Revivalism and Power (Part III): Finney’s teaching

We’re going to look directly at Charles Finney’s Power from on High in order to understand Finney’s teaching and its problems.

I’ve selected 5 key sections out of the book and at each point I want to examine a lengthy quote: The need for power; conditions of receiving power; the effect of possessing power; power in prayer and power in preaching. 

The need for power

Charles Finney’s Power from on High begins in Chapter 1 by correcting a misunderstanding among his members of the council of Oberlin regarding the “second blessing”. Formerly the Holiness movement had inherited from Methodism the notion that the second blessing relates to perfection, or “entire sanctification”. But Finney, although maintaining the importance of ‘sinlessness’ for reception, had taken a step forward: the blessing itself was not sinlessness (or entire sanctification); that was only the means to this end. The blessing itself, the end, was power.

To Finney, because the Great Commission is given to the “whole church”, therefore “every member of the church is obligated to make it his life work to convert the world”.  Finney had been addressing what was to him the most vital of questions, “what do we need to ensure success in this great work?” His answer: we need to be clothed with power from on high, according to Luke 24:49. To Finney, receiving this power presents the certainty that we will “be successful in winning souls, if we ask and fulfil the plainly revealed conditions of prevailing prayer” (More on ‘prevailing prayer’ later).

But among the council “the lack of power is a subject of constant complaint.” Everybody is praying continually for power but to no avail. In reply Finney lists many reasons why this outpouring of power is not received, the last and greatest of which is unbelief. And summing up, Finney reflects: “I was obliged to conclude that these and other forms of indulged sin explain why so little is received, while so much is asked”.

But here is where the Council of Oberlin still hung onto their former notions of perfectionism: they asked Finney: “If we first get rid of all these forms of sin, which prevent our receiving this outpouring, have we not already obtained the blessing? What more do we need?”

In reply Finney answers: 

“There is a great difference between the peace and the power of the Holy Spirit in the soul. The disciples were Christians before the Day of Pentecost, and, as such, had a measure of the Holy Spirit. They must have had the peace of sins forgiven and of a justified state, but yet they had not the infusion of power necessary to do the work assigned them. They had the peace which Christ had given them but not the power which He had promised.

This may be true of all Christians, and right here is, I think, the great mistake of the church and of the ministry. They rest in conversion and do not seek until they obtain this outpouring of power from on high. Hence, so many professors of Christianity have no power with either God or man. They prevail with neither. They cling to hope in Christ, and even enter the ministry, overlooking the admonition to wait until they are clothed with power from on high.” (Finney, p. 11-12)

Conditions of receiving power

In Chapter 4, “Conditions of receiving power”, Charles Finney sets out the situation of the first disciples, and in the narratives of the Gospel accounts finds three conditions of receiving the ‘outpouring of power’ from on high:

“First, we, as Christians, have the same commission to fulfil. As truly as they did, we need an outpouring of power from on high. Of course, the same admonition, to wait on God until we receive it, is given to us.

Second, we have the same promise that they had. Now, let us take substantially and in spirit the same course that they did. They were Christian and had a measure of the Spirit to lead them in prayer and in consecration. So have we. Every Christian possesses a measure of the Spirit of Christ, enough of the Holy Spirit to lead us to true consecration and inspire us with the faith essential to prevail in prayer. Let us, then, not grieve or resist Him, but accept the commission, fully consecrate ourselves, with all we have, to the saving of souls as our great and our only lifework. Let us go to the altar with all we have and are, and lie there and persist in prayer until we receive the outpouring.

Now, observe, conversion to Christ is not to be confused with acceptance of this commission to convert the world. The first is a personal transaction between the soul and Christ relating to its own salvation. The second is the soul's acceptance of the service in which Christ proposes to employ it.

Christ does not require us to make brick without straw. To whom He gives the commission He also gives the admonition and the promise. If the commission is heartily accepted, if the promise is believed, if the admonition to wait upon the Lord until our strength is renewed is complied with, we will receive the outpouring.

Third, it is of supreme importance that all Christians should understand that this commission to convert the world is given to them by Christ individually.

