SPIRIT BAPTISM THE MEANS OF SANCTIFICATION

One paper presented at the 1978 WTS meeting, and published in the first of the two 1979 issues of the Society’s Journal, is the one by Dr. Robert Lyon, on “Baptism and Spirit-Baptism in the New Testament.”

Lyon , in this paper, has presented a scholarly study of what I consider a topic of considerable importance: whether Spirit-baptism is associated with conversion, or with entire sanctification. His conclusion, based particularly on a study of Acts, is that Spirit-baptism is associated with conversion. In this kind of conclusion he is in essential agreement with James D. G. Dunn.[1] His view is also close to that of John Wesley himself, in distinction from what has been, until very recently at least, almost the universally-held view of Holiness Movement’s mentors.

I myself respect Lyon ’s scholarship. I also believe that he is entirely within his privilege, to espouse the position he does, in a meeting of the Wesleyan Theological Society. Aside from the fact that this is a learned, investigative society, its sponsoring organization, the Christian Holiness Association (unlike some of the holiness denominations such as the Church of the Nazarene) does not, in its doctrinal statement, officially teach that Spirit-baptism is what effects entire sanctification.

At the same time I myself am quite persuaded, by the evidence, in the other direction. I quite believe that Spirit-baptism is associated with the second work of grace—entire sanctification. My basis is not simply historical: it is not simply that I believe that Holiness Movement writers are to be given a greater respect than we are to give John Wesley. My bottom-line basis for this understanding is that this is what I consider Scripture to teach—even the very texts which Lyon uses as support for his view which associates Spirit-baptism with conversion.

In responding to his article, I do not mean to imply, in any way, that I am as proficient an exegete as he is—a New Testament professor, whereas I am only a theologian. Yet I feel I ought to respond, and I will do so principally (but not exclusively) by reference to the same Scripture passages used by him. I will in the main follow the order which Lyon does, which is the order found in acts itself—except that I will treat the account of Pentecost itself as the last major point. This is in part because Lyon somewhat qualifies his view at this point. In part, it is also because matters are involved that are more ramified and that require us to consider more wide-ranged biblical passages.

Lyon says that when the Samaritans “received” the Holy Spirit, after Peter and John had gone to them, it was “. . . the culmination of their conversion.” While he admits that this is “. . . be all accounts the stickiest of all” the Acts narratives, he finally says, “One thing, however, is quite certain, viz., that when . . . they ‘received’ the Holy Spirit, it was their first experience of the spirit and cannot be counted as a second experience.” He means that it can not be counted as a second means of grace, as usually conceived in the Holiness Movement. He says that their receiving the Holy Spirit was “. . . the incorporation of the Samaritans into the body” of Christ. That is, it was their conversion.[2]

James Dunn, in the book referred to earlier, takes the same kind of view, that receiving the Spirit was an aspect of their conversion, and speaks of the Acts 8 account as a “riddle”. And, as I’ve mentioned, Lyons calls it the “stickiest” of the Acts narratives. Dunn and Lyon need to say these things because the Samaritans’ receiving the Holy Spirit seems to be so obviously subsequent to their conversion.

As I see the matte, the revival of Samaria, described in Acts 8:1 –25, might be a Gibralter-like support of the view that receiving, or being baptized with, the Holy Spirit (terms which Lyon shows are used interchangeably in Acts[3]), is an experience subsequent to conversion.

In Acts 8 , Luke tells us that Phillip, who has just been ordained as a deacon to do a menial kind of service, so that the Twelve could have more time to preach (Acts 6:1–6), “. . . went down to the city of Samaria and began proclaiming Christ to them” (Acts 8:5, NASB unless otherwise stated). He had just been set aside, with six others, to be a waiter, to “serve tables” (Acts 6:2), but he is one early Christian who does quite more than he is assigned to do. Times are tough, because Christians are being persecuted in all-out, programmed assault, and they scatter out from Jerusalem . Times like that have often elicited the really committed services from Christ’s people, and it was so far this “full of Spirit” (Acts 6:3) deacon. Phillip was popular as a preacher, for “. . . the multitudes with one accord were giving attention to what was said by Phillip,. . .”(Acts 8:6). People were being held physically, and helped in other ways as well.

Many people believed on Christ—meaning, it seems to me, that they were converted. Then they received water baptism. We read, “But when they believed Phillip preaching the good news about the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were being baptized, men and women alike” (Acts 8:12). Luke tells us further:

Now when the apostles in Jerusalem herd that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent them Peter and John, who came down and prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Spirit. For he had not yet fallen upon any of them; they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then they began laying their hands on them, and they were receiving the Holy Spirit (Acts 8:14–17).

As clearly as words can make it, then, it seems to me, in the way that systematic theology itself tends to make things clear, they earlier believe, and were baptized in water in the name of Christ; and quite later, after the apostles had arrived, they received the Holy Spirit—“For He had not yet fallen upon any of them.” Lyon ’s view that this is the culmination of their conversion would require several things. It would require that the word “believe” is not sufficient for conversion, since the Samaritans had believed; and yet that is all that is necessary for being saved, according to what Paul told the Philippian jailer (see Acts 16:31 ). The Lyon view would also have them receiving what we call believer water baptism before their conversion had been culminated. The view might also imply some sort of gradualness in conversion itself, if people had believed on Christ, and been baptized in water, but were not as yet converted. It might even imply that conversion is more difficult to attain or to obtain than perhaps it is.

Again, Lyon says that the culmination of Paul’s conversion occurred when he was filled with the Holy Spirit. He says that “. . . the visit of Ananias to Paul represents the culmination of the latter’s conversion, at which time he is filled with the Spirit, that is, he received the Spirit.”[4] In this view, Lyon is in agreement with James Dunn, who does not believe in any second work of grace. Lyon is also, as he shows, in agreement with John Wesley-who, of course, does believe in a second work of grace.[5]

On several bases, I myself understand that Paul was converted earlier, and that being filled with the Spirit was subsequent to his justification.

Let me begin by suggesting that, at least, something revolutionary happened out there on the Damascus road, three days before Ananias was sent to Paul-then called Saul of course. It was so revolutionary that Paul got turned about-face-from Christianity’s main persecutor, to one whom his great enemy, Christ, is now commissioning to be His representative.

