Christian and
Missionary Alliance
Miles J. Stanford
In that the International
Headquarters of The Christian and Missionary Alliance, and the Seminary of the
Church of the Nazarene, are both located here in Colorado Springs, some of
their doctrine will be examined in order to establish why these denominations
should be avoided.
Incorporated in 1897, The Christian
and Misionary Alliance was a product of an amalgamation of The Christian
Alliance and the Evangelical Missionary Alliance. The C&MA was
founded in 1887 at Old Orchard, Maine, by Canadian-born Albert Benjamin
Simpson.
Since its inception, the Alliance has
developed into a missionary denomination composed of churches in fifty-one
nations, with over two million adherents. Reflecting its roots in the
American Holiness Movement [Arminian] of the later nineteenth century, the Alliance has
historically highlighted the doctrine of the Spirit-filled life, and healing
in the Atonement. (The Dictionary of the Pentecostal and Charismatic
Movements, p. 163)
DR. ALBERT B. SIMPSON
(1844-1919)
Dr. Simpson established the Alliance
upon his Pentecostal-type "Four-fold" Gospel:
- Christ Our Saviour
- Christ Our Sanctifier
- Christ Our Healer, and
- Christ bur Coming King.
(Typically, Aimee Semple McPherson's
"Foursquare Gospel," which she claimed was given directly to her by
divine revelation, was almost identical to Dr. Simpson's already-existing
"Fourfold Gospel.")
"CHRIST OUR SAVIOUR"
The Alliance rightly teaches that
Christ is received as Saviour by faith alone, but there are many Pentecostal
aberrations throughout their doctrine. The Alliance does not teach the
security of the believer, nor is it dispensational. And concerning the
Holy Spirit, Dr. Simpson wrote:
The Holy Spirit is with
all Christians, but there is a far deeper sense in which He resides in
those who have yielded themselves to Him in full surrender and consecration
and given Him the right of way. The Holy Spirit may convert one
hundred souls, but only become the indwelling Guest of the ones who give Him
the right of way.
"CHRIST OUR HEALER"
According to the Alliance Doctrinal
Statement,
Dr. Simpson was the first one to
connect physical healing with the Atonement. The Alliance has always
taught that provision is made in the redemptive work of Christ for the
healing of the mortal body.
Dr. Simpson wrote:
The scriptural doctrine of
Christ for the body is simply to realize that the Lord Jesus has purchased
and provided for His believing and obedient children physical strength, life
and healing as freely as the spiritual blessings of the Gospel.
Your prayers, and even your
faith, will not bring healing, until you act out your faith and arise from
your weakness and your fears. You must begin to go forward as if it
were really done. Then God will meet you. "As they
went they were healed." You must take your blessing by active
faith and, as you begin to use it, you will find every promise true.
Dr. Simpson went so far as to write:
Get saved from your
anatomy. Get saved from all your bad feelings. Keep out of
yourself! A flash of ill temper, a cloud of despondence, an impure
thought or desire will poison your blood, inflame your tissues, disturb your
nerves and interrupt the whole process of God's life in your body!
"CHRIST OUR COMING
KING"
The Alliance Doctrinal Statement
claims to be pre-millennial, but it fails to mention the Rapture:
The Lord Jesus is coming
personally to this earth again. His coming is not going to follow, but
bring in the millennium--His own gracious reign of righteousness and
peace. This blessed Hope is indeed a mighty spiritual force leading us
to lives of holiness and watchfulness.
TONGUES
Not being dispensational, and
therefore failing to rightly divide the Word of truth, the Alliance believes
that all the gifts are for today:
We believe the scriptural
teaching to be that the gift of tongues is one of the gifts of the Spirit,
and that it may be present in the normal Christian assembly as a sovereign
bestowal of the Holy Spirit upon such as He wills.
We do not believe that there is
any scriptural evidence for the teaching that speaking in tongues is the
sign of having been filled with the Holy Spirit, nor do we believe that it
is the plan of God that all Christians should possess the gift of
tongues. This gift is one of the many gifts and is given to some for
the benefit of all. The attitude toward the gift of tongues held by
pastor and people should be "Seek not, forbid not."
"Under the influence of A.W.
Tozer, the Alliance Board of Managers proposed the phrase, 'Seek not, forbid
not,' as embodying the 'wisdom for this hour' (1963) regarding the gift of
tongues. The widespread notion that this expression originated with A.B.
Simpson is erroneous" (Ibid., p. 164) .
Dr. Tozer was an Alliance pastor and
leader for some 40 years. And let it be noted that the C&MA
Constitution requires of all pastors and members:
Acceptance of the doctrines of
the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King, as
well as full sympathy with the principles and objectives of the C&MA and
cooperation by sympathetic support of its work.
The following are some of Dr.
