Doctrinally, the New Issue did not mature as a unified front.
Although uniformly attacking Pentecostal Trinitarianism with their new
understanding of the "absolute deity" of Jesus,1 the New
Issue thinkers demonstrated exegetical inconsistency, misunderstandings and
misrepresentations of their opponents' positions, and varying degrees of
moderation and sectarianism. New Issue theology developed in two stages: the
1913 attempts to harmonize the triune and apostolic baptismal formulas and the
later radical revisions of the doctrines of God and salvation which the 1913
discussions precipitated.
The restorationist drive for the pristine Christianity of the New
Testament pattern, so common to American evangelical religion, lies at the
roots of Oneness thought. Advancing the rhetoric of the Azusa revival which
proclaimed the restoration of the original apostolic church in the practice of
glossolalia, New Issue proponents argued that "latter day"
Christianity was "fully" restored with the revelation of the divine
name and the uncovering of the "mystery" of the Godhead. G. T. Haywood
explained that the "mystery" of the Godhead had been "folded
away in God's infinite wisdom, awaiting the day appointed, when in the dispensation
of the fullness of times all things were to be gathered in Christ."2
For Frank J. Ewart, the supposed "introduction" of the Trinity
doctrine at the Nicene Council (325 A.D.) resulted in the plunge of
Christianity into the "Papal Darkness" of the middle ages.3
Only a latter day restoration of the divine person and name could overcome this
apostasy.
The doctrine of the Trinity in its
introduction as a fundamental of faith, in the third century, kept very bad
company. Transubstantiation, indulgences, Mariolatry, infallibility of the
Pope, purgatory, and many others companied with the Trinity. These tenets of
the Roman Catholic creed held the field with Constantine to Luther. Subsequent
to Luther, Protestants have refuted all the fundamentals of the Catholic
Church, with the noted exception of the doctrine called the Holy Trinity . . .
In 1914 God made his final move to raise up a people to restore the One Body or
Church to the Apostolic Age [referring to the "revelation" of the
Jesus name baptismal formula].4
This unique blending of restorationism and millennarian hope perfectly
paralleled the expectations of the Azusa believers.
This restorationist, or "latter rain," mentality (as
Oneness Pentecostals call it) served as an apologetic for the novelty of the
doctrine. Clearly begging the question, the novelty of the doctrine became its
greatest proof in light of "end time revelation." References to
"more light" and additional religious insight which permeated Oneness
periodicals prompted Trinitarian opponents to charge New Issue believers with
capricious subjectivism and extremes in doctrine and practice.5 Indeed,
some statements, apparently deriding biblical authority, left the new doctrine
open to attack. Carl Brumback quoted Howard Goss as saying, "Oh, you'll
never get this by studying it out like some other doctrine. This comes by
'revelation.'"6 Haywood, in his own writings, contrasts literal
human interpretation of the Scriptures with the power of the Oneness
"revelation."
No man can know who the Father,
nor the Son is, except it be revealed. . . .Almost anyone that is able to read
can take up the Bible and see, what is apparently, "three persons,"
the common view held by Catholic and all other denominations, but is Jesus revealing
this to them? I tell you "NAY." God has taken the wise in their own
craftiness.7
But such passages were isolated and such attacks unfounded. As a
whole, the New Issue thinkers showed a more moderate, although often unstated,
understanding of the Oneness "revelation." Andrew D. Urshan, a
latecomer to Oneness ranks in 1919, clarified the meaning of
"revelation" in Oneness writings.
