ONU (Olivet Nazarene University) president John Bowling knows the importance and value of words. He wrote about them in his first book A Way With Words. Words are used to define what we think and deeply believe, they give expression to our deepest emotions as well as provide an outlet for the less significant. Wait ‘til next year, for example, are words laden with hope and emotion for fans of the Chicago Cubs wrestling with angst over another disappointing baseball season. Words can have a profound effect on people. They can hurt, inspire, depress, bring hope, make us cry or giggle or even guffaw (now there’s an old word)! They evoke feelings of love or loathing. Spiritually, words are used to lead us into a transforming relationship with God and guide us in expressing our growth in Him. The words we hear preached or taught influence our deepest convictions, beliefs, and how we intentionally live each day.
Words are important to an understanding of who we are as Nazarenes or people within the Wesleyan holiness tradition, including the influence of the American holiness movement. In this article I wish to speak briefly to fidelity to our theological tradition, especially concerning the doctrine of holiness and, more specifically, concerning the experience of entire sanctification and the ensuing life. Though I think theologically, I do not claim to be a theologian. So, these words are more theological reflections and convictions from my heart. I speak from the practice of theology in my life, much like most of the readers of this website.
What we say and the words we use are enormously important in defining who we are. Our identity as a church denomination is tightly bound to the theme of Christian holiness. Losing that, we lose our raison d’être. In the forward of the current Manual of the Church of the Nazarene, the Board of General Superintendents declares: “The primary objective of the Church of the Nazarene is to advance God’s kingdom by the preservation and propagation of Christian holiness as set forth in the Scriptures.”1(emphasis added) They go on to affirm that among the critical objectives of the Church of the Nazarene are the entire sanctification of believers and their upbuilding in holiness. They add, “Our well-defined commission is to preserve and propagate Christian holiness as set forth in the Scriptures, through the conversion of sinners, the reclamation of backsliders, and the entire sanctification of believers.”2 (emphasis added) That the theology and message of heart holiness and the entire sanctification of believers represent, more or less, the summum bonum of who we are is historic. This has always been “our watchword and song.” M. Kimber Moulton, a leading cleric in the first fifty years of the Church of the Nazarene said many years ago, “If you enter a thatched roof in the jungles of Africa, or an open tent in the steaming forest of Central America, or an ice domed igloo in Alaska, or a store-front church in one part of America, wherever you see the sign ‘Church of the Nazarene’ you will hear the same message of full salvation.”3
After a lifetime of service as a Nazarene missionary, I returned to the U.S. in my present assignment. In the years since my return, and frankly on brief sojourns in the United States during the latter years of my missionary service, I was surprised and disturbed by the reluctance I heard from not a few pastors to use “holiness” language from the pulpit or in teaching moments in their churches. The argument seemed to be that the unchurched, unreached, and new believers would not understand the language. So, as they said, we needed to couch it in more general terminology. To me, that demeans the unchurched, unreached and new believers as if they are intellectually incapable of grasping such “esoteric” language as surrounds holiness. The fact is, that in no generation since the days Jesus walked this earth, did the unchurched, unreached or new believer understand the language of the gospel, much less of holiness. It had to be learned; and learned it was! Every generation of people must be exposed to language they don’t know, but they can learn and master every nuance of it.
When I was sent as a missionary by the Church of the Nazarene more than 30 years ago, I went with the very latest in technological equipment, an IBM Selectric typewriter. It actually had a correction ribbon that removed what I mistyped on a manuscript or letter. It was amazing! That technology is, of course, obsolete now in this mind-dizzying info tech world. I am told that my car has more extensive computer technology than did the Freedom 7 spacecraft that took Alan Shepherd into space nearly 50 years ago. The information age has ushered in a whole new language. Elementary school children use words that cause me to furrow my brow as I search for their meaning! Yet, they use the words. Words like mouse, crash, virus, cookies, excel, web, and outlook have taken on whole new meanings. New words have invaded our language lexicon: DOS, HTML, e-mail, IMing, ISP, ethernet, megabytes, gigabytes, and a dictionary full of others. No one tries to create new words because computer language is just too difficult. Instead, fun yellow books “for Dummies” are published that render the “esoteric” words so simple that even a child can understand.
Even something as common as American football has abstruse language. My son-in-law played quarterback for Olivet Nazarene University, and while watching him play and listening to him talk, I discovered a bewildering array of technological language. Terms like “forearm shiver,” “Tampa two,” and “nickel” defenses as well as plays like “trips left, Z short, 125 y shake” were explained to me in simple ways. So now, when John Madden speaks, I understand what he is saying!
From the front of the Book to the back, God calls His people to be holy. Descriptive language is used throughout the Bible. Across the centuries, words have been used to explain and describe God’s sanctifying work. We must not abandon those words today. The words are important, laden with intrinsic meaning. We need to use the words, explain them clearly, flesh them out. People will understand them; they are not difficult to comprehend!
