A History of Christian Doctrine #3 - Online Christian Library

A History of Christian Doctrine
Finally, they received illumination from the Holy
Spirit. Jesus promised, “But the Comforter, which is the
Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he
shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your
remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. . . . When
he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all
truth . . . He shall glorify me: for he shall receive of mine,
and shall show it unto you” (John 14:26; 16:13-14). The
indwelling Spirit played a vital role in helping them to
understand and rediscover biblical truth, including truth
about the oneness of God and the full deity of Jesus
Christ.
Thus, it is no surprise that Charles Parham, the catalyst
for the entire Pentecostal movement, began to baptize
in Jesus’ name after the pattern of the Book of Acts.
We have also seen that some people in Los Angeles were
baptized in Jesus’ name during the Azusa Street revival,
and perhaps some people under Durham’s ministry in
Chicago were also. Gary McGee, an Assemblies of God
scholar, discovered that a missionary in Latin America
baptized in Jesus’ name in 1904. 64
Another early example was Andrew D. Urshan (1884-
1967), an immigrant from Persia (Iran) who received the
Holy Ghost in Chicago in 1908. He established a Persian
mission there and was ordained by William Durham in
1910. That same year, he came to a new understanding of
truth as he pondered the question: Why did the apostles
always baptize in the name of Jesus in the Book of Acts
when Jesus Himself had instructed them to baptize in the
name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost in Matthew
28:19? As he meditated on this matter, Acts 4:12 came to
his attention, and he concluded that the Lord Jesus Christ
62