By the word "revelation"
. . . we mean, the Holy Ghost illuminating our hearts and minds to actually understand
certain Scriptures. He [the Holy Spirit], the blessed Spirit of truth, is also
the Spirit of wisdom and revelation. When he enters the true believer's heart
and mind, he begins his blessed work of illuminating, revealing and unfolding
the infinite love and majestic personality of the One God of Israel in the Name
and Person of his son, Jesus Christ.8
The real distinctions between Trinitarian doctrine and Oneness
"revelation" arose from the content, not the method, of this
"revelation." Redefining the biblical category of the
"mystery" of God's transcendence, the Oneness thinkers perceived
Jesus as "God's revealed mystery"—not God revealed in mystery, but
rather God revealed such that mystery is altogether eliminated. New Issue
writers replaced the Trinitarian "mystery" with a "common sense
hermeneutic" which drew literalist conclusions from biblical texts. This
appeal to "common sense," which assumed that anything contrary to
simple reason must necessarily be false, preceded all Oneness investigations of
the scriptures and served as a catch-all defense against any difficult Trinitarian
argument. Thus Ewart argued that "the normal mind revolts against the
thought of there existing from eternity more than ONE CREATOR, First-cause,
Redeemer, or Saviour."9 Trinitarianism was mere human
speculation; whereas Oneness doctrine was God's revelation.10 To
Oneness sectarian eyes, Christendom had settled for less than God's full truth
in revelation.
The New Issue began and ended in the act of baptism in the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ. Significantly, the controversy did not grow from an
academic debate concerning the doctrines of God or salvation, but rather sprang
from efforts to harmonize the Matthean and Acts baptismal formulas. Initially,
the secondary role allotted water baptism in general Pentecostal circles kept this
discussion on a non-divisive level. Early toleration ceased only when the
debate spread beyond these simple harmonizing attempts. Then, rebaptism, the
ultimate act of submission to the new position, became the most obvious point
of schism.
As early as the spring of 1913, R. E. McAlister offered the first
harmonizing attempt by equating the terms "Father, Son, and Holy
Spirit" and the terms "Lord, Jesus, Christ."11 In
this, McAlister evidently retained orthodox Trinitarianism, although his
influence on Ewart produced more heterodox results. Ewart expounded his early
"theology of the Name" in simple, common-sense arguments. First, the
singular word "name" in Matthew 28:19 anticipated the singular name "Jesus"
in Acts 2:38. Secondly, Ewart held that the apostles' practice of baptizing in
the name of Jesus should serve as a key for interpreting the intent of Jesus'
words in Matthew 28:19. Had Jesus intended that the titles "Father, Son,
and Holy Ghost" be used in the baptismal ceremony, Matthew 28:19 would
have to read "names" and the Acts of the Apostles would have recorded
baptisms using the triune formula.
Later Oneness thinkers developed this "theology of the
Name" as "the key that unlocked the door to the nature and the person
of God himself."12 These efforts usually began with lengthy
studies of the Old Testament names for God and always concluded that God's
primary revelatory mechanism has always been the divine name.13 To
know God's name meant to understand God. Oneness thinkers correctly recognized
that references to divine names (especially the Jehovahistic titles) in the
biblical acts of salvation history served as interpretive revelation. "It
was the purpose of God to make himself known to his people," Haywood
declared, but then clarified how this was to be done: "His name was to be
declared among the brethren."14 The biblical witness
progressively enriches human understanding of God through additional names, titles,
and descriptions. The "overplus" of "name revelation" in
the Old Testament pointed to the need for a single, easily understood
revelation of the divine name which would sum up the totality of God's
characteristics.15 The Old Testament itself carried a motif which
pointed beyond its limited revelation: the "secrecy of the divine
name."16 Haywood argued that the "secret name"
restructured the Old Testament eschatological hope around the ultimate
revelation of the divine name in the great age prior to the consummation. Obviously,
to Haywood, that age had arrived and the eschatological name was Jesus.17
In the last days, Jesus had been "rediscovered" as the Jehovah of the
Old Testament, the ultimate revelation of God in both person and name.