Everyone has the great responsibility passed on to him or her to win as many souls as possible to Christ. This is the great privilege and the great duty of all the disciples of Christ. There are a great many departments in this work. But in every department we may and ought to possess this power so that, whether we preach, or pray, or write, or print, or trade, or travel. Or take care of children, or administer the government or the state, or whatever we do, our whole lives and influence should be permeated with this power. Christ says, “He that believeth on me, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” (John 7:38). That is, a Christian influence, having in it the element of power to impress the truth of Christ upon the hearts of men, will proceed from him. “(Finney, p. 32-34)

The effect of possessing power

In Chapter 2, Finney explains what exactly is the ‘power’ described in the promise and command of Luke 24:49 for all Christians. Although for the apostles and believers on the Day of Pentecost, Finney describes an increase in illumination, gifts, holiness, self-sacrifice, cross-bearing, meekness, loving enthusiasm in preaching, teaching, faith, tongues, miracles, inspiration and moral courage, still these were all only means.

“In their circumstances, all these gifts were essential to their success, but neither separately nor all together did they constitute that power from on high which they manifestly received, That which they manifestly received as the supreme, crowning, and all-important means of success was the power to prevail with both God and man, the power to fasten saving impressions on the minds of men. This was doubtless the thing which they understood Christ to promise. He had commissioned them to convert the world to Him. All that I have named above were only means, which could never secure the end unless they were vitalized and made effective by the power of God. The apostles, no doubt, understood this; and, laying themselves and their all upon the altar, they entreated the throne of grace in the spirit of entire consecration to their work.” (Finney, p. 14)

To Finney, what the Apostles received ‘supremely and principally’ at Pentecost was “power to make saving impressions on men”. This is why so many were converted immediately following Peter’s sermon. They had from that moment a power in them to convert people. And this power “stayed with and upon them” (p. 15). This is the big thing, the main thing that the early Church had that we lack.

The power works both mysteriously and surprisingly:

“Sometimes a single sentence, a word, a gesture, or even a look will convey this power in an overcoming manner”. (Finney, p. 16)

The power depends on humility and whole hearted consecration:

“Sometimes I would find myself, in a great measure, empty of this power. I would go out and visit and find that I made no saving impression. I would exhort and pray with the same result. I would then set apart a day for private fasting and prayer, fearing that this power had departed from me, and would inquire anxiously after the reason of this apparent emptiness. After humbling myself and crying out for help, the power would return upon me with all its freshness. This has been the experience of my life.” (Finney, p. 16-17)

“When Christians humble themselves and consecrate their all afresh to Christ and ask for this power, they will often receive such a baptism that they will be instrumental in converting more souls in one day than in all their lifetime before. While Christians remain humble enough to retain this power, the work of conversion will go on until whole communities and regions of the country are converted to Christ. The same is true of ministers.” (Finney, p. 20).

Power in prayer

In Chapter 6 Charles Finney describes that most important of activities for Christian effectiveness: Prevailing prayer. Even receiving this power will not necessarily bring success in ‘winning souls’ if we do not “ask and fulfil the plainly revealed conditions of prevailing prayer.” By way of definition, he says “Prevailing prayer is that which gets an answer. Saying prayers is not offering prevailing prayer. The effectiveness of prayer does not depend so much on the quantity as the quality.” (p. 51)

“...What was I to make of what I witnessed from week to week and month to month in that prayer meeting? Were they real Christians? Was that which I heard real prayer in the Bible sense? Was it such prayer as Christ had promised to answer? Here I found the solution. I became convinced that they were under a delusion, that they did not prevail because they had no right to prevail. They did not comply with the conditions on which God had promised to hear prayer. Their prayers were just the kind God had promised not to answer. It was evident they were overlooking the fact that they were in danger of praying themselves into scepticism in regard to the value of prayer.” (Finney, p. 53)

In Finney’s reading of the Bible, he notices many conditions of answered prayer, and highlights the following: Faith in God, asking according to the will of God, sincerity, unselfishness, a clear conscience, a pure heart, due confession, clean hands, being at peace with fellow believers, humility, taking away stumbling blocks, having a forgiving spirit, exercising a truthful spirit, praying in the name of Christ, inspiration from the Holy Spirit, fervency, perseverance, a consistent use of means to obtain the object asked for, being specific, meaning what we say, assuming the good faith of God in all his promises, watchfulness, praying in the Holy Spirit (Finney, p. 53-62).

