Is the Pentecostal Movement Pentecostal? Part 1 -- By: Roy L. Aldrich

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 108:429 (Jan 1951)
Article: Is the Pentecostal Movement Pentecostal? Part 1
Author: Roy L. Aldrich


Is the Pentecostal Movement Pentecostal?
Part 1

Roy L. Aldrich

[Editor’s note: It is not the policy of Bibliotheca Sacra to follow sectarian lines and discuss such differences either pro or con. The more positive aim has been pursued of expounding the Scriptures, with each reader making the application of Biblical truth as he sees fit. In recent years, however, a movement has gotten under way while the churches are in sore need of reviving—one which purports to be Pentecostal itself. What are the facts in the case? One of the regular staff of Bible lecturers at Dallas Seminary attempts to set forth the answer to this question. Needless to say, he is not attacking a denomination or sect, much less individuals, but is proceeding to state the Biblical truth in the matter and do so quite objectively. May the Spirit of God lead his readers to examine the issue with him just as fairly.]

Is the current Pentecostal movement Pentecostal by comparison with the Scriptural Pentecost? Is it Pentecostal in scope, in power, in doctrine? Pentecostal leaders maintain that it is. They tell us that all the miraculous ministries and powers manifest after Pentecost remain as permanent gifts to the church. If these gifts have not always been in evidence, we are told, it is because of unbelief and lack of spirituality.

Note this account of the origin of the current Pentecostal movement, as given by Robert C. Dalton: “At the beginning of the century there were in America and in various corners of the world numerous Christian ministers and people of various denominational groups who were sincerely seeking by prayer and supplication a spiritual awakening in their own hearts. As a result of this endeavor for a spiritual revival there fell simultaneously in the year 1906, in different parts of the world, what the members of the movement call ‘a mighty outpouring of the Holy Spirit.’ The significant fact about this outpouring as it fell among the different groups was that some individuals suddenly began to speak in languages or dialects known to the hearers, but unknown

to the speakers; others spoke in a language known neither to speakers nor hearers; and still others evidenced a peculiar handling of their own vernacular dialect. Furthermore, after this initial experience many individuals retained the faculty of this peculiar phenomenon and it was evidenced in them at certain intervals. The ones experiencing this strange phenomenon at once identified it with the peculiar phenomenon of Acts 2 and Paul’s writings concerning the gifts of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12 and 14

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