How to Stay Above Deception Part 13

THE CHURCH REFORMATION

By Apostle Felix

I give you the name Peter, a stone. And this truth of who I am will be the bedrock foundation on which I will build my church—my legislative assembly, and the power of death will not be able to overpower it! Matthew 16: 18

PENTECOSTALISM

Pentecostalism is a Protestant, Evangelical movement, whose emphasis is the born-again experience through a direct personal experience of God and subsequent experience of the Holy Spirit with evidence of speaking in tongues. The term Pentecostal is derived from the Pentecost, an event that commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the 120 people in the upper room, in Acts 2: 1.

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.

Pentecostalism adheres to the inerrancy of the Bible and the new birth experience, which is the acceptance of Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour. They do also believe in the use of spiritual gifts and power ministry. Pentecostalism strongly believes that the church should operate like the early apostolic church in terms of power demonstration and doctrinal persuasions.

In the 20th century, a Pentecostalism started emerging among the Wesleyan movement. The most prominent figures behind Pentecostalism were Charles Parham, an American evangelist and William J. Seymour, a Weslayan preacher and was a student of Charles Parham. Both preached the baptism of the Holy Spirit with an evidence of speaking in tongues. William Seymour called the experience as the third work of grace, and it resulted in a three-year long revival, which is now known as the Azusa Street Revival.

The revival spread across the United States of America and the rest of the world. The revival resulted in the growth of Pentecostalism and all Pentecostal churches trace their origins to Azusa Street revival. Pentecostalism, however, have had its own challenges and controversies. Most of the controversies were around doctrine. The early disputes centred around the doctrine of sanctification and Trinity. As the result of those disputes, the movement divided between Holiness Pentecostals who affirmed the baptism of the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues and Finished Work of Pentecostals who are partitioned into trinitarian and non- trinitarian.

The Pentecostal Holiness believed in the instantaneous sanctification, while the Finished Work Pentecostal believed in the progressive sanctification according to William Durham’s view and teaching on sanctification. The first Finished Work Pentecostal denomination was Assemblies of God. Then, thereafter, many denominations adhered to the progressive sanctification teaching.