Early Pentecostals are not exactly famed for their significant reflections on either ecclesiology or theosis (or even for much depth of Trinitarian theology, for that matter). Certainly, the early Pentecostals are interesting in terms of their history, spiritual experience, sociological factors, and perhaps even their Pneumatological thought, but surely ecclesiology and theosis are a bit of a stretch? Well, perhaps not. Although they may not be famed for such insights, this book sets out to argue that perhaps they (or, at least some of them) should be.
Defining Theosis
Seeing the words Pentecostal and theosis put together may provoke an incredulous reaction. Yes, at a stretch, we might be able to envisage early Pentecostals having something to say about ecclesiology (after all, contemporary Pentecostal theologians have begun to explore that particular doctrinal locus),1 but theosis seems far too exotic, far too sophisticated, and far too eastern.
Andrew Louth highlights this eastern nature of theosis, arguing that it ‘ceased to have a central role in Western theology from about the twelfth century’ (and thus long before the Protestant Reformation) and ‘is no longer part of the pattern of either contemporary Catholic or Protestant theology; Western attempts to understand it have consequently assimilated it to an alien framework, and not surprisingly, it fits very awkwardly’.2 Likewise, Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov echo the common perception that:
The Eastern Orthodox Church has retained theosis as a concept for theological reflection, while the Western churches – separated by time, language, and philosophy from the Greek thinkers of the early church – have dropped it … The near disappearance in Western Christianity of an idea that was widely accepted for over a thousand years … is a serious loss for Christian thought and hope.3
Yet, as recent studies have demonstrated, theosis is not quite so eastern a doctrine as many have assumed. Mark McInroy has recently summarised the current state of research: ‘deification [theosis] only came to be perceived as a dividing line between Eastern and Western Christianity in the late nineteenth century’, with the roots of this ‘dividing line’ being traceable, not to Eastern theologians, but to ‘German Liberal Protestant history of doctrine’.4 So unknown was this construct of western liberal Protestantism in the East that, until the 1960s Norman Russell tells us, ‘if you had asked the average Orthodox Christian … what theosis meant, you would probably have been met with a puzzled look. The word hardly featured in the standard theological handbooks. It was a technical term familiar only to monks and patristic scholars’.5
Contrary to the claims of those who would seek to preserve theosis as the exclusive domain of Eastern Orthodoxy, Daniel Keating has demonstrated that any such attempt excludes not only Western theologies of theosis, but also the very church fathers who developed the doctrine of theosis on which the Eastern Orthodox teaching now rests: ‘Given, though, that the Eastern Orthodox tradition firmly anchors its account of deification [theosis] in the Greek Fathers, if the majority of the Greek Fathers themselves do not measure up to [such a] definition of a comprehensive doctrine, the branch would seem to be cut off from its tree’.6
Keating sets forward a proposal for identifying theologies of theosis which would avoid treating Western accounts of theosis ‘as mere step-children to the rightful Eastern heirs’.7 First, any Christian account of theosis must be
the honored status that God intended for us as his sons and daughters, a status forfeited in Adam and attained in Christ, the New Adam. Through our real incorporation into Christ we experience the fruits of divine life in a way suited to our nature, and we share in the Trinitarian fellowship of love.12
Upon such a basis, the possibility of a Pentecostal theology of theosis cannot be ruled out, even if it remains unexpected.13 And yet, it is perhaps within British Pentecostalism that this should be least unexpected, for as A.M. Allchin has
Evangelical Protestant Theosis?
Yet, theosis is not only often viewed as the exclusive prerogative of Eastern theology, but also as a doctrine incompatible with evangelical Protestant accounts of justification and the atonement. Theosis is often presented as if it were a polar alternative to forensic accounts of salvation.15 Yet, if a theology of
Pentecostalism—and British Pentecostalism in particular—holds dearly to the Reformation Protestant accounts of justification by grace alone through faith alone and to a penal substitutionary understanding of Christ’s atoning death.16 Yet, the same Pentecostals who could gladly sing:
The God of Heav’n provides,
An offering in my place,
For in the thicket God’s Lamb stands,
In agony and grace.
