“The Possibilities of Grace”

In chapter two of Quanstrom’s book A Century of Holiness Theology he says that in order to be a member of the Church of the Nazarene one must assent to certain doctrines. These doctrines include belief in God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, especially the deity of Jesus Christ and the personality of the Holy Spirit. The creedal statement says, “We believe that human beings are born in sin; that they need the work of forgiveness through Christ and the new birth by the Holy Spirit; that subsequent to this there is the deeper work of heart cleansing or entire sanctification through the infilling of the Holy Spirit, and that to each of these works of grace the Holy Spirit gives witness. We believe that our Lord will return, the dead shall be raised, and that all shall come to final judgment with its rewards and punishments.” Those being admitted to membership must agree with these things as well as knowing Jesus Christ as their personal savior, and committing themselves to the church. Early Nazarenes understood entire sanctification as “that act of God, subsequent to justification, by which regenerate believers are made free from inbred sin, and brought into the state of entire devotement to God, and the holy obedience of love made perfect.” J.A. Wood believed that if there was a revival of personal holiness it would greatly affect the world. “He believed that it would do nothing less than usher in the millennial kingdom.” Wood’s primary thesis was that “purity and maturity were not synonymous….Wood’s book was written solely to distinguish between purity, which was the immediate gift of God’s sanctifying grace, and maturity, which was growth in grace subsequent to entire sanctification.” Wood firmly believed that one could not “grow into holiness.” He believed that purity and holiness represented completeness or wholeness and that they were imparted instantaneously. However, he did believe that a person would grow towards maturity. Wood wrote, “We understand simple purity, as not a high state of grace, when compared with the privileges and possibilities in the divine life. Purity is only the base, the substratum of a grand Christian life, and the present duty and privilege of all Christians.” Wood did actually believe that one could grow in grace, but he believed that this happened best after “the soul had been sanctified.” Quanstrom writes that the “biblical paradigm for the Holiness Movement’s understanding of entire sanctification at the end of the 19th century was Pentecost….Among Holiness people, Pentecost was not understood as a singular event that was to be a part of every believer’s salvation experience.” Early Nazarenes interpreted Pentecost as an act of entire sanctification. The primary conditions for entire sanctification were faith and consecration. A.M. Hills believed that of people were baptized by the Holy Ghost they could “take the world for Christ in ten years.” Asbury Lowrey believed that entire sanctification was necessary for all believers, and that “it really wasn’t enough that persons were regenerated. If they were not entirely sanctified, they were in grave danger of condemnation.” Lowrey was one of the declarers of “holiness or hell.” Quanstrom says that Lowrey’s particular contribution in this, however, was his detailed descriptions of the goodness of the entirely sanctified state of being. Quanstrom says that he used descriptions for entire sanctification that others had only used for glorification. “According to Lowrey, entire sanctification restored the image of God to fallen man.” Lowrey believed that through entire sanctification “believers became as holy as God was holy.” Quanstrom also says that Lowrey interestingly believed that those who had been entirely sanctified would almost be unable to sin because they would be filled with a continual “repugnance” for sin. The holiness writers at the turn of the century believed that entire sanctification would truly bring about heaven on earth – that everything would soon be made right again, and Christ would return. Diseases would be eradicated, war would end, and even ill-tempers would be done away with.