An Evaluation of Early Pentecostal Pneumatology

  An Evaluation of Early Pentecostal Pneumatology

The understanding of the Holy Spirit has gradually changed since the Pentecostal movement began. When the Pentecostal movement began, members believed that the Holy Spirit should guide them throughout life, and the attainment of supernatural experiences and power from Him were prevalent themes. They also placed a lot of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and baptism is also highly regarded. The Pentecostal movement of today is similar to that which was begun by the early Pentecostals in most ways. In this article, I seek to explore how the Pentecostal movement understood the Holy Spirit’s role in their faith. I also analyze the merits and demerits of their pneumatological

interpretations.

A lot of Pentecostal beliefs and teachings on the significance and role of the Holy Spirit come from Acts and Luke. Teachings of the apostles were also a source of inspiration for early Pentecostals. The movement cannot be traced back to a single person because it grew from isolated Christian groups, which we are witnessing charismatic phenomena like and healing speaking in tongues. One notable character for the Pentecostal movement is Charles Fox Parham, who in 1900 started the Bethel Bible School, where he taught about spirit baptism[1]. One of his students began to speak in tongues, and soon after, Charles, too, received the gift. He traveled for four years, teaching spreading his Pentecostal beliefs.

Early Pentecostals expected the Holy Spirit to endow true believers with the ability to speak in tongues. Charles Parham, for example, taught his students that the gift was the manifestation of the Holy Spirit as a result of spiritual baptism[2]. He was referring to the teachings found in Acts of the Apostles. During Pentecost, the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples as tongues of fire. Soon after, the disciples were able to speak to people from different nations who spoke different languages from theirs. The early Pentecostals hoped to receive the ability to communicate with people who spoke a different language from the Holy Spirit.

A great deal of importance was placed on the gift by early Pentecostals. Many of them strived to receive this gift because they believed that it was a sign of God’s acceptance for an individual and that it was proof of the presence of the Holy Spirit in a Christian[3]. Early Pentecostals believed that one of the conditions that a person had to meet to receive any of the gifts of the Holy Spirit was spiritual baptism.

There was contention over the nature of the Holy Spirit among the early Pentecostals. Some subscribed to oneness while others were Trinitarian. Proponents of oneness insisted that God is one person who manifests himself in three different forms. Trinitarians, on the other hand, believe that God is one, but he exists in three persons linked to each other and part of each other. The distinction is relevant because oneness proponents thought the Holy Spirit was God himself. At the same time, Trinitarians believe that God is one of the three persons who make up the Holy Trinity. The distinction is relevant because early Pentecostals often disagreed on the nature of the Holy Spirit.

In the gospel, according to Luke, John the Baptist foretells the coming of Christ, who will baptize people not with water, but with fire and the Holy Spirit. Pentecostals use this as the basis for their high regard for spirit baptism. Spirit baptism often accompanies water baptism. They believe that the Holy Spirit descends upon a person who following baptism to begin the works of God in them[4]. Conversion to Christianity was a prerequisite to spirit baptism. A person should be free of sin through repentance, and ready to follow in the doctrines of the Christian faith before the Holy Spirit can descend upon them. The belief that the Holy Spirit required a person to prepare their souls before His debut in them becomes apparent. The perfect nature of the Holy Spirit was, therefore, a part of the early Pentecostal’s ideas of the nature of the Holy Spirit.

Charles Parham asked his students to analyze how the Holy Spirit manifested according to writings in the Acts. They concluded that all the significant revivals that occur in the early and which involved the outpouring of the Holy Spirit include believers’ speaking in tongues. The conclusion led them to believe that the gift of speaking in tongues was crucial to confirm that the Holy Spirit was manifest in a person. This belief was the source of the great importance that they accorded this specific gift. The students even began to pray specifically for it. They viewed themselves as being at the center of a new dawn for Christianity in which the Holy Spirit would be their guide and would manifest in their daily lives.

The tremendous importance that was attached to the acquisition of the gift further shaped the beliefs of early Pentecostals. They began to expect everyone who had received the Holy Spirit to possess this gift. Some churches issued orders that anyone who did not claim the ability to speak in tongues at the time of baptism should not be allowed to preach or hold leadership positions in the church. The overemphasis on the importance of this gift, therefore, had negative consequences for some Christians because it left them feeling unworthy and incomplete. Furthermore, others lost their roles in church service. Spirit-led believers were to take on leadership roles because the movement believed that such individuals were more worthy of God’s grace seeing as He had seen it fit to entrust them with such a valuable gift.

Speaking in tongues was supposed to be a way for the Holy Spirit to lead a person to prayer, evangelism, and the praise of God. Early Pentecostals appreciated the importance of the gift because they viewed it as a manifestation of the supernatural in the life of a believer. Eschatological notions were dominant among the early Pentecostals, who viewed their time as the end times. They, therefore, saw their renewed devotion to the Holy Spirit as a catapult to the restoration of Christianity to the pristine nature of the early church. In the same line, Christians in the movement expected to experience the same things that believers in the early church experienced. Such expectations explain the strong beliefs that the gifts of the Holy Spirit were necessary for one to prove that they had the Holy Spirit in them.

Anyone who was found worthy by God received the gifts. This meant that both men and women could receive the Holy Spirit and display His gifts. Indiscriminate distribution somewhat elevated the status of women in the movement[5]. They could now evangelize just like their fellow men since God had seen them worthy. Before the movement, women lacked authority because they were considered inferior. However, their elevation was temporary and short-lived. Eventually, they returned to their traditional supportive roles in the church due to the objections of many Christians.

