Finitum Capax Infiniti A Pentecostal Distinctive

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Pneuma VOLUME 29 NUMBER 2

Pneuma

EDITORIAL

Frank D. Macchia

Finitum Capax Inﬁniti: A Pentecostal

Distinctive? ………………………………………………………………………….. 185

Pneuma

ARTICLES

Andrea Hollingsworth

Spirit and Voice: Toward a Feminist

Pentecostal Pneumatology……………………………………………………………. 189 Ralph Del Colle

Mary, the Unwelcome (?) Guest in Catholic/Pentecostal Dialogue ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 214 D. William Faupel

Theological Inﬂuences on the Teachings and Practices of John Alexander Dowie ……………………………………………………………….. 226 Michael Kuykendall

A. S. Worrell’s New Testament: A Landmark

Baptist-Pentecostal Bible Translation from the Early Twentieth Century ………………………………………………………………………. 254 Michael D. Wilson

Contending For Tongues: W. W. Simpson’s Pentecostal Experience in Northwest China ……………………………………………… 281

The Pentecostal Theology

The Journal of the

Society for Pentecostal Theology

DIALOGUE

Jerry Camery-Hoggatt

On the Humanity of What We Do ………………………………………….. 299 PNEUMA BOOK AWARD …………………………………… 309 BOOK REVIEWS ………………………………………………………………………….. 311 LETTER TO THE EDITOR ……………………………………………………………. 365 CONTRIBUTOR’S LIST ……………………………………………………………….. 367

The Society for Pentecostal Theology was founded in 1970 as an international organization of scholars working within the Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions. Since that time, the society has held an annual meeting in an attempt to communicate and stimulate research on the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements. In the Spring of 1979 the Society published the inaugural issue of Pentecostal Theology.

29

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2 2007

BRILL

ISSN print 0272-0965 ISSN online 1570-0747

BRILL

Cover design by Graciela Galup

VOLUME 29 NUMBER 2

2007

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Pneuma

The Pentecostal Theology

Aims & Scope

Pneuma is the Pentecostal Theology (SPS). Since its founding in 1970, the SPS has become an international society of scholars interested in Pentecostal and Charismatic studies. Though many of the more than 600 members of the Society belong to one of the Pentecostal or Charismatic churches, a number of others are involved in the Society’s annual meetings from other churches or merely from university settings. In 1979, Pneuma ﬁrst appeared as the Journal of the SPS. The Journal became a major medium for the interna- tional discussion of scholarly issues related to Pentecostal and Charismatic studies. Articles have appeared over the years on matters related to the special interest groups of the SPS, namely, biblical studies, history, theology, missions, praxis, ecumenism, and religion and culture. The Journal has cherished an ecumenical and an inter- national vision as well.

The staff at Pneuma trust that the Journal will bring the scholarship of the SPS and beyond to the broader awareness of the academy and the churches for the mutual beneﬁt of both.

Editor

Frank D. Macchia, Vanguard University of Southern California

Managing Editor

Ed Rybarczyk, Vanguard University of Southern California

Book Review Editor Amos Yong, Regent University

Book Review Editorial Assistant Pidge Bannin, Regent University

Copy Editor Nancy de Flon

Associate Editors

Edith L. Blumhofer, Wheaton College; Donald W. Dayton, Independent Scholar; Sherry Sherrod Dupree, Santa Fe Community College; Hannah K. Harrington, Patten College; Jeff Hittenberger, Evangel University; Cheryl Bridges Johns, Church of God School of Theology; Steven J. Land, Church of God School of Theology, Henry I. Lederle, Oral Roberts University; Leonard Lovett, Independent Scholar; Gary B. McGee, Assemblies of God Theological Seminary; Doug Petersen, Vanguard University of Southern California; Margaret M. Poloma, University of Akron, and Vanguard University of Southern California; Cecil M. Robeck Jr., Fuller Theological Seminary; James K. Smith, Calvin College; Russell P. Spittler, Vanguard University of Southern California; Roger Stronstad, Western Pentecostal Bible College; H. Vinson Synan, Regent University; Eldin Villafañe, Gordon- Conwell Theological Seminary; Grant Wacker, Duke Divinity School; Everett A. Wilson, Vanguard University of Southern California.

