Finished Work

The Finished Work is a doctrine associated with Pentecostals of the Finished Work Pentecostal tradition, ^[1] that locates sanctification at the time of conversion; afterward the converted Christian progressively grows in grace. This is contrary to the Wesleyan doctrine of entire sanctification (or Christian perfection) that locates complete sanctification in a definite second work of grace which Holiness Pentecostals teach is a necessary prerequisite to receive the baptism in the Holy Spirit. ^{[2] [1]} Finished Work Pentecostals are generally known to have retained the doctrine of progressive sanctification from their earlier Reformed roots, ^[3] while Holiness Pentecostals retained their doctrine of entire sanctification from their earlier Wesleyan roots. The term finished work arises from the aphorism "It's a Finished Work at Calvary", referring to both salvation and sanctification. Though the term is used within Pentecostal Christianity, it is not exclusively a Pentecostal doctrine.

The doctrine arose as one of the "new issues" in the early Pentecostal revivals in the United States. The dispute surrounding it was called the Finished Work Controversy which split the Pentecostal movement into Wesleyan and non-Wesleyan doctrinal orientations, known respectively as Holiness Pentecostals and Finished Work Pentecostals. ^{[4] [5] [6]}

History

Background

When Holiness Pentecostalism, the earliest form of Pentecostalism, emerged as a distinct movement, it was through ministers with a Wesleyan-Holiness (Methodistic) background such as Charles Parham and William J. Seymour. ^[7] The father of Methodism John Wesley advocated Christian perfection that held that entire sanctification was indeed a definite work that was to follow conversion (the New Birth). Wesley drew on the idea of theosis to suggest that sanctification would cause a change in motivation that if nurtured would lead to a gradual perfecting of the believer. Thus while it was physically possible for a sanctified believer to sin, he or she would be empowered to choose to avoid sin. ^[8] Wesley's teachings and Methodism gave birth to the holiness movement, which sought to propagate the Methodistic doctrine of entire sanctification (Christian perfection). Most advocates within the holiness movement, in accordance with Methodist theology, taught that sanctification had both instantaneous and progressive dimensions. ^[9] They taught the availability of entire sanctification, which was a post-conversion experience. In this "second definite work of grace", the inclination to sin was removed and replaced by perfect love. ^[10] The state of entire sanctification allowed the believer to turn his or her attention outward toward the advancement of the gospel. In contrast, the state of partial sanctification was said to turn the believer's attention to the interior spiritual struggle for holiness which in turn limited his or her usefulness to the church and society. ^[9] Though the holiness movement arose primarily within Methodism, ^[7] it made an impact on the Quaker tradition, as well as in certain Anabaptist, Baptist and Restorationist denominations. ^[11]

Another movement stressing the importance of sanctification arose called the Higher Life movement, which centered around the Keswick Convention; the theology of the Higher Life movement is thus known as Keswickian theology. Keswickian theology differs from Wesleyan-Arminian (Methodist) theology. In time, significant Irvingite and Calvinist leaders became thoroughly embedded in the Higher Life movement. These included Charles Finney, William Boardman and Dwight L. Moody. These evangelicals of the Reformed tradition differed from their Wesleyan counterparts in that they rejected the holiness concept of a "second blessing" instead focusing on an "overcoming" life. ^[12] Keswickian theology is most notable in the Christian and Missionary Alliance denomination. ^[13]

Though distinct from Keswickian (Higher Life) theology, the Finished Work Pentecostal doctrine was also propagated through ministers of a Reformed background, including Pentecostal clerics William Howard Durham. ^{[14] [15]} The Finished Work doctrine became popular among those accepting a belief in the Baptism of the Holy Spirit who came from Reformed backgrounds; these adherents are known as Finished Work Pentecostals. While accepting a belief in a Baptism of the Holy Spirit accompanied with glossolalia, Finished Work Pentecostals reject the teaching of entire sanctification (the second work of grace in Methodism). ^[5]

Articulation and opposition

In 1910, William Howard Durham preached a sermon entitled "The Finished Work of Calvary" at a midwestern Pentecostal convention. His finished work teaching "sought to 'nullify' the understanding of sanctification as wholly realized in the believer by a crisis experience subsequent to and distinct from conversion." This teaching began the controversy that divided the Pentecostal movement into a three-stage (Holiness Pentecostalism) and two-stage Pentecostalism (Finished Work Pentecostalism). Three-stage Pentecostalism (Holiness Pentecostalism) held the view that there are three distinct experiences of grace—conversion, sanctification, and baptism in the Holy Spirit; the third stage was added to the two traditional Wesleyan Methodist works of grace: conversion (New Birth) and entire sanctification (Christian perfection). ^[16] In contrast, two-stage Pentecostalism (Finished Work Pentecostalism), which was the non-Wesleyan view held by Durham, held that sanctification was a lifelong process that began at conversion, thus this view only professed two stages—conversion and Spirit baptism. ^[17]

