the personal knowledge of god
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I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone, for salvation; and an assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death. 9 the doctrine that the individual can come into immediate contact with God through subjective experiences which differ essentially from the experiences of ordinary life. 6TRANSCRIPT
The personal knowledge of God: recovering our heritage.
Paul prayed that his readers would be strengthened in their inner being ‘with power through [the]
Spirit’ (Eph 3:16-20).1 This terminology, according to Gordon D. Fee, is the language of
experiential Christianity and is connected to the ‘knowing God better’ of Ephesians 1:16-17.2 To
know God in this sense is to experience strengthening in the inner being through the power of the
Spirit. Whilst not referring here to an emotional experience per se, Paul was indisputably
speaking about something tangible.3 The result of such an experience was not merely emotional
uplift (though it certainly may have been), rather, it was life-changing in the sense of building
Christ-like character. Paul prayed further that believers might ‘grasp how wide and long and high
and deep is the love of Christ’ and be ‘filled with the fulness of God’. The result, as can be easily
seen, was to be life-transforming. Once filled with God’s love, love being what it is, believers
would more fully love God and people. Likewise, being filled with God was not simply a warm,
fuzzy feeling but the concrete experience of godly attributes and actions that affected church and
community.
In line with Paul’s prayer, then, the thesis of this paper is that presently we stand in need of
continuing experiences of the Spirit.4 Without such experiences, the Christian faith may be
reduced to a matter of creed, rationalistic observance, and legalism (i.e., trying to live for Christ
through our religious methodology and spiritual energy). Having said that, everyone’s
experience of God is different, and may vary in apparent intensity and nature from person to
person. In addition, God may work powerfully on occasions, producing significant character
change without a noteworthy emotional experience. However, it is my conviction that there will
be tangible evidence of God’s power even on these occasions, and of a nature described below.
Further, it is important that there are experiential landmarks in a believer’s life where he or she
has met with God in a way that is memorable. Such encounters with God are our Christian
heritage as clearly set out in the NT (e.g., Rom 5:5, 14:17, 15:13). As Orthodox theologian
Olivier Clément says, ‘Christianity … is a mystical religion’5, Christian mysticism being loosely
defined as
the doctrine that the individual can come into immediate contact with God through
subjective experiences which differ essentially from the experiences of ordinary life.6
For further clarification, I will cite recent church history to demonstrate what our forebears
experienced and practised. In doing so, I will be addressing the following questions. Did our
forebears believe and practise their faith differently, particularly in relation to the experience of
God, and if they did, is there something to be recovered that has been lost to us over the last 50
to 150 years?
One of the most significant movements in early Australian Christianity was Wesleyan
Methodism. As spiritual descendants of John Wesley (1703-1791), they carried to Australia his
form of evangelical Pietism. There were two distinctives, among a number, for which Wesleyans
were known. These two were framed by a religious practice that some have referred to as
emotional or mystical because Methodists frequently noted the manifest presence of God in a
variety of ways in private and public devotions.7 The first distinctive was belief in instantaneous
and experiential conversion accompanied by the ‘witness of the Spirit’. The second was an
experience referred to as ‘instant sanctification’.8 For example, Methodist founder John Wesley
described his conversion in terms of a religious experience including its instantaneous nature,
saying,
I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust in Christ alone, for salvation; and an
assurance was given me, that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from
the law of sin and death.9
To Wesley, part of the nature of his conversion was ‘assurance’, the divinely given knowledge
that he was forgiven and had received salvation. In addition, he said that he received ‘assurance’
that he ‘did trust in Christ alone’, something he had not felt sure about until then, believing that
he was still in unbelief and bereft of ‘saving faith’ until this event.10
2
Wesley also recounted a ‘second-blessing’ experience that Synan calls a ‘second work of grace’;
sanctification.11
It has also been understood as Spirit-baptism (or infilling of the Spirit) although
Wesley recorded the event without comment, saying,
About three in the morning, as we were continuing instant in prayer, the power of God
came mightily upon us, inasmuch that many cried out for exceeding joy, and many fell to
the ground. As soon as we recovered a little from that awe and amazement at the presence
of His Majesty, we broke out with one voice, ‘We praise thee, O God; we acknowledge
thee to be the Lord.’12
The question of how to label Wesley’s experience is unimportant. The crucial issue is that
Wesley and his followers were not strangers to such phenomenal experiences recounting them
throughout their writings.13
It is sufficient to note that conversion was regarded as a significant
experience of the Spirit as was instant sanctification and other unnamed experiences which
frequented Wesleyan spirituality.
