Holiness, Sanctification, and Christian Perfection — Unit 5: Phoebe Palmer, the "Shorter Way," and the Holiness "Second Work" View: Presented Fairly, Then Weighed

Key Verse

"So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us, and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith." (Acts 15:8-9, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

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

1. Describe the life and work of Phoebe Palmer, and explain her "altar" teaching and her "shorter way."

2. State the Holiness "second work of grace" view in its own terms, including its main points and the Scriptures it uses.

3. Name the real strengths of the Holiness view.

4. Explain, from the Methodist standpoint, the questions and concerns that this course raises about the view.

5. Counsel a believer who has heard Holiness preaching and is confused or troubled by it.

The Voice of This Unit

This unit is written from inside the Wesleyan family. It is theologically conservative. Unit 4 gave the Methodist view of entire sanctification as growth in perfect love, which may be received in a moment. This unit gives the Holiness "second work" view as its own teachers would give it, and then weighs it. This course leans toward the Methodist view, and we say so openly. But we want a Methodist student to understand the Holiness teaching so well that a Nazarene or Wesleyan pastor would say, "Yes, that is what we believe." The history of the Holiness movement, with its camp meetings and its new churches, was told in Course 1, Unit 7, and we do not repeat it here. This unit is about the teaching.

Phoebe Palmer

Phoebe Palmer was born in New York City in 1807 and died in 1874. She was a Methodist layperson, the wife of a physician, and the mother of several children, some of whom died young. These sorrows deepened her search for God. In the 1830s she became the leader of a weekly gathering for prayer and testimony in her home, called the Tuesday Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness. It had been begun by her sister, Sarah Lankford, and Phoebe became its leader in 1837. The meetings were open to Christians of many churches, to men and women, and to laypeople and ministers alike. Over the years many pastors and leaders of several denominations attended.

In 1837 Palmer came to believe that she had received entire sanctification, and she spent the rest of her life teaching others how to seek it. In 1843 she published The Way of Holiness, a short book that became one of the best-known works of the movement. She also traveled widely, preaching at camp meetings and revival services in North America and, later, in the British Isles. She also wrote The Promise of the Father (1859), in which she defended the right of women to speak and teach in the church. Course 4 treats women in Wesleyan ministry in full.

The Altar and the Shorter Way

Palmer was a practical teacher. She wanted ordinary believers to be able to receive God's gift of holiness without years of waiting. Her teaching can be set out in three steps: consecration, faith and testimony.

Consecration. The believer lays everything on the altar. He gives God his body, his time, his possessions, his reputation, his plans, and his will. Palmer based this on the Old Testament altar: everything that touched the altar became holy (Exodus 29:37), and Jesus Himself said that the altar sanctifies the gift on it (Matthew 23:19). For Palmer, Christ is the altar. What is laid on Him is made holy.

Faith. The believer must then believe God's promise that what is on the altar is His. If the gift is on the altar, and the altar sanctifies the gift, then God has accepted it. The believer is to take God at His word, and not to wait for a special feeling before believing.

Testimony. The believer should then speak openly about what God has done, so that his faith is confirmed and others are helped.

Palmer called this the "shorter way." She did not mean that holiness is cheap. She meant that the believer who has fully consecrated himself does not need a long season of struggle or of waiting for a feeling. Faith in the promise is the door, and the door may be entered now. Her teaching built on Wesley's own advice that perfect love is received by faith, as we are, and now. It also made the experience of entire sanctification clearer and more definite in the minds of many people.

The Holiness "Second Work" View

After Palmer, the Holiness movement took her teaching and developed it. Over the generations the Church of the Nazarene, The Wesleyan Church, the Free Methodist Church and other bodies stated the doctrine in their articles of faith. We set out its main points in the way its teachers present them.

1. Two works of grace. The first work is the new birth, in which God forgives the sins a person has committed and gives new life. The second work is entire sanctification, in which God deals with the sinful nature that remains in the believer. This nature is called original sin, inbred sin, the carnal mind, or the old man.

