Endued with Power from on High

And, behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you: but tarry ye in the city of Jerusalem, until ye be endued with power from on high. LUKE 24:49

Finney’s whole ministry rested on an experience. On the evening of his conversion, alone in the law office at Adams, he received what he always called a baptism of the Holy Ghost. He did not expect it. He had never heard of such a thing. And for the rest of his life he was convinced that what happened to him that night was not a private luxury but a necessity for every minister of the gospel. This chapter sets out what he taught about power from on high, mainly from his Memoirs, and weighs it.

The night in the law office

We have already seen the outline of the story. After meeting Christ, as it seemed to him, face to face in the back room, Finney turned towards the fire. “Without any expectation of it,” he wrote, “without ever having the thought in my mind that there was any such thing for me,” the Spirit came upon him, body and soul, “like a wave of electricity,” in “waves and waves of liquid love.” It seemed like the very breath of God. He wept aloud and cried out that he would die if the waves continued. The next morning the baptism returned with the sunrise, and with it a gentle reproof: Will you doubt? He found that he could not.

Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us. ROMANS 5:5

Two things came out of that night that shaped everything after. The first was assurance. In that state, he wrote, he was taught justification by faith “as a present experience”; all sense of condemnation had gone. The second was power. That day every person he spoke to seemed pierced. A few words to his employer went into him like a sword. A young man at a tea table fled to his room and came out the next morning converted. Finney came to believe that it was not his reasoning but the Spirit’s anointing that did it.

What the baptism is

When Finney came to reflect on the experience, he tied it firmly to Pentecost. Christ told His apostles to tarry at Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high, and that power came when the Spirit was poured out. Finney was clear that this was not chiefly the power to work miracles. The signs and tongues, he said, were given to attest the apostles’ commission. The baptism itself, in his words, “was a divine purifying, an anointing bestowing on them a divine illumination, filling them with faith, and love, with peace and power.” It made their words sharp in the hearts of God’s enemies.

But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth. ACTS 1:8

Finney believed that this anointing was the missing thing in the ministry of his day. His own teacher, George Gale, was sincere and able, but had never, as Finney saw it, received “the baptism of the Holy Ghost, which is indispensable to ministerial success.” Gale himself later concluded that he had not even been converted at the time. Finney added a sentence that every preacher should weigh: unless a man “can preach the Gospel as an experience, present religion to mankind as a matter of consciousness, his speculations and theories will come far short of preaching the Gospel.”

Again and again

Finney did not describe the anointing as a single event, never repeated. In his Memoirs he told of many seasons in which it was renewed. One dawn, standing at the door of the meeting-house at Adams, he saw what seemed a light of the glory of God so intense that it nearly prostrated him, and wept that all nature praised God except man. In the winter of 1843, in Boston, after months of prayer, he received what he called a very thorough overhauling and a fresh baptism of God’s Spirit. He came to speak of a filling that could be renewed, and of a Christian’s need to keep the channel clear between his soul and God.

And they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance. ACTS 2:4

He also learned discretion. As a young Christian, he wrote, his seasons of communion with God often ended with an impression like the words, Go, see that thou tell no man. When he tried to describe them to his brethren they looked surprised and sometimes incredulous, and he learned to say little about them.

Where care is needed

Finney’s teaching here fed into the holiness movement and, later, Pentecostalism. Much good has come of it, and some confusion.

First, Scripture does not require every Christian’s experience of the Spirit to look like Finney’s. His was vivid, emotional and overwhelming. Others have known the Spirit’s power quietly, as a steady conviction and courage in the work. The test is not the intensity of the experience but the fruit: love for Christ, holiness of life, boldness in witness and the conversion of sinners.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith. GALATIANS 5:22

Second, the phrase baptism of the Holy Ghost is used in the New Testament chiefly of the Spirit’s coming to the church at Pentecost and to each believer at conversion (1 Corinthians 12:13). Finney used it for a subsequent anointing for service. Many sound Christians use the language of filling instead, and reserve baptism for the Spirit’s initial gift. The difference matters less than the reality both are pointing to, but readers should know that Finney’s vocabulary is contested.

Third, it is easy to turn this teaching into a two-tier Christianity, with anointed believers above and ordinary ones below. Finney was not free of this; he was sometimes sharp about ministers he thought lacked unction. But the Spirit is given to all who belong to Christ, and every believer is to seek to be filled, not to envy or despise others.

Fourth, experiences, however real, are not revelations. Finney’s sense that he met Christ face to face was, he admitted later, a mental state, though a most remarkable one. We should thank God for such seasons without building doctrine on them.

Tarry until

With all that said, Finney’s central claim is right. The work of God cannot be done without God. Learning, eloquence, method and energy are useless unless the Spirit takes the Word and drives it home. The apostles had spent three years with Jesus, and still they were told to wait. We should not suppose ourselves better equipped than they were.

Not by might, nor by power, but by my spirit, saith the LORD of hosts. ZECHARIAH 4:6

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Ask honestly whether your service for God depends more on your ability than on His Spirit.

2. Pray this week, specifically and persistently, to be endued with power for the witness God has given you.

3. Judge any spiritual experience, your own or others’, by its fruit rather than its intensity.

4. If you have known seasons of great nearness to God, thank Him for them — and be slow to make them a standard for others.

5. If you preach or teach, ask whether you present the gospel only as a theory, or also as something you know.

A PRAYER

Lord Jesus, You told Your disciples to wait for power from on high, and I have tried to work without it. Forgive me.

Pour out Your Spirit on me, and on all who preach and teach Your Word, that our words may be sharp and living in the hearts of those who hear.

Give me whatever measure of Your presence You see fit, and keep me from despising those whose experience differs from mine.

Not by might, nor by power, but by Your Spirit, let Your work be done. Amen.