The "rediscovery" of Jesus as the Jehovah of the Old
Testament brought a great reaffirmation of Hebrew monotheism. References to the
Shema became the watchword of the New Issue. The "oneness" of God
became radicalized with the application of the Old Testament language to the
person of Jesus and resulted in the rejection of any position which failed to
appreciate the "absolute deity" of Jesus (e.g., Trinitarianism as
misunderstood by the Oneness believers). The God who revealed himself
throughout the Old Testament in multiplied theophanic manifestations was fully
and quantitatively incarnate in Jesus Christ.18
Resting on the "common sense" hermeneutic, the New Issue
attack on Trinitarianism failed to comprehend the language or purposes of the
early Trinitarian creeds. To Oneness thinkers, Trinitarianism meant only that
God was divided into three separate, distinct persons, each eternal in heaven,
with the second person, at a point in time leaving the other two in heaven, to
be incarnate in Jesus, born of Mary in Bethlehem.19 Three strata of
arguments were raised against this "straw man" definition. First, Trinitarianism
was Tritheism barely disguised. Haywood stated succinctly, "If the Father,
Son and Holy Spirit are separate Persons, Spirits, Personalities, we have on
our hands three separate Gods."20 Such a view was seen to "divide
the Deity" and "perpetuate Catholic dogma."21 Kenneth
Reeves, a later Oneness defender, defined Trinitarianism as "a merger of
Tritheism (belief in three Gods) with Monotheism (belief in one God), which is
neither Monotheism nor Tritheism in its purest form."22 Secondly,
Trinitarians based their doctrines on non-biblical terminology, such as
trinity, three persons in the Godhead, God the Father, God the Son, and God the
Holy Spirit.23 Lastly, Oneness writers alluded to religious and
moral problems among Trinitarians who rejected the Oneness doctrine, "who
gave only lip service to God," without true sincerity, who choose
"traditions over the Word of God."24 Any sincere Christian
who was open to the biblical message and the work of the Holy Spirit should
also be open to the Oneness doctrine.
Although Oneness thinkers denied a trinity of "three
separate, distinct persons," they recognized an obvious biblical
"threeness" concerning God.25 This "threeness"
was understood, not in terms of three ontological persons, but rather as three
historical manifestations—three modes of God's revelation rather than three
static divisions in God's person. Haywood stated
There is but one God and He has
been manifested in a three-fold manner. And this three-fold manifestation was
not intended to establish a three- person God idea, but instead, it was to
reveal to mankind that there was a true and living God who loved them with an
everlasting love.26
Ewart added, "God is one in essence but three in manifestations."27
When this notion of God's "threeness" was combined with
the radical "oneness" of God in Jesus Christ, the essence of the
Oneness conception of God emerged.
That there is but one Holy,
Eternal Spirit of God is clearly set forth in the Word of God. . . .The apostles
were in no wise divided over this matter, but all recognized that the Spirit of
the Father, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, and the Spirit of His Son were
different expressions of the one and self-same Spirit.28
This position consistently affirmed God's absolute unity and
explained all diversity in terms of function, variety of terminology, and
revelatory action.
The assertion of the "absolute deity" of Jesus led
Oneness leaders to depict Jesus as the quantitative incarnation of God's whole
being.29 Quoting two proof texts—Colossians 2:9,"For in him
dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily" and John 14:10 with Christ
speaking, "The Father who dwells in me does the work"—the New Issue
writers balanced their understanding of the radical "oneness" of God
in Christ and the Father-Son (divine-human) Christology.30
The Oneness preoccupation with the person of Christ drew a barrage
of accusations. Hostile Trinitarians labeled Oneness believers as "Jesus
only" and charged them with "denying the Father." This attack
encouraged Oneness writers to further clarify their definition of the
"Father, Son, and Holy Spirit" in terms of the Father-Son
Christology. Haywood stated
To acknowledge the Father and the
Son does not necessarily mean to believe in "three persons in the
Godhead." Those who are baptized in Jesus name acknowledge the Father and
Son in Christ Jesus. . . The Fatherhood of God is found only in the Son, who was
God manifest in the flesh. The only way a person can really "deny the
father" is to fail to acknowledge that Jesus is the true and only living God.31
The Father and the Holy Spirit came to be seen, not as separate
and distinct from the Son, but as expressions of the divine-human interplay
within the incarnate God, Jesus Christ. The Father was the eternal indivisible
Spirit which was in Christ.32 The Holy Spirit was that self-same
Spirit in Christ which flowed forth from him to create and sustain the church. Traditional
hypostatic distinctions between the divine persons were forgotten: "the
deity in Jesus Christ was that of the Father, not [the] hypostatically distinct
'eternal God the Son.'"33
The Father-Son Christology distinguished the Christological titles
"son of God" as divinity and "son of Man" as humanity. The
sonship of Christ was limited to his human existence, while the Fatherhood of
Christ meant only his divine nature.34 Some even equated the term
"Son" with "body."35 Oneness writers depicted
Christ's body as the habitation of God,36 the "visible portion
of his substance," "God's headquarters" while on earth,37
and "the meeting place for the God who is a Spirit and the souls of lost
men."38 Christ's humanity served as a vehicle, a tool, an
agency for the eternal Spirit which indwelled it. Succinctly, the man Christ
acted as the "Eternal Spirit's right hand man."39 Christ's
humanity was the "veil of flesh" assumed by the Mighty God. In the
flesh, he was the Son of man and the Son of God. As a man, he walked, wept,
prayed, suffered, and died. As God He raised himself from the dead and showed
forth in the radiance of eternal glory.40
Christ as the Father was the eternal God, but his sonship
"began when he was begotten [through Mary]."41 Oneness
theology offered no parallel for the Trinitarian eternal Son.
