Holy Joys Podcast
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Holy Joys Podcast
W. B. Pope on the Pentecostal Foundations of the Church (Part 1)
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Johnathan Arnold and David Fry continue their discussion of William Burt Pope's Doctrine of the Church.
The Shekinah, which was the symbol of the union of God with man, appeared for the last time, the earlier times, including Exodus 40, and was resolved into the personal spirit, the presence of God in the midst of his people, and resting upon every person present from the apostles downward.
SPEAKER_02It is the fulfillment of what Christ has been preparing his disciples.
SPEAKER_01You're listening to the Holy Joys Podcast, co-hosted by Jonathan Arnold and Dr. David Fry. Visit us at holyjoys.org and stay tuned for weekly discussions of theology and ministry practice, all for a holy, happy church.
SPEAKER_02Alright, so we are back together to discuss William Burke Pope's doctrine of the church, and we are in his compendium of Christian Theology, looking at the section on the Pentecostal Foundation of the Church. But one of the things that I wanted to mention is that I uh this week I dug out Pope's Higher Catechism of Theology, which was published as an abbreviated version of the compendium in the kind of traditional QA catechetical format. And what I had forgotten, because I haven't looked at this catechism for a while, is that it does contain some unique content and it actually sheds some helpful light uh on the compendium. So that entire section of the catechism on the church is now on Holy Joys in nine sections. Uh sections don't break down really neatly. So uh this is this is broken down a little bit differently, but it makes the sections a little more even. And uh one of the things that I found interesting, a couple points here, just as it relates to some of our previous discussions, is that he begins by asking the question, why is this subject introduced at this point? And he says, because the church is the sphere in which the Spirit administers all the offices of Christ. So we you know we already talked about that, but then the second sentence here is interesting. On this account, it seems better to place it under the administration of redemption than to give it a too prominent and independent place. So he's saying rather than have a separate major section uh on the church or after you know his section on the Holy Spirit, he wants to subsume it under the administration of the redemption, that it doesn't have too prominent and independent a place, which I thought was really interesting because he does have a you know fair, I think a fairly robust ecclesiology, um, but he does seem to express some concern here that we can um have um too high a view of the church, at least in its institutional form. And he thinks that a way to keep a balanced ecclesiology is to keep it really closely tied to the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the economy of redemption. So I just thought that was a really interesting point. You have any thoughts on that?
SPEAKER_00Um it's been years since I have pulled out the uh catechism, and I was just looking up my biographical notes on uh on Pope, and uh so the thing that uh I was uncertain I was looking up here is that the second edition of his compendium uh does follow the catechism. So the catechism uh comes between the first and second editions of the compendium. So uh the first edition, of course, of the compendium was uh third volume was finished in in 1876. Uh then you have um second edition completed in 1889 and the catechism in 1885. So I'm curious as to how the second edition may be impacted by his some of his definitions and his working out of those concepts uh through the catechism, which by the way is quite the catechism is quite lengthy. It's not it's not a simple, simple little catechism. Uh it's it's a significant work of theology in its own right. Three hundred three hundred and eighty-nine pages of catechism.
SPEAKER_02Right. It's more a catechism for training ministers. Like it would be a great comprehensive resource for training, you know, theological education in a Bible college or even in the local church. Uh, I could see this being used as a as a tool at a um you know an undergraduate level. Yeah, so I I'll be honest with you, I have not uh read anything out of the first edition. I've always used the uh the second edition, and I know that Fred Sanders, when he published all the works, which I don't know if we've mentioned that yet, but at Fredfredfred.com, uh he recently posted PDFs of all the works of William Burt Pope. I think he spent some time at Asbury putting together an online guide to his publications, which is uh pretty incredible. And there's some works of Pope that I was not even aware of. Um, so just a just a tremendous resource and also some secondary resources, uh biographical resources on Pope as well. Um, but he says, you know, the second edition is the edition to use. It's it's much more robust. So evidently there was a pretty significant revision there from the first to the second edition.
SPEAKER_00Right. Yeah, and I don't have access to the first, or I don't have, I don't should say it's not on my shelf. I don't have the first edition, but uh but we are working on the second edition here, or that's what we're walking through.
