The Pursuit of the Holy God - Church of God of Prophecy

there were some differences that caused some debate between them and the Methodist holiness
movement.
Despite the phenomenal growth that was occurring within the traditional Methodist Church,
there was a group of Christians who felt that the Wesleyan understanding of sanctification was being
neglected. The revival of the doctrine of Christian perfection within the Methodist Church was led by
Phoebe and Walter Palmer. The fertile ground that fostered the growth of the Holiness movement, both
Reformed and Methodist, was created by the re-focus on sanctification by both groups, as well as the
pietism and millennialism of the American revival movement. The doctrine of sanctification was further
developed (some would say modified) within these contexts.
The revivalist wing of Methodism prevailed and sanctification was defined as a work of grace
that was received subsequent to regeneration. The revival preaching strongly emphasized the work
of grace as “crisis experiences”, which were immediate, definable experiences. Phoebe Palmer
understood the experience of Christian perfection as the culmination of a process of grace. “Holiness
preaching clustered the elements of Wesley’s teaching on sanctification around the second crisis of
faith, subsequent to justification, commonly called entire sanctification.” 84 In this context, the doctrine
of entire sanctification sought to resolve Wesley’s tension between crisis and process. This was done by
focusing on the instantaneous character of the experience as a second definite work of grace. In some
ways this focus was begun by Adam Clarke. A collection of his writings from 1835 entitled Christian
Theology stated the following:
In no part of the Scripture are we to seek holiness gradatim. We are to come to God as well for
an instantaneous and complete purification from all sin, as for an instantaneous pardon. Neither
the seriatim pardon, nor the gradatim purification, exists in the Bible. It is when the soul is
purified from all sin that it can properly grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus
Christ. 85
Opponents claimed that this particular understanding was not faithful to Wesley’s original teaching.
Dieter wrote, “Opponents claimed that the Wesleyan understanding that salvation was a continuum
in which certain radical points of decision and infusions of justifying and sanctifying grace were set
within a lifetime of process was being compromised.” 86 Conversely, those who supported the “crisis
motif” were equally as adamant. Dieter writes again, “Proponents of the renewed emphasis on the crisis
moment of entire sanctification…feared that their opponents’ overemphasis on process and downplaying
of crisis experience tended to destroy the hope of being entirely sanctified in this life.” 87 The Holiness
movement within Methodism created such tension that separation and the formation of new churches
were the ultimate result.
Several emphases became part and parcel of the Holiness movement’s teaching on sanctification.
First, there was the use of ‘altar terminology’ as the formula for the experience of sanctification that
stressed the immediate availability of the sanctification experience. This focus tended to eliminate the
spiritual struggle that was characteristic of the eighteenth century teaching. Palmer wrote, “If you do not
now receive it, the delay will not be on the part of God, but wholly with yourself.”
Another emphasis was the implication that sin (as a material substance) was rooted out of the
heart. Wesley himself used terminology such as “circumcision of the heart” to describe the product of
sanctification. The Holiness movement expounded “the concept of sanctification as an eradication of sin
84 Melvin E. Dieter. Ibid, page 38
85 Donald W. Dayton. Theological Roots of Pentecostalism. (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, 1987), page 68.
86 Ibid.
87 Ibid.
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