Purification Prior to Pentecost?

QUESTION: Is not the participle "purifying" in Acts 15:9 in the Aorist? If so, should it not be translated "having purified?" If this be so, is it not an evidence that these people had been purified prior to Pentecost? And if this be so, then the Spirit was not given for purifying, but for witnessing God's acceptance of them. Isn't this Wesley's comment?

ANSWER: It is Aorist which, outside of the indicative and certain kinds of participles, is timeless and indicates a single completed act. Circumstantial Aorist participles denoting condition, concession, cause, or means, are always timeless. "Purifying," and "giving" in verse 8, denote means, thus: "And God bare them witness by giving (a single act, not a process) them the Holy Spirit * * * and he made no distinction between us and them by cleansing (a single act) their hearts by faith." See Goodwin's Greek Modes and Tenses, p. 49: "The Aorist Participle is sometimes joined with a verb of past time, to denote. that BY WHICH the action of the verb is performed, or that IN WHICH it consists: here it does not denote time past with reference to the leading verb, but rather coincides with it in time." Hence there is here no "evidence that they were purified prior to Pentecost." Wesley was too good a Greek lecturer in Oxford to make any such comment.

— Steele's Answers pp. 203, 204.

Entire Sanctification and Pentecost

QUESTION: Does not Acts 2:39 teach that the three thousand were entirely sanctified at Pentecost?

ANSWER: Acts 15:9 is an undoubted proof text of this experience in the case of the Apostles and other disciples. The fulness of the Spirit is sometimes emotional rather than sanctifying. This is often the case when the Spirit descends upon a multitude, filling them with joy, entirely sanctifying those who are aspiring after this grace and regenerating penitent seekers of pardon and convicting sinners. The spirit of adoption crying in the heart, "Abba, Father," fills the convert with a feeling of fullness. For these reasons, Wesley did not employ this phrase, "Fullness of the Spirit," to denote entire sanctification, although he used at least a score of synonymous terms to denote this experience.

— Steele's Answers p. 134, 135.