2. The second work follows the first. It is "subsequent" to the new birth. A person who is born again is not yet entirely sanctified, though he is truly saved. Holiness teachers point out that many believers in the New Testament seem to have had a further need: the disciples before Pentecost, who already belonged to Christ (Acts 1-2); the Samaritans who believed and then received the Spirit (Acts 8); and Paul's prayer for believers that God sanctify them completely (1 Thessalonians 5:23).

3. It is received in a moment, by faith. God does it, and He does it when the believer meets the conditions. Holiness teachers point to the Gentiles whose hearts God purified by faith (Acts 15:8-9; our key verse), to the Lord's words that believers are sanctified by faith in Him (Acts 26:18), and to the verbs that call for a decisive offering (Romans 6:13; 12:1).

4. The conditions are full consecration and faith. Here Palmer's influence is clear.

5. The result is a cleansed heart and the fullness of the Holy Spirit. Many Holiness writers use the language of the baptism with the Holy Spirit, drawing on Pentecost and on the way Wesley's friend John Fletcher had linked cleansing of the heart with the Spirit's coming. Verses such as Ezekiel 36:25-27, 2 Corinthians 7:1 and 1 John 1:7 are used to show the promise of cleansing.

6. Growth follows. Holiness teachers all agree that after the second work there must be growth in grace. The second work is a beginning of a life of holiness, not an end.

7. Testimony. The believer who has received the blessing is encouraged to say so, humbly, for the help of others.

The Strengths of the Holiness View

A fair student should honor what is good in this teaching. We name five strengths.

Clarity. The view tells believers exactly what to seek and how to seek it. A person who is confused by many words about growth may find help in a clear message.

Urgency. It presses believers to seek holiness now, and not to postpone it.

Seriousness about remaining sin. It does not allow believers to pretend that the heart is already clean. It asks God to deal with the root.

A message for ordinary people. Palmer's Tuesday Meeting was a gathering of laypeople. The Holiness churches have carried this message to the poor, and have often been churches of missions and care for the needy.

Strong results. The movement produced churches, schools and missionaries around the world, and many pastors and believers in Latin America and Africa belong to churches that came from it.

Weighing the View: Questions from the Methodist Standpoint

This course leans toward the Methodist view. We therefore ask some questions about the Holiness view, offered in a spirit of brotherhood.

First question: Is the second work too sharply separated from the first? Our key verse, Acts 15:8-9, says that God purified the hearts of the Gentiles by faith at the time He gave them the Holy Spirit. Holiness teachers reply that Cornelius was already a devout man (Acts 10:2), so the passage can be read as a pattern of cleansing by faith through the Spirit after a first faith. Methodists note that the verse joins purifying with the first coming of the Spirit on these Gentiles. This warns us against setting the new birth and the cleansing too far apart. The New Testament never says "you are born again, but you are not yet holy." It calls all believers saints (Unit 2).

Second question: Does the teaching leave enough room for growth before the crisis? Wesley taught a gradual work before and after the moment (Unit 4). Holiness teachers do speak of growth, but their language can leave the impression that holiness before the crisis is less real.

Third question: How does faith relate to the witness of the Spirit? Palmer taught that the believer should believe that the altar has sanctified his gift, whatever he feels, because God has promised. This protects people from waiting for a feeling. But Wesley taught that the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit (Romans 8:16; Course 2, Unit 7). Some Wesleyan thinkers have asked whether her emphasis on believing the promise places faith in advance of the Spirit's own witness. Holiness teachers answer that they too look for the witness, and that the witness follows faith. The disagreement is one of emphasis, but a pastor should be aware of it.