Interpreting the writings of Luke on the Pentecost, early Pentecostals discerned that receiving the Holy Spirit was a personal experience[6]. The idea is understood from the disciples praying together, but each receiving the Holy Spirit form of tongues of fire, which rested on their heads separately. This gives further credence to the notion of Spirit-guided interpretation of the Bible. Because the spiritual experience is personal, there was no need to establish clear doctrines, as explained above. Instead, the believers expected to make their interpretations as the Holy Spirit would instruct them.

The Holy Spirit was also known to be a source of comfort and guidance to the early Pentecostals, guiding them in their evangelism. These qualities of the Holy Spirit meant that following baptism, a person was expected to begin their evangelical work and serve as an apostle because they would receive guidance from above. The missionaries of that period were very enthusiastic about receiving the Holy Spirit and relying on the gifts and fruits that they received to spread the faith. Some missionaries even hoped that they would be able to evangelize to non-believers in Africa without having to learn their native languages[7]. The employment the gift of speaking in tongues would hopefully afford missionaries an advantage. They believed that Africans would comprehend what they said when they spoke in tongues. Early Pentecostals were, however, disappointed when they learned that their dreams were invalid, which raised questions on the usefulness of the gift.

Another critical point in the early Pentecostal movement’s beliefs was that they viewed the anointing with the Holy Spirit as a separate event from baptism. This view is contrary to traditional ecumenical beliefs where the general notion is that baptism and descent of the Holy Spirit upon a person occur together. Among early Pentecostal Christians, the Holy Spirit would need invitation following water baptism, and that lays the foundation for modern Pentecostal practices of laying hands on new believers to ask for the Spirit’s intervention[8]. The separation of these two events means that great personal effort is needed for one to receive the Holy Spirit, and to be blessed with His gifts consequently. The arguments herein are again based on the passages in Luke about the Pentecost. The disciples had been praying a time long after their conversion to followers of Christ before the Holy Spirit descended upon them.

Also worth noting is that early Pentecostals relied heavily on the Holy Spirit to draw meaning from the scriptures[9]. They believed that the Holy Spirit would help them interpret scripture through the gifts of knowledge and wisdom. The belief is important because early Pentecostals interpreted the Bible directly as it is. They did not seek to understand the context of scripture writings at that time but instead saw the Bible as a timeless divine message that could give guidance on any topic and at any time in history. Believing all words in the scriptures to be directly from God, they hoped that the Holy Spirit would guide them to derive the meanings of the various passages. They sought to replicate the experiences of early Christians with the Holy Spirit in their present times.

Initially, early Pentecostals agreed that there was no need to establish clear doctrines as they tried to depart from the classical ecclesiastical religion of their less spiritual brethren. They planned to rely solely on the Holy Spirit for guidance on formulating their beliefs. With time, confusion arose because everyone had their interpretation of scripture, which they claimed was inspired by the Holy Spirit. Questions arose on how the same Spirit could offer different revelations to people about the same issues. They decided to meet up to discuss this problem because it threatened to divide them. Eventually, factions such as the oneness proponents and the Trinitarians emerged because they could not even reach consensus on the very nature of the Spirit.

In conclusion, the views of the early Pentecostals on the Holy Spirit emulated experiences of the early church with the Holy Spirit. They were trying to revive works of the Spirit in the church to return her to her previous glory. In doing so, they ended up placing excessive importance on the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which created new problems. Different schools of thought emerged, making it even more confusing and further subdividing the church. Gradually, early Pentecostalism has been replaced by modern Pentecostalism after further analysis of scripture and the input of theologians.

Bibliography

Archer, Kenneth J. “Early Pentecostal biblical interpretation.” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 9, no. 1 (2001): 32-70.

Barfoot, Charles H., and Gerald T. Sheppard. “Prophetic vs. priestly religion: The changing role of women clergy in classical Pentecostal churches.” Review of religious research (1980): 2-17.

Cheung, Tak-Ming. “Understandings of Spirit-baptism.” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 4, no. 8 (1996): 115-128.

Loder, Allan Thomas. “An examination of the classical Pentecostal doctrine of the baptism in the Holy Spirit in light of the Pentecostal position on the sources of theology.” Ph.D. diss., Providence Theological Seminary, 2000.

Richie, Tony. “Eschatological inclusivism: Exploring early Pentecostal theology of religions in Charles Fox Parham.” Journal of the European Pentecostal Theological Association 27, no. 2 (2007): 138-152.

[1] Richie, Tony. “Eschatological inclusivism: Exploring early Pentecostal theology of religions in Charles Fox Parham.” Journal of the European Pentecostal Theological Association 27, no. 2 (2007): 138-152.

[2] Richie, 150.

[3] Archer, Kenneth J. “Early Pentecostal biblical interpretation.” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 9, no. 1 (2001): 32-70.

[4] Cheung, Tak-Ming. “Understandings of Spirit-baptism.” Journal of Pentecostal Theology 4, no. 8 (1996): 115-128.

[5] Barfoot, Charles H., and Gerald T. Sheppard. “Prophetic vs. priestly religion: The changing role of women clergy in classical Pentecostal churches.” Review of religious research (1980): 2-17.

[6] Charles and Shephard, 17.

[7] Archer, 40.

[8] order, Allan Thomas. “An examination of the classical Pentecostal doctrine of the baptism in the Holy Spirit in light of the Pentecostal position on the sources of theology.” Ph.D. diss., Providence Theological Seminary, 2000

[9] Lorder, 40.