To clarify further, Wesleyans readily presented the message of the gospel through writing,
sermon and personal witness but they expected conversions to be produced solely by work of the
Spirit.14
They believed that at conversion, recipients would receive an immediate sense of the
forgiveness of sins and experience a change of heart and mind resulting in devotion to Christ.
Spirit-given knowledge of this forgiveness was frequently, even usually accompanied by a sense
of profound peace. There were other accompanying evidences such as joy and overwhelming
love, but peace and the knowledge of forgiveness were the primary two. Conversion was deemed
genuine upon the manifestation of these experiences plus the subsequent fruit of holiness,
characterised by devotion to Christ and love for people. The latter had to be proved by deeds not
just sentiments. These points, then, are a reasonable though basic summary of the Wesleyan
perception of conversion. In the light of this understanding, we consider now the means by
which Wesleyans brought people to conversion using Australian examples.
Two instances come from Rev John Smithies (1802-1872), first Wesleyan missionary to the
Swan River Colony (1840).15
First, he tells the story of a Baptist minister’s son during a time of
revival, reporting,
The next day one distressed friend (a son of a Baptist minister) called upon me to unbosom
his mind when counsel was given and prayer made with and for him. In a day or two after
this the Lord blessed him with a sense of pardon, peace and joy.16
Similarly, he reported the story of Joseph Hardey’s children who were influenced by the same
revival in 1844. He says,
The Lord was pleased to answer prayer at Bro. Hardey’s at Peninsula Farm; the news and
power of the revival had reached and effected several of his children, and this afternoon the
house was filled with weeping and mourning by those who sought the Lord with all their
hearts; after some two hours of praying and pleading with them the Lord saved three of the
eldest children.17
As can be seen from these two examples, which are typical of many Methodist accounts from
this period, no attempt was made to ‘lead these people to Christ’ in the present commonly
accepted manner.18
For example, no instruction was given following the common introduction,
‘this is all you have to do to become a Christian’. There was nothing of the typical evangelistic
meeting approach where people are brought to the front of a meeting on an ‘altar call’, led
through a ‘sinner’s prayer’, then told they are now ‘born again’. This would have been abhorrent
to Wesleyans who, as I said, believed that conversion was solely the work of God and that Spirit-
given knowledge of forgiveness, and Jesus as Saviour and Lord, constituted conversion and
nothing less. It is true that Wesleyans were at the forefront of introducing the so-called ‘altar
call’.19
However, this was predominantly in America in the early 1800’s and, even then, they
were conducted in quite a different manner from that which it is done today being very much in
line with the stories just related.20
3
So, how did Wesleyans bring people to faith? The usual pathway was first to present the gospel
message then to urge seekers to use various ‘means of grace’ until they had personally
experienced conversion. This meant that they urged seekers to read the Bible, attend class and
other meetings and particularly to pray for the conversion of their souls. In other words, the
enquirer waited on God for conversion. If a person was particularly ‘wrought upon’ (moved to
tears over the need for conversion) in a meeting, prayer was usually offered there and then in
expectation of an imminent (thought not necessarily immediate) result. This method may seem
strange to modern ears but Wesley’s own experience was like this. Although he had been a
serving priest in the Established Church for some years, including as a missionary to Georgia, he
nevertheless believed he was not converted until his ‘heart warming’ experience.21
Accordingly, my appeal in this paper is for the recovery of what is missing in the light of past
experiences such as those of the Wesleyan Methodists. As for our contemporary methods of
bringing people to faith, we must ask ourselves if we have not substituted methodology for
grace? Have we actually become legalists in this sense? In addition, have we created significant
problems for Christians, who coming into the Christian faith on a ‘works’ basis, may have little
understanding of the grace of God to convert and transform? Due to a lack of emphasis on the
power of God in conversion, therefore, have we left the door open to Christian growth
deficiencies because we know too little of either the experience of God to transform, or how to
avail ourselves of it? Have we unwittingly entertained a powerless Christianity? A surprising
illustration of this is Pentecostalism.