Oneness thinkers explained the pre-existence of Christ in terms of
God's foreknowledge: Christ eternally existed in the mind or plan of God as
"the lamb slain from the foundations of the world." Christ's temporal
sonship found real existence only when the eternal plan reached its fruition in
the incarnation.42 Ewart stated, "When it is claimed that
Jesus' sonship existed eternally in any other sense than in the predetermined
purpose of God, the claim is invalid from a Scriptural standpoint."43
As long as the implications of the Oneness reinterpretation of the
name and nature of God for the doctrine of salvation were not explicitly
discussed, the New Issue remained secondary and academic. But when these
doctrines were directly applied to the practical imperatives of Christian
salvation, open hostility and even schism followed. A cycle of criticism and
defense led to deepening sectarianism and admitted exclusivism among some
Oneness adherents. With finality, Urshan stated, "The sure foundation of
the 'New birth' or the birth of the Spirit is the accepting and believing in
the Lord Jesus as God [in context, the Oneness understanding of God].44
As in the beginning, Acts 2:38 reemerged as the crisis point of
the debate. For Oneness proponents, Acts 2:38 offered "the gospel in
miniature,"45 a three-step "plan of salvation"
involving (1) repentance, (2) water baptism administered in the name of Jesus
(evidently including acceptance of the Oneness understanding of God and his
name), and (3) the Holy Spirit baptism evidenced by glossolalia. This threefold
plan was portrayed as the final restoration of the true apostolic church in the
last days.46 The imperative of the Acts 2:38 plan demanded that
Oneness thinkers expound baptismal regeneration and redefine the purposes and
functions of Holy Spirit baptism.
These thinkers came to equate the imperatives of water and Spirit
baptism of Acts 2:38 with the New Birth of water and Spirit of John 3:3-5. Terms
such as "full salvation," "Bible salvation," and "New
Testament salvation" emerged as the New Issue writers sought to
differentiate the true essentials of Christian salvation from the lesser
standards held by most Christians. Haywood pointed out that "to be born of
'water and the Spirit' and 'believe and is baptized' (John 3:5 and Mark 16:16)
are proved to be synonymous terms."47 Again he stated
concerning Christ's command to be "born again of water and the
Spirit," "there is no record in the Acts of the Apostles that his instructions
were ever carried out, except by being baptized in water and the Holy
Ghost."48 In rebuttal, the Assemblies of God "Statement of
Fundamental Truths" presented the "New Birth" as the product of
repentance and a faith experience in Christ, with baptism functioning as an
"outward symbol of cleansing" and the Holy Spirit baptism as an
"enduement of power for life and service."49 To dismiss
any ambiguity, the statement adds, "This wonderful experience [Holy Spirit
baptism] is distinct from and subsequent to the experience of the New
Birth."50
The Oneness equating of conversion and the "full" Acts
2:38 experience rested upon the whole-hearted acceptance of popular commentator
Adam Clarke's exegesis of the New Birth passage. Clarke equated the terms
"birth" and "baptism"—therefore, to be "born of water
and the Spirit" means to be "baptized with water and the Spirit"
and Acts 2:38 and John 3:5 are equivalent sayings.51
Oneness Pentecostals, seeking to show the essentiality of water
baptism in the name of Jesus, made a mental leap from the command of baptism in
Acts 2 to the statements regarding the exclusion from God's kingdom of those
not "born of water" in John 3. A second leap necessarily followed:
the Holy Spirit baptism of Acts 2 was linked with the "birth of the
Spirit" of John 3, demanding the essentiality of the Pentecostal
experience for salvation. Going beyond the normal Pentecostal notion of the
subsequence of Spirit baptism to conversion, the Oneness believers held Spirit
baptism as the climactic moment of a single "work of grace" and
therefore necessary for "full salvation.52 Similarly, water