SPEAKER_02Right. Yeah, so going forward as we're reading the compendium, I'm also just gonna keep my eye on the uh catechism and reading ahead. There are some really helpful, um some really helpful questions and answers, uh, one of which uh gets to the heart of this question of kingdom and church. You know, we talked about that quite a bit in our previous discussions, and he actually has a question: what is the relation of kingdom and church? And he says the kingdom refers rather to the authority of Christ its king. So kingdom is about reign and authority, the church to the subjects of it gathered out of the world at Caleo, as the ancient people lived under a theocracy, so we under a Christocracy. And as they were called the congregation, so we are called the church. The kingdom is one and always coming, the churches may be many in the one church, which is come. So I think we basically covered um I think we basically covered all of that. We got we drew those conclusions in our discussion, but I think that line, as the ancient people lived under a theocracy, so we under a Christocracy. I think that's provocative, and I don't know that he uses that exact language in the compendium. At least I don't it doesn't not remembering it. He speaks of the ancient theocracy there on page two six. But I don't think he specifically, though, says we live under a Christocracy. I think that's that's provocative, but it did does go back to his emphasis on how uh you know our Lord proclaimed the advent in his person of the kingdom, how he says uh later how does he put that? Oh, that the secret, the great secret of the kingdom is that it's the Messiah's kingdom or the kingdom of Jesus. I'm not sure where that's at, but uh anyway, I just think that that's a helpful summary of the relationship of the kingdom and the church.
SPEAKER_00So today we're looking at uh moving on to the Pentecostal Foundation, correct? And I think there are this is a little bit of a lengthier section. Uh I think it's uh five paragraphs, and uh not sure we're gonna get through all five, but we'll at least make it through the first maybe two or three.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think there's kind of a natural break there within that section. Um paragraphs one and two focus on the book of Acts, and then paragraphs I guess that's actually paragraphs one, two, and three focus on the book of Acts, and then paragraphs four and five look at the epistles, um, at least kind of shift their focus to the epistles. So he has this kind of interesting approach to the day of Pentecost that he kind of builds towards and then clarifies in paragraph three, where he kind of breaks the day of Pentecost down into three parts, what he calls like the morning, the afternoon, and then the rest of it, which is, I guess, the evening. Um, and he he says in the morning we have the worshiping assembly glorifying God uh for the accomplishment of all his purposes, and then in the noon you have the evangelical preaching, and then the rest of it is given to organization and fellowship. And he says that this is kind of a model for the way that God establishes his church even today. Um he speaks of the this as the most complete exhibition of the process by which the church is to be formed to the end of time, a worshiping community that proclaims the gospel, and then people are brought in and brought into an organized fellowship. And this calling out, gathering from the world, and then assembling together is all one thing that cannot be separated. And the Pope's gonna try to hold the preaching of the gospel, the worshiping community, the preaching of the gospel, and then the organizational aspect of the church with its formal membership and its sacramental uh communion, uh, he's gonna try to hold that all together pretty tightly.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so I know we're skipping ahead there to ch to paragraph three, but one, two, and three all really go together here. And in that statement uh there in paragraph three, where he says Pentecost is the typical day of the future of Christendom, uh, he's gonna see this three-part day as analogous of sort of the Christian age, uh the birth and the sort of the evangelical, you know, the mission, and and then of course the the organization of fellowship, as you mentioned. And I'm I'm interested in in seeing how he works that out through uh past this section, uh, but we'll keep an eye on that as we move forward. So we want to go back to the summary uh paragraph here then, uh, where he says the day of Pentecost was the epoch of the foundation of the Christian church. And I think that ties into what we just were talking about. Uh he's using Pentecost as analogous for the story of the Christian church, and I think that's all entailed there with uh the idea of epoch, which uh our understanding of the use of that word in you know 1889 uh is an epic is something that marks a new beginning, right? A new age, a new something new. A fixed point in time that marks a beginning.
SPEAKER_02Yep.