It is an irony that contemporary Pentecostals, with their renowned emphasis on the power of the
Spirit, have largely succumbed to ‘process’ conversion and Spirit-baptism and may therefore be
working largely without the Spirit in these crucial events. To expand, in the early 1900s,
Pentecostals were principally responsible for recovering to the Christian church belief in the
experience of the Spirit. Although, there are prominent instances in previous times, notably
under Wesley, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758), and earlier saints and mystics, it was Pentecostals
who made the experience of the Spirit part of present day Christian expectation.22
They referred
to ‘baptism of the Spirit’ as a subsequent experience to conversion wherein recipients were filled
or empowered with the Spirit, often in an overwhelming fashion, and who inevitably spoke in
other tongues (glossalalia).23
One example is that of Joseph Roswell Flower (1888-1970), an
influential leader in the American Assemblies of God. He received Spirit-baptism after a month
of tarrying for the experience. The evidence of Flower’s Spirit-baptism was not glossolalia
initially, but ‘holy joy and laughter’ as well as an experience of ‘great light’ that shone around
him.24
He publicly testified on several occasions that he first spoke in tongues two months after
his Spirit-baptism
A second example is found in letters from Azusa Street (Los Angeles) Pentecostals to T. B.
Barratt regarding Spirit-baptism.25
Although glossolalia was prominent at Azusa Street, accounts
show evidence of the significance of the experience of Spirit-baptism apart from speaking in
tongues. This is brought out in a series of letters written to Barratt in 1906. Also noted in these
letters is the early Pentecostal notion of tarrying for Spirit-baptism. Barratt, a Christian minister,
was in New York at the time for the Oslo Methodist Mission. Due to political struggles with the
New York Mission Board, he was stranded temporarily in New York where he wrote to Azusa
Street seeking information about the revival and Spirit-baptism. The answers he received, which
came from representatives of The Apostolic Faith Mission, provide a unique insight into early
Pentecostals’ belief in Spirit-baptism.26
To Azusa Street Pentecostals, the purpose of Spirit-baptism is revealed in the first letter from
Mrs I. May Throop who wrote, ‘We are praying for the full Pentecostal baptism upon you! So
that you may be equipped for … [God’s] service as you never have been!’27
She spoke about a
‘wonderful shaking’ that occurs and that the Spirit ‘will be in your very flesh’ in a tangible way.
The result of Spirit-baptism, she said, was a significant change in the recipient’s life.28
Obviously
the writer expected Spirit-baptism to be a vivid and concrete experience. Glossolalia, therefore,
was not the seeker’s sole evidence of the baptism.
4
Though not the sole evidence, glossolalia was nevertheless very important. As G. A. Cook said
in another letter to Barratt, ‘look to God to give you the true Pentecost with the Bible evidence of
speaking in other tongues.’ She also said that if Barratt had remained ‘under the power’ until
God had done a complete work in him, he would have spoken in other tongues.29
Although early
Pentecostals highlighted glossolalia in Spirit-baptism, as shown in this example, they also
expected other significant evidences. This is indicated in the words ‘remained under the power’.
Also implied in Cook’s words ‘remained’ and ‘until’ was the notion of tarrying. Barratt was to
wait until God’s work of Spirit-baptism was completed.
Another point of interest seen in the above examples was the expectation that glossolalia was a
result of God’s power. No instruction was seen to be given as to how to speak in tongues; it was
expected to be by the power of God. The Apostolic Faith counselled seekers not to ‘ask the Lord
for tongues’ but to ‘ask the Lord to give you baptism with the Holy Ghost’.30
This is an
important issue when making a comparison with contemporary Pentecostalism which places
more emphasis on the human role in glossolalia.