There were also outward manifestations that were congruent with what I’m suggesting was this revolutionary change. We read that “. . . suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him” (Acts 9:3). Paul “. . . fell to the ground . . . (Acts 9:4). The risen Christ, whom Paul had never seen in the flesh, appeared to him in a most miraculous fashion and held conversation with him.

If Lyon is correct, that no conversion happened out there, along the road, a massive amount of Christian comment, over a nineteen-century period, is quite incorrect. Many of us have thought, all along, that this man Paul is an example of the truly revolutionized person, one who was indeed born again (from above), and recommissioned. And where have we usually thought of it as having happened? Not at Straight Street at Judas’ house in Damascus , as Lyon says. We’ve said it happened on the Damascus road.

We’ve been fond of saying that people need a “ Damascus road” experience. In widely-used Christian usage, within the Holiness Movement and outside of it, “a Damascus road experience” is a conversion.

This zealous Pharisee, who breathes out threatenings, who holds letters authorizing him to hunt out Christians at faraway Damascus and bring them to Jerusalem , bound, for trial, out on that road is called to preach Christ. His call doesn’t happen after Ananias gets there, but has already happened as Ananias is being sent, for the Lord said to Ananias: “Go, for he is a chosen instrument of Mine, to bear My name before the Gentiles and kings and the sons of Israel” (Acts 9:15). If it is said, as Lyon would have to, that he was called before he was converted, or at an early stage in the process of his conversion that culminated with his becoming Spirit-filled, I point out that he is not only an “instrument,” but that he is “chosen”—a “chosen instrument” (Acts 9:15). The word for “chosen” is ekloges, and it is pretty salvific. It is used of the remnant who enjoy God’s grace in Romans 11:5 –7.

Paul twice calls Christ kurie, “Lord” (Acts 9:5; 22:8, 10). I would grant Lyon the leeway to say of the Acts 9:5 and 22:8 instance that Paul might have, at that early moment in the conversion, used kurie as simply a way of addressing an authority figure. After all, Paul is asking who He is, so it might well be that, there, Christ is not addressed as his sovereign. Paul asks, “Who art Thou, Lord?”

But in the other instance, out there on the roadside, when Paul calls Christ kurie, “Lord,” as it is reported in Acts 22:10 , we have something different. Paul is still on the roadside, but the initial shock is over, and he is not asking who this is, but has submitted already to this “Lord.” So he asks, “What shall I do, Lord?” Interestingly, the form in which it appears in both places is identical to the form used by the “full-fledged Christian,” Ananias, who in Acts 9:10 , in full obedience, says: “Behold, here am I, Lord.”

Still more significant as supportive of my view that Paul was converted on the roadside, is that, as Ananias approaches Paul, he calls him “Brother.” We read, “And Ananias departed and entered the house, and after laying his hands on him said, ‘Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus . . . has sent me . . .’” (Acts 9:17). Dunn’s suggestion that this is only a use of “brother” to suggest Jewish kinship is too much. Lyon mentions Ananias’ form of address.[6]But to Dunn and Lyon it cannot mean that Paul is already a Christian, so it has to be robbed of what I think of as its evangelical beauty. On the basis that Paul is already a Christian, Ananias is telling Paul, at the outset, that he considers him to be a fellow Christian believer.

Paul needed to hear of that kind of acceptance, too, because he has been the chief mogul on the opposite side.

If Ananias had gone to Paul in order to help him to become converted, to be justified, to believe, to become a Christian, why do the accounts not tell us anything of that sort? It tells us the opposite, as I see the matter, as that Paul is called a brother, probably a Christian brother. Ananias says that Christ “. . . has sent me so that you may regain your sight, and be filled with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 9:17). Actually, we are only told that Paul received his sight, and not that he was indeed filled with the Spirit as well.

But later we read that Paul was “filled,” for it is said that “Saul, . . . filled with the Holy Spirit, fixed his gaze upon him [Elymas]” (Acts 13:9).

Those such as Dunn and Lyon, who say that Paul was converted when he was filled with the Spirit, feel that they have strong support for their view in Acts 22:16 where Ananias says to him: “And now why do you delay? Arise, and be baptized, and wash away your sins, calling on His name.” Lyon says that “. . . this is conversion language. . .”[7]

As I interpret it, however, this “brother” Christian is to be baptized in water, not in order that such might wash away his sins (for water baptism itself does not do that), but in order that, by water baptism, he might symbolize the washing away of his sins that has already occurred. By water baptism, also, as a believer, he would be openly, by an extremely ritual act, witnessing to all and sundry that he was a Christian. If those who view it otherwise counter by saying that their view hardly needs an interpretation, whereas my view does, I admit that they have a certain point, here. But they must do a bit of interpreting, also, because they themselves in many cases do not believe that the water baptism itself is what washes away sins; and yet, in its most literal sense, that is what the passage implies.

While Lyon includes “calling on the name of the Lord,” here, as part of the “conversion language” of this passage, I myself do not view it in that way. The word for “calling” is epikalesamenos, a participle, from kaleo, to call, which may also be translated simply as “invoking.” It is from the same word that epikaloumenon is from in Acts 7:59 , where Stephen’s “calling” upon God at the time of his stoning cannot be a prayer for his conversion, but is simply an invoking of God for His help.

Still further, Lyon understands that Cornelius was not converted until the Holy Spirit “fell” upon him and the others (Acts 11:15). He shows that the three verbs used to describe what happened to Cornelius, “fall upon,” “pour out,” and “receive,” are equivalent expressions, and that the latter two of them “. . . were used earlier of the Pentecost event.” I agree, of course, with this. What I do not agree with is his view that these expressions describe “conversion.” Lyon goes on to say of this and other evidence:

“This clearly equates the experience of Cornelius with what occurred at Pentecost. And it was most certainly the conversion of Cornelius and his incorporation into the body of Christ. Only an extremely tendentious exegesis could avoid that last conclusion. It is the account of a beginning, not a second blessing.”[8]

In the Holiness Movement, many exegetes and theologians have understood that Cornelius was not converted prior to Peter’s visit to him; but that he soon was justified, and then, soon received the Spirit in a second work of grace. One problem with this view, as I see the matter, is that the account does not seem to tell us that two works of grace occurred under Peter’s help—but only that one special grace (the second work) was bestowed upon him.

