History and Development of Pentecostalism — Unit 2: Roots: Wesley, the Holiness Movement, Keswick, and Divine Healing (1739-1900)

Key Verse

"Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Thessalonians 5:23, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain John Wesley's teaching on Christian perfection, or entire sanctification, and why it matters to Pentecostal history.

2. Describe how the Holiness movement, including Phoebe Palmer and the camp meeting, shaped the language of a "second blessing" and of Spirit baptism.

3. Explain what the Keswick teaching added, especially its stress on power for service.

4. Describe the divine healing movement of the late 1800s and the "Fourfold Gospel."

5. State the main objections to calling these movements roots of Pentecostalism, and explain how Pentecostals answer them.

Why Look Back?

In Unit 1 we said that the true origin of our movement is Pentecost in Acts 2, and that God used human channels. When He poured out His Spirit in the early 1900s, He was answering the prayers of people who had been seeking Him for generations. This unit looks at those people and their teaching.

The period runs from 1739, when John Wesley began preaching in the open air, to 1900, the year before Topeka. These believers were not "Pentecostal" in the full sense, and most did not teach tongues as the first sign of Spirit baptism. But they prepared the ground, and their words and hopes appear in early Pentecostal preaching. A pastor who knows these roots can explain why Pentecostals talk the way they do.

Historians differ on which stream matters most. We will state the debates fairly and then answer from our own tradition.

John Wesley and the Hope of Holiness

John Wesley (1703-1791) was an Anglican priest in England and the main founder of the Methodist movement. In 1738 he had a deep experience of assurance, when he felt his heart "strangely warmed" in a meeting in Aldersgate Street in London on May 24. In 1739 he began preaching in the open air, because many ordinary people never entered church buildings. His preachers formed societies for prayer, Bible study and mutual care.

Wesley's teaching centered on two great works of grace. The first is new birth, in which a sinner is forgiven and made a child of God by faith. The second is what he called "Christian perfection" or entire sanctification. Wesley did not mean that a believer never makes mistakes or never needs forgiveness. He meant a heart made perfect in love for God and neighbor, a heart that is cleansed from the inward pull of sin. He built this hope on the words of Jesus, "You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind" (Matthew 22:37), and on the prayer of Paul in our key verse that God would "sanctify you completely."

Wesley taught three things that later mattered for Pentecostals. First, entire sanctification is a gift received by faith, not earned by works. Second, it may be received in a moment, not only after a long struggle. Third, it normally comes after conversion, as a second, definite experience. He set out these ideas in his book A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (1766). Wesley's close associate John Fletcher of Madeley used the language of the "baptism of the Spirit" when he spoke about this deeper work. This is an important link. Years before Azusa Street, Methodists were already connecting a second experience of grace with the Holy Spirit's coming.

Wesley was not a Pentecostal and did not teach tongues as the evidence of Spirit baptism. But he taught his people to expect God to act and to seek holiness as a present gift.

Camp Meetings and the American Awakenings

Methodism grew quickly in North America. Its traveling preachers reached frontier settlements where there were few churches. Around 1800, in a time often called the Second Great Awakening, large outdoor gatherings called camp meetings became common. One of the best known took place at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in 1801. People came from many miles, camped for days, and heard preaching, prayed and sought God. Observers wrote of deep repentance and also of unusual physical responses, which some leaders found troubling. What matters for our story is the pattern: ordinary believers gathered, prayed with expectation and looked for the Holy Spirit to move. The camp meeting remained part of Holiness and Pentecostal life for a century.

The evangelist Charles Finney (1792-1875) also taught that believers should seek a baptism of the Holy Spirit for power in service. He taught at Oberlin in Ohio, and the "Oberlin" teaching reached many churches. So the phrase "baptism of the Holy Spirit" was already used, in some circles, for an experience after conversion that brings power and purity.

The Holiness Movement

After about 1830, many Methodists in America believed their church was losing the hope that Wesley had held. They began to teach entire sanctification again. This renewal is called the Holiness movement.

One of its most influential leaders was a woman, Phoebe Palmer (1807-1874) of New York. In 1835 she began a weekly "Tuesday Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness." Ministers and laypeople came to pray and testify. In her book The Way of Holiness (1843) she taught that a believer who lays everything on the altar of consecration, trusting the promise of God, may receive the blessing now and need not wait for a long period of seeking. Palmer's teaching made the experience feel close and available.