There righteousness for us,
And wrath now turned away,
For Jesus paid our debt in full, On Calvary that day.17
Could also rejoice to sing of theosis:
With Father, Spirit, Son,
I will be joined in one,
And fullness of delight enjoy,
There shining like the sun.18
They could even begin a song by singing of ‘the infinite merit of the Propitiation’ and end it by declaring that ‘to be divine like You is my highest end’.19 Or they could combine both forensic themes and theosis in the very same verse:
Infinite, the depths of Christ’s merit
For us rendered up unto God;
Unnumbered, the hosts who sing praises
For unending power of the Blood:
By Calv’ry, God justifies justly,
For there His wrath was satisfied,
And we are filled up with His fullness,
Which our Triune God does provide.20
While they could pray in the idiom of the conservative evangelicals which they were:
We thank you, O Lord, for the glory and joy of the Gospel and for the sacrifice of the Heavenly Lamb at Calvary that purchased and presented such a great salvation. Lead the hearts of many this day to accept Christ as Saviour and to follow Him forever: for His dear Name’s sake. Amen.21
O Thou who art the God of all hope, help us to hope in Thee and not in ourselves. Let us not look for salvation to anything we are or have, but trust alone in Thy grace and power. So shall our hope be strong and wear at last the crown of fulfilment. Through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.22
Lord Jesus Christ, Who by Thy Cross and precious blood hast redeemed us, help us like Thine Apostle to glory in Thy Cross so that we may come at last to Glory through Thy Cross: For Thy mercy’s sake. Amen.23
They could also pray in another idiom, that of theosis:
Our Father, O Holy God, work Your nature in our nature so that we will be steadfast in Your nature, because You share with us Your perfections and we partake of Your divine nature and are one with You to all eternity. We ask You through grace to set this life and faith in the depths of our nature for the sake of Your Holy Name. Amen.24
As can be seen here in these examples of their prayer and praise, and as we shall investigate further later in the book, for these early British Pentecostals, theosis was seen as entirely compatible with a Reformation understanding of sin and salvation, including penal substitution and forensic justification.
Yet, although perhaps surprising in the context of common contemporary assumptions regarding theosis, such a combination of a concept of theosis with a strong emphasis on a penal substitutionary doctrine of the atonement and justification by grace alone through faith alone is not without precedent. S.T. Kimbrough’s recent study of participation in the divine nature in the writings of Charles Wesley has demonstrated that this 18th Century British clergyman and key figure in the evangelical revival had an important place within his theology for theosis. ‘Participation is not just another theological dimension’ for Charles Wesley, but rather ‘a dominant dimension … from which the other aspects of his theology flow’.25 Yet, the same Wesley brother strongly preached penal substitution and wrote hymns about justification by faith alone.26
In the same period as Wesley, yet coming from the same county where the Apostolic Church and D.P. Williams would later be born (and sharing D.P. Williams’ native language), William Williams, Pantycelyn could boldly and clearly preach the Reformation doctrine of justification through the imputation of Christ’s righteousness,27 while teaching people all over Wales to sing of theosis.28 Thus, the British Apostolics at the beginning of the 20th century were certainly not the first in the history of the church to combine theosis with the Evangelical Protestant doctrines of penal substitution and the imputation of Christ’s righteousness.
Not Just for Pentecostals
This is a work of retrieval or ressourcement for Pentecostal theology, but not only for Pentecostal theology.29 While some of the themes we will examine may be particularly Pentecostal (such as the baptism of the Holy Spirit), others are held in common with other ecclesial traditions. Therefore, this Pentecostal ressourcement can speak, not only to the wider evangelical world, but also to all those who seek to recover an authentically Protestant theology of theosis or an ecclesiology of the church’s participation in Christ as the Totus Christus.
Furthermore, as Pentecostals and Evangelicals encounter and enter into theological discussion with other ecclesial traditions, topics such as the sacrament
E.g. Simon Chan, Pentecostal Ecclesiology: An Essay on the Development of Doctrine (Blandford Forum: Deo, 2011); idem, ‘Mother Church: Toward a Pentecostal Ecclesiology’, Pneuma 22.2 (2000), 177–208; John Christopher Thomas, ed., Toward a Pentecostal Ecclesiology: The Church and the Fivefold Gospel (Cleveland, TN: CPT Press, 2010); Frank D. Macchia, Baptized in the Spirit: A Global Pentecostal Theology (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 155–256; Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, Toward a Pneumatological Theology: Pentecostal and Ecumenical Perspectives on Ecclesiology, Soteriology, and Theology of Mission (Lanham: University Press of America, 2002).
Andrew Louth, ‘The Place of Theosis in Orthodox Theology’, in Michael J. Christensen & Jeffrey A. Wittung, ed., Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2007), 33.
Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov, ‘Introduction’, in Stephen Finlan and Vladimir Kharlamov, ed., Theosis: Deification in Christian Theology (Eugene, OR: Pickwick Publications, 2006), 8.
Mark McInroy, ‘Before Deification Became Eastern: Newman’s Ecumenical Retrieval’, International Journal of Systematic Theology, 20.2 (April, 2018), 258.
Norman Russell, Fellow Workers with God: Orthodox Thinking on Theosis (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 2009), 13.