Durham wrote in his magazine, The Pentecostal Testimony:

I ... deny that God does not deal with the nature of sin at conversion. I deny that a man who is converted or born again is outwardly washed and cleansed but that his heart is left unclean with enmity against God in it... This would not be Salvation. Salvation ... means a change of nature... It means that all the old man or old nature, which was sinful and depraved and which was the very thing in us that was condemned, is crucified with Christ. ^[18]

Converts began to share their beliefs in meetings and councils in the western United States where the Azusa Movement and its emphasis on sanctification as a definite experience was seen as orthodoxy, and any deviation was viewed with suspicion. This took the form of family members and friends who frequented various revival and camp meetings in the eastern US returning home to the Northwest and attempting to share their understanding of the “new doctrine.” ^[6] The popularist version suggested that sanctification was not a requirement for Spirit Baptism. This was viewed as a dangerous and fallacious polemic by the majority who assumed that anyone who had received the Pentecostal Blessing had in fact been sanctified and as an outright heresy by those who had slipped into the entire sanctification camp. In either case, proponents of the finished work were seen as contentious and were in many cases officially shunned to the point of dividing families. ^[6]

The dispute grew more heated in February 1911 when Durham went to Los Angeles where he was prohibited from preaching at the Upper Room and Azusa Street Missions. He was able to hold services at the Kohler Street Mission where he attracted 1000 people on Sundays and around 400 on weekdays. ^[19] Durham died that same year, but the controversy surrounding finished work persisted.

Outcome

The effect of the controversy was that the young Pentecostal movement was split between Wesleyan-holiness and non-Wesleyan Reformed evangelicals. The finished work gained the greatest support from the independent and unorganized urban churches and missions. The Pentecostal denominations centered in the American South were the most resistant to the new doctrine. Today, these Holiness Pentecostal denominations (Apostolic Faith Church, ^{[upper-alpha 1]} Church of God (Cleveland), Church of God in Christ, Free Gospel Church, Pentecostal Holiness Church, and The (Original) Church of God) and their seminaries (such as the Free Gospel Bible Institute) retain a belief in the doctrine of entire sanctification—the second work of grace. ^{[21] [4] [22]}

Despite the resistance of Wesleyan Pentecostals, however, finished work adherents were successful in persuading many Pentecostals of the validity of their view. As a result, most of the Pentecostal denominations founded after 1911 adhered to the finished work doctrine. ^[23] This can be seen in Finished Work Pentecostal denominations such as the Assemblies of God, ^[12] the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel, ^{[24] [5]} the Open Bible Churches, Elim Fellowship, and the Pentecostal Church of God. ^[4]

References

Notes

1. The Apostolic Faith Church is the original denomination of Holiness Pentecostalism that emerged from the Azusa Street Revival. ^[20]

