Our Responsibility

Holiness is the glorious heritage which our founders have given us. But we want to think not only of our privileges but also of our responsibilities -- our responsibility to preach and teach holiness.

Dr. James B. Chapman once said that he did not believe that our greatest necessity was in the field of organization and equipment, even though he recognized that we have a long way to go in this direction, but that our greatest need was a revival-a revival of holiness.

But in order to have a holiness revival we must preach and teach holiness. Pastors and leaders must examine themselves to be sure they are being faithful to this task of spreading the message of holiness.

The greatest danger which threatens our denomination is not that someday we will, by mutual agreement in a General Assembly, remove the doctrine of entire sanctification from the Manual. The real danger lies in neglecting to give the doctrine due emphasis. This is what happened to other denominations. Little by little the preachers ceased to preach holiness from the pulpits, the teachers failed to teach it in the classrooms, and the believers ceased to testify to it from the pews. Should this happen, the doctrine would remain in our Manual only as a trophy of the victories of our founders, and we would be, as evangelist H. G. Purkiser warns, "the possessors of a traditional holiness."

Ministers of the Church of the Nazarene must preach the doctrine of holiness. Holiness must be the central theme. The Apostle Paul tells us that the purpose of the Christian ministry is the "perfection of the saints" (Eph. 4:11).

Dr. Stephen S. White used to say to his students: "Brethren, it is your privilege to preach what you believe; but if you do not believe in holiness as the Church of the Nazarene has traditionally taught it, it is not your privilege to preach in this church. Our church is engaged to certain beliefs on the matter of holiness; if you cannot preach them sincerely, go and preach somewhere else."

Dr. Olive M. Winchester said that in the early days of the Church of the Nazarene nearly all of the preaching was on holiness. "Our preachers then," she said, "for the most part, were like Amos, 'no prophet, neither . . . a prophet's son,' but called from various walks of life into the ministry without preparation or training; they knew only one theme, and that was the experience of entire sanctification."

Leaders from other denominations have expressed their concern about the lack of emphasis upon the doctrine of holiness within their groups. Dr. John A. Brooks said: "There are many ministers, authorized exponents of the doctrine of holiness . . . who deliberately and completely leave aside the matter of holiness in their preaching in the pulpit. There are many pulpits from which holiness has been barred; in others it has been rejected; while in others it has been misrepresented."

Bishop George Peck said: "The truth cannot be denied. The great privilege and responsibility of presenting salvation from all sin has been omitted in many sermons to the point of creating doubt on the value of this doctrine, discouraging and confusing those who wanted a complete salvation."

John Wesley said that his desire was "that all preachers make an effort to preach Christian perfection constantly, powerfully and clearly to the believers . . . No doubt we are not clear enough," he said, "in talking publicly or privately about entire sanctification." He wrote in one of his letters: "I am afraid that Christian perfection will be forgotten."

Many of John Wesley's sermons have to do with the doctrine of perfect salvation or Christian perfection. And he preached more than seven hundred times a year during all of his ministry and over forty-two thousand sermons during his lifetime. One of his masterpieces is his sermon entitled: "Christian Perfection." More than half of the hymns composed by Charles Wesley were on the theme of holiness.

Dr. Adam Clarke urged "that all who possess the apostolic doctrine that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin in this life, encourage the believers to go forward into perfection and receive salvation while they are here in this earth."

Bishop Francis Asbury said: "The night cometh and I will close by saying: Preach sanctification, directly or indirectly in every sermon." To one of his friends he wrote: "Oh purity! Oh Christian perfection! Oh sanctification! It is heaven here on earth to know that all sin has been removed. Preach it wherever they will listen. Preach it!"

Nazarene ministers must make the preaching of holiness their specialty. This does not mean that they must forget other aspects of Christian truth. Dr. G. B. Williamson wrote: "Not long ago a person said that the leaders of the Church of the Nazarene were making holiness their favorite subject, and were forgetting the scriptural doctrine of regeneration. But any reasonable person would know that no one can preach holiness without giving proper consideration to regeneration. And this is true of all the other doctrines."

The doctrine of holiness is the backbone of Wesleyan theology. If it is not kept in a position of prominence and emphasis, the whole system falls. Furthermore, the doctrine of holiness is closely related to all the other doctrines of the Church of Jesus Christ, and so the scriptural and logical preaching of any doctrine will lead to the proclamation of the doctrine of holiness. It is equally true that in order for the message of holiness to be scriptural and logical it has to include and be related to all other essential doctrines of Christianity.

The doctrine of holiness runs throughout the Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation. This does not mean that holiness is the only subject treated by the Scriptures, but it is the subject that unites all the other subjects. Bishop Randolph S. Foster said that holiness "breathes in the prophecy, thunders in the law, murmurs in the narrative, whispers in the promises, supplicates in the prayers, sparkles in the poetry, resounds in the songs, speaks in the types, glows in the imagery, voices in the language, and burns in the spirit of the whole scheme, from alpha to omega, from its beginning to its end. . . . It is the truth glowing all over, webbing all through revelation; the glorious truth which sparkles and whispers, and sings and shouts in all its history, and biography, and poetry, and prophecy, and precepts and promise, and prayer, the great central truth of the system."

What a glorious task we have received-the preaching and teaching of holiness! What a tremendous responsibility-to carry the banner of holiness around the world!