The Baptism of the Holy Spirit and the Clean Heart
As taught in the Holiness tradition
How the Holiness tradition reads Spirit-baptism as the cleansing of the heart by love.
In the Holiness tradition, the promise that Christ "shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire" (Matthew 3:11) is read not merely as Pentecost's founding miracle but as a standing offer to every believer: a second, definite work of grace that purifies the heart and fills it with love. This lesson sets out how teachers in the Wesleyan-Holiness stream understand that baptism, why they tie it to a "clean heart" rather than only to power for service, and where their reading diverges from much of mainstream Christianity.
By the end of this lesson
- Distinguish the Holiness tradition's two works of grace (justification/new birth and entire sanctification) and state what each accomplishes in the believer.
- Explain why this tradition reads the 'fire' of Matthew 3:11 as the purifying fire of love rather than only the fire of final judgment.
- Show how Acts 15:8-9 functions as the exegetical keystone linking the baptism of the Spirit to heart-purification 'by faith'.
- Reconcile Wesley's claim that entire sanctification is instantaneous with his insistence that it is both preceded and followed by gradual work.
- Articulate the boundary Wesley set by refusing 'sinless perfection,' distinguishing voluntary sin from ignorance, mistake, and infirmity.
- Compare the Holiness reading of Spirit-baptism with Reformed progressive sanctification and with later Pentecostalism's power-and-tongues emphasis.
Scripture
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