“When the fallow ground is thoroughly broken up in the hearts of Christians, when they have confessed and made restitution—if the work is thorough and honest—they will naturally and inevitably fulfil the conditions and will prevail in prayer. But it cannot be too distinctly understood that none others will. What we commonly hear in prayer and conference meetings is not prevailing prayer. It is often astonishing and lamentable to witness the delusions that prevail on the subject. Who that has witnessed real revivals of religion has not been struck with the change that comes over the whole spirit and manner of the prayers of really revived Christians? I do not think I ever could have been converted if I had not discovered the solution to the question, Why is it that so much that is called prayer is not answered?” (Finney, p. 63)

Power in preaching

In chapter 7 “How to Win Souls”, Charles Finney presents a “philosophy of preaching the Gospel in a way that will bring about the salvation of souls”.

“If we are unwise, illogical, and out of all natural order in presenting the Gospel, we have no right to expect divine cooperation. In winning souls, as in everything else, God works through and in accordance with natural laws. Hence, if we would win souls, we must wisely follow natural laws. We must present the necessary truths and do so in that order adapted to the natural laws of the mind, of thought and mental action. A false mental philosophy will greatly mislead us, and we will often be found ignorantly working against the Holy Spirit.” (Finney, p. 67)

“Sinners must be convicted of their enmity...By the law is the knowledge of sin (Rom 3:20)... By the law, he first learns that God is perfectly benevolent and infinitely opposed to all selfishness. This law, then, should be arrayed in all its majesty against the selfishness and enmity of the sinner. This law carries irresistible conviction of its righteousness, and no moral agent can doubt it. All men know that they have sinned, but not all are convicted of the guilt and deserved punishment of sin... The spirituality of the law should be unsparingly applied to the conscience until the sinner’s self-righteousness is annihilated, and he stands speechless and self-condemned before a holy God.” (Finney, p. 67-68).

“The law does its work—annihilates the sinner’s self-righteousness and shows him mercy is his only hope. Then, he should be made to understand that it is morally impossible for a just God not to execute a penalty when the law has been broken. Right here the sinner should be made to understand that he cannot assume that because God is benevolent He will forgive him. For unless public justice can be satisfied, the law of universal benevolence forbids the forgiveness of sin. If public justice is not regarded in the exercise of mercy, the good of the public is sacrificed to that of the individual. God will never do this. This teaching will give the sinner no choice but to look for some offering to public justice. Now, give him the atonement as a fact revealed and point to Christ alone as his own sin offering. Stress the revealed fact that God has accepted the death of Christ as a substitute for the sinner’s death, and that this is to be received upon the testimony of God. Since the sinner is already crushed into contrition by the convicting power of the law, the revelation of the love of God manifest in the death of Christ will naturally produce great self-loathing. It will produce that godly sorrow that needs “not to be repented of” (2 Cor 7:10). Under this evidence, the sinner can never forgive himself. God is holy and gracious, and he as sinner, saved by sovereign grace.” (Finney, p. 69-70)

At each point, what is Finney actually teaching here? Is it partly true? What are the problems? What bad fruit might this teaching bear? What corrections are needed? What good fruit should correction in this area produce?

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Finney, Charles G. Power from on High, Whitaker House, 1995.

Power and Revivalism (Part II): Finney’s new empowerment

America’s two Great Awakenings had a huge effect on Christian thinking. The intense revivalism of nearly an entire century was a firepot for theological innovation, evolution and diversion as much as anything, and we’re still feeling the effect of that today, particularly with the ever-rising influence of modern-day Pentecostal revivalism.

Charles G. Finney (1792-1875) was the outstanding evangelist of the Second Great Awakening (ca. 1795-1930) and the dominant theological figure. He came from within Presbyterianism but was significantly influenced by Wesley's Plain Account of Christian Perfection, which crystallised his belief in 'entire sanctification' as a state of perfect trust in God and commitment to his will. But for him, this state of perfect consecration to God was only the means to the second blessing. The higher Christian state, attainable following conversion, was a state of empowerment through the experience of Spirit-baptism.