I myself view Cornelius as a justified person, prior to Peter’s ministry to him. If I were prudent, I would give, here, only the strong evidence for this interpretation. I believe, however, that the evidence which only somewhat strengthens the case is integral to the whole of the evidence. I will therefore include it with the other, and will expect anyone debating with me to include in his response an evaluation of what I indicate is the weightier evidence.

For one thing, Cornelius is said in Acts 10:2 to have been “eusebes,” which means “reverent, pious, devout, religious.” Another way of translating this word is “godly.” It is the same word that is used in 2 Peter 2:9 for “the godly” whom “the Lord knows how to rescue . . . from temptation.” They are the opposite from “the unrighteous” (2 Peter 2:9). It is a cognate of this word, eusebeia, that is used for the “godliness” of Paul and other Christians where Paul urges Timothy to pray for “all who are in authority” (1 Timothy 2:2), so that “we may lead a tranquil and quiet life in all godliness. . .” (1 Timothy 2:2). This latter form of the word also appears in 1 Timothy 4:8 as what will put a person in good stead for the life to come, because Paul says that this “. . . godliness is profitable for all things, since it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come.” In an adverbial form, eusebos, it appears of anyone who is decidedly “in Christ Jesus,” where Paul writes: “And indeed, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Timothy 3:12). So, while a form of the word appears in 1 Timothy 5:4 in reference to the practice of “piety” toward one’s family, and while it is used in Acts 17:23 of the “worship” of people toward “an unknown God,” I feel that its use, of Cornelius, is corroborative of my view that he is a Christian believer—albeit, without very much correct understanding.[9]

It is interesting that no one questions Ananias’ being a true Christian, who was to Paul what Peter was to Cornelius-one sent of God to help. Ananias is called a “disciple” in Acts 9:10 , a mathetes, which is the singular of the same word used to describe the people found by Paul at Ephesus (Acts 19:2), who, according to Lyon ” and Dunn and others, were not Christians. More than that, and specifically to our point here, another special description of Ananias is that, like Cornelius, he was “devout” (Acts 22:12).

The word for “devout” is eulabes, slightly different from eusebes, used of Cornelius in Acts 10:2 . But if anything, there is less that is distinctively Christian in the uses of eulabes than in the uses of eusebes. It happens, too, that Cornelius’ being devout is not qualified. He is simply “a devout man” (Acts 10:2). Ananias’ devotedness is qualified, and the qualification is not added in order to say that he was a devout Christian, or something of that sort. He is said to be “. . . a man who was devout by the standard of the Law” (Acts 22:12).

Another interesting but not very theologically important matter is that there is another parallel between Cornelius, whose justification so many people question, and Ananias (whose justification no one questions). And in this parallel, Cornelius has at least a quantitative edge on Christ’s servant, Ananias. Both men are said to have been spoken well of by Jews. But Ananias is only said to have had the good will of the Jews at Damascus , whereas Cornelius is said to have had the good will of the whole Jewish nation. Of Ananias it is said that he was “. . . well spoken of by all the Jews who lived there” (Acts 22:12). Of Cornelius, Luke says that he was “. . . a righteous and God-fearing man well spoken of by the entire nation of the Jews, . . .” (Acts 10:22).

When Cornelius is called “righteous” in Acts 10:22 , as in NASB , from the regular word for “righteous” or “just,” dikaios, we have an exceedingly strong suggestion that he is a Christian believer. It is a cognate of dikaiosune, the regular word for “justification” in the New Testament. This very word, with the definite article, ho dikaios, the Just One, or the Righteous One is even one of the distinctive titles of Christ in this same book, Acts, at 3:14; 7:52; and 22:14. It is one of the New Testament’s special words for what God Himself is, “just,” and for what He makes us into by “faith in Jesus” (Romans 3:26).

1. Cornelius “feared God with all his household” (Acts 10:2) which means that he reverenced God and saw to it that his family and helpers did also.

2. He “gave many alms to the Jewish people” (Acts 10:2), which would of course not constitute him a believer, but is a pretty good quality of a believer’s life.

3. He “prayed to God continually” (Acts 10:2), which in importance approximates his being devout and righteous, as corroborative, it seems to me. For, since the Holy Spirit is the one who would have been inclining him to pray and guiding him in what supplications to make, he would have surely asked for and received forgiveness if he was praying “continually.”

4. He was wide open to God’s will in his life, as is evidenced by his sending for Peter and by his implied willingness to do whatever the Apostle suggested.

5. His prayers for another matter had already been answered, for Peter said to him, “Your prayer has been heard” (Acts 10:31).

6. God gives him a special “vision,” and the visit and ministry of an “angel” (Acts 10:3–7).

7. What is much more theologically significant as an indicator of his justification is that Peter seems to understand that Cornelius had already received forgiveness. That is what Peter seems to assure Cornelius of, just before the Spirit falls on this Italian that so many people think is not saved. Peter surely would be including Cornelius, and giving him assurance of his acceptance with God, when he says to him: “Of Him [Christ] all the prophets bear witness that through His name every one who believes in Him has received forgiveness of sins” (Acts 10:43).

8. Further, Cornelius has already been “cleansed” by God, and has already been made holy (evidently, the way one is, in justification), because the reference is both to “unclean” animals and to Cornelius, as he was when Peter first learned about him, when Luke tells us: “But a voice from heaven answered a second time, ‘What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy’” (Acts 11:9). Peter could hardly get this through his thickened prejudices, so it had to be repeated “three times” (Acts 11:10).

9. And importantly, if he is not already forgiven of his sins, justified, what is wrong, here, with our gracious God? Why is this man not justified, with all his seeking of and openness toward God? And if God is not willing that any should perish, but that everyone will come to repentance, why would He be holding this repentant seeker off from justifying grace? For those interpreters who must have the death and resurrection of Christ already in the past, for justification to happen, those redemption events are now already in the past. No one comes to God except that the Spirit draws him. So, here, we would have the Holy Spirit drawing this man to turn to God, but we would have a God who is holding him off from justification because the man needs a bit of instruction. What I believe is that God graciously offers the justification, and that He then works toward our enlightenment.