In 1867 a National Camp Meeting Association for the Promotion of Holiness held its first meeting at Vineland, New Jersey, and Holiness camp meetings multiplied. Some Methodists who felt unwelcome in their churches formed new bodies, such as the Free Methodist Church (1860). By the end of the century a large network of Holiness churches, missions, schools and periodicals existed.

The language of this movement is important. Holiness preachers spoke of a "second blessing," meaning an experience after conversion that cleansed the heart. Many called it "the baptism of the Holy Spirit." When early Pentecostal leaders began to preach, they used exactly this vocabulary and then said that something more had been restored: the New Testament sign of tongues. Most early Pentecostal preachers came from the Holiness movement or churches touched by it.

In the 1890s the Holiness preacher Benjamin Irwin taught that after sanctification a believer could receive "the baptism of fire." The number of "blessings" was growing: conversion, sanctification, then fire. Unit 4 shows how Pentecostals later argued about how many works of grace there are.

Keswick: Holiness and Power for Service

A second stream of teaching came from the Keswick movement. In 1875, after meetings led by the American Quaker couple Robert Pearsall Smith and Hannah Whitall Smith, a convention was held at Keswick in the English Lake District. The convention continued yearly and influenced Christians in Britain, America and many mission fields.

Keswick teaching differed from Wesley's in an important way. Wesley hoped for a cleansing of the heart from the root of sin. Keswick teachers, who generally came from Reformed, Anglican and Baptist backgrounds, believed that the old nature remains but that the Spirit gives victory moment by moment, as the believer surrenders and trusts. Keswick also gave great attention to the filling of the Spirit as power for witness and mission. Dwight L. Moody, the famous evangelist, said that in 1871 he received a powerful experience that gave him new boldness in preaching. R. A. Torrey, who led Moody's Bible institute in Chicago, taught plainly in The Baptism with the Holy Spirit (1895) that the baptism is a separate gift of power for service which believers should seek. Torrey did not agree with Pentecostals about tongues. But his teaching shows that before 1901 many evangelicals already taught a Spirit baptism that was an empowerment for mission after conversion.

The Wesleyan stream stressed purity of heart; the Keswick stream stressed power for service. Pentecostal doctrine of Spirit baptism combined and, as Unit 4 shows, sometimes divided these emphases.

Divine Healing

A third root is the belief in divine healing. In the 1800s, in Europe and America, a number of ministers began to teach that healing is provided in the atonement and that believers may pray for the sick with faith. They based this on the healing ministry of Jesus and on passages such as Isaiah 53:4-5, Mark 16:17-18 and James 5:14-15. The last of these says, "Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up" (James 5:14-15).

Among the early leaders were Johann Christoph Blumhardt, a Lutheran pastor in Germany, and Dorothea Trudel in Switzerland. In America Charles Cullis, a physician in Boston, opened homes where the sick were prayed for.

Others were especially influential. A. B. Simpson was a Presbyterian minister who said he was healed in 1881. In 1887 he helped to found the Christian and Missionary Alliance. He summarized his message as the "Fourfold Gospel": Jesus is our Savior, our Sanctifier, our Healer, and our Coming King. A. J. Gordon, a Baptist pastor in Boston and a friend of Keswick teaching, published The Ministry of Healing in 1882. John Alexander Dowie, who ministered in Chicago in the 1890s and later founded a community called Zion, was a third. He drew crowds who sought healing, though he became controversial.

The Fourfold Gospel is very important for our story. Later Pentecostals often said "Jesus is Savior, Sanctifier, Spirit Baptizer, Healer and Coming King." They replaced "Sanctifier" with "Spirit Baptizer" in many groups, or added it as a fifth. The pattern shows a direct line. Donald Dayton's Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (1987) traces this fourfold and fivefold pattern, and it is one of the most useful tools for seeing how Pentecostal teaching grew from earlier movements.

Tongues and Prophecy Before 1900

Tongues were not entirely unknown in the 1800s. In 1830 and 1831, people connected with the Scottish minister Edward Irving reported tongues and prophecy in Scotland and London. Irving was later removed from his church, and his followers became the Catholic Apostolic Church. These episodes were disputed and limited. They show that the question of tongues was in the air. Unit 3 tells what happened at Topeka in 1901.

What Historians Debate

Synan and Dayton stress the Wesleyan and Holiness stream: the second blessing, the vocabulary of baptism and fire, the Fourfold Gospel, and the Holiness backgrounds of many early leaders. Other historians point out that Keswick and Reformed evangelical teaching also shaped Pentecostalism, especially the idea of a distinct empowering experience. Allan Anderson reminds us that the story is also global: Pentecostalism grew from local movements outside Europe and North America, which we study in later units.

