Young Christians within the Holiness movement have a hard time understanding this second work. We are brought up to believe that Sanctification is instantaneous. I know that here are those that God instantaneously sanctifies, but I also believe that the majority of people may be moving towards this complete surrender and Holy Spirit infilling for quite some time. Wesley Duewel states in his book, God’s Great Salvation,
A born again Christian may feel the Holy Spirit’s conviction of need for inner cleansing and may come repeatedly and partially respond on various occasions before the time comes when his consecration and surrender becomes total, or before he actually by faith claims full cleansing through the infilling of the Holy Spirit.” (p. 190)
Duewel goes on to say that, “this is particularly true when the person has not had clear teaching on the experience of entire sanctification through the infilling of the Holy Spirit.” (p. 190) Without good teaching on the topic of sanctification young men and women will continue to beat themselves up because they can not attain the level of the saints that they grew up emulating. If someone thinks that they are not worthy of something that God has clearly promised in his word, what is next? I imagine that this might cause our young men and women to flee the movement and possibly the faith.
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"may come repeatedly and partially respond on various occasions before the time comes when his consecration and surrender becomes total"
Hmmn, but what if our presentation of the gospel contained within it the idea that we are to surrender ourselves to God from day one, instead of just the truncated "fire insurance" gospel we usually preach? ("Come to Jesus for forgiveness and justification. Some time later, we'll tell you that holiness is actually important, and then you can surrender yourself to God at that time, and we'll call it a second work.")
I posted on this here:
http://www.xanga.com/yuckabuck/467710912/item.html
Hi Thad!
Sorry for not responding to your email yet. I was going through a rough time, and I wasn't ready to tell anybody how I was really doing. If it makes you feel better, I also blew off Brian Paul as well as my best friend back home at the same time, so it was nothing personal.
However, you've stumbled on the key to calling me out. If you email, I may or may not respond. But if you blog, I won't be able to keep myself from replying! It's automatic.
The address I posted above is from my old blog. I'm on blogspot now, but I haven't posted in a very long time.
http://yuckabuck.blogspot.com/
I'm frequently found commenting on the blog of Asbury Seminary New Testament professor Dr. Ben Witherington, found here:
http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/
God bless you!
Chuck
Chuck first of all it is good to hear from you. I see that you have not changed a bit. I read through your blog and it took me back to CBC.
Secondly, You are right we need to push for complete surrender at conversion. In fact I think we need to explain this to the new convert ASAP. This is partially the point of my blog. I do not think that the truth is being taught correctly. When ever I have the chance to talk to a non-believer about salvation I make sure I stress that God desires us to be holy as He is Holy. This is part of the agreement we make with God at conversion.
Some people are ready sooner than others to make the leap to complete surrender. When a person is ready they are filled with the Holy Spirit and their desire to sin is now trumped by their love for God. This is sanctification, the very point when the scales are tipped.
Finally, I struggled with this idea for years, and I had all but given up. Although I had been raised within the movement I didn’t buy into the idea that God would take away my desire to sin. This past summer I went to The Salvation Army Southern Bible Conference in North Carolina. I listened to a woman give her testimony. Through that testimony God moved in a way that I had never experienced before. I could feel the weight of my inner sin. I couldn’t stay in the meeting. I walked out and went back to my room. I knelt down and begged God to completely fill me with His Spirit. God answered me that evening. As I stood up I knew that my quest for holiness had ended. God had purified me. My scales had finally tipped.
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