Steele's Answers: refining fire

Intro

This blog gains its name from the book Steele's Answers published in 1912. It began as an effort to blog through that book, posting each of the Questions and Answers in the book in the order in which they appeared. I started this on Dec. 10, 2011. I completed blogging from that book on July 11, 2015. Along the way, I began to also post snippets from Dr. Steele's other writings — and from some other holiness writers of his times. Since then, I have begun adding material from his Bible commentaries. I also sometimes rewrite and update some of his essays for this blog.

Showing posts with label refining fire. Show all posts

Saturday, March 28, 2015

Of Water and the Spirit

QUESTION: Does John 3:5 refer to water baptism: "Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God"?

ANSWER: It is figurative of the initial purification of regeneration, as the baptism of the Holy Ghost and of fire is figurative of the perfect cleansing in the entire sanctification of the believer. Fire is a more thorough purgative than water.

— Steele's Answers pp. 236, 237.

Monday, February 23, 2015

Why Some are Not Filled With the Spirit

By entire consecration make your heart vacant of all love of the world, and the Holy Spirit will come in Pentecostal power and fill the vacuum.

The reasons why so few are thus filled are various.

Many do not know that this fullness of the Spirit is the privilege of all Christians. They think it is an exceptional experience of a favored few, "the elect of the elect." They think it is not modest to assume that they belong to this small company. This narrow view of the gift of the abiding Paraclete weakens faith. They dare not appropriate the gift which may not belong to them, and so they fail to realize their full heritage in Christ.

Others imagine that they must always have a propensity to sin, and that they must sin a little to keep them humble. As the fulness of the Spirit would not be consistent with depravity and occasional sins, they deem it not a normal experience, and abstain from effort to receive it.

Sin Burnt Out

QUESTION: Is there any distinction between entire sanctification and having the power of sin burnt out?

ANSWER: No. both mean the extinction of the hereditary proclivity to sin, as C. Wesley poetically expresses it:

"Refining fire, go through my heart;

Illuminate my soul;

Scatter thy life through every part,

And sanctify the whole."

— Steele's Answers p. 59.

Daniel Steele

Daniel Steele (1824-1914) was a great Bible scholar and theologian in the Methodist Holiness movement. He had a varied career as a pastor, college professor, and college administrator. His writing style may take some getting used to, but his writings are well worth reading, in large part because of their emphasis on Biblical interpretation. Steele was an able defender of the teachings of John Wesley and John Fletcher. An online collection of Dr. Steele's writings can be found here: The Life and Writings of Daniel Steele.

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