Finney was also immensely influenced by Nathaniel W. Taylor's form of Arminianism, called New Haven Theology. New Haven theology was a late stage of the New England theology that originated in the work of Jonathan Edwards to defend the revival of the First Great Awakening (ca. 1735-43). Understanding New Haven theology and its historical development is the key to understanding Finney’s new revivalism.

Jonathan Edwards

In the 1700s during the First Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards (1703-58) rejuvenated Augustinian theology and Calvinism to give spiritual legitimacy to the revival. His theology dominated American Christianity for almost a century. Edwards is regarded as the classical theologian of revival. He emphasised the sovereignty of God in revival and the inability of people to produce revival. He also taught that genuine Christianity was not revealed by the quality or intensity of religious affections or experiences, but by a change of heart to love and seek God’s pleasure. Emotions or wilful exertion could not produce or ‘cause’ the work of God.

Along with George Whitefield, he taught that salvation belonged entirely to God and that people did not possess the natural ability to turn to Christ apart from the work of the Holy Spirit. In Original Sin (1758) he taught that all mankind were present in Adam when he sinned. Consequently, all people share his sinful character and guilt. Only God’s sovereign grace could cause them to repent. The human “will” was not an independent faculty, but an expression of basic motivation. Modern versions of “free will” only served to remove human responsibility.

Through Edwards, New England theology began with a focus on: the supremacy, sovereignty and majesty of God; the morality of divine justice for a sovereign God; and the problem of causation behind sin, including the problem of the freedom of the human will. But Edward’s successors would not master his theological rigour, and introduced subtle changes to his theology that would have a significant affect over time. Eventually in the nineteenth-century, his protégé would reverse many of his basic teachings.

David Hume

The Enlightenment was at its climax in the eighteenth-century (the age of ‘reason’). David Hume (1711-1776) was a Scottish philosopher and one of the key figures of the Enlightenment. He wrote Treatise of Human Nature (1734-37) which was taken by orthodox Christianity as an attack because it taught that all human knowledge is a product of experience. Hume reasoned that actual reality cannot be known for certain, because human knowledge cannot go beyond the appearance of probability, only having certainty over the relationship between ideas, not between objects. The concept of causality, cause and effect, was an assumption, an association made because of the appearance of cause and effect. In Dialogues, Hume denied the argument of natural theology. While not denying the existence of God, he argued that God’s existence cannot be established from reason or sense experience, and cannot be proved from causality.

Thomas Reid

Thomas Reid (1710-96) was a moderate Presbyterian and was particularly disturbed by Hume’s Treatise of Human Nature (1739), which he saw as a denial of the reality of external objects, causation and the unity of the mind. He attempted to overcome what he saw as a threat to Christianity from Hume in his writings: Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense (1764), Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man (1764) and Essays on the Active Powers of Man (1785).

Scottish Realism was the popular movement that he left behind him in the eighteenth and nineteenth-century. It aimed to stem the infidelity of the Enlightenment and combat the scepticism of David Hume with a philosophy of ‘common’ sense and natural ‘realism’, which taught a universal and innate human freedom and the power of people to shape their own destinies. The “self-evident” principles of ‘common experience’ were: the existence of external objects, causality and the obligations of morals.

Scottish Realism has been shown to have had an immensely influential effect on American theology during the nineteenth-century. Among those influenced were the children, grandchildren and protégé of Jonathan Edwards.

Timothy Dwight

Edward’s own son, Jonathan Edwards Jn. (1745-1801) and his grandson, Timothy Dwight (1752-1817) both deviated from Edwards. Dwight was a revivalist and a theologian of the Second Great Awakening and was particularly influenced by the eighteenth-century rationalist movement, himself contributing to Scottish realism in America.

Both tended to view sin as a summation of evil deeds rather than principally a wrong state of being that produces evil deeds. Dwight had a greater view of human ability, and in contrast to Edwards, emphasised the natural ability of people to respond to the gospel.  He also endeavoured to emphasise the ‘reasonable’ nature of the Christian position by giving it a rational defence in the context of the Enlightenment, rather than emphasising the supremacy and majesty of God, as had Edwards.