B. H. Irwin’s letter to Barratt makes it even clearer that Spirit-baptism was expected to be
perceptibly experienced apart from glossolalia. In this letter, he wrote about his experience of
Spirit-baptism which was not immediately accompanied by glossolalia. Irwin’s experience was
convincing enough for him to know that he had participated in Spirit-baptism without such
evidence. The writer also reported what he called a vision of God’s glory. Irwin did experience
glossolalia the following evening but knew he had been Spirit-baptised the day before.31
In present day Pentecostal experience, one still finds many examples of tangible experiences as
were known in the earlier history of the movement but there has been a decided shift. In my own
experience of over 40 years in Pentecostal churches, the shift has been perceptible but over the
last 100 years it has been palpable. The difference? Pentecostals primarily sought an encounter
with God over and above glossalalia. Evidence from my research in 1999-2000, plus personal
observation over the last 40 years especially since the Charismatic movement, shows that people
tend to equate speaking in tongues with Spirit-baptism.32
Rather than seeking an encounter with
God which is life-changing, the gift of tongues is sought as the object.
The second perceptible change is the way people are led into Pentecostal Spirit-baptism or,
should I say rather, the gift of tongues. In the recent decades of Pentecostalism, a large number
of evangelists and pastors have taught people how to speak in tongues through various methods
in a similar way to which enquirers are coached into being Christians at altar calls. The
expression, ‘all you have to do is …’, is a common introductory instruction to seekers of either
conversion or Spirit-baptism. Whereas earlier Evangelicals and Pentecostals believed that these
experiences were produced by the Spirit and seekers needed wait on God and use ‘means of
grace’ until God bestowed these blessings, today people tend to ‘process’ others into such
experiences.
Donald Gee (1891-1966), famous and respected Pentecostal leader and teacher during the early
to mid 1900s, wrote candidly about faulty means of leading people into Spirit-baptism. He said,
I say very frankly that one of the curses that has marred this Pentecostal movement has
been forcing seekers to speak in tongues when the Holy Spirit has not been acting.
Speaking in tongues does not bring the Spirit; it is the Spirit who brings tongues. When
believers are filled with the Holy Spirit, they will speak without anyone trying to force
them to do it. They will be so full that they cannot contain it.33
Similarly, the famous Chinese teacher, Watchman Nee (or, Ni To-sheng – 1903-1972), when
asked about speaking in tongues, said he believed that God did give such gifts but was skeptical
of ‘faulty means’ of receiving them.34
Watchman had experienced a Pentecostal outpouring in a
series of meetings in 1935 through which his own spirit had been renewed although it is not
certain that he ever spoke in tongues.35
5
What is the sum of all this? I believe there is something to be recovered of the power of the
Spirit working deeply in people’s lives. It is not my intention to call into question what people
have received or to judge their spiritual state.36
However, I am sure that it is obvious to any
serious observer that we have lost something of the vitality and the depth of our forebears’
Christianity. When a comparison is made between now and then, as shown above, reasons for
this loss come clearly to the fore. These reasons provide us with a very real challenge to reach
out to God for pristine and authentic experiences of the Spirit, the kind for which the writer of
Ephesians prayed (3:16-20), namely, continuing infillings of the Spirit beyond conversion and
so-called Spirit-baptism.
© Richard B. Roy 2008
Endnotes
1 Although a majority of scholars do not accept Paul’s authorship of Ephesians, for convenience I will call Paul
the author in accordance with the book itself (for Ephesians authorship see Arthur G. Patzia, ‘Ephesians,
Colossians, Philemon’, in New International Biblical Commentary, ed. W. Ward Gasque [Peabody MA:
Hendrickson, 1984]). 2 Gordon D. Fee, Paul, the Spirit, and the People of God (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1996), 201, where Fee says
that ‘Paul makes a clear connection between the Spirit and the experience of power’.
3 See Gordon D. Fee, God’s Empowering Presence (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1994), 1, where he says, ‘For
Paul the Spirit, as an experienced reality, was the absolutely crucial matter for Christian life, from beginning to
end.’
4 Ibid., also 202, where Fee says, ‘For Paul life in the Spirit begins at conversion; at the same time its experienced
dimension is both dynamic and renewable’; and, ‘Moreover, the reception of the Spirit is not a static or merely
past event, but is pictured as an ongoing reality’.
5 Olivier Clément, The Roots of Christian Mysticism (Hyde Park, NY: New City, 1993), 7.
6 R. C. Tannehill, Dying and Rising with Christ: A Study in Pauline Theology (BZNW 32; Berlin: Töpelmann,
1967).