Submission

Manuscripts submitted for consideration should be sent to the Pneuma Editor at Vanguard University, 55 Fair Drive, CostaMesa, CA 92626-9601, USA.

Books for review should be sent to the Pneuma Book Review Editor, Regent University, School of Divinity, 1000 Regent University Drive, Virginia Beach, VA 23464, USA.

Instructions for Authors

Please refer to the fourth page of the Volume prelims or go to .

Abstracting & Indexing

Indexes: Articles published in Pneuma are indexed by New Testament Abstracts, Religion Index One: Periodicals, and Religion Index Two: Multi Author Works, published by the American Theological Library Association (ATLA), 250 S. Wacker Dr., 16th Flr., Chicago, IL 60606, E-mail: [email protected], Web: http://atla.com/

Pneuma (print ISSN 0272-0965, online ISSN 1570-0747) is published 2 times a year by BRILL, Plantijnstraat 2, 2321 JC Leiden, The Netherlands, tel +31 (0)71 5353500, fax +31 (0)71 5317532.

Membership in the Society

Membership in the Society for Pentecostal Theology is open to scholars, students, and others who have interest in the study of Pentecostalism and the Charismatic Renewal. Full membership or Associate membership in the society is USD 50 per year. Student membership in the society is USD 25 per year. All members receive a subscription to the journal, an occasional Newsletter, a call for papers for the annual meeting, and a brochure outlining the program of the annual meeting.

Requests for an application for membership in the society should be addressed to the Executive Secretary, Society for Pentecostal Theology, P.O. Box 3802, Cleveland, TN 37320-3802, USA, [email protected]

Editorial Committee of the Society for 2007

David Roebuck (chair), Lee University ; Dale Irvin, New York Theological Seminary ; Karen Kossie-Cherneyshev, Oberlin College ; Veili-Matti Kärkkäinen, Fuller Theological Seminary ; Raynard Smith, Drew University (PhD candi- date); Frank D. Macchia (ex ofﬁcio), Vanguard University of Southern California; Amos Yong (ex ofﬁcio), Bethel College.

Ofﬁcers of the Society for 2007

President: Terry Cross, Lee University, 120 North Ocoee Street, Cleveland, TN 37320-3450

First Vice President: Amos Yong, Regent University, School of Divinity, 1000 Regent University Drive, Virginia Beach, VA 23464

Immediate Past President: David Daniels, McCormick Theological Seminary, 5460 South University Drive, Chicago, IL 60615

Second Vice President: Estrelda Alexander, Regent University, School of Divinity, 1000 Regent University Drive, Virginia Beach, VA 23464

Executive Secretary and Newsletter Editor: David Roebuck, Lee Univerity, 120 North Ocoee Street, Cleveland, TN 37320-3450

Pneuma Editor: Frank D. Macchia, Vanguard University of Southern California, 55 Fair Drive, Costa Mesa, CA 92626 Diversity Group Chair: Angela Aubry, Regent University, School of Divinity, 1000 Regent University Drive, Virginia Beach, VA 23464

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Pneuma 29 (2007) 185-187

Finitum Capax Inﬁniti: A Pentecostal Distinctive?

Frank D. Macchia

William Seymour described the person’s entry to the Christian life in the following way:

“ The Lord has mercy on him for Christ’s sake and puts eternal life in his soul, pardon- ing him of his sins, washing away his guilty pollution, and he stands before God justiﬁed as though he had never sinned . . . T en there remains that old original sin . . . Jesus takes that soul that has eternal life in it and presents it to God for thorough cleansing and purging from all Adamic sin . . . Now he is on the altar for the ﬁre of God to fall, which is the baptism with the Holy Ghost. It is the free gift upon the sanctiﬁed, cleansed heart.” (The Apostolic Faith , 1:2, October 1906, p.4).