SPEAKER_00Right. Um but yeah, he's already talked about uh the uh preparations in the gospel, he talked a l uh just very briefly about uh Old Testament as well, but uh there is a new beginning here, and and I every time I come across his use of the word new, new church, new uh new temple, uh new people, uh new yeah, he talks about the new law. We'll get to that in a new uh in a in a moment. He talks about a new fellowship, uh a new name, you know, just all of these that there is something pretty drastic that happens. And so I know in our private conversation we were talking about, you know, does is he is this, you know, where's the continuity, where's the discontinuity? And I think we'll see uh his I think pretty balanced approach because it's it's not discontinuity. Uh and we'll talk about that when we get to the new law of faith there in the first paragraph.
SPEAKER_02Right. And later on, he's gonna talk about how part of the unity of the church, you know, the note of oneness, uh means that the church is one in all of the dispensations. So there's a one church that even runs through. There's the Jewish church, which is really one with the Christian church. So we are gonna get there. But yeah, this is um this is what's been anticipated in that previous section, where you know, Christ is speaking of this future institution, this new thing, and now it's coming. You know, Pope's been building up to this. Uh that second sentence there, the prepared disciples of Christ were assembled, is again linking it back to that previous section, the preparations in the gospel. And so this is a foundation, it's an epic fixed point in time that marks a new beginning. It is the um the fulfillment of what Christ has been preparing his disciples for. Um, it goes on to talk about the the finished gospel. They've received the preaching of the finished gospel. So everything uh here is, I think, linked to the fact that Christ has accomplished his mission. And that the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost is the clearest uh manifestation of that or evidence of that. Um the ascension itself isn't even really marking the end of Christ's uh Christ's work of atonement, because even though it it marks an end of his earthly ministry, part of Christ's role in the mediatorial office is that he presents that atonement to the Father. You know, Hebrews really almost looks at that going into this the heavenly sanctuary as like the climactic moment in redemption. The outpouring of the Holy Spirit now marks that everything that Christ has done and prepared for is actually coming to fulfillment and fruition uh in this new this new community. So I think there's an important link there back to the the work of Jesus Christ as well.
SPEAKER_00Right. So the key words here uh prepared, uh the disciples were prepared and then they were assembled. And once uh that happens, then the Holy Ghost comes and makes them the new temple. And and then down a couple lines uh below that, uh, he constitutes uh the disciples, uh says they were constituted, presumably by the Holy Spirit, uh, into an organized and visible fellowship. So there I notice one of the things that Pope does a lot is he has he has these couplings. Uh they were prepared and assembled. The Holy Spirit made and constituted, uh, and he constituted them in an organized and visible fellowship. And uh and then of course he has this word uh continue ever during this dispensation, uh, which uh he has used uh elsewhere. Um did you look that up? I think uh did you take a note on how he's using the word dispensation?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I had looked at other uses of dispensation across the compendium, and uh one place he speaks of like the two dispensations, you know, the old covenant, the new covenant. Uh other places he speaks of the three dispensations, which I think are the patriarchal, mosaic, and the new covenant dispensation. Christian, yeah, right, Christian dispensation.
SPEAKER_00So in yeah, so in um in the second volume, he refers to the three dispensations. He says dispensation and economy, uh, of course, are translations of the same word, oikonomia. Uh so he what he understands, and the and the way I have understood the word dispensation is uh not in an entirely discontinue uh discontinuous way, but sorry, my books were just falling over there, uh, but in a sense that uh God is introducing something new in the history of salvation, in the unfolding of salvation through history. And so you can kind of mark these the this progress through salvation history by uh new revelations, by new occurrences, new acts of God, uh that are in continuity by what went before, and that in fact everything that went before is preparation for uh what uh is is yet to come.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think it's important to note that he goes on in that section in volume two to say it must always be remembered that through these dispensations the virtue of the one covenant of grace flowed. So when you hear dispensations, um if you're if you're not used to hearing that, because it's not as popular of a term today, you might think of dispensationalism, but this is clearly not dispensationalism. This is covenant theology. So covenant theologians affirm dispensations, you know, these kind of marked-off periods of God's activity, but we view these dispensations as the unfolding of one underlying covenant of God's grace with mankind, so that there's not this sharp difference between the covenants, but you can see this underlying unity through throughout all of them.