone so many and varied permutations as the Wesleyan view. The Wesleyan’s view is best known by either of the two names given to the process: entire sanctification or Christian perfection. As Holiness churches have grown away from the Methodist beginnings of this theological idea, they have often radically transformed it to the point where an accurate definition is required to state what the idea is and is not. According to Wesley, sanctification is that part of God’s plan in which He renews the hearts of men and women in His own image. By His grace humanity would be turned from all willful sin and restored to the holiness that had been lost in the Fall. John Wesley’s words from a sermon serve to summarize:

Ye know that all religion which does not answer this end, all that stops short of this, the renewal of our soul in the image of God, after the likeness of Him that created it, is no other than a poor farce, and a mere mockery of God, to the destruction of our own soul…By nature ye are wholly corrupted. By grace ye shall be wholly renewed. [ Wesley, Works]

Far from a fabrication of Wesley’s intellect, he points to numerous passages of scripture in support of this doctrine, each one, he says, should bring the reader to a similar conclusion. Here are a pair of examples:

The Lord your God will circumcise your hearts and the hearts of your descendants, so that you may love him with all your heart and with all your soul, and live. Deuteronomy 30:5-6

For what the law was powerless to do in that it was weakened by the sinful nature, God did by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful man to be a sin offering. And so he condemned sin in sinful man, in order that the righteous requirements of the law might be fully met in us, who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit. Romans 8:3-4

Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God. 2 Corinthians 7:1

Taken in whole, Wesley sees in these and other passages the promise of freedom from the dominion of sin for every Christian. He states that God’s grace is ever at work in the heart of the believer progressively sanctifying the entire life of the Christian releasing the heart to fully love God and others. It is critical to note the difference here between Wesley and some later Holiness doctrine. He views entire sanctification as a continuum of grace and response, God giving and the believing transforming, with no conclusion prior to glorification. In other words, while the believer increases in holiness, there is no point of perfection this side of heaven in which every scintilla of sin has been removed and the believer is perfect, as a nominal definition of the word would have the reader understand. Some Holiness movement doctrine has evolved to this conclusion but it never originated with Wesley.

Some are also tempted to link Wesleyan sanctification to works. This can perhaps derive from Wesley’s insistence that the Christian faith is experiential; it is not simply head knowledge in which one believes, it is also practice that is a product of the transformed heart. As the believer was further and further sanctified, the new zeal for loving the Lord and others would be demonstrated through the interactions of the Christian. These actions are not quantitative measures of belief but products of the transformative power of that belief.

Conclusion

Though it has been modified considerably through the years, linked by Charismatic believers to a second baptism, taken to ultimate measures by some Holiness doctrine, Wesley’s idea of entire sanctification is thoroughly rooted in the Bible and the Royal Law of Love. Jesus serves to summarize the objective of this doctrine in his words of Matthew 22:

Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Mt 22:37-40

Despite the name that is often attributed to it – Christian Perfection – Wesley foresaw no moment in which we would be entirely free from the possibility of sinning, only that our love of God and others would lessen our desire.

Lent Begins

Traditionally, we surrender a creature comfort or habit as a way of associating our lives with the impending sacrifice and suffering of our Savior. We willingly give up a behavior, a food, or something similar in sacrifice, longing for Easter’s arrival not only to celebrate the resurrection but the freedom to return the sacrifice to our lives. I want to invite us to take a different approach to the coming 46 days this year and seek to grow in holiness, not through a temporary sacrifice, but through the rending of our hearts. Our reflections will move us from loss to promise, much as Isaiah’s prophecy brings his readers from exile to restoration. This passage sets the tone for our prayers to come:

Strengthen the feeble hands,

steady the knees that give way;

4 say to those with fearful hearts,

“Be strong, do not fear;

your God will come,

he will come with vengeance;

with divine retribution

he will come to save you.”

5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened

and the ears of the deaf unstopped.

6 Then will the lame leap like a deer,

and the mute tongue shout for joy.

Water will gush forth in the wilderness

and streams in the desert.

7 The burning sand will become a pool,

the thirsty ground bubbling springs.

In the haunts where jackals once lay,

grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.

8 And a highway will be there;

it will be called the Way of Holiness.

The unclean will not journey on it;

it will be for those who walk in that Way;

wicked fools will not go about on it.

9 No lion will be there,

nor will any ferocious beast get up on it;

they will not be found there.

But only the redeemed will walk there,

10 and the ransomed of the Lord will return.

They will enter Zion with singing;

everlasting joy will crown their heads.

Gladness and joy will overtake them,

and sorrow and sighing will flee away.

Isaiah 35:3-10

Ravenhill Meditation: Complete Joy

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. (John 15:9-11)

The dream of the follower of Christ is to know the unspeakable joy that he promises to be complete. In response to our tendency to seek joy in the world, Leonard Ravenhill provides the road map to help us arrive at our desired objective:

The way to enjoy indestructible peace and joy is to determine:

  1. To do whatever God commands, however difficult.
  2. To endure whatever God appoints, however severe.
  3. To obtain whatever God promises, however seemingly unattainable.
  4. To die daily, however costly the crucifixion.
  5. To love my enemies however misunderstood in this.
  6. To pray without ceasing, and in everything give thanks.

Holiness

Human holiness, the ability to enjoy the communion of Immanuel, begins with the Lord’s sacrifice. Before that, our only hope lie in the perfect adherence to the law in our hopefully acceptable sacrifices. Hebrews 10 speaks to this moment of change:

Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God. Since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool, becasue by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.

The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. First he says: “This is the covenant I will make with them after that time, says the Lord. I will put my laws in their hearts, and I will write them on their minds.” Then he adds: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more.” And where these have been forgiven, there is no longer any sacrifice for sin. (Heb 10:11-18)

Holiness is a ‘now but not yet’ topic. Men and women are declared Holy by the blood of Jesus Christ and the righteousness we gain as a result of His sacrifice. But we are also going to grow in our holiness throughout the rest of time here in the world. It is a progressive process interrupted by our stumbles and steps backward but it is our calling. We progress in our holiness to stand as perfected as our Master desires us to be when we appear before Him.

The trouble we have, of course, is that the process of holiness doesn’t fit well with our current culture (anymore than it has fit with any culture throughout the history of humankind.) Today, we want things instantly and effortlessly and certainly without pain or struggle; Holiness often calls us to endure both. We cry out in prayer for God to remove obstacles, pain, stress, and suffering of any kind when it is these things that contribute to our holiness. They change us as people to seek closer communion with God and the purity that it requires.

Many of us have taken the first step. Shouldn’t this be the year that we commit fully to second and third and ….