baptism correctly administered by immersion in "Jesus name" was also
a part of this single "work of grace." Haywood, commenting on
"baptism as a saving medium," argued that salvation did not simply
occur through the ceremonial act or any virtue in the water, but rather through
the application of Christ's blood and name through the act: "To be saved
by water baptism it must be administered in the Name of Jesus, for there is 'no
other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved.'"53
The Acts 2:38 "plan of
salvation," consistently applied, excludes all Christians except Oneness
Pentecostals from Christian salvation and fellowship. This sectarian position
excludes non-Pentecostals for lacking the baptism of the Holy Spirit and Trinitarian
Pentecostals for their failure to understand God and accept his name in
baptism. Some Oneness Pentecostals apparently embraced the extremity of this
position.
If you take away the absolute
DEITY and the incarnation of the DIVINE BEING (God, the Spirit) from the Lord
Jesus Christ, then you cause the Bible to crumble and our HOPE OF SALVATION to
perish.54
But others struggled for a more moderate position recognizing at
least a limited acceptance for Christians with lesser experiences. One such
struggle, best expressed in Haywood's writings and propagated by instructor S.
G. Norris at Apostolic Bible Institute, drew a distinction between those
Christians "born of the Spirit" and those "begotten by the
Word."
A child is first
"begotten" by the Word (I Cor. 4:15) of the Gospel before he can be
born of the Spirit. . . . No child can ever be born until it is first begotten,
but many were never born into the world. So it is with the Spirit . . . . There
are multitudes who are in this state today.55
Accordingly, Haywood differentiated two stages in the resurrection
of the dead following the dispensational division of the "secret
rapture" and the final, general resurrection. Those partaking in the Acts
2:38 experience would escape the "Great Tribulation" via the
"rapture;" whereas those "righteous men of all ages who walked
in all the light they were given" would participate in the general
resurrection.56 Haywood's final statement anticipated an even more
moderate assessment of the status of non-Oneness Christians: the "Light
Doctrine." This position argued that God required of men only that which
had been "revealed" to them. Repentance and faith were enough if the
"light" of water and Spirit baptism had not been understood.57
In summary, Oneness doctrine developed at a time of crisis in the
fledgling Assemblies of God and spawned a greater and more lasting controversy.
Despite Oneness claims, this novel position, although well documented, has
never displayed consistency and uniformity. Failing to grasp the functions and
implications of historical Trinitarianism, Oneness writers, driven by a desire
to exalt the person and name of Jesus, produced an alternate, somewhat
one-sided understanding of God. This effort, beginning as an intense Scriptural
search, ended in a sectarian claim of exclusivism.
Urshan likened the Oneness message to "a two-edged
sword" that "tests the faith of the believers" and "reveals
and separates the true from the false."58 Ewart summed up the
Oneness sectarian attitude in no uncertain terms.
It is extremely dangerous in these
last days, when apostasy abounds on every hand, to deny the necessity of the
name of the LORD JESUS CHRIST. A church, denomination, organization, or assembly
which refuses to take the name of the Lord-Jesus- Christ in Christian baptism
could never have a place in His Bride.59
It was this sectarian spirit that forced the exclusion of the New
Issue men from the Assemblies of God. Following three years of struggle with
developing doctrine, organizational tension, and leadership rivalry, the New
Issue crushed the spirit of liberality upon which the Assemblies had been
founded. The Assemblies of God officially formed a new organizational orthodoxy
and catapulted the New Issue ministers on the path toward formation of new
Oneness bodies.