I myself was so poorly instructed, after I was converted and sanctified wholly and called to ministry that, in a jail, where I was put for riding a freight train, in depression days, on my way to a Nazarene college, I started reading the Bible through, reading about the first fifth of the Old Testament and I made full plans to build an altar and make sacrifices as I noted that God’s people were doing back there.

What is the minimum of intellectual understanding that is necessary before one can become a Christian? I tend to think it is so minimal that we should forget about what it would need to be. Is it one one-thousandth of what I now understand, as a professional theologian? My own experience proves to me that it cannot be anything like that much that is necessary. If a person is “righteous,” as Scripture says Cornelius was, that in itself is plenty, for me, for understanding that he is justified. Indeed, that is precisely what the word means.

Lyon says of the Acts 10, 11 and 15 references to Cornelius, which would include what is said in Acts 11:17 : “Everything in these narratives requires our understanding the conversion of Cornelius as the occasion for his first experience of the Spirit. Upon hearing and receiving the word, he was baptized, according to promise, in the Spirit.”[10]

Interestingly, while Dunn and others make much of Acts 11:17 as suggesting that the “gift” received by Cornelius is his Pentecost, and that it happened for him and for Peter and the others when they believed, Lyon does not specifically use the reference to believing, in this verse, to support his case. In this verse there is an aorist participle; and when the verse is used to support the Lyon type of view, the aoristic character of the participle, pisteusantes, is usually not given what I would call a due regard.

Let us note some of the translations of Acts 11:17 . The King James Version reads, “Forasmuch then as God gave them the like gift as he did unto us, who believed on the Lord Jesus Christ; what was I, that I could withstand God?” Likewise the RSV reads, “If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, . . .” the NIV New Testament was similar, using “when”: “So if God gave them the same gift as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, . . .”; but the NIV revision of 1978, instead of “when we believed,” somewhat less prejudicially translates it “who believed.” But the NASB , often quite careful to follow the Greek, translates it in the way aorist participles are normally to be rendered: in such a way that Pentecost happened after the 120 had believed, and in such a way that the Spirit’s falling upon Cornelius was after he had believed. The NASB reads, “If God therefore gave to them the same gift as He gave to us also after believing in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God’s way?”

I myself agree with the rather recently published God, Man, and Salvation, which points out that this aorist participle indicates that their believing was prior to their being baptized with the Holy Spirit. Its authors write, in a footnote:

The RSV , NIV, and NEB are singularly unfortunate in ignoring the time sequence implied in the Greek of Acts 11:17 . Their rendering seems to give credence to the position of Frederick Dale Bruner (A Theology of the Holy Spirit. p. 195) that in this verse we have evidence “that the apostles considered Pentecost to be the . . . date of their conversion.”[11]

One supposes that a given interpreter’s basic theology often intrudes itself, as here; and that if the interpreter does not believe that Spirit-baptism is subsequent to justification, but if an aorist participle suggests this kind of distinction, he conveniently suggests that in the passage in question the aorist participle happens to be the much more rare coincidental aorist, in which the participle expresses action which takes place at the same time as that of the main verb.

Again, while Lyon does not refer to what seems on the surface to be a reference to the Spirit’s falling upon Cornelius as the time of his repentance, and therefore of his conversion, I feel I need to mention this matter. Dunn and others feel that, here, they have a gargantuan support for this kind of view. I myself would agree that it is one of the most possibly feasible of the supports. And yet I do not at all believe that the account should be read as though it teaches Spirit-baptism conversion.

In Acts 11:18 we read, “Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life. “This is not an observation that is made on the spot and at the time of Cornelius’ baptism with the Spirit. We are now back in Jerusalem , some time after Cornelius’ receiving of the Spirit, and Peter is on the carpet about participating in gospel work among Gentiles. They are not speaking specifically about Cornelius’ being baptized with the Spirit. They get after Peter because he shared Christ with the “uncircumcised” (Acts 11:3). Also, because he “ate with them” (Acts 11:3). Peter recounted the whole thing to these duly “circumcised” (Acts 11:2) folk, and it is not easy for this to seep through their thickened prejudices even as it hadn’t been easy in Peter’s own case. They are not so much worried about a second work of grace being extended to Gentiles. They are heated up over the gospel going to these uncircumcised people in its initial form. If they could grant them the privilege of conversion, they wouldn’t have any problem about their getting in on the brand new thing of a personal Pentecost. They are therefore not talking about Cornelius’ baptism with the Spirit but, more basically, about the gospel of God’s forgiving grace going to a Gentile, when they question the whole matter. That was what they are thinking about, therefore, when they “quieted down” (Acts 11:18), and when they finally got around to saying: “Well then, God has granted to the Gentiles also the repentance that leads to life” (Acts 11:18).

Another matter which Lyon does not refer to, but which others often make much of as supportive of the type of view Lyon takes, is the interpretation whereby the word “saved” in Acts 11:14 is equated with converted. According to this interpretation, the angel tells Cornelius that Peter will tell him’ things by which he will become a Christian. The angel says, “Send to Joppa, and have Simon . . . brought here; and he shall speak words to you by which you will be saved, . . .” (Acts 11:13b–14). Yet, whereas cognates of sodzo, for “saved,” are found as equivalents of conversion (as in Mark 16:16 [poor manuscript evidence here]; Acts 2:21 and 16:31; Rom. 5:10 and 10:13), they are also used more widely as synonyms of redemption. In one such passage, Matthew 10:22 , we read, “. . . it is the one who has endured to the end who will be saved” (see also Matt. 24:13; Mark 13:13 ). One of several others is where Paul writes, “If any man’s work is burned up, he shall suffer loss; but he himself shall be saved, yet so as through fire” (1 Corinthians 3:15).