The words that define us as Nazarenes revolve around one thing—the message we were birthed to preach: heart holiness. This message and experience have always been understood as a second definite work of grace that in a moment purifies the heart of inbred sin and empowers us for life and holy service giving us an impetus for growth that continues throughout life, chipping away the rough edges, informing and shaping us to be more Christlike until that day we see Him face-to-face. What a victorious, hope-filled message for a hopeless world!
It seems we are approaching an era of an ever increasing hunger for holiness by believers of every stripe. Richard Foster has suggested that we are at the beginning of a “third reformation,” and that it will come about as the church focuses on sanctification. I know there are different schools of thought, but as a denomination we Nazarenes have always been clear and firmly rooted in our biblical understanding.
Despite rumblings I hear from time to time, an occasional troubling article I might read, rumors about what some might be teaching, provocative musings, or even fuzziness of experience coming from the lips of some, the last I noticed, nothing has changed in the Manual statement about who we are or what we believe about holiness. In the historical statement in the Nazarene Manual, we are reminded that the Church of the Nazarene has a special calling to proclaim the doctrine and experience of entire sanctification.
One cannot even take a cursory glance at our history without seeing the holiness focus about everything we are. The unifying issue, that which makes us “Nazarene” from the disparate languages, cultures, ethne and countries where we are found is the message of holiness. We have never preached holiness as some esoteric theory or hard-to-understand theological tenet, but rather we have always “preached the reality of entire sanctification.”5 It is upon that theological foundation, conviction and life experience that the Church of the Nazarene exists. Holiness is our raison d'être. Should we lose that focus, we die.
If what Foster says is true, that holiness is not passé but a coming hunger, then that means it is true for “those who come behind us” as well. It is our task as pastors, theologians, and leaders to point the way and maintain the focus on holiness before the leaders of the church where we serve and before those under our charge. The next generation, our children, both spiritual and physical, are counting on us.
Pierre Banza of West Africa, a product of the ministry of the Church of the Nazarene in the Côte d'Ivoire, is pursuing a PhD in Wesley studies at NTC-Manchester. He pinpointed the importance of holiness. Banza writes: “Our Wesleyan heritage is a precious thing that needs to be shared with our Africa, an Africa that is burdened by the heavy weight of many evils, especially the problem of sin. Entire sanctification is certainly the message that our continent needs.”6
It was my privilege to work most of my adult life with first generation Christians in West Africa. They understood the need to be sanctified. Before returning to the U.S. to assume my present assignment, an African DS took my wife and me to dinner. During the meal, he expressed appreciation for the Church of the Nazarene bringing them the message of holiness. He then recounted how in their culture, their equivalent of a witchdoctor would go out in the wilderness for a period of time and stay there until he “died” and was filled with evil spirits. Then he would return to his village to do their work. The DS said, “No other church took us far enough. Nobody else told us that we, too, needed to ‘die’ and be filled with the Holy Spirit. We Nazarenes understand and embrace this message and promise to continue to proclaim it in West Africa.”
I will never forget my son’s experience as he sought to “go deeper” with God and began a year long pursuit of holiness. Before he was sanctified wholly, this recent ONU grad wrote: “I think God is leading me to move into the direction of getting sanctified . . . I mean, I don’t know how it all works . . . but I don’t have to KNOW . . . because God knows . . . and He will work it out . . . since it IS His will that I be sanctified (Eph. 4:3). So, I am just praying that He will open up my mind and heart . . . to hear and know.”
Some time later while visiting his grandparents, with his grand-father kneeling at his side, he prayed through to a definite and clear experience of second blessing holiness. He wrote: “It sure has been an unbelievable experience in my life!! It is just amazing to see how God works. Things are just so much more wonderful now, I can’t even explain it in words. This last year really has been an awesome journey in my walk with God. And getting sanctified this weekend was a great way to top it off . . . but it’s not like it is really ‘topped off’ either because this is just the beginning . . . I mean . . . I have been obedient to Him and what He has said to me . . . and that is where it all starts. Each step of the way matters . . . and God will work His will in me, not at the end, but right now . . . and every day.”
A few weeks following, he wrote, “I will never be able to explain it; just that God has done something awesome in me, in my mind, in my heart. I think one of the biggest things I've learned about the whole thing is that when that sanctifying moment occurred, it wasn't like I reached a peak or anything, but it was part of God’s continual process in my life. Now, it just seems like a deeper sense of His being revealed all the time. It’s awesome.”
Lauren is not unusual. He is just a typical young man of today’s generation anywhere in the world. He has experienced a work, a second, definite work of grace promised by God ages ago. The language doesn’t have to be hidden or set aside or changed. It just needs to be explained and experienced.
The Lord has given to us that responsibility; may we never betray His trust.
Footnotes
1 2005-2009 Manual Church of the Nazarene (Kansas City: Nazarene Publishing House, 2005), 7
2 Ibid.
3 Quoted in Donald S. Metz, Some Crucial Issues in the Church of the Nazarene (Olathe, KS: Wesleyan Heritage, 1994), 138.
4 2005-2009 Manual church of the Nazarene, 16
5 Ibid., 20
6 Personal letter, June 6, 2003
No comments:
Post a Comment