__________________
1Oneness thinkers rejected the notion of Christ as the incarnation
of the eternal Son of the Trinity, choosing rather to affirm the "absolute
deity" of Christ as the quantitative embodiment of the entirety of the
Godhead.
2G. T.Haywood, Divine Names
and Titles of Jehovah, (Indianapolis: Christ Temple, n.d.), p. 18.
3Better informed contemporary Oneness scholars do not resort to
such non-historical assertions. Compare David K. Bernard, The Oneness of God (Hazelwood, Mo.: Word Aflame Press, 1983) and William
B. Chalfant, Ancient Champions of
Oneness: A History of the True Church of Jesus Christ (Hazelwood, Mo.: Word
Aflame Press, 1979).
4Frank J.Ewart, The
Revelation of Jesus Christ (St. Louis: Pentecostal Publishing House, 1965),
pp. 26-27. See also S. C. McClain, Student's
Handbook on the Facts of Church History (St. Louis: Pentecostal Publishing
House, n.d.).
5Carl Brumback, Suddenly from
Heaven (Springfield, Mo.: Gospel Publishing House, 1961), p. 203.
6Ibid., p. 202.
7G. T. Haywood, The Victim of the Flaming Sword (Indianapolis:
Christ Temple, n.d.), pp. 46-48.
8Andrew D. Urshan, The Life
of Andrew Bar David Urshan: An Autobiography (Stockton, Ca.: Apostolic
Press, 1967), p. 137.
9Ewart, The Revelation,
p. 15.
10Ibid., p. 10.
11Compare McAlister's view with that of William Phillips Hall, Remarkable Biblical Discovery Of "The
Name" of God According to the Scriptures, 3rd ed., (New York: American
Tract Society, 1931).
12David A. Reed, "Origins and Developments of the Theology of Oneness
Pentecostalism in the United States" (Ph.D. dissertation, Boston
University, 1978), p. 150.
13See Haywood, Divine Names,
Ewart, The Revelation, Andrew D.
Urshan, The Almighty God in the Lord
Jesus Christ (Portland, Ore.: Apostolic Book Corner, 1919).
14Haywood, Divine Names,
pp. 6-8.
15Ibid., p. 9.
16Ibid., p. 10. Here Haywood lists five Old Testament instances of
the "withholding" of the divine name: Jacob wrestling with the angel
and his desire to know God's secret name, the annunciation of Samuel's birth
and Manoah's desire to know the secret name, God's insufficient reply to Moses'
request to know his name ("I am that I am"), Isaiah's insufficient
titles for the Messianic king (Isaiah 9:6), and the mysterious "Angel of
the Lord" in whom God's name dwells (Exodus 23:21).
17Ibid., p. 11.
18Ibid., p. 3.
19Ewart, The Revelation,
p. 26.
20Haywood, The Victim, p.
58.
21Ewart, The Revelation,
p. 7.
22Kenneth V. Reeves, The
Godhead (Granite City, Ill.: By the Author, 1971), p. 6.
23This attack diminishes amidst the similar non- biblical language
of Oneness believers: "manifestations," "tri-unity,"
"three-in-one," "three-one God." Ewart calls on all in the
debate to "dismiss unscriptural words" and "use 'tri-unity'
instead of 'trinity,' 'substance' instead of 'person,' and 'entities' instead
of 'persons'" (See Ewart, The
Revelation, p. 25). The fact that Ewart fails to perceive the contradiction
of his proposals captures much of the quality of the New Issue debate.
24Haywood, The Victim, p.
55.
25Ewart, The Revelation,
p. 14.
26Haywood, The Victim, p.
12.
27Ewart, The Revelation,
p. 18.
28Haywood, Divine Names,
p. 12.
29Several Oneness thinkers realized the impact that this teaching
might have on the doctrine of God's transcendence (e.g., Haywood, The Victim, p. 16; Paul Fergeson, God In Christ Jesus, (Elgin, Ill.: Real
Truth Publications, 1963), p. 21; and Melvin R. Springfield, Jesus—The Almighty (Portland, Ore.: By
the Author, 1972), pp. 24-25). But these all perceive the problem in purely spatial
terms and therefore offer no real solutions.
