Dr. Timothy Tennent: The Second Half of the Gospel
As graduates of the seminary, many of you have heard us in various writings, blogs or at New Room try to frame the Wesleyan emphasis on sanctification as the “second half of the gospel.” I first heard the phrase from my colleague and friend, J. D. Walt, who serves Asbury’s Seedbed Publishing and New Room Network. The phrase immediately resonated with me. The idea behind it is that “justification” is the first half of the gospel, which was so wonderfully renewed at the time of the Reformation. We are saved by grace, through faith. But the “second half” is what happens after you become a Christian. This is the “good news” not just of our forgiveness, but of our complete deliverance from the bondage of sin and our victorious life in holiness. So much of the church has been focused on “getting people into the door of faith,” we can be at a loss as to what to do once they are in the door.
In the last few weeks, I saw another way of looking at this as my wife and I have been reading the book of Acts aloud to one another. I was struck by how many times the early apostolic community laid hands on people to “receive the Holy Spirit.” Water baptism was followed by the laying on of hands. The sacrament of baptism we know quite well, because it is associated with the “first half” of the gospel. It is like the “doorway.” When we are baptized we are following Christ in His death and resurrection. When we go down into the waters of baptism, we symbolize our dying with Christ, and when we come joyously up from the waters of baptism we are symbolizing the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.
But, in the book of Acts they didn’t stop there (though sometimes God had to act first to give the early Apostles the nudge they needed! See, Acts 10:44). They would lay hands on baptized men and women and pray for them to receive the Holy Spirit (See Acts 6:6; 8:17; 9:17; 13:3,4; 19:5,6). Just as water baptism is a symbolic re-enactment of the death and resurrection of Christ, so the laying on of hands to receive the Holy Spirit is a re-enactment of the Day of Pentecost when God sent His Spirit. The “Day of Pentecost” is re-enacted multiple times in the Book of Acts (Acts 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13 and 19). We should assume that this is a precedent that the Day of Pentecost should not be regarded as a one-time event, but as an ongoing experience in the life of the believer, since the Spirit not only helps us to appropriate the good news of our justification through Christ, but to live in the power of the Christ as we witness in the world and live in holiness. For too long we have come to accept the collapse of holiness and the invasion of evil and sinful activities into the life of the church. Our culture has become increasingly marked by crudity, vulgarity, profanity, and the embrace of unspeakable evils. The church has, at times, turned a deaf ear to the plight of the immigrant. We have, at times, been indifferent to the rising time of racial bigotry and the need for racial reconciliation in our land. The indwelling Holy Spirit will help us to identify and to eradicate these sins in our lives, as well as produce the fruits of the Spirit which are so desperately needed to be manifest in our culture today.
So, perhaps an even better way of talking about “justification” and “sanctification” is to not talk about “first half” and “second half” but water baptism and laying on of hands. The first we know quite a bit about, the latter not so much. The result is that often our Christian experience is diminished, powerless and lacking boldness. Too often our Christianity is “in our heads” and “nominal” rather than vibrant and moving through our hearts, feet and hands. Today, as much as ever, we need the infilling of the Holy Spirit in our lives and throughout our churches. We need to have that full, Trinitarian salvation which orients us not only to Jesus Christ as our glorious redeemer, but to the Holy Spirit as our blessed sanctifier.
Thank you! Brief, clear, valuable information. Like you, Dr. T., I’m often moved by what J.D. (and Tiffani) have to share, and blessed by Luke’s narrative in Acts.
In Christ’s strong love and the Spirit’s power,
Will Hensel (MDiv 2000)
Retired msy of 36 years, WWII, 93 years, class ’52
Guatemala…want to make one last visit and know that Spirit fullness is needed on many pastors there. Am praying for revival.
Am thrilled to see name Tennant in American history as
part of the fathers….and now at ATS.
Jesus answered, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. – John 3:5
Excellent! Loved the theological perspective but also the prophetic praxis.
Very true!
In the church planting ministry here in India we do the laying on of hands ministry to impart the Holy Spirit and lives are transformed. Truly this is an ongoing experience in the life of a believer.
Abraham Kurian
D Min class 2011
Hope this tremendous truth ignites its hearers and spread to the utmost re-enforcing God’s global mission for Scriptural holiness!
Lal Muana
DMin Alumni 2017
Thank you Dr. Tennent. This is a wonderful way to further explain Wesleyan Way of Salvation, and how the Holy Spirit is the primary actor in moving one from having Jesus as Savior to Jesus as Lord, thus becoming more like Christ, moving onto to perfection, entire sanctification. I will be using excerpts of your article in a sermon.
John “Jack” Wallace DMin 2011
Dr. Tennent, I appreciate and find helpful your suggestion that we re-think the terminology about what has been termed sanctification and renew our emphasis on the building of holiness within our lives as a result of the filling of the Holy Spirit. God deeply desires a Church which could in powerful ways address our own sins, but also the open sin and defiance of God of the broader culture. Which brings me to my concern. All of this leaves our own experience as the primary reference and locus of work of the Holy Spirit. You wrote,”..often our Christian experience is diminished, powerless and lacking boldness.” While that is lamentably true, how about this as a re-write: God strengthens His chosen instrument, the Church, the Bride of Christ (and us as part of that Body) when we open up to the filling of the Holy Spirit and weakened when we overlook the filling of the Holy Spirit. God accomplishes His work through us by the Holy Spirit. As a wonderful by-product our experience grows as does our character. But God battles more than our own sin. He wins a great victory way beyond us, within which battle He grants us a role.
The American (and Allied) soldiers on Great Britain’s shores on June 2nd,3rd,4th and 5th, 1944 were first concerned about following their commanding officers, and even more about defeating the Germans. They were part of something far greater than themselves and that drove them across the channel. Secondarily, they were concerned about how good they were as soldiers.
May our hearts thrill at being part of God’s plan of attack and seek the filling of the Holy Spirit primarily to enable our role in that battle. And may our lives also be marked by enlarged perspective, greater power (for Him alone), and boldness.
Kirk Westfall, MDiv, ‘78