Before leaving the Cornelius references, perhaps I should comment on some of the other supports which Lyon gives for his interpretation. He refers to Peter’s saying, “. . . as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, just as He did upon us at the beginning” (Acts 11:15); and he comments: “Again, note the last clause.” Earlier, he had commented, about this: “It is the account of a beginning, not a second blessing.”[12] I would of course agree that Pentecost was some sort of “beginning.” But I do not view it as a beginning which was the conversion of the apostles and others. As I interpret this, it was in part the beginning of the church (since I view it as founded on the Day of Pentecost). It was also the beginning of that dispensation of grace prophesied by Ezekiel (chapter 36), Jeremiah (chapter 31), and Joel (chapter 2), in which the Holy Spirit would be poured out upon God’s people in a most special way. Further, and similarly, it was the beginning, for Peter and the others, of the experience of the second work of grace wrought by Jesus’ baptism of believers with the Holy Spirit.

Lyon also says that no New Testament book other than Acts “offers evidence” regarding “receiving” and “being baptized with” the Spirit—but I believe other New Testament books to give evidence related to this matter. He says that “. . . there is no difference in Acts (and no other book offers evidence) between ‘receiving the Spirit’ and ‘being baptized with the Spirit’ . . .”[13] I agree with him on the interchangeability of these expressions. Yet I feel that other New Testament books give much evidence suggesting that, before our Pentecost, we receive the Holy Spirit in the way one receives him at conversion. John 3:5 refers to being “born” of “the Spirit,” and I view that as a receiving of the Spirit in a certain way prior to receiving Him in baptismal fullness.

John’s Gospel also portrays Jesus as saying to His disciples that the “Spirit of truth” was “with” them, but would be “in” them. Jesus there says: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, . . . the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive [in baptismal fullness, because, as I see it, they are not born-again believers], because it does not behold Him or know Him, but you know Him because He abides with you, and will be in you” (John 14:16–17).

Romans 8:9 also relates to this matter, as I see it. Paul there says, “But if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ [who proceeds eternally from Christ], he does not belong to Him.” This means to me what it has meant to many holiness interpreters: that if we are believers we have received the Spirit by being born of the Spirit; and that it is always persons who have already received him in that way who are possible candidates for receiving him in the second work of grace when believers are baptized with the Spirit.

Another New Testament book which I view as containing what relates clearly to this matter is Galatians. Paul here shows that the converted person is indwelt by the Spirit at the same time that he is indwelt by the flesh—that is, original sin. Paul writes, “For the flesh [carnality, original sin] sets its desire against the Spirit [who evidently indwells a believer], and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please” (Galatians 5:17). Indwelling a born-again person, the Holy Spirit opposes the flesh, original sin, which also indwells such a person. I view this as depicting the justified state. I note, also, that Paul is soon saying, “Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5:24). I interpret him as saying, here, that when a Christian most truly belongs to Christ, having consecrated himself fully, and having received by faith what the Gospels and Acts refer to as Spirit-baptism, the flesh, original sin, is crucified.

I also view Romans 5:1 –5 as relating to this matter. There, after referring to being “justified by faith,” Paul speaks of our being “also” admitted or introduced “by faith” into “this grace in which we stand”-that is, the establishing grace of entire sanctification received by Spirit-baptism. I view this second grace as what happens by Spirit-baptism because he says that “. . . the love of God has been poured out [twice in Acts 2 pouring is the figure] within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us [at the first Pentecost, surely, for some; and at later “pentecosts” for Paul and others].” I know that the “also” and the “by faith” in verse 2 are not in some of the old manuscripts, but NASB includes them both, and, with their inclusion, the passage becomes a clearer two-works-of-grace statement than it is otherwise.

Besides all these, Ephesians 1:13 relates clearly to the matter of the Spirit-baptism being for persons who have earlier become believers. There Paul writes, “In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation-having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise.” With this NASB rendering, which gives due regard especially to the aorist participle pisteusantes, we see that people listened to the gospel; that they later believed, becoming justified; and that still later they were sealed with (signifying full approval, ownership) the Holy Spirit promised by Joel (2:28), by John the Baptist (Matthew 3:11, etc.), and by Jesus (Acts 1:4–8).

Lyon understands, also, that the Ephesians were converted when, under Paul’s help, “the Holy Spirit came on them” (Acts 19:6). In what seems to be particularly a reference to what he calls the sticky matter of Acts 8 , he says, “Here again we have problems.” This is because he must admit, and does, that they were already called “disciples” and that they had already “believed.” But on his theory, one is not converted until he has “received” the Holy Spirit; so, since they had not had that happen to them as yet, he writes, “While certainly not free of ambiguities what we seem to have here is an account of the conversion of some disciples of John the Baptist (or of a similar ‘preparation type movement’) who had been prepared [earlier] for the gospel.”[14]

I myself view this in the way the Holiness Movement has almost universally interpreted it: that the Ephesians were converted persons who received a second work of grace under Paul’s help. Acts 19:1 –7 is not quite as incontestably “two-works-of-grace” as Acts 8:1 –25 is, but it is almost as clearly so. It describes Paul’s finding, at Ephesus , certain baptized disciples who had not as yet received the Holy Spirit, and they then received the Spirit.

On several bases, the Holy Spirit’s coming upon them was subsequent to their conversion.

Paul calls them mathetais, “disciples,” a customary word for Christian believers. If it meant that they were disciples of anyone else, and not of Christ, that specific would have been mentioned.

Paul asked the Ephesian disciples, “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” (Acts 19:2). Again, we have an aorist participle pisteusantes, “Having believed” (or, “when believing”). On the basis of what is customary with an aorist participle, that the action it expresses takes place prior in time to the action of the main verb of a sentence, this would read “Having believed, did you receive the Holy Spirit?” Or “After you believed, did you receive Him?” The King James Version translated so as to show this kind of meaning in the aorist participle when it rendered: “Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?” The KJV ’s Calvinistic translators were not particularly friendly to two-works-of-grace doctrine. For example, we have an aorist participle in Ephesians 5:26 ; and, instead of showing the two works of grace which it suggests, as do the RSV NASB , NIV, etc., the KJV just says “sanctify and cleanse” (instead of “. . . that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her . . .”). Yet at Acts 19:2 the KJV renders properly, as I see it, and it shows that the believing is prior to receiving the Holy Spirit in this special Pentecostal way. Whether or not one renders the passage in the way the aorist participle warrants, the two-works-of-grace meaning is present. For, after all, they have believed, and they told Paul they had not even heard about the Holy Spirit. They said, in answer to his question, “No, we have not even heard whether there is a Holy Spirit” (Acts 19:2).