Daniel A. Keating, ‘Typologies of Deification’, International Journal of Systematic Theology, 17.3 (July, 2015), 275. For Keating’s argument see the whole article.
Ibid., 279.
Ibid., 281.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid., 282.
Daniel A. Keating, Deification and Grace (Naples, FL: Sapientia Press, 2007), 116.
The present work deliberately does not interact with Edmund J. Rybarczyk, Beyond Salvation: Eastern Orthodoxy and Classical Pentecostalism on Becoming Like Christ (Milton Keynes: Paternoster, 2004), as Rybarczyk’s monograph focuses on comparing the contemporary Eastern Orthodox developed understanding of theosis with the American Assemblies of God understanding of sanctification. Although this work looks at the theme of theosis, it is not considering contemporary post-Palamite Eastern Orthodoxy, the American Assemblies of God, or the doctrine of sanctification. The approach to theosis in the present work will be in the context of ecclesiology rather than soteriology, and therefore will not fully develop all that the early Apostolics had to say about theosis in terms of sanctification (just as Rybarczyk notes that he has ‘not delineated or critiqued either tradition’s ecclesiology’ [p.353]).
A distinction should also be made between eastern Patristic thought and the developed Orthodox tradition. Thus, in the present work, Eastern Fathers will be drawn on as Fathers of the undivided church, not as examples of contemporary Eastern Orthodoxy (for their teaching is not the same).
Furthermore, although the American Assemblies of God may share a non-Wesleyan basis with British Pentecostals, it is not identical to British Pentecostalism. For example, Rybarczyk notes that (American Assemblies of God) Pentecostals do not believe in the Augustinian/Reformation doctrine of total depravity (p.234), whereas all three British Pentecostal denominations explicitly do. Therefore, any understanding of theosis would have to differ between the American Assemblies of God, and the British Pentecostal denominations. Thus, although both Rybarczyk’s monograph and the present work consider issues related to both Pentecostals and theosis, the two are not treating the same thing.
For British Pentecostal affirmations of total depravity see, e.g.: Apostolic Church: Tenet 2; Elim: George Jeffreys, The Miraculous Foursquare Gospel: Doctrinal, (London: Elim, 1929), 71; Assemblies of God [Great Britain and Ireland]: Redemption Tidings, 8.2, p.3; 8.5, p.7; 8.9, p.4; 8.11, p.13; 14.7, p.7.
A.M. Allchin, Participation in God: A Forgotten Strand in Anglican Tradition (Wilton, Connecticut: Morehouse-Barlow, 1988); McInroy, ‘Before Deification Became Eastern’.
McInroy, ‘Before Deification Became Eastern’, 254; ‘Regardless of whether the respective doctrines are vilified or celebrated, Ritschl, Harnack, Lot-Borodine and Lossky all cast deification and justification as mutually exclusive theological options’. Ibid., 267; Jordan Cooper, Christification: A Lutheran Approach to Theosis (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock, 2014), x; Veli-Matti Kärkkäinen, One with God: Salvation as Deification and Justification (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2004), 5–6. Cf. Olivier Clément, The Roots of Christian Mysticism: Texts from the Patristic Era with Commentary (Hyde Park, NY: New City Press, 2nd ed., 1995, 2017), 44–45; Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church (ET Cambridge: James Clarke & Co, 1957), 151–154; Panayiotis Nellas, Deification in Christ: Orthodox Perspectives on the Nature of the Human Person (ET Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir’s Seminary Press, 1987), 111–113; Scot McNight, A Community Called Atonement (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007), 101–104; Daniel B. Clendenin, ‘Partakers of Divinity: The Orthodox Doctrine of Theosis’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society, 37.3 (Sept. 1994), 367–368.