What is amazing about this quote is Seymour’s implication that at the very core of the human vocation is the goal of being possessed by God and, in this possession, to bear the divine Spirit. As is well known, Seymour advo- cated a three-stage process by which one comes to possess the Spirit. The ﬁrst is rebirth and cleansing by receiving “eternal life” within. This is what Seymour termed “justiﬁcation.” The next stage is the eradication of the root of the Adamic nature, which Seymour, following his Holiness roots, called “sanctiﬁcation.” At that point, the human temple is prepared for the penultimate fulﬁllment of one’s journey into God, namely, the ﬁlling and empowerment of the Spirit for gifted service.

T ough this is an amazing description of one’s experiential journey into God, we would want in my view to avoid absolutizing these as rigid stages. Justiﬁcation is certainly more encompassing than the ﬁrst stage in one’s entry into the life of the Spirit. William Durham and many within his stream of inﬂuence would signiﬁcantly qualify the stages of Holiness soteriology by referring the Spirit back to the “ﬁnished work” of Christ’s death and resurrec- tion, so that we are in a sense already identiﬁed by all of the wealth of Christ even as we experientially grow in our awareness of them in life.

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Important for us to note, however, is Seymour’s typically-Pentecostal con- viction that the human vocation is penultimately fulﬁlled in its possession of the inﬁnite Spirit. He and his Pentecostal comrades shared the pietist pas- sion for the ﬁnitum capax inﬁniti or the vision of the ﬁnite having the capacity by grace to bear the inﬁnite. Of course, humanity already lives as creatures of God from the divine breath (Gen. 2:7), but the life of the new creation comes through a redemptive indwelling of the Spirit leading to resurrection (metaphorically foreshadowed in texts like Ezekiel 37:12, 14: “I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them . . . I will put my Spirit in you and you will live”). The new birth would be the means by which the ﬁnite human vessel is awakened to the capax or capacity to bear the Spirit. Coming from a Wesleyan background, Seymour added a holiness theme to this capax by insisting that the human vessel be puriﬁed and freed from bond- age to the Adamic nature in order to bear the inﬁnite Spirit. In uniquely Pentecostal fashion, bearing the inﬁnite Spirit was not just a furnace but also a spreading ﬂame. The human vessel of the inﬁnite Spirit becomes a missional force in living witness to Jesus Christ in the world, a force that expresses itself in many diverse tongues and spreads the healing power of Jesus to others.

With their emphasis on the transformation of the human vessel into the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit, Pentecostals can help the church to redis- cover an ancient heritage. Irenaeus, for example, wrote that the Spirit

did also descend upon the Son of God, made the Son of Man, becoming accustomed in fellowship with Him to dwell in the human race, to rest with human beings, and to dwell in the workmanship of God, working the will of the Father in them, and renew- ing them from their old habits into the newness of Christ. (Against Heresies, III. XVII.1).

The vocation of the human race was to bear the Spirit of God, and the entire mission of Jesus was to provide the means by which this can occur. The quote above from Seymour is signiﬁcant, since it treats justiﬁcation as involving the gift of the Spirit and spiritual rebirth as well as both cleansing from sin. Justiﬁcation was not reduced to a mere declaration of one’s pardon for sins. It is also clear that Spirit baptism is not for Seymour a mere spiritual enhancement of an already-complete initiation to the Christ life but the very culmination and goal of that initiation, namely, to be wholly possessed of God so that one might wholly possess God within. It cannot be denied in my view that

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such a goal has a beginning, a development, and an eschatological fulﬁllment (Eph. 3:14-19). It is our task as Pentecostal theologians to explore the various dimensions of the ﬁnitum capax inﬁniti. Seymour and Durham, the two great- est Pentecostal theologians of the early years of the Pentecostal movement, can guide us in our reﬂections.

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