30Note Haywood's reinterpretation of the event of incarnation as the
depositing of the divine name within the womb of Mary. Thus, the supreme
function of Christ was as bearer of the divine name, the ultimate act of
revelation. See Haywood, Divine Names,
pp. 10-11.
31Haywood, The Victim, pp.
51-54.
32Later Oneness thinkers sometimes revised this definition of the
Father to avoid any denial of divine transcendence. Fergeson, God In Christ Jesus, p. 21 states that
"The Father was the divinity which was not incarnate in contrast to the
visible image which was." Reeves, The
Godhead, p. 5 argues that "The omnipresence of the Son is the
Father." But this retreat from the "absolute deity" of Christ undermines
the appeal to John 14:10 and the Father- Son Christology and therefore limits
rather than aids the Oneness presentation.
33Reed, "Origins and Developments," pp. 163-64.
34A clear Nestorian tendency permeates this Christology.
35S. G. Norris, The Mighty God
in Christ (St. Paul: Apostolic Bible Institute, n.d.), p. 20.
36Oliver F. Fauss, Buy the
Truth and Sell It Not (St. Louis: Pentecostal Publishing House, 1965), p.
23.
37Fergeson, God In Christ
Jesus, p. 17.
38Fauss, Buy the Truth, p.
31.
39Haywood, The Victim, p.
45.
40Ibid., p. 48.
41Fauss, Buy the Truth, p.
41.
42Haywood, The Victim, p.
44.
43Ewart, The Revelation,
p. 34.
44Urshan, The Almighty God,
p. 22.
45Reed, "Origins and Developments," p. 167.
46Fauss, Buy the Truth, p.
6.
47G. T. Haywood, The Birth of
the Spirit and the Mystery of the Godhead, (Indianapolis: Christ Temple,
n.d.), p. 5.
48Ibid., p. 4.
49Assemblies of God, Minutes of the General Council, 1916, pp.
10-11. (Typewritten.)
50Ibid., p. 11.
51Adam Clarke, The Holy Bible:
A Commentary, Vol. V (Matthew to Romans) (New York: Funk and Wagnall's,
n.d.). (This work is not paginated.)
52The term "full salvation" differentiates the full Acts
2:38 experience from lesser, and therefore inferior and insufficient, experiences.
53Haywood, The Birth of the
Spirit, p. 24.
54Norris, The Mighty God in
Christ, p. 26.
55Haywood, The Birth of the
Spirit, pp. 10-11.
56Ibid., p. 12.
57Fred J. Foster, Their Story:
Twentieth Century Pentecostals (Hazelwood, Mo.: Word Aflame Press, 1981),
pp. 143-144.
58Urshan, The Almighty God,
p. 21.
59Ewart, The Revelation,
p. 42.
Radical "holiness" three-step oneness pentecostalism definitely seemed a "line upon line" progression to its present incarnation. What have you researched on the "uncut women's hair or hell" position in the early 20th century, let's say 1920s-1950s? I haven't researched it deeply, but I'm going to presume that this sprang from societal mores regarding the "flapper" of the 1920s, but I don't think this was fully articulated into a "heaven or hell" issue until Murray Burr's mid-1950s "No Bobbed Hair in the Bride" article in the Pentecostal Herald. Oscar Vouga and LH Hardwick stated that the article "was not worth the paper it was written on." My impression is their sentiment was not an organizational carryover--a PCI-PAJC conflict, but ministers across PAJC/PCI lines in the infant UPC looked askance at Burr's position. Of course, many were all too happy to accept it. Rather odd to include a "holiness" issue with a study of salvation, but the radical "three steppers" have made it a salvation issue, thus it becomes soteriological.
ReplyDeleteHair and three-step salvation doctrine are intertwined. Just as HR Haldeman claimed that "without Vietnam, there would be no Watergate," without three-step doctrine, there would be no uncut-hair-or-hell.