But it was one of Dwight’s students that changed the emphasis of New England theology most dramatically.

Nathaniel Taylor

Timothy Dwight’s best student Nathaniel W. Taylor (1786-1858), who was profoundly influenced by his revivalism, accepted Scottish realism, the humanistic teaching of common sense realism that teaches that ‘reason’ provides proof of the first principles of morality that make humans free moral agents. And building on the foundation laid by Dwight, he contended that people inherently possessed a natural power to be able to make free choices. He modified Calvinism to make it compatible with the revivalism of the Second Great awakening in the opening decades of the nineteenth century.

His teaching on human nature famously stated that individuals always possessed a “power to the contrary”. Following the lead of Jonathan Edwards Jn. and Timothy Dwight, he taught that although everyone did in fact sin, this was not a result of God’s predestination of human nature.

Going completely against the teaching of Jonathan Edwards, he reversed many of the original positions of New England theology, teaching that sin was actually the exercise of wilful actions against God, rather than an underlying condition of existing by nature with a will in opposition to God.

In order to make them compatible with the actual practices of the revivals of the Second Great Awakening, Taylor altered almost every doctrine of the Reformation and Calvinism, including revelation, human depravity, the sovereignty of God, the atonement, and regeneration.

W. A. Hoffecker has written about him:

“He insisted that people are lost but denied that Adam’s sin was imputed to all people and that everyone inherits a sinful nature that causes one to sin. Even though a person sins, that person has the power to do otherwise, thus remaining morally responsible. God made humans with a proper self-love, a natural desire for happiness, which motivates all choice.

Taylor also reinterpreted Calvin’s teaching on God’s sovereignty by calling God a moral governor who rules, not by determining the destiny of all people through election, but rather by establishing a moral universe and judging its inhabitants. God promotes moral action by a system of means and ends in which people can respond to ethical appeals for repentance.

He opposed the legal view of the atonement that stressed Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross in the place of sinners to satisfy God’s justice. Instead, God as benevolent moral governor sent Christ to die so that his death could be preached as a means to urge sinners to turn freely from their sin out of self-love and be converted”. (Elwell, p. 1168).

In direct opposition to Jonathan Edwards in the 1740s, Taylor undermined the distinction between the Holy Spirit’s sovereign work of regeneration and human repentance, and in so doing denied the absolute grace of God in salvation.

In what is now called New Haven Theology, Taylor's form of Arminianism greatly influenced a new revivalist and evangelist, Charles Finney, who would go even further in bringing this new theology of revivalism to its maturity.

Charles Finney

Dramatically converted in the middle of the revivalism of the American Holiness movement in 1821, Charles G. Finney (1792-1875) became the leading evangelist and leader in the movement. He is credited with establishing the modern forms and methods of revivalism, indirectly inherited by Pentecostalism. He spent the last 40 years of his life constructing a new theology of revival, casting into shadow the classic work of Jonathan Edwards.

He was influenced profoundly by Wesley’s theology, by the emphasis of the American Holiness movement, and by New Haven Theology. Underpinning all of Finney’s doctrine was his conviction from Wesley that the practice of Christian perfection was the attainable duty of all Christians and his conviction from Taylor that God has established natural means and ends in which people can and will respond to ethical appeals for repentance. 

Accordingly, Finney taught that God had established the means by which humans could produce revival. He believed that not only had individuals possessed the ability within themselves to make a choice to follow Christ, but also that Christians possessed the power within themselves to live holy lives.

He taught that the result of God's help combined with strenuous human effort was blessing and revival: "A revival is as naturally a result of the use of the appropriate means as a crop is of the use of its means." In his Revival Lectures, Finney taught that God had revealed laws of revival in Scripture: when the Church obeyed these laws, spiritual renewal followed. In direct contradiction to Edwards, Christians had the ability by means of complete commitment and faith to bring the Holy Spirit's blessing.

He thus gave a central role to human ability as a means to bring God's blessing and the Spirit's power, creating revival by use of human means. Whereas Edward’s had emphasised the sovereign grace of God in salvation, Finney emphasised human choice in conversion and went as far as psychologising conversion. His Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1854) taught techniques for success.