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so just to be clear to our listeners, uh, some forms of modern dispensationalism is marked by the the belief that each age or dispensation is a replacement of what went before. So that would be a fairly popular idea. Now that not all dispensationalists would hold that, but that is a pretty popular uh idea of dispensationalism. And and so what Pope is affirming here is not that, what he's affirming is what we commonly call uh covenant theology, uh, where there's an emphasis on the continuity through the ages, and uh that we're talking about one salvation, one grace, one faith, one salvation, and and so forth. And this uh and this is a big deal to all the Methodist theologians, uh, the idea of the government of God, uh the uh political headship of God over all creation. And here, under this uh this particular dispensation, which which begins with Pentecost, uh it is uh you know the world is particularly governed by the spirit as the representative of Jesus, its head, um you know, the head of the church. So here we are in a sense in the age of the spirit. Of course, Fletcher is well known for his you know three-part understanding of uh Christian history or or salvation history as well, uh age of the father, age of the son, age of the spirit. Um is Pope you know alluding to that, maybe. Um but there is, and I I would even argue even in Fletcher, I think there's a lot more continuity there than what you would find in modern dispensationalism. Um this is and yet he does refer to, again, this idea that Pentecost is a yeah, that that word, I keep coming back to that word, that phrase, typical day. It there's it represents in a single day almost like creation, the days of creation represent something about the age of humanity. Uh Pentecost, you know, almost hour by hour uh he sees something analogous to uh to what the church is and what the church is to do.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think too that that uh to just back up a little bit, that that phrase uh the Holy Ghost came down. Uh we had discussed this before, you know, is another allusion back to what he said previously about Christ's intention to. Build the church is to build the new temple, uh, the house of prayer for all nations. So this is Exodus 40, the glory coming down, which then uh later in paragraph one, he's going to talk about how the Holy Ghost represented the triune God, now fully revealed, who took possession of the consecrated body, made them the new temple or church, and the Shekinah, which was the symbol of the union of God and man, appeared for the last time and was resolved into the personal spirit. So no longer do we have the institutional temple where you go to one location and that's where you encounter the presence, but now the presence dwells in the people, so that wherever the church is assembled or gathered, that's where Christ is encountered. I think there, I think that's key to understanding then what it means to say the disciples were constituted into an organized and visible fellowship. What it means to constitute there is to give a new form to uh the way in which God's presence and reign comes to bear and is encountered in the world.
SPEAKER_00So, yeah, so so you're referring there, of course, to paragraph one. So let's let's just begin at paragraph one there, uh, where he says the institute of the fit feast of weeks, uh, which uh you know I think fall begins tomorrow, and so harvest will be coming soon, at least here in the Midwest. Uh that that's what the Feast of Weeks is about, right? It's a harvest celebration. Uh he says representing the presentation of Jewish harvest first fruits typified the ablation of the first fruits of the Christian in-gathering, uh, which of course is what happened that that day at Pentecost, the first ingathering of Christians, the first fruits. It also, though, not by divine enactment, commemorated the giving of the law. And so now here's a reference back to Moses and Sinai and wilderness and Israel. It says, and had its antetype in the full revelation of the new law of faith. So full revelation there, he's going to come back to that language just about six or eight lines later when he talks about the Holy Ghost representing the triune God, the triune God now fully revealed. So there's a full revelation with the coming of the Holy Spirit of the new law of faith, and he's that that's a phrase that he also uses uh throughout the whole compendium, and he'll use again down in the second paragraph uh here. Uh, did do you have any comments on that new law of faith before we move on from that?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think it's I think it's important to see there's two he sees two points of significance to the fact that this uh outpouring of the Holy Spirit, this epoch in Christian history, comes on the day of Pentecost. And he says the first point there is that you know, this harvest. So you think about a farmer, let's say he grows corn and he has this beautiful harvest, and he goes and he picks the first fruits of that harvest, and if he tastes the first fruits, he knows that the whole harvest is gonna be a good harvest harvest. So the the Jewish harvest festival is bringing those first fruits to God and saying, rather than me partaking of them and and just taking them for myself, I'm gonna offer them to you, recognize you as the giver of the harvest. And this reminds me of how Jesus says to his disciples, the harvest is plentiful. Um, and he's sending them out. You know, this is the beginning of him being the disciples being his witnesses, this missional emphasis, which Pope's gonna