Pentecostals answer that all these streams are real. The Spirit prepared His people through several movements at once.

The Main Objections and Our Answers

Objection 1: If Pentecostalism came from Holiness teaching, it is only a human development.

Some critics say that early Pentecostalism was nothing more than Holiness hopes and emotions in a new form. They say the roots explain everything, and God's action is not needed.

Our answer. We welcome the study of roots. The Bible itself shows God using history. Paul said, "But when the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son" (Galatians 4:4). The Lord prepared the way for Christ over centuries, and no one thinks that makes Christ's coming merely human. In the same way, the Holiness, Keswick and healing movements show how He prepared His church. They do not explain away what happened when the Spirit was poured out. Many who knew the roots were surprised by what came.

Objection 2: The Wesleyan teaching on entire sanctification is unbiblical.

Reformed and many other evangelical writers hold that sinless perfection is not found in this life, and that the teaching leads to pride or discouragement. B. B. Warfield wrote against perfectionism.

Our answer. Pentecostals disagree among themselves here, as Unit 4 will show. Those who follow Wesley point out that Wesley himself did not teach sinless perfection, but a heart set free to love. Those who disagree with Wesley still agree that Scripture commands holiness: "Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord" (Hebrews 12:14). All Pentecostals agree that God calls His people to be holy and that the Spirit gives power to live that life.

Objection 3: Divine healing teaching is cruel to those who are not healed.

Critics note that many faithful Christians remain sick, and that teaching healing in the atonement puts blame on them. Warfield argued that healing miracles ended with the apostles.

Our answer. This is a serious pastoral concern. Isaiah 53:5 says, "By His stripes we are healed," and Jesus healed the sick and sent out His disciples to do the same. We do not say that every sick person will be healed in this life, nor that the sick are without faith. Paul left Trophimus sick at Miletus (2 Timothy 4:20), and Timothy had frequent illnesses (1 Timothy 5:23). We pray for the sick because the Lord invites us to, and we trust Him with the result. A good pastor loves the sick, never blames them, and never claims more than God has promised. Course 3 of this specialization returns to this question.

Pastoral Application

Pastor Marta leads a small church where many members come from a long Holiness background. One older woman, who has served the Lord for fifty years, says she is afraid of this new teaching about the Spirit. "I was taught that I was sanctified," she says. "Now they say I need more. Was I wrong all those years?"

Marta first thanks her for her faithfulness and shows her that the Pentecostal message does not despise what she received. The Holiness movement helped to prepare the ground.

Second, Marta opens Scripture with her, reading Acts 1:8 and Acts 2:4, and shows that Jesus' promise of power was for those who already belonged to Him.

Third, she is honest about history: some early Holiness believers received the Pentecostal message with joy, others did not, and both loved the Lord.

Finally, she invites the woman to pray and seek, not to prove herself, but because the Lord is generous. She does not pressure her.

Summary

Pentecostalism grew from earlier streams, and we gladly acknowledge them. John Wesley taught that believers could receive entire sanctification as a gift by faith after conversion, and his associate John Fletcher linked this with Spirit baptism. Phoebe Palmer and the Holiness movement made a "second blessing" widely known, and used the language of Spirit baptism and fire. Keswick teaching from 1875 added a stress on power for service. The divine healing movement, led by figures such as Blumhardt, Cullis, Simpson and Gordon, taught that Jesus heals, and A. B. Simpson's Fourfold Gospel is a direct ancestor of the Pentecostal pattern. Some tongues and prophecy were reported before 1900, but unevenly. Historians debate which root matters most, and Pentecostals hold that the Spirit used all of them. We answer objections from Scripture and with humility: the roots explain how God worked, but do not explain away the outpouring.

Further Reading

• Vinson Synan, The Holiness-Pentecostal Tradition (1997).

• Donald W. Dayton, Theological Roots of Pentecostalism (1987).

• Allan Anderson, An Introduction to Pentecostalism (2nd ed., 2014).

• John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (1766), a primary source.

• Hannah Whitall Smith, The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life (1875), a primary source.

• R. A. Torrey, The Baptism with the Holy Spirit (1895), a primary source.

• A. J. Gordon, The Ministry of Healing (1882), a primary source.

• B. B. Warfield, Counterfeit Miracles (1918), a cessationist argument.

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