He had expected revival to overtake America and bring social, political and economic reform. But later in his Letters on Revival (1845) he revised this expectation, confessing to over-optimism. However he nonetheless hoped that Oberlin theology (named after Oberlin College in Ohio where he was professor since 1836), propagated also by the likes of Asa Mahan, would generate a “new race of revival ministers” and in time ‘awaken’ Christians to the attainable duty of walking in Christian perfection.

Oberlin theology emphasised a second more robust and mature stage of Christian experience. While different names were employed, Finney distinctly taught it as “baptism of the Holy Ghost”, and differed from Wesley in requiring entire sanctification as the means to obtaining this blessing, being a state of complete commitment to God’s will rather than perfect sinlessness. He also came to believe that this state should be reached by a process of steady growth, rather than by a dramatic single ‘crisis’ event.

Oberlin theology had an enormous effect on nineteenth-century evangelical belief. Finney’s pioneering of his so-called ‘new measures’  in revivalism and his active encouragement of concern for society and the role of revival in reforming America meant that his theology not only had a dramatic effect on the shape and direction of the Holiness movement towards the end of the nineteenth-century, but also had a wider social impact on American culture. It continued to have an influence well into the twentieth century directly through the Holiness movement, but indirectly it continues to have an almost unquantifiable impact via its inheritance in the genetic makeup of Pentecostalism.  

Charles Finney's central emphasis on human ability and his confidence in the effect of natural means to change the world can ultimately be understood as an over-reaction to David Hume's scepticism and rejection of causality. In an age of Enlightenment, when Reason was the language of debate, and Philosophy had seemingly taken the ground out from under Christianity by rejecting causality and confidence in human ability, Thomas Reid reacted by asserting the power of people to shape their world and their destiny. His approach to fighting reason with reason, and philosophical innovation with theological revision set in place a chain-reaction that would result in the evolution of a brand new modern revivalism: from Timothy Dwight to Nathaniel Taylor, from Charles Finney to Pentecostalism; and from the Pentecostal movement the “new race of revival ministers” continues to grow, exemplified and amplified acutely in the model of ministry that was practised by Leonard Ravenhill and Stephen Hill.

Today revivalism has long left behind Edward’s insistence on total dependence on the sovereign and free grace of God and has become a new form of Christian legalism. It insists on the central role of human ability and free choice, and preaches a Christian duty of exercising total commitment to his work that brings a new and unique power from God to change our lives, our world and society.

In the next post, we’ll look directly at Charles Finney’s Power from on High in order to understand Finney’s teaching and its problems: The need for power; conditions of receiving power; the effect of possessing power; power in prayer and power in preaching.

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Brown, Colin. Philosophy and the Christian Faith, IVP, 1969.

Elwell, W. A (Ed.) Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, 2001, p. 1168

Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature (Book I), Collins Sons & Co, 1962.

Revivalism and Power (Part I): Finney and Pentecostalism

Describing the power of God during revival, Charles Finney wrote:

“This power is a great marvel. I have many times seen people unable to endure the Word. The most simple and ordinary statement would cut men off from their seats like a sword, take away their bodily strength, and render them almost as helpless as dead men. Several times it has been true in my experience that I could not raise my voice, or say anything in prayer or exhortation except in the mildest manner, without wholly overcoming those who were present. This was not because I was preaching terror to the people, but the sweetest sounds of the Gospel would overcome them.

This power seems sometimes to pervade the atmosphere of one who is highly charged with it. Many times great numbers of people in a community are clothed with this power when the very atmosphere of the whole place seems to be charged with the life of God. Strangers coming into it and passing through the place are instantly struck with conviction of sin and, in many instances, converted to Christ.” (Finney, p. 19-20)

The ‘power’ – the mysterious and surprising power of God – had never before had such a vital role to play in bringing revival. The Great Awakenings, particularly the second wave of revivals that gave birth to the Methodists, had its strong focus on holiness. It, in turn, gave birth to the Holiness movement when Wesley’s Methodism spread to America. But then Charles Finney emerged within the American movement, affecting a deep shift in emphasis, significantly changing the focus of the movement from sanctification to empowerment. The Holiness movement became the Power movement and revivalism changed its focus. Finney’s revivalism was a quest for power, and it found fertile soil in the landscape of American idealism at the turn of the nineteenth-century, and in turn found a permanent place in what is now the biggest and still fastest growing movement in the world: Pentecostalism, the power-revival movement still feeling the effect of Finney’s legacy and continuing to dramatically shape 21^st century Evangelicalism.

