Counter Points
Counter Points to Counterpoint
I recently read Counterpoint. I have some counter points.
Has the holiness message had the right epistemology?
Evidently God brought the holiness movement into being to awaken the church to the reality that He wanted her message to be a holiness message. But what we may have missed is that the awakening came in conjunction with a passion for converting society to God. John Wesley preached to the coal miners and continued to focus on converting the lost throughout his life time. His missionary vision grew until he called the world his parish. Apparently the zeal to conquer the world for Christ was the main drive in that early movement? It was largely what gave meaning and purpose to the holiness message even as the message was directed to the church.
I am inclined to think that Wesley intended to make his total message a comprehensive holiness message rather than just the "main thing" of his message. Even at that, I believe we may do well to recognize that the holiness message of Wesley’s day was primitive. It was in a developmental stage. I know that scholars recognize this, but possibly we should consider that for this reason the message was developed largely from the experience perspective. (I am referring primarily to Wesley interviewing many people about their understanding that their entire sanctification happened as a second experience).
We know that later some like Daniel Steele perfected the message towards a more biblical epistemology (grounds for truth). But I am inclined to believe that much of the movement continued to build its teaching too much on experience, and on shallow exegesis such as the practice that Dr. Taylor cited of C.W. Ruth preaching the second work from 2 Cor. 1:15. But even the more biblical preaching was apparently done primarily from proof texts, and not enough from a comprehensive study of the Word.
Even as the movement was surging head in Phoebe Palmer’s time, the leaders may have been too inclined to build on experience and then support it with philosophy. I am inclined to believe that they masterfully painted experience, framed it in philosophy, and called it a picture of sanctification. Palmer’s frame of "the altar sanctifying the gift" was more philosophical than a direct application of biblical truth to the need. Yet we have to admit that it tended to communicate the truth, because people were convicted and apparently got entirely sanctified. But from this fact we could draw a faulty conclusion. It would be easy to conclude that the message was right on because it worked. With this logic, Palmer’s experience could inform our reasoning too much and also contribute to experience playing too big a part in our epistemology.
Apparently, many writers have tried to make up for Palmer’s weak epistemology with some better biblical exegesis but still have relied too much on philosophy-informed-by-experience. We have continued to paint and frame the same picture...only a more intricate one. This causes people to tend to be convicted through the author’s or preacher’s opinion more than directly through the Word. Such conviction tends to loose its punch over time, especially in our questioning, demanding-proof age.
To those of a theological and philosophical mind, the more intricate picture may indeed be a good picture, but it still may be too rooted in philosophy and too focused on experience to readily convict the average mind that it is the Bible’s message. Counterpoint’s constant reference to "the experience" only increases my conviction that we are too experience-oriented. Like so many existentialists we are pointing to experience more than to relationship with God. Of course the relationship produces experience, but I believe I am right in assessing that sanctification is better described as a relationship with God. Dr. Taylor seems to acknowledge this in his stated central motif of the Bible, "God and man in redemptive relationship."
I enjoy reading Richard Taylor’s Exploring Christian Holiness. I stand in awe of his ability to communicate lofty and deep truths. My heart resonates with most of it except his dual nature / D. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde theory. But I truly wish that such great minds would spend more time unfolding the Bible.
Forgive me for speaking my mind. I don’t mean to be rude. And I recognize I could be wrong; I am searching like the authors of Counterpoint. I would be happy to entertain any counter arguments. It seems that we have continued to paint and frame the same picture instead of studying to portray the comprehensive picture of the Bible. I don’t believe that books like God, Man, and Salvation unfold the Bible on the subject of entire sanctification so much as they try to fit "the picture" into the Bible.
I am inclined to think that we have been too bent on proving that our picture is correct, even as the modern questioning generation is becoming skeptical of the weak epistemology; and as a result, skeptical of the entire sanctification that we try to portray through it. With nostalgic thoughts of the glorious past, we keep pointing to the picture that we credit for creating the holiness movement. We probably need to quit looking back and look forward to showing a biblical picture that has been there all the time.
I suggest that we study to portray a comprehensive picture of the Bible and watch it develop a frame of relationship with God. Low and behold, we probably will discover that such a picture is a picture of holiness.
I Cor. 13 shows that love enables us to see God, first, as "in a mirror dimly," but then "face to face" through perfect love. Thus, perfect love enables us to "know" God. And knowing shows us how to be like Him. The same key to knowing is present in Heb 12:14 and 2 Cor. 3:18. The 1Cor. 13 passage also shows that love is the greatest and that it "believes all things and hopes all things." Therefore, love incorporates faith and hope. Thus sanctification, that fills our hearts with love, also brings faith and hope. This puts into play the basic Christian exercise of faith prevailing in hope through the power of love. And this is an expression of conquering sanctification.
Ten other scriptures in the epistles show faith, love, and hope in interactive relationship developing the progressive aspect of sanctification. The beatitudes give a progressive picture of faith-love-hope developments. Several scriptures portray the various parts of a full agricultural picture of relationship with God, in a subliminal background of faith, love, and hope.