Also, it is the believers at Ephesus who are called “brethren” in Acts 18:27 , where we read that “the brethren encouraged him [Apollos].” It does not take much acquaintance with the New Testament to know that “brethren” is frequently its way of saying “Christians”—even if the “sistern” do seem to be left out as not important, according to the first century’s culture.

Many interpreters, including Lyon , understand that Paul re-baptized these people with water. While my interpretation in no way hinges on this matter, I understand that Paul did not re-baptize them. If he did, it would be, from my knowledge, the only instance in the New Testament of the rebaptism in water of anyone. Moreover, Luke’s account, to me, does not suggest that Paul re-baptized them. After the believers told Paul they had been baptized by John the Baptist, Paul explains to them that that was good. He says, “John baptized with the baptism of repentance, telling the people to believe in Him who was coming after him, that is, in Jesus” (Acts 19:4). John, then, had made it clear that they were to turn from sin in “repentance” and to “believe in . . . Jesus.” No one was ever baptized in the name of the whole Trinity, as Acts describes numerous water baptisms: they were always in the name of Jesus, as John’s baptisms had been, since the early church did not begin, until after Matthew’s Gospel had been written (see Matthew 28:19 –20), to baptize in the name of the whole Trinity. Paul did not view this as an inadequate baptism. I think he is referring to John’s original baptism of them when he says, “And when they heard this, they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Acts 19:5). Paul’s words do not end with verse 4 but with verse 5. After all, there is no change, in the person spoken of, from John to Paul. That happens in the next verse where we read, “And when Paul had laid his hands upon them, the Holy Spirit came on them, . . .” (Acts 19:6).

So, as I see the matter, these Ephesians were disciples, believers, already baptized with water, in whom there was fulfilled, belatedly, after Pentecost itself, John the Baptist’s prophecy when he said, “I baptized you with water; but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit” (Mark 1:8; see also all the other Gospels).

I view the account of what happened at Ephesus , therefore, as a second work of grace. It was a time when persons who had been helped by the Holy Spirit to become converted without knowing just how they had been helped), received or were baptized with the Holy Spirit as a second definite work of grace.

Lyon suggests rather early in his paper that “Peter promised to his hearers [at Pentecost] the very same experience which they had seen occur in the original outpouring.”[15] Lyon argues this way especially on the basis of Peter’s saying, “Repent, and be baptized . . . and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). In my view, however, Peter is clearly talking in terms of what we in the Holiness Movement mean by two works of grace, one subsequent to the other. Following NASB (as I’m doing throughout), and including the theologically important words which Lyon leaves out, Peter says, “Repent, and let each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” Here, they were to “repent.” Later—it would have to be later, if thousands were to be baptized in water—they were baptized with water. This is expressly said to be “for the forgiveness of your sins”—which means, as I see it, that the water baptism, subsequent to their repentance, was to assert in symbol that their sins were forgiven. That is, it was to symbolize and assert their justification, their conversion. Finally, after the NASB ’s semi-colon (realizing that all such is supplied, and is not in the Greek), Peter says, “and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” This, as I see it, would be subsequent to their repentance; and also subsequent to their water baptism. This might not be quite as clear as systematically theological language is capable of making it; yet, as I see it, it is quite clearly and emphatically what might be described as an exhortation to what I would call both works of grace, one subsequent to the other.

Even so, Lyon makes a certain qualification, late in his paper, as he treats Acts 2 and the first Pentecost—after (as I have done) he has treated the Samaritans, Paul, Cornelius, and the Ephesians. He says, “One thing must certainly be said: The disciples were believers before Pentecost.” He adds, “As believers, they have come into contact with the Spirit, but-and here I suggest a novel term-only ‘by proxy’—that is, by virtue of the Spirit in Jesus whose ministry is everywhere viewed as a ministry in the Spirit. So, by virtue of His presence the Spirit is present to them, . . .”[16]

As I myself view the matter, this kind of qualification does not change the matter materially. The disciples themselves, prior to Pentecost, have not themselves been born of the Spirit, he says—although he calls them “believers.” Thinking of Acts more or less as a whole, he says, “The baptism in the Spirit, far from being the second experience and an experience subsequent to receiving the Spirit or being born of the Spirit, stands scripturally at the heart of conversion.”[17]

Since Lyon believes that the disciples, before Pentecost, only had experience of the Spirit by proxy (because the Spirit was in Jesus); and because he does not believe that the disciples were born of the Spirit (regenerated); let me discuss the evidence, with some specificity, for the view that they were justified, born again, converted, prior to Pentecost.

For one thing, Paul makes it clear in Romans 4 that justification occurred a long time prior to Pentecost. Paul says, “Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:3 NIV New Testament). And Paul is here quoting Genesis 15:6 , which, therefore, also states that Abraham was justified or righteous. Paul does not seem to know anything about the dispensationalism which separates the pre-Pentecost people from justification by faith, because he uses Abraham as an illustration of how one still is justified, after Pentecost. Paul says, “So then, he [Abraham] is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them” (Romans 4:11 NIV New Testament). These two separated dispensations had not been invented as yet by the exegetes and theologians, and Paul is saying that circumcision does not matter very much, but that to have faith is what is crucial. Therefore he continues the thought quoted above by saying, “And he [Abraham] is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised” (Romans 4:12 NIV New Testament). Paul sees no chasm between Abraham’s time and those post-Pentecostal times. He is saying that in all times people have been justified, and that it has been by faith, and not by observing “works” (Romans 4:4) nor by observing the “Law” (Romans 4:15).

Paul knows, of course, that, when he was writing the Roman epistle people were to “believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead” (Romans 4:24 NIV New Testament). But his point was that Abraham and his readers were all justified by faith and not by works.

As I see it, it is elementary that people were justified before Pentecost. I would not even seek to establish such an obvious matter, except that respectable Reformed theologians, and now, some respectable Wesleyan theologians, teach what tends to deny such obvious biblical instructions.