Citations

1. Barrett, David B. (July 1988). "The Twentieth-Century Pentecostal/Charismatic Renewal in the Holy Spirit, with its Goal of World Evangelization". International Bulletin of Missionary Research. 12 (3): 119–129. doi:10.1177/239693938801200303. ISSN   0272-6122. S2CID   149417223.
2. Synan, Vinson. The Holiness–Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1997. ISBN   978-0-8028-4103-2, pp. 149-150.
3. James Leo Garrett, Systematic Theology, Volume 2, Second Edition, Wipf and Stock Publishers, USA, 2014, p. 395.
4. Anderson, Allan (13 May 2004). An Introduction to Pentecostalism: Global Charismatic Christianity. Cambridge University Press. p. 47. ISBN   978-0-521-53280-8. Those who resisted Durham's teaching and remained in the 'three-stage' camp were Seymour, Crawford and Parham, and Bishops Charles H. Mason, A. J. Tomlinson and J. H. King, respectively leaders of the Church of God in Christ, the Church of God (Cleveland) and the Pentecostal Holiness Church. Tomlinson and King each issued tirades against the 'finished work' doctrine in their periodicals, but by 1914 some 60 percent of all North American Pentecostals had embraced Durham's position. ... The 'Finished Work' controversy was only the first of many subsequent divisions in North American Pentecostalism. Not only did Pentecostal churches split over the question of sanctification as a distinct experience, but a more fundamental and acrimonious split erupted in 1916 over the doctrine of the Trinity. ... The 'New Issue' was a schism in the ranks of the 'Finished Work' Pentecostals that began as a teaching that the correct formula for baptism is 'in the name of Jesus' and developed into a dispute about the Trinity. It confirmed for Holiness Pentecostals that they should have no further fellowship with the 'Finished Work' Pentecostals, who were in 'heresy'.
5. Levinson, David (1996). Religion: A Cross-cultural Encyclopedia. ABC-CLIO. p. 151. ISBN   978-0-87436-865-9. The Finished Work Pentecostals believed that conversion and sanctification were a single act of grace. The Assemblies of God, created in 1914, became the first Finished Work denomination.
6. Blumhofer, Edith (1989). Pentecost in My Soul: Explorations in the Meaning of Pentecostal Experience in the Early Assemblies of God. Springfield, Missouri: Gospel Publishing House. p. 92. ISBN   0-88243-646-5.
7. Winn, Christian T. Collins (2007). From the Margins: A Celebration of the Theological Work of Donald W. Dayton. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 115. ISBN   9781630878320. In addition to these separate denominational groupings, one needs to give attention to the large pockets of the Holiness movement that have remained within the United Methodist Church. The most influential of these would be the circles dominated by Asbury College and Asbury Theological Seminary (both in Wilmore, KY), but one could speak of other colleges, innumerable local campmeetings, the vestiges of various local Holiness associations, independent Holiness oriented missionary societies and the like that have had great impact within United Methodism. A similar pattern would exist in England with the role of Cliff College within Methodism in that context.
8. Three comparatively recent works which explain Wesley's theological positions are Randy Maddox's 1994 book Responsible Grace: John Wesley's Practical Theology, Kenneth J. Collins' 2007 book The Theology of John Wesley: Holy Love and the Shape of Grace, and Thomas Oden's 1994 book John Wesley's Scriptural Christianity: A Plain Exposition of His Teaching on Christian Doctrine.
9. Blumhofer, Edith L. The Assemblies of God: A Chapter in the Story of American Pentecostalism. Volume 1. Springfield, Missouri: Gospel Publishing House, 1989. ISBN   0-88243-457-8. pp. 42-43.
10. Blumhofer, Edith L. (1993). Restoring the Faith: The Assemblies of God, Pentecostalism, and American Culture. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press. ISBN   978-0-252-06281-0. p. 26.
11. North, James B. (27 February 2019). Union in Truth: An Interpretive History of the Restoration Movement. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 351. ISBN   978-1-5326-7918-6.
12. Waldvogel, Edith L. (1979), "The "Overcoming" Life: A Study in the Reformed Evangelical Contribution to Pentecostalism", Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies, 1 (1): 8.
13. Kenyon, Howard N. (29 October 2019). Ethics in the Age of the Spirit: Race, Women, War, and the Assemblies of God. Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN   978-1-4982-8522-3. Much of the Keswickian influence came through A.B. Simpson's Christian and Missionary Alliance, itself an ecumenical missionary movement.
14. Hollenweger, Walter. The Pentecostals.
15. Blumhofer, Edith L. "The Reformed Roots of Pentecostalism", PentecoStudies 6 (2): 78-99.
16. Synan, Vinson (30 January 2012). The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001. Thomas Nelson. ISBN   978-1-4185-8753-6. Most of the first generation of Pentecostals were from this holiness stream that had its roots in Methodism. ... When the Pentecostal movement began, these "Holiness Pentecostals" simply added the baptism in the Holy Spirit with tongues as "initial evidence" of a "third blessing" that brought power for witnessing to those who had already been sanctified. With the news tongues experience, sanctification was seen as a prerequisite "cleansing" that qualified the seeker to experience the "third blessing" of baptism in the Holy Spirit. An early prophetic utterance stated ominously that "My Spirit will not dwell in an unclean temple." Seekers were encouraged to abandon all the roots of bitterness and original sin so that nothing would block their reception of the Spirit. In fact, it was told that Seymour would not admit seekers to enter the upper room to seek the baptism until he was satisfied that their sanctification experience had been certified downstairs. The historic Azusa Street testimony was "I am saved, sanctified, and filled with the Holy Ghost."
17. Clayton, Allen L. (1979), "The Significance of William H. Durham for Pentecostal Historiography", Pneuma: The Journal of the Society for Pentecostal Studies , 1 (1): 27–28.
18. Clayton, 29-30.
19. Clayton, 31-32.
20. Kurian, George Thomas; Lamport, Mark A. (10 November 2016). Encyclopedia of Christianity in the United States. Rowman & Littlefield. p. 1067. ISBN   978-1-4422-4432-0.
21. Synan, The Holiness–Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century, 152.
22. Scott, Rebekah (5 January 2006). "Murrysville Bible school produces teachers, preachers, prophets and apostles". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . Retrieved 17 June 2022.
23. Synan, The Holiness–Pentecostal Tradition: Charismatic Movements in the Twentieth Century, 151-152.
24. Clayton, 35.