Faith, love, and hope conquer evil. If you think about it, the fact becomes apparent that the three avenues of sin are perversions of these.
The pride of life (humanism) is perverted faith; it is self-dependent as opposed to being God-dependent.
The lust of the flesh (sensualism) is perverted love; it loves what is self-pleasing as opposed to what is God-pleasing.
The lust of the eye (materialism) is perverted hope; it is hope in the earthly and material as opposed to hope in the spiritual and the heavenly.
Therefore, God’s triad conquers the triad of the world by the sanctifying process of love as it incorporates faith and hope. It conquers the world in us and the world at large through us. Sound too fantastic? I don’t believe so. It is the subliminal message of the Bible as well as the obvious message of the Bible.
Richard Taylor points out that the fall took people from being God-centered to being self-centered. The Wesley Bible points to the threefold nature of Eves temptation: "tree was good for food" — lust of the flesh, "pleasant to the eyes" — lust of the eyes, "to be desired to make one wise" — pride of life. This is the picture we need of original sin. It is the threefold nature of self-centered depravity. The fall perverted Eves love, hope, and faith (respectively to the above) which had kept her God-centered. Therefore, the agent that is needed to restore the image of God and God-centeredness is the love of God that incorporates faith and hope. This comes as we surrender all our opposing loves to God and believe Him to cleanse them from our hearts. The key is "surrender"...ceasing from our own works, to enter the rest of entire sanctification (Heb 4).
Other’s experiences can inspire us a lot. Philosophy inspires us a lot less. But the Word of God is quick and powerful. It is fire burning in the very core of our being.
What has dispensational eschatology done to the movement?
I am kind of surprised that Counterpoint did not address the dynamic of dispensational eschatology. To have a moving movement, I think you need one ingredient that Keith Drury left out. You need to have the faith that produces the hope that the movement is going to succeed and conquer. Such confidence produces dedication like the shoeless boy had, who was standing in the cold to raise money for communism. When someone asked him if he would buy shoes if he should give him money. He said emphatically, "I would not! I would give it to communism!" He was thoroughly sold out to the cause because he had hope that it would conquer everything undesirable. The early Methodists also had a defining hope. It was the hope of conquering the evils of society and bringing people to God. This provided all the incentive they needed to dedicate their all to spreading scriptural holiness across the land.
But many have slipped over to the Calvinistic camp long enough to find the cart of dispensational eschatology, only to distort Wesleyan theology by cramming it into that cart. Then from their Calvinistic perspective they have tried to hold back the calves of certain other Calvinistic concepts as they release the mother cows of predestination to pull the picture to the Wesleyan camp. All the while the cows are lowing as they go because they know that neither they, nor their cart, belong in the Wesleyan camp.
Dispensational eschatology, along with other hopeless ideas, sees us as predestinated to be Laodicean. This suggests that no matter what we do the church as a whole cannot be revived, let alone develop a vision to conquer the world. By this outlook, the conscious as well as the subconscious psyche is programed for defeat. This militates against the world-conquering vision that should be the main incentive for preaching the holiness message. The eternal-security people can emotionally embrace dispensational eschatology quite well because their main objective is simply to get people to "accept Christ." But Wesleyans who have been programed to believe that spiritual success is measured, to some degree, in terms of changing the world are devastated by the interpretation.
I have a feeling that CHP has not been infected with this nearly as much as CHM. I have been raised in CHM and I can witness that the movement has been almost saturated with it; though there may be some recent trend away from it. I think CHP has been more scholarly and done a better job of keeping their though-form Wesleyan.
In closing, I would like to say that instead of focusing on what we want God to do for us in curing our symptoms of carnal self-centeredness; let us develop the biblical theology of sanctification that is all about giving ourselves to God and being inspired to continue to give through the hope of conquering the world. This kind of sanctification will remove the self-centeredness that causes carnal symptoms and put the fire back in our hearts — the move back into our movement. It will also do a lot towards turning our attention away from materialism. Who gives a hoot about material things when you have caught a vision of spiritually conquering the world?
Perhaps the reason we have been convicted of so-called "upward mobility" is that our emphasis on holiness has been too much on our own self-improvement. We have focused on cultivating ourselves into pious sophisticates and consequently are not satisfied to be like the common people...like Charles Wesley who couldn’t bare the thought of John marrying a commoner. All the while the world goes to hell. A theology of world-conquering sanctification should cure the unbalanced focus on ourselves.
I have written a book entitled, The Key: Unlocking Biblical Truth for Spiritual Conquest. It may provide some direction toward developing the kind of theology I am suggesting. I am sure it is not the full answer, but maybe some greater minds could take some clues from it and write a biblical theology that would more adequately portray the comprehensive biblical message...the holiness message.
Contact information
Email: larry@bibletheme.com
Phone: (719) 647-6321
Address: 1125 W. McCulloch Blvd., Pueblo West, CO 81007
Please leave your comments on this blog.
posted by Pastor Larry Grabill @ 8:58 AM
3 comments