go on to expound in his last section on the church and its relationship to the world. So Pentecost is where this the first fruits of this great harvest uh are gathered in. The the converts on that day are like a foretaste of what Christ wants to do. He wants to bring people in from all nations and bring them into this new community. The second uh point of significance that Pope sees sees, and I think this is really fascinating because he says it's not by divine enactment, but he still thinks it's significant. So this is evidence of something of Pope's view of providence. So in the intertestamental period, the Jewish people began to observe the God-ordained Feast of Weeks as also a commemoration of what happens at Mount Sinai. So God didn't ordain that, or at least he didn't, I should say he didn't enact it in the law. But Pope sees here that God is giving his new law, the new law of faith, which I think is defined most clearly in section two. The new law of faith was the proclamation of the finished work of Christ. So the new law of faith is the whole Christ-centered work of salvation, you know, in the new covenant. And just as Mount Sinai was that epoch in uh in history, in church history, where God gives the law of Sinai, this is an epoch in which the new law of the new covenant is given.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that's interesting. That's that's good insight uh there. I think that's helpful. Uh He continues with you know the risen Lord appointing a meeting of his disciples in Galilee for the proclamation of his kingdom. But first, of course, he bade them to wait in Jerusalem for the founding of his church. And so here we are still at the assembly, that we're in the morning of Pentecost, right? And that morning uh there they received, of course, we know that's the 120 disciples uh who were gathered uh there in a in a house in Jerusalem. Uh they received as representatives of the Savior's old discipleship. It's an interesting term. Uh and the germ or you know, the seed of the future body. Uh so there, I think what we have here is he's saying there's a there's a hinge point right here, right? Before this moment or before this day, you don't have the church, you have the old discipleship, but we're getting ready to see the a body formed. And I'm interested in in your thoughts on what you just said about the harvesting, the ingathering as it correlates with the formation of the body. It's almost as if the church is um you know the the the apostles, of course, are the foundation. Yeah, he's talked about that, the preparations. Uh but now he's he's laying what he calls the Pentecostal foundation. But the he says it's the future body. By future, he doesn't mean you know tomorrow or next week. He means later this day, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right, which is interesting, right? Yeah, I got a little hung up on on something you said there. I um I'm not sure Pope would want to say that you didn't have the church, um, but you don't have the church in the new form that it's taking.
SPEAKER_00Right. In the body, in the potty form, right?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, right.
SPEAKER_00In the in the incorporated form.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, okay, that's good. Yeah, I like that language.
SPEAKER_00Because he's he you know, we looked at at what he had to say with Matthew 16 and 18, you know, earlier, um, but there's still something here that's that's remains unformed. It's it's almost as if the the the church has been conceived by the spirit, but it still needs to have its arms and its legs and and to see the the outgrowth of that of that conception.
SPEAKER_02And what makes the difference, he says, is the baptism of the spirit.
SPEAKER_00Baptism of the spirit, right. That baptism of the spirit, which was to them as their special dignity instead of the baptism of water. Uh and then we go to uh the Holy Ghost representing the triune God now fully revealed and took possession, who took possession of this consecrated body. Uh, remember that's referring back to Jesus consecrating them in uh consecrating his disciples uh in John 17. And uh the Holy Spirit here is still the subject here. The Holy Spirit made them the new temple or church.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. That point there about the triune God is fully revealed at Pentecost. Um, I think it's worth lingering there for a while. Uh the Trinity, when when we read the Old Testament as Christians, we see the Trinity everywhere. Uh we see the Trinity all the way back in Genesis 1 with let us make man. That's because we are looking back on the other side of Pentecost, on the other side of the incarnation of the Son of God. The Trinity was foreshadowed, uh, there's that old word adam braided, you know, kind of like shadowed forth, but not truly revealed until the Father sent the Son and the Spirit. So it's in the sending of the Son and the Spirit that we we come to know that God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So I think it's really, really crucial here for Pope's Trinitarian theology that Pentecost is marked off as the point in time when the greatest revelation, I mean, there's just there's nothing greater that we could know than who God is. I I just the Trinity is not, first and foremost, a doctrine that we use or a doctrine that, well, you know, why is this practical? Well, certainly it if God is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, it affects everything, right? But that first and foremost, this is who God, who our God is. And so I really like this line. I