‘Christ as our Substitute, by His Atonement, [made] full reparation and satisfaction to God the Father for the sin of mankind’. Catechism upon the Tenets of the Apostolic Church, 3.iii.16. ‘The sins of mankind [were] imputed to the Christ, as the Divine Sacrifice and Substitute for us’. Ibid., 3.iii.24. ‘He died for, or in the place of, mankind’. Holwyddoreg (Welsh Apostolic Catechism), viii.1. Cf. ‘A Simple Catechism for Children on the Primary Truths of Salvation’, RoG, vii.5 (May 1932). The other two original Pentecostal movements in the UK (Elim and AoG) share these beliefs with the Apostolic Church. The Elim Pentecostal Church Foundational Truths confesses faith in Christ’s ‘substitutionary and atoning sacrifice through His blood shed’ and that ‘the sinner is pardoned and accepted as righteous in God’s sight. This justification is imputed by the grace of God because of the atoning work of Christ [and] is received by faith alone’. The UK Assemblies of God Statement of Faith confesses belief in the ‘Substitutionary Atoning Death … of the Lord Jesus Christ’ and ‘salvation through faith in Christ, who, according to the Scriptures, died for our sins, was buried and was raised from the dead on the third day, and that through His Blood we have Redemption’. For penal substitutionary atonement in the thought of George Jeffreys (founder of the Elim Pentecostal Church), see William K. Kay, George Jeffreys: Pentecostal Apostle and Revivalist (Cleveland: CPT, 2017), 223–224. Not only is Penal Substitution the official doctrine of British Pentecostal denominations, but Ben Pugh in his doctoral dissertation has shown that it was the theological understanding of the Atonement held by early British Pentecostal writers (even before the emergence of the denominations). Ben Pugh, ‘Power in the Blood: The Significance of the Blood of Jesus to the Spirituality of Early British Pentecostalism and its Precursors’ (PhD dissertation, Regents Theological College/University of Bangor, 2009), 9n3. Furthermore, Kimberly Alexander has demonstrated that it was also the theological understanding of the atonement among early American Pentecostals, of both Wesleyan-Holiness and non-Wesleyan (i.e. Finished Work) backgrounds. Alexander demonstrates that Penal Substitution was an essential aspect of the Finished Word understanding, and so dominated Finished Work Pentecostalism. Yet, although she points to Christus Victor motifs in Wesleyan-Holiness Pentecostalism, this was in combination with, and not instead of, a doctrine of penal substitution. Kimberley Ervin Alexander, Pentecostal Healing: Models in Theology and Practice (Blandford Forum: Deo, 2006), 210–211, 200.
D.P. Williams, ‘Ar Ben Morïa Draw’, MDd 4, verses 3–4. All translations from the Welsh are my own.
D.P. Williams, ‘Mae’m Golwg ar y Wlad’, MDd 19, verse 1.
D.P. Williams, ‘Yn Haeddiant Iawn Anfeidrol’, MDd 205 & Odlau Hiraeth a Bywyd, 57, verse 3.
D.P. Williams, ‘Anfeidrol ei ddyfnder yw’r haeddiant’, MDd 394, verse 1. The place of being filled with the divine fullness in the theology of theosis found in Williams and the early Apostolics will become evident as this book progresses.
W.A.C. Rowe, Skyway to the Heart: Being Radio Addresses on the Highway of Gospel Fundamentals (Bradford: Puritan Press, n.d.), 28.
Ian Macpherson, On the Wings of the Wind: Broadcast Addresses (Bradford: Puritan Press, 1958), 74.
Ibid., 17.
D.P. Williams, ‘Gweddi’ (Welsh Prayer), Cyfarfod y Diaconiaid Cyffredinol, Abertawe, 31st January, 1922. Transactions of the Apostolic Church for the Year 1922, 14a.
S.T. Kimbrough, Jr, Partakers of the Life Divine: Participation in the Divine Nature in the Writings of Charles Wesley (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2016), 147.
Charles Wesley, Sermon 7, in K.C. Newport, ed., The Sermons of Charles Wesley (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 197; idem, “Tis Finished! The Messiah Dies’, Redemption Hymnal, (Bradford: Apostolic Church/Puritan Press, 1951), 167; idem, ‘Let Us Plead for Faith Alone’.
William Williams, ‘Pregeth 1’ in N. Cynhafal Jones, ed., Gweithiau Williams Pant-y-celyn, Vol. 2 (Newport, 1891), 655–658. For English translations of some excerpts of this sermon, see Eifion Evans, Bread of Heaven: The Life and Work of William Williams, Pantycelyn (Bridgend: Bryntirion, 2010), 64–65.
See, e.g., William Williams, Pantycelyn, ‘Os yw tegwch’, Hymn CCCCXX, Ffarwel Weledig, Groesaw Anweledig Bethau, in Jones, ed., Gweithiau Williams Pant-y-celyn, 2:198.
Buschart and Eilers characterise retrieval as ‘a mode or style of theological discernment that looks back in order to move forward … a particular way of carrying out theological work … in which resources from the past are found distinctly advantageous for the present situation’. W. David Buschart and Kent D. Eilers, Theology as Retrieval: Receiving the Past, Renewing the Church (Downers Grove: IVP, 2015), 12. Note also the way in which Katherine Sonderegger has described the key elements of the form of ressourcement carried out by John Webster (on the Protestant side) and the Communio school (on the Roman Catholic side), all three of which are particularly appropriate to a Pentecostal theology of retrieval: ‘the dignity and priority of Holy Scripture; the respect accorded to the Church’s tradition, variously conceived; and the intellectual love that joins theology to worship’. Katherine Sonderegger, ‘The God-Intoxicated Theology of a Modern Theologian’, International Journal of Systematic Theology 21.1 (January 2019), 27.