Simpson's serious "holiness" errors:
"We freely concede that the
Holy Spirit is given to all who accept the Lord Jesus Christ as Saviour.
The promise of Peter on the day of Pentecost was 'Repent and be baptized
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and
ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost.'"
"But the Holy Spirit is given
to believers in very diverse measures. Speaking to His disciples
before He went away the Lord Jesus said, 'He dwelleth with you, and
shall be in you.' The Holy Spirit is with all believers,
but there is a far deeper sense in which He resides in those who have
yielded themselves to Him in full surrender and consecration and given Him
right of way."
"The Holy Spirit is the agent
in the conversion and regeneration of every believer. It is He who
convicts of sin, reveals Christ and brings the soul to decision, faith and
confession, and then transforms the soul in the miracle of
regeneration. But in all this He is working upon us and not from
within us. It is a very different thing when that converted soul
voluntarily yields itself to the One who has wrought this mighty change,
invites Him to come and dwell within and surrenders the absolute control of
his life."
"Then He becomes not only the
Builder but the Occupant of the house and guides us not from above but from
within. A man may build a hundred houses and yet live in only one of
them. And so the Holy Spirit may convert a hundred souls but only
become the indwelling Guest in the ones who give Him right of way."
"Justification brings
forgiveness of sin and deliverance from condemnation; sanctification brings
us purity of heart and likeness to God. You surrender yourself unto
Christ to be crucified with Him, and to have all your old life pass out, and
henceforth to live as one born from heaven and animated by Him alone."
"A clean heart is one phase of
entire sanctification. There are three stages in this full
experience. They are very clearly expressed by the three meanings of
the word sanctify: to separate from, to dedicate to, and to fill with.
The first of these is included in a clean heart."
"Do not delude yourself with
any theory that Christ is in you because you are a Christian. Christ
is in you just so far as you have surrendered yourself to Him and given Him
right of way, and no further. To have Christ come in means a very
definite crisis in your life, and very definite yielding to God, and a very
wonderful and glorious blessing."
"He will bring you into the
faith that holds on because it is the faith of God, and that puts its foot
on serpents and scorpions and claims victory through the authority of
God. He will give you healing for your frail body until the life of
Jesus shall be manifested in your mortal flesh."
Church of
the Nazarene
Miles J. Stanford
For all intents and purposes, the basic doctrines of the Alliance and
Nazarene denominations are identical. Their central doctrine of
"entire sanctification" is based upon John Wesley's "Christian
Perfection"--a "perfection" that is adjusted down to a
level they feel can be attained. This ploy is characteristic of all
"holiness," experience-centered movements.
The following in italics is quoted from the book
Exploring Our
Christian Faith, edited by Dr. W.T. Purkiser, 551 pages, revised
edition 1987. It is an official Nazarene publication, published by their
Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, Kansas, Missouri.
ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION (PERFECTION)
John Wesley clearly explained that he did not consider perfection a
freedom from ignorance, error, infirmities, or temptation. It is
perfection of love, bringing deliverance from inner sin.
It is "that habitual disposition of soul which is termed
holiness"; and which directly implies, the being cleansed from sin,
"from all filthiness both of flesh and spirit"; and by
consequence, the being endued with those virtues which were also in Christ
Jesus; and being so "renewed in the spirit of our minds" as to be
"perfect as our Father in heaven is perfect" (p. 90). --W. T.
Purkiser
The two streams flow together and become one. Christian
perfection from both the guilt and the inbeing of sin, made perfect in love,
and finally restored to complete Christlikeness. It is every
believer's privilege, therefore, to be perfect as his Father in heaven is
perfect, and to be filled with the Holy Spirit (p. 329). --W.M. Greathouse
In entire sanctification the heart is purified from the root or
inbeing of sin, effecting single-mindedness of devotion to God. Entire
sanctification is not so much a state as a condition preserved
moment-by-moment as we walk in the Spirit (p. 321). --W.M. Greathouse
AMELIORATION -- Whereas the Solomonics "eradicate" the
Adamic nature in favor of the new nature, these Wesleyanics
"eradicate" the "inbeing of sin," and have the Adamic
nature made holy via sanctification by means of the "second
blessing." Dr. James C. Dobson is Nazarene, incidentally.
"If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature, the old things
passed away; behold, new things have come" (2 Cor. 5:17). What
dies when the old man passes away is not self, but the sinful corruption
which impregnated, perverted, and distorted the God-created self.
Liberated from the power of sin, the true self can now emerge in all the
purity, wholeness, and beauty which characterizes its creation in the image
of God (pp. 251,252). --R.J. Gardner
Justification is objective, a change of relationship.
Regeneration is subjective, a change of nature. Justification means
imputation of righteousness; regeneration means the impartation of holiness.
Regeneration, or the new birth, is that gracious work of God whereby the
moral nature of the repentant believer is spiritually quickened and given a
distinctly spiritual life, capable of faith, love and obedience (p. 280). --W.
