March 20

Read: Acts 8:14-17

Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John: who, when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost (Acts 8:14-15).

Are Two Works Of Grace Unreasonable?

The teaching of entire sanctification as a second work of grace has caused some to hesitate, and others to reject the truth. But why should we stumble over God’s method of giving himself to us? In Holiness, the Finished Foundation, Bishop J. Paul Taylor writes: “If two or more successive stages of treatment are required to secure physical health, the patient, even though impatient with the process, will submit to the superior knowledge of his physician concerning his condition and needs. If a foreigner desires to be a full-fledged citizen, he will meet all the demands connected with filing his first and second papers. Preachers have not spent time objecting to two ordinations to qualify for all the privileges of the ordained minister, but rather have spent their time qualifying. In our space age no one has ridiculed scientists for constructing space rockets with two sections to propel astronauts into orbit around the earth.

“The trouble is not primarily an intellectual problem in arithmetic. It is not the addition of a second work of grace that troubles men, but the subtraction of the unholy element in the heart that involves the crucifixion of sinful self. The man who is determined to meet the divine requirements would submit to any number of crisis experiences that he might ‘stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.’ His heart and mind do not stagger at the word ‘second,’ but are gripped by the phrase ‘work of grace.'” With Charles Wesley he prays: Finish then Thy new creation; Pure and spotless let us be. Let us see Thy great salvation, Perfectly restored in Thee.

— Charles Wesley