7 E.g., Charles Goodwin, ‘The Religion of Feeling: Wesleyan Catholicism’, History Today 46, 10 (October 1996):
44–49.
8 David Lowes Watson, ‘Methodist Spirituality’, in Exploring Christian Spirituality: an Ecumenical Reader, ed.
Kenneth J. Collins (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2000), 172–213. 9 John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, 3
rd edn. (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 1998), i: 90-91; Vinson Synan, The
Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century, 2nd
rev. edn. (Grand Rapids,
MI: Eerdmans, 1997), 4-5.
10 See references in his journal to his absence of saving faith and unbelief before his ‘heart warming’ (Wesley,
Works, i: 99-103); Synan, Holiness-Pentecostal, 4-5.
11 Synan, Holiness-Pentecostal, 4-5.
12 Wesley, Works, i: 170.
13 E.g., Gordon S. Wakefield, Methodist Spirituality (London: Epworth, 1999), 40; Watson, ‘Methodist
Spirituality’, 172–213; Wesley, Works, viii: 107. 14
E.g., Wesley, Works, v: 37ff, 57. 15
Cf. Richard B. Roy, ‘A Reappraisal of Wesleyan Methodist Mission in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century,
as viewed through the Ministry of the Rev John Smithies (1802–1872)’, Dissertation (PhD), Edith Cowan
University, Perth, WA, 2006, 198-208. 16
SOAS, Box 517, Smithies to WMMS, London, 26 October 1844; William McNair & Hilary Rumley, Pioneer
Aboriginal Mission: The Work of Wesleyan Missionary John Smithies in the Swan River Colony 1840-1855
(Perth, WA: University of Western Australia Press, 1981), 98.
17 Ibid., 100.
18 Cf. David Bennett, The Altar Call: Its Origins and Present Usage (Lanham, MD: University Press of America,
2000), 150–157, 163-166.
6
19
Ibid., 150-157; cf. SOAS, Box 517, Smithies to WMMS, London, 26 October 1844. 20
Iain Murray, Revival and Revivalism: The Making and Marring of American Evangelicalism 1750-1858
(Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1994), 185ff.
21 Wesley, Works, viii: 299–300; John Telford, The Life of John Wesley (London: Epworth, 1953), 92.
22 E.g., David D. Bundy, ‘European Pietist Roots of Pentecostalism’, in Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic
Movements, eds. Stanley M. Burgess and Gary B. McGee (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1988), 279–281;
Harvey Cox, Fire from Heaven: The Rise of Pentecostal Spirituality and the Reshaping of Religion in the
Twenty–first Century (Reading, MA: Addison–Wesley, 1995). 23
As Fee infers, Spirit-baptism is an incorrect title of a genuine experience better termed ‘infilling with the Spirit’,
or ‘experience of the Spirit’ (Fee, Empowering Presence, 863-864). 24
Robert P. Menzies, ‘Evidential Tongues: An Essay on Theological Method’, in Asian Journal of Pentecostal
Studies 2 (1998); Gary B. McGee, ‘Flower, Joseph James Roswell’, in Dictionary of Pentecostal and
Charismatic Movements, eds. Stanley M. Burgess and Gary B. McGee (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1988),
311-313. 25
The Azusa Street revival of 1906 is regarded as the birth place of modern Pentecostalism (Vinson Synan, The
Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal [Nashville, TN: Nelson, 2001],
39-68.) 26
David Bundy, ‘Spiritual Advice to a Seeker: Letters to T. B. Barratt from Azusa Street, 1906’, Pneuma, 14, 2,
Fall (1992): 159-170.
27 Ibid.
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid.
30 The Apostolic Faith, 1, 4 (Los Angeles, December, 1906), 2.
31 Bundy, ‘Spiritual Advice to a Seeker’: 159-170.
32 Richard B. Roy, ‘The Place of Religious Experience in a Contemporary Pentecostal Congregation’, Dissertation
(MMin), Melbourne College of Divinity, 2001. 33
David A. Womack, Pentecostal Experience: The Writings of Donald Gee (Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing
House, 1993), 69.
34 Angus I. Kinnear, Against the Tide: The Story of Watchman Nee (Melbourne: Victory, 1973), 103-105.
35 Ibid.
36 Fee, Paul, 183-192.