Fourth question: Is the language of removal wise? Holiness writers sometimes say that the sinful nature is "eradicated" or "removed." Methodists prefer the language of love: the heart filled with love for God and neighbor, and cleansed. They do not deny cleansing. They hold that Scripture speaks of cleansing and of love more than of the removal of a "nature," and that careless language about removal has led some to think they could no longer be tempted or fall.

Fifth question: Does the "second blessing" language make two classes of believers? In Unit 4 we said that it may. Holiness teachers rightly deny that they despise other believers. But in practice some have measured believers by whether they can give a date, and this is a pastoral danger.

Sixth question: Does the baptism with the Holy Spirit belong here? Wesley himself did not make the baptism with the Spirit his usual way of speaking of entire sanctification, and the book of Acts links it first with the coming of the Spirit on believers for witness and power. Pentecostals, whom we meet in Unit 6, use the same language for a different experience. This shows how the same words have been drawn into different teachings.

Historians' Debate

Historians differ on how to judge Palmer's work. Some say she stands in true continuity with Wesley: she kept his call to seek perfect love now, by faith. Others say that she changed the emphasis, moving from a long road with a moment on it to a clear crisis, and from the witness of the Spirit to the believing of the promise. Some Methodist leaders welcomed her teaching in her own day. Others grew uneasy, and the Holiness people eventually formed new churches, as Course 1 told. A balanced view is to say that she kept something precious from Wesley and added something of her own. We receive the first with thanks and weigh the second.

What We Gladly Learn

A Methodist can gladly learn four things from the Holiness tradition. First, we should call people to full consecration, not leave them in half-hearted faith. Second, we should expect God to act now. Third, we should not make holiness a vague word, but should say plainly that God wants to fill the heart with love. Fourth, we should honor laypeople, including women, who have been gifted for this teaching. At the same time we hold to the Methodist view because we believe it is closer to Wesley, closer to the whole of Scripture, and kinder to those who walk by a different road.

Pastoral Application

You are the pastor of a small Methodist church. A Nazarene congregation is holding revival services nearby. A young couple from your church attends. The husband returns glowing. "Pastor, I received the second blessing last night. I am sanctified!" His wife is troubled. "I prayed at the altar too, but nothing happened. Maybe I am not saved."

You first rejoice with the husband and thank God for what he has received. You do not argue with his words. You then turn to the wife. You tell her she is not under condemnation (Romans 8:1), and that she is saved by grace through faith. You ask her whether she gave everything to God at that altar, and she says yes. You tell her that she may trust God's promise, and that the Spirit will bear witness in His own time. You encourage both to read Acts 15:8-9 and 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 together, to keep growing in the means of grace, and to judge every experience by its fruit: love, humility and obedience. You pray for them both. And you reassure the wife that there are many roads to the same love and that she should not compare herself with her husband.

Summary

Phoebe Palmer (1807-1874) led the Tuesday Meeting for the Promotion of Holiness in New York and wrote The Way of Holiness (1843). She taught three steps, consecration, faith and testimony, and she called this the shorter way, because the believer who fully consecrates himself may receive the blessing now by faith. The Holiness churches developed her teaching into the "second work of grace": a work after the new birth, received in a moment by faith, that cleanses the sinful nature and fills the believer with the Spirit, and that must be followed by growth. Its strengths are clarity, urgency, seriousness about remaining sin, a message for ordinary people and strong results. This course leans toward the Methodist view and asks six questions of the Holiness view, about the separation of the two works, room for growth, the relation of faith to the Spirit's witness, the language of removal, the danger of two classes, and the use of the baptism language. We learn from the Holiness tradition and hold our own view humbly.

Further Reading

• Phoebe Palmer, The Way of Holiness (1843), and The Promise of the Father (1859).

• John Wesley, "The Scripture Way of Salvation," and A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (1766).

• John Fletcher, Checks to Antinomianism.

• John Wesley, Notes on the New Testament, on Acts 15 and 1 Thessalonians 5.

• Holiness Through the Ages (Coleman, Danielson and Parry), the Master's textbook for this course.

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