like the way that Pope states this because I think there's a lot packed in there that he has already uh explained in previous sections, especially in the first volume in the chapter on the I think it's titled The Triune Name, where Pope uh you know really expounds his doctrine of the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00Uh let's wrap up this paragraph then with uh you know completing that that portion, I guess just uh one more sentence that he has. Uh and again, you referenced this earlier, the Shekinah, which was the symbol of the union of God with man, appeared for the last time the the earlier times, including Exodus 40, which we've uh referenced many times, uh and was resolved into the personal spirit, the presence of God in the midst of his people, and resting upon every person present from the apostles downward. Sort of a, you know, Pentecost is a sort of final, sort of a finale, a a uh there there is something, there's something new, but there's also something in a sense that's that's closing here, right? Like that's it's um it has been revealed, and now the product, the harvest of that revelation is ready to take place.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I think the phrase that stood out to me was that the Shekinah resolved into the personal spirit. I think that's an interesting choice of words. Yeah. And um and I is that where you're drawing this idea of like fulfillment and finality resolved as in like resolution? So these manifest, these visible manifestations of God, you know, when the the glory comes down upon the temple, um, have always anticipated something. They've never been the real, the reality that God wanted for his people. He wanted his people to be the temple. And so you have this visible manifestation at Pentecost, but it's the last one. We shouldn't try to recreate it. To try to recreate that kind of Pentecostal thing that happened would be to misunderstand that this was uh a visible manifestation for the last time because now something something new, the reality has come where now the glory dwells in us. Um we don't see yeah, we don't come to the glory, which is somewhere else, but the glory comes with us, and then when we assemble, there's that shared experience of a glory that's already ours under the new covenant.
SPEAKER_00Right, right. So in in the tabernacle, right? The tabernacle was movable, it was mobile, it would move and and the glory would would would lead them forward and then settle back in and and and it would gather them in. Now uh with the personal spirit, the the spirit rests upon every person, every believer, from the apostles on, and uh it references there Acts 2 3, where the Holy Spirit came and you know sat upon them. And uh so there's an idea here of the it's final because it's there's a permanency here in this Holy Spirit. It's no longer you know, let's pack up the tent and move, but it is wherever we go, wherever we are, the Holy Spirit is already with us, is already present and um a sort of a um presence from within versus a presence that is continually coming from outside and then settling down.
SPEAKER_02Do you think there's a corrective here for those holiness and Pentecostal traditions that primarily speak about the glory as something that we get from outside? It's something that we call down or that we pray down rather than um understanding the glory. No, no, the glory is is here and always here in the church. And so looking for the glory as something outside of the church almost that we experience um rather than actually expecting to experience the church, the glory in the church and through the church.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that yeah, that's an interesting insight there. I I do I do think that that's a something that we need to be challenged on because I really do think we can we have uh reverted to a uh an old testament economy a lot of times. Um and revivalist theology tends to do that. It does tend to rely heavily upon a an economy prior to Pentecost. And so I think as we think through those things and where the who the church is and where the church is now and what it is we are to be praying for, uh we need to, I think, envision the church in terms that are different and new uh in regard to uh the nation of Israel and the people of God in in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_02I think the only other uh final comment that I would want to make on that first section there is I think Pope very intentionally speaks of the apostles downward, and it sat upon each of them, every person present. So the apostles represent kind of the highest ecclesial authorities, you know, the Paul's and the Peters. Um but now the glory of God isn't just on them. The Spirit isn't just anointing them. It's not just the Moses' and the Joshuas that receive God's special empowerment. Uh, my family just went to sight and sound, and they had the scene where David was anointed, and this great cloud comes down and envelops him, you know, as a picture of the Holy Spirit. And then later uh Saul talks about how he remembers when he was anointed and what it was like. Um that isn't just this experience for a few people that others look look onward. Uh, this is just for kings, but because of Christ, that anointing flows down to the whole body, like the oil that flows from Aaron's head on down his beard and over his body. And the Pope is really emphasizing here that every Christian is anointed, and every Christian has an essential role in the body, in the new community that Christ founds at Pentecost.
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