Enter Pentecostal revivalism

Reading Charles Finney as a Hillsong College student in 1997 had a deep impact upon my changing spirituality. I had left for the Sydney leadership college after year 12 to begin a decidedly indefinite period of preparation for what I planned would be a lifelong ministry as an evangelist and church planter. The entire endeavour would amount to a brief excursion of a little less than one full calendar year, but the effect of that 12 months is still being felt in my life today, well over a decade later.

As an evangelical ‘charismatic’, much more than an old-school Pentecostal, Power from on High changed not only the way I evangelised people, but also the way I prayed. The book’s blurb summarises Finney’s approach to revivalism well:

“Is it possible to lead sinners to the Lord with one look or a single sentence? Charles Finney did. He knew the secret of winning souls to Christ—an outpouring of power from heaven. In this book, he gives remarkable stories of dramatic conversions, along with instructions on how to receive power from God, overcome sin, and prevail in prayer.”

Without realising the significance of my choice for a Sydney AOG college, I had walked into a distinctively Pentecostal culture. I myself had converted to a Pentecostal doctrinal system years earlier, but existed in a mainline Brethren church that had turned Charismatic. At home, I was considered ‘full-on’ for simply holding to the notions of divine healing and tongues as compulsory evidence of Spirit baptism. But here, these were but mere elemental truths. This was a place where Kenneth Copeland was in the curriculum, Prosperity preaching was a significant element of every church service, and Charles Finney was recommended reading from the library book list. And any serious student sought him out first. I was now to be affected by a new exposure to the first-fruits of the Holiness movement and a mainstay culture of revivalism.

Although I was already a very passionate and active evangelist, I had only led a handful of people to Christ. But now, Power from on High gave me not only answers on how I could be more effective but also the guarantee of success: If I fulfilled the conditions described by Finney, I would succeed in winning more souls.

At the same time, the Pensacola Revival of Brownsville USA was well underway. I had already been referred to Leonard Ravenhill by a close and dear mentor, Kevin Wilcock, and chewed my way through Ravenhill’s scolding Why Revival Tarries and Revival God’s Way. But now I was able to listen directly to the preaching of his protégée, Steven Hill, and watch the video replays of the dramatic responses to his sermons, with hundreds of people pouring forward from their pews towards the altar of the church in repentance of sin, service after service, year after year.

Hill’s Time to Weep described the “power of repentance that brings revival”, and also had a deep influence on my spiritual quest for personal revival. After reading this book, I began to make it my daily goal to spend long hours on my knees in prayer and fasting for power, and with my head on the carpet weeping over the lost multitudes. I’d regularly follow this routine with walk-up evangelism in my Local Street, mall or shopping centre. I would spend Friday night going through Parramatta mall with Bible college friends, asking every passerby, “Have you heard the good news?”  Saturday nights we might journey to Oxford Street in the city seeking to find and convert Pedestrians.  

And people did make decisions to follow Christ. One or two people here, a few more there; but I was hungry for souls and a few handfuls in as many months was well below our expectations. Finney’s Revivalism promised mass conversions. According to Finney, the Power of God, the power to be witnesses, should bring whole streets to Christ, if we fulfilled the conditions necessary. Together we should be able to reach hundreds, thousands of people, eventually changing the city, the nation, the world even—provided we remained humble, provided we did the hours in prayer, provided we wanted it enough, fasted enough,  wept and remained 100 per cent abandoned to Christ’s mission.  And so we endeavoured to ‘press in’ harder.

But although we were never completely aware of it at the time, the results were far from evident. Yes, dozens of people had made ‘decisions’, but many of these commitments to Christ later fell through. We were heart-broken again and again to see much of our labour torn apart by the power of sin in the lives of our converts which remained a destructive influence despite all of our prayer and preaching. We were earnest, sincere, but still lacking success.