Since I am forced to show what is obvious, let me mention that this is also the teaching we have in Hebrews. That book admittedly states that, “The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves” (Hebrews 10:1 NIV New Testament). It states that “it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4 NIV New Testament). It states that Christ made a once-for-all sacrifice of himself to “cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God” (Hebrews 9:14 NIV New Testament). Yet with all its contrasting of the two covenants, the two means of atonement, and all that, even this book does not seem to me to be saying that people were not justified by faith under the old covenant. Hebrews 11 says that “by faith” one after another of the Old Testament personages, from Abel to Abraham to Moses and others “gained what was promised” (11:33 NIV) for those times, and pleased God. It states that “the world was not worthy of them” (11:38 NIV). It says that many “were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection” (11:35 NIV New Testament), so that evidently they will fare all right at the time of the Rapture.

These people did not have the Christ revelation, and knew only that a better day was promised. But as I see it, they were justified, and they really did live by faith. The law itself was only a “shadow” and not the “reality”; but that does not mean that their justified relationship to God was only a shadow and not a reality. It was as real as our justification is, and they “were all commended for their faith” (Hebrews 11:39 NIV New Testament).

My point here is that if they were justified, and since they—including Abraham—were justified, we may assume that the Apostles could be, before Pentecost.

People enjoyed what happens at the first work of grace prior to Pentecost, surely, according to many passages in the Gospel of John.

This Gospel was written long after Pentecost, so certain observations John makes, as he is writing, do not apply to the pre-Pentecostal time. Thus when John says, “But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name” (1:12 NASB ), we have a post-Pentecost observation.

Excluding such, however, there is much, in John’s Gospel, which suggests that people enjoyed what we mean by the first work of grace prior to Pentecost. And much of this has to do with the period prior to the Crucifixion and Resurrection.

Significant, as I see it, is Jesus’ urging upon Nicodemus the new birth in chapter 3. Jesus says to him, “I say to you, unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God ” (v. 3). After Nicodemus shows that he does not understand being born again, Jesus explains: “I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God ” (v. 5). And He adds, “Do not marvel that I said to you, ‘You must be born again’” (v. 7). Jesus does not tell him that he must wait, with this matter of being born again, until after Pentecost, or until after His death and resurrection. He even seems to chide Nicodemus for not being born again right then, because He says: “And you do not receive our witness” (v. 11).

It is well known, also, that this Gospel speaks much about eternal life, which is surely another name for conversion, or the first work of grace. And people already possess eternal Life. Jesus says, “He who believes in the Son has eternal life” (3:36). It is received when one “believes,” which is one of the New Testament’s ways of saying what one does in order to receive forgiveness or justification. It is a verbal, the counterpart to the noun “faith”—so often given by the Apostle Paul as what obtains justification (see Romans 5:1 e.g.).

Soon Jesus tells His “disciples” (John 4:31), which, actually, is also a word used for those who have believed, that the “fields” right at the time “are white for harvest” (4:35), without waiting for the Crucifixion or Pentecost. And He uses the present tense in saying, “Already he who reaps is receiving wages, and is gathering fruit for Life eternal; that he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together” (4:36). And right after this reference to “life eternal” (three verses later), John speaks again about persons who “believed.” He says, “And from that city many of the Samaritans believed in Him” (4:39). They did so because a Samaritan woman, who had asked Christ for the water that would spring up to “eternal life” (vv. 14–15), had drunk of it, and had witnessed to them. What are we talking about, here, if this is not regeneration, the new birth, conversion?

And how could regeneration be more clearly suggested than when Jesus later says, using the present tense, “For this is the will of my Father, that every one who beholds the Son, and believes in Him, may have eternal life: and I Myself will raise him up on the last day” (6:40). Then Jesus adds, “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life” (6:47).

We also have in chapter 9 the man healed of blindness who believes and begins to worship Jesus. “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” Jesus asks him (v. 35). After he asks who that is and Jesus says, “He is the one who is talking with you” (v. 37), he says, “Lord, I believe” (v. 38). And John adds: “And he worshipped Him” (v. 38).

In chapter 15, the disciples are the branches of the vine, and this, too suggests their new birth, their first work of grace. Jesus says to them “You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you” (v. 3). And he says, “I am the vine, you are the branches” (v. 5). His only special concern is that they “abide” in him. The phrase “abide in me” appears five times in vv. 4–10.

In chapter 17, we have Christ’s extended prayer for His disciples, and again, they seem to be persons in the first work of grace. He can say that they are “Mine” (v. 10), and that “I have been glorified in them” (v. 10). He wants the Father to “keep them” (v. 11), not to regenerate them. They are persons whom the Father has “given” to Christ (v. 11), and Christ had “guarded them” (v.12). The “world has hated them, because they are not of the world” (v. 14). This, even as Christ was not “of the world” (v. 14). They had believed, because He says, “I do not ask in behalf of these alone, but for those also who believe in Me through their word” (v. 20). When He prays, “Sanctify them in the truth; Thy word is truth” (v. 17), I think it is a prayer that is answered at Pentecost. The word for “sanctify” is in the aorist tense, which would suggest the kind of punctiliar event that Pentecost was, being the time when they received a “baptism”-a baptism with the Holy Spirit. This is probably a use of “sanctify” as “make holy,” in the sense of cleansing them, and this would fit the “and fire” of the Matthew 3:11 –12 reference to the coming Pentecost: and the Acts 15:8 –9 description of Pentecost as a time when the peoples’ hearts were “purified.”

One more suggestion in John that regeneration could occur prior to Pentecost has to do with Thomas’ confession. That apostle, most prone to doubt Christ’s resurrection, comes around to a profound confidence in it and in Christ. Before anyone else had ever referred to Christ as fully divine, as theos, God, Thomas says, “My Lord and my God” (20:28). Surely this is a confession of a believer in the full sense. It is even made after the Resurrection, and in part because of Christ’s resurrection.

Besides John, the Synoptic Gospels, surely, teach that the first work of grace is possible before Pentecost. People receive the forgiveness of sins; they repent and believe; their lives become different and commissioned.

