Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

as an instantaneous work, subsequent to and different from regeneration, as clearly and as strongly
as ever did Wesley and Fletcher. Those who may wish to read their views can do so in Dr. Upham's
Interior Life, in Dr. Mahan's Baptism of the Holy Ghost and Autobiography, in President Finney's
Systematic Theology, and in Dr. Earle's Rest of Faith.
Among the later non-Methodistic writers on this subject is the late Dr. A. J. Gordon, of the Baptist
Church, preeminent among the preachers and writers of his denomination. His able and most helpful
book, The Twofold Life, is based on the theory propounded by him in the following words:
"The Scriptures seem to teach that there is a second stage in spiritual development, distinct and
separate from conversion, sometimes widely separated in time from it, and sometimes almost
contemporaneous with it -- a stage to which we rise by a special renewal of the Holy Ghost, and not
by the process of gradual growth ... There is a transaction described in the New Testament by the
terms, the gift of the Holy Ghost, the sealing of the Spirit, the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and the
like. The allusions to it in the Acts and the Epistles mark it unmistakably as something different from
conversion."
Dr. Gordon says that he came to hold this theory after
"a fresh study of the Acts of the Apostles, and from the conviction begotten by much study, that there
is more light to break out of that book than we have yet imprisoned in our creeds."
Also,
"from new experience in revival work, and from observation of what great things the Spirit of God
can accomplish when he falls upon believers and fills them with his power."
In a later work, Ministry of the Spirit, Dr. Gordon propounds and advocates the same theory. He
controverts the theory of the Rev. Ernest Boys, given in his book, Be Filled With the Spirit; or,
Scriptural Studies About the Holy Ghost. Mr. Boys' theory is that there is no special indument or
infilling of the Spirit after conversion. He says that such induement of the Spirit
"is not any special or more advanced experience, but simply the condition of every one who is a child
of God;"
that
"believers converted after Pentecost, and living in different localities -- all believers -- are just as
really endowed with the indwelling Spirit as those who actually partook of the Pentecostal blessing
at Jerusalem."