We needed more power. And so at the time we simply became hungrier and spiritually desperate for the dynamic and effective enabling of the Spirit that had been promised to give us real and lasting success. We began and attended more prayer meetings, spent longer in private prayer, and time and time again I returned to Finney’s How to win souls and his Power from on High, asking myself, what was I missing and how could I obtain what we still lacked.

From Holiness to Power

Some years later I now look back on myself and those years at Hillsong immersed in Finney’s revivalism and I have now the ability to make sense of Pentecostalism and its particular quest for power within the context of the history of Evangelicalism.

Pentecostalism itself has its roots in nineteenth-century American Revivalism, inheriting the emphasis of Charles Finney directly from the Holiness movement. In the eighteenth-century John Wesley’s doctrine of 'entire sanctification' taught that sanctification involves a 'second blessing' as an experience of the Spirit distinct from conversion. Wesleyan doctrine spread to America where it inspired the ‘Holiness’ movement in the 1840-50s, it’s name coming from the original motive of preserving and spreading Wesley's doctrine of entire ‘holiness’, Christian perfection and Methodism's “second blessing” emphasis. However the Holiness movement, in turn, reformed Wesleyan theology on the 'second blessing' by shifting to the notion that Spirit-baptism was actually the second experience (not sanctification/ entire holiness) and the purpose was to empower Christians for miraculous evangelization of the world.

The Holiness movement sought to restore what it understood to be New Testament Christianity to the Church in the last days in preparation for Christ's return in order to accomplish the churches mission of converting the world. This led to the movement developing what it saw to be the “full" gospel” = Christ as not only Saviour but also Baptizer and Healer, as well Coming King.

At the turn of the twentieth century the Holiness movement was pregnant with Pentecostalism. What was missing was only one element that the worldwide revival only a few years after the turn of the century would deliver: the gift of ‘languages’ (tongues) for equipping the end-time church with the gift it needed for inter-national and worldwide evangelism, and at the same time serving an immediate evidence/sign of the second work in order to distinguish those who had the power from those Christians who had not.

"By the turn of the century, the Holiness movement had become preoccupied with the ‘Pentecostal reformation of Wesleyan doctrine’ and the four themes of the full gospel. In fact, when the Pentecostal movement began a few years later, only the priority given to the gift of tongues distinguished it theologically from Holiness beliefs" (Systematic Theology, p. 15-16.)

To understand Pentecostal spirituality we need to first understand the Holiness movement which gave it birth. Phoebe Palmer and John Inskip were leaders in the movement who, although still teaching that the second work of grace was sanctification, began employing the new scriptural imagery of Spirit “outpouring”, and Spirit “baptism”. But it was primarily through the significant influence of the evangelist Charles Finney (1792-1875) that the nature of the second work of grace began to slowly shift to “instant empowerment.” He taught not only that the second experience was Spirit baptism, but that it brought something entirely additional to sanctification: it gave a unique power from God.

Finney within Pentecostalism

With Finney’s doctrine and new emphasis, the Holiness movement adopted a new form of revivalism with a quest for power that became the DNA later inherited by the Pentecostals. This late nineteenth-century American revivalism generated a third ‘great awakening’ that swept the globe as a worldwide revival after a re-occurrence of tongues-speaking at the Azusa Street meetings from 1906-1909 gained international attention: The ‘Holiness’ movement had given birth to the ‘Empowerment’ movement, propagating a new message of Pentecostal power and how it could not only be received but also evidenced.

Accordingly, understanding Pentecostalism needs to begin by understanding the emphasis of Charles Finney on power. It was his shift to focus on empowerment, and his confidence in the certain effect of the use of natural means that formed the backbone of what became the Pentecostal movement, radically altering still further the way Christians would understand their mission.

In the next post we’ll look through the historical developments that gave rise to Finney’s new empowerment and how this radically altered Christian thinking and the direction of Evangelicalism.

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Finney, Charles G. Power from on High, Whitaker House, 1995.

Hill, Stephen. Time to Weep, Creation House, 1997.

McGee, Gary B. Systematic Theology, Logion Press, 1995.

Ravenhill, Leonard. Why Revival Tarries, Bethany House Publishers, 1959.

Ravenhill, Leonard. Revival God’s Way, Bethany House Publishers, 1983.