As I myself understand the matter, the people who repented and were baptized under John the Baptist’s preaching received the new birth—what we in Wesleyanism mean by the first work of grace. John called for repentance, a basic change of mind through which a person begins to build his Life according to a different blueprint. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 3:2), he told all and sundry. He did not want lipservice without their hearts in it, either, so he told them to “. . . bring forth fruit in keeping with your repentance” (3:8). He wasn’t mealy-mouthed, preaching a gospel of “sweetness and light,” but called sinners a “brood of vipers” (3:7). And we read that, with all the stringency of his demands, “. . . they were being baptized by him in the Jordan River , as they confessed their sins” (3:6). He made it clear, too, that it was Jesus he was proclaiming. Actually, in a sense, he told them he was offering a first step in redemption baptizing them in water, and that Jesus Himself, later, would offer a further stage in redemption, baptizing people with the Holy Spirit. Thus John the Baptist says in 3:11–12

As for me, I baptize you in water for repentance, but He who is coming after me is mightier than I, and I am not even fit to remove His sandals; He Himself will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. And His winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly cleanse His threshing floor; and He will gather His wheat into the barn, but He will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

It is more than a “half-way covenant” gospel, also, that Jesus Himself preaches. Its demand, also, is for repentance. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17), He preached, even as John the Baptist did. It was a gospel, too, to net you sundry kinds of happiness, as He told “the multitudes” in what we call the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:1–11). People who accept this repentance are already called “salt,” and they are already “the light of the world” (5:13–14), glorifying the Father by “good works” (5:16). Jesus gives them instructions, as insiders, who are to “love” their “enemies” (5:44), as He says, “in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven” (5:45).

A person can already receive God’s forgiveness, and that is one of the ways the New Testament has of talking about the first work of grace. Jesus says, “For if you forgive men for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions” (Matthew 6:14–15).

Much more similar data is in the Synoptics, but I must not continue with this argument. If this is not sufficient to support the view I am espousing, it might be because a respected presupposition (I admit to my own) is not allowing the data to apply to the matter.

Besides these responses to Dr. Robert Lyon’s views on the Acts accounts of what happened to the Samaritans, to Cornelius, to Paul, to the Ephesians, and to the disciples at the first Pentecost, I would make a few observations about the view of conversion with which his paper closes.[18] Basically, as I read his paper, I feel that he makes so much of conversion that there is little need for a subsequent experience of entire sanctification. Whereas some holiness interpreters have tended to make too little of conversion, I feel that he makes too much of it. Not only is the converted person already baptized with the Holy Spirit; as I read him, the converted person is already sanctified in a pretty complete sense.

For one thing, he calls conversion “. . . a truly sanctifying experience.”[19]I myself understand that at conversion there is an initial sanctification through which the propensity to sin which we acquire through our acts of sin is cleansed away (see Titus 3:5 ; Ephesians 5:25 –27). Yet I read Lyon as saying much more than this. His word “truly” is surely similar to “entire” or “full” or “wholly” which holiness people have often used of the second work of grace.

And he seems to mean, by conversion, something close to what many of us have meant by entire sanctification, in several things he says. For example, he says, “This is what I mean when I speak of conversion as a truly sanctifying experience. And it is this type of conquest of sin at conversion which suggests the reality of a subsequent perfection in love.”[20] If one is “truly” sanctified at conversion, and has already received that which suggests “the reality of a subsequent perfection in love,” it would seem that the subsequent perfection in love would not need a crisis experience of cleansing from Adamic sin in order to its realization, but only a gradual development. His next words are, “The great hurdle is overcome in new birth.[21] He is soon saying that in conversion “the ‘body of sin’ is destroyed”[22]—whereas many of us interpret this as the state or condition of original sin, and we understand that the destruction of it occurs at entire sanctification. He further says that conversion “. . . removes all the past and establishes an alternative to Adam,”[23] which sounds to me as though he is vaguely referring to Adamic sin, or original sin, and is saying that it is removed at conversion. And he seems to be saying that the commands to converted persons have to do with “holy living,” which is emphasized in all theological orientations. These commands do not seem to be urgings to receive a crisis experience of cleansing from original sin for he writes, “These, in turn, are further reinforced by various Pauline and Johannine themes in which the indicative descriptions of the basic experience of being apprehended by Christ are the bases for all-encompassing commands to holy living.”[24] Soon he is saying, again, what seems to preclude the need for a crisis cleansing from original sin: “The powerful and purging Word of God [at conversion] is engrafted and he [the converted person] is being transformed from one degree of glory to another (2 Corinthians 3:18).”[25]

Within the past two years I have read hundreds of holiness books, for writing a 453-page manuscript on the doctrine of entire sanctification and for teaching the required course on the subject at Nazarene Theological Seminary. Lyon ’s interpretation of Scripture, as I am sure he himself realizes, is different from that found in an immense amount of literature produced in the past by the Holiness Movement. I personally believe the Scriptures do not sustain such an interpretation.

[1] James D. G. Dunn, Baptism in the Holy Spirit. (Naperville, Ill.: Allenson, 1970).

[2] Robert W. Lyon , “Baptism and Spirit-Baptism in the New Testament,” in Wesleyan Theological Journal, Spring 1979, 18–19.

[3] Ibid., 18.

[4] Ibid., l9.

[5] John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the New Testament, comment on Acts 9:9 .

[6] Op. Cit, 19.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Ibid., 19–20.

[9] Ibid., 20.

[10] Ibid.

[11] W. T. Purkiser, Richard S. Taylor, and Willard H. Taylor, God, Man, and Salvation (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City,1977), p. 499,n.28.

[12] Lyon , op. cit., 20.

[13] Ibid.

[14] Ibid.

[15] Ibid.,18.

[16] Ibid., 21.

[17] Ibid.

[18] Ibid., 21–24.

[19] Ibid., 21.

[20] Ibid., 23.

[21] Ibid.

[22] Ibid., 24.

[23] Ibid.

[24] Ibid 23.

[25] Ibid., 24.

SPIRIT BAPTISM THE MEANS OF SANCTIFICATION: A RESPONSE TO THE LYON VIEW

SPIRIT BAPTISM THE MEANS OF SANCTIFICATION:
A RESPONSE TO THE LYON VIEW