H. Greathouse
CLEANSING
Regeneration is a complete act, but it does not effect man's
entire sanctification. Scripture, reason, and experience indicate that
a "residue of recalcitrancy" remains. This deeper cleansing
is effected by the baptism of the Spirit (p. 284). --W.M. Greathouse
Not until carnal impurities are cleansed from the moral nature can the
believer develop as he should the "fruit of the Spirit" (p. 344).
--W. T. Purkiser
THE "SECOND BLESSING"
At the core of the Wesleyan concept of entire sanctification is the
conviction that the "second blessing" or baptism of the Spirit
results in the cleansing of the heart from all remaining inherited sin,
making the believer "holy in all manner of living" (p. 348). --W.
T. Purkiser
"HOLINESS BY FAITH" -- "Believe it and you've
got it!" is the credo of the Pentecostal/Charismatic denominations. The
"instant holiness" error.
Faith is not the factor for experience--that is the work of the Holy
Spirit. The rightly-divided Word of truth is very clear: Believe
(reckon upon) the positional facts: dead unto sin; alive unto God in Jesus
Christ (Rom. 6:11). "...beholding ... the glory of the Lord, are
changed into the same image from glory to glory (growth), even as by the
Spirit of the Lord." "Always (ongoing process) delivered
unto death (by the Spirit) for Jesus' sake, that the life also of Jesus might
be made manifest in our mortal flesh" (2 Cor. 3:18; 4:11).
Biblical sanctification is by faith. Whatever is attained by
human effort must of necessity be gradual; what is obtained by faith as the
gift of God may be instantaneous.
Entire sanctification is "the gift of God," and is to be
received by plain simple faith. Believe that He is not only
able, but willing to do it now. Not when you die, not tomorrow,
but today. He will enable you to believe it is done,
according to His Word: and then "patience shall have its perfect work,
that ye may be perfect and entire, wanting nothing" (pp. 338,339). --W.
T. Purkiser
"UNITED TO CHRIST" -- Those in the
Pentecostal/Charismatic, "holiness by faith" movements are
experience-centered. They neither understand nor accept positional
truth.
When we are "united to Christ" in His death through a total
surrender of ourselves to His lordship, all that constituted our previous
existence as those separated from the life of God dies. It ceases to
exist.
To be "united to Christ" means a life that is free from the
oppressive tyranny of sin--a life in which there is no condemnation, no
guilt, no disobedience,
no separation, no alienation, no estrangement, no uneasiness. It is,
as one has said, to be "comfortable in the presence of the Son of
God" (pp. 251,252). --J.R. Gardner
CRISIS EXPERIENCE
When now we summarize all these verbs, we gain an almost irresistible
impression of climax, epoch, or crisis: "to make holy," "to
baptize with the Spirit," "to crucify," "to put to
death," "to cleanse," "to purify," "to destroy
the body of sin," "to be made perfect in love."
All of these terms describe action which must naturally take place at
a definite time and place, and which do not admit of degrees. They all
testify to the fact that entire sanctification is a crisis experience, and
not a long-drawn-out and never completed process of growth (p. 337). --W. T.
Purkiser
CRUCIFIED -- "Holiness" teaching is not positional, but
rather experience-oriented:
"Crucified with Christ" (Rom. 6:6). As long as we are
in this world we will experience repeated crucifixions with Christ. We
will be crucified upon the crosses of rejection, ridicule, persecution, etc.
But there is good news: we never have to walk alone! When we are
subjected to fresh experiences of death, we are crucified with Him.
To be crucified with Christ--whether initially in the experience of full
surrender or in the course of faithful discipleship--does not destroy us,
but liberates us (pp. 252,253). --J.R. Gardner
THE SERMON ON THE MOUNT -- Dr. Carl F. Henry is utilized to
verify their one-nature theory. This is a truly shocking statement:
The Sermon on the Mount remains an "ethical directory for
Christians. It is the ultimate formula of ethics for which ideal human
nature was fashioned by creation and is destined in eternity. Fallen
nature is justified in Christ in conformity to the Sermon, and redeemed
nature appropriates it by the power of the indwelling Spirit of God (p. 326,
Personal Christian Ethics) (p. 498). --J.R. Gardner
The final sentence of the book, Exploring Our Christian Faith, p. 524, is:
As with all who share our Christian faith we pray each day, "Thy
kingdom come." --J. R. Gardner
And what is the cause of all this devastating Arminian error?
Something that is not exclusively characteristic of the poor Arminians:
Failure to heed the Pauline admonition:
"Study to show thyself approved of God, a workman that
needeth not to be
ashamed, rightly dividing the Word of truth" (2 Tim. 2:15).
June 1992.
Also see: SELF-INCRIMINATION - One-Naturism
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