Dr. Steele Discusses His Book "Antinomianism Revived"

This is the fourth in my ongoing series of necro-interviews with Holiness writers of the past. Today we talk with Dr. Daniel Steele about his 1887 book A Substitute for Holiness or Antinomianism Revived. This book is quite a bit different than the author's other books. In this book he writes to refute a theological error which was just then becoming popular in the Christian world — Dispensationalism. This is the view made popular in our day by such people as Hal Lindsey, Tim LaHaye (of the Left Behind books) and numerous others. For Dr. Steele this was far more than a purely speculative concern about the details of end time events. Read on, and you will see what I mean.

In the 20th Century the Dispensational system of interpretation of end time events became extremely popular in the Christian world — especially here in the United States. If anything, it has now become even more popular. It was originally spread through the Scofield Reference Bible, but since that time, there have been many other popular books and Christian films that have spread this view: Hal Lindsey's The Late, Great Planet Earth, the A Thief in the Night film (1972), and, most prominently, the Left Behind books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins.

This view is known popularly as the "pre-trib" view. Many Christians today have never heard any other view. It teaches that God works differently in different dispensations, but is best known for it's distinctive doctrine of the Rapture — that Christ will come to take his followers out of the world before a great end time Tribulation period. (I have written against this teaching myself: Rapture Theology.)

As I understand it, this view of the end times was just beginning to take hold of the Christian world in your day, Dr. Steele.

Can Law Alone Save?

QUESTION: Explain Galatians 3:22-25 and answer the question, Can a sinner come to Christ through the constraint of the law alone without faith in Christ?

22 But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.  23 But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.  24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.  25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.  (KJV)

ANSWER: Paul teaches the opposite, that law can only show the sinner's guilt, but cannot remove it; just as the straight-edge used by the carpenter cannot straighten out the crooks which it reveals. If the legalist or moralist could find perfect rest of soul in his own good works, he would never feel the need of the Saviour to give him rest. He must despair of salvation on the ground that he has perfectly kept the law before he will plant his feet on the new ground, faith in Christ. He will then render glad obedience to him as his Benefactor and will no longer need a pedagogue or child-leader to drag his unwilling feet. Love to the Lawgiver has taken the place of fear of the law. But law is still his rule of life. Believing in Christ is what is meant by coming to Christ. By faith he is united with Christ and by faith he stands. He is freed from the moral law as the ground of acceptance with God and also as a motive to good works, which will now spontaneously appear as the fruit of faith. This is what we mean when we say the believer is not freed from the law as the rule of life.

— from Steele's Answers pp. 46, 47.

Editor's Note: Mark H. Mann on the Theology of Daniel Steele, etc.

It's amazing what one finds by just clicking around the Internet.

Today I found an interesting and perceptive brief overview of Daniel Steele's theology of Christian holiness over at Google books.

It is a section from the first chapter of Perfecting Grace: Holiness, Human Being, and the Sciences by Mark H. Mann (Professor of Theology @ Point Loma Nazarene University)>

It is entitled "Daniel Steele and the Theology of the Holiness Movement" and it begins on page 29 of the book.

I think Mann is correct that Steele embraced Pentecostal terminology because of his embrace of John Fletcher's doctrine of Dispensations. If we don't get that, we miss what's going on in his thinking. See: The Three Dispensations. Pentecostalism as we know it today did not arise until after 1900 & the Azusa Street revival, so Steele's use of this kind of terminology was unrelated to that. It grew out of the teachings of Fletcher, who was read side-by-side with Wesley among the early Methodist preachers.

Anyway the book is here: Perfecting Grace: Holiness, Human Being, and the Sciences by Mark H. Mann. The section on Daniel Steele begins on page 29.

But, be sure to read the whole chapter. I think it's quite perceptive.

— Craig L. Adams

Seek Nothing Less Than the Divine Presence

There is a great deal that is shadowy and dubious about the communion that many have with God. They have no such consciousness of having met and conversed with God, as they have of their communications with men. There has been no bright and animating manifestation of God to their souls. They have not felt the power of his present majesty; nor have his Divine perfections taken hold upon them as by a special revelation. They know that God is revealed in his word as gracious and merciful toward the race of men; but they have not considered that it is the province of faith to single out the believer, and bring him by himself into the presence of his Maker.

The Communion of the Holy Spirit

It is not by accident that, in the apostolic benediction, "the communion of the Holy Ghost" comes last. It is the crowning blessing of the Triune God. Without it the "grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God," could not be satisfactorily and joyfully known. These might exist as a matter of inference from the gracious dispositions and holy aspirations of the soul. They cannot be immediately known by a knowledge excluding all doubt, except as they are uncovered by the Holy Ghost. "He shall receive of mine and show it unto you." "He shall testify of me."

Scriptures About Women and Ministry

QUESTION: Explain:

(a) 1 Corinthians 11:1-16:

 1 Be ye followers of me, even as I also am of Christ.  2 Now I praise you, brethren, that ye remember me in all things, and keep the ordinances, as I delivered them to you.  3 But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.  4 Every man praying or prophesying, having his head covered, dishonoureth his head.  5 But every woman that prayeth or prophesieth with her head uncovered dishonoureth her head: for that is even all one as if she were shaven.  6 For if the woman be not covered, let her also be shorn: but if it be a shame for a woman to be shorn or shaven, let her be covered.  7 For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God: but the woman is the glory of the man.  8 For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man.  9 Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man.  10 For this cause ought the woman to have power on her head because of the angels.  11 Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.  12 For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.  13 Judge in yourselves: is it comely that a woman pray unto God uncovered?  14 Doth not even nature itself teach you, that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame unto him?  15 But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her: for her hair is given her for a covering.  16 But if any man seem to be contentious, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God." (KJV)

(b) 1 Corinthians 14:35, 36:

35 And if they will learn any thing, let them ask their husbands at home: for it is a shame for women to speak in the church. 36 What? came the word of God out from you? or came it unto you only? (KJV)

(c) 1 Timothy 2:11, 12:

11 Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. 12 But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence.

ANSWER: (a) This indirectly permits a woman to pray and to prophesy or preach by prescribing the manner. (b) Having thus permitted her praying and speaking in public, it is not like Paul to absolutely forbid her in the same letter. What he does prohibit is the interruption of the preacher by asking questions. Our missionaries in the Orient are thus often interrupted when preaching to women. (c) This teaches that there can be two captains on one deck and designates the man as captain and the woman as mate. In Rom. 16:1 Paul calls Phoebe a deacon (that is Greek) of the church at Cenchrea. In I Tim. 2:3-11 the qualities of women deacons are indicated, and deacons in addition to caring for the poor and sick, preached the Gospel, as did Stephen. In Rom. 16. Paul sends greetings to seven women, most of them by name, as fellow laborers "in the Lord." If women are not to use their gift of speech for Christ, who has broken their galling and heavy yoke, what a mistake God made when he endowed Frances E. Willard and other women with extraordinary persuasive address!

— from Steele's Answers p. 46.

Confessing Christ

A confessing mouth always attends a believing heart.

"Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul."

This declaration, constantly put forth by living men, is perpetual testimonial to the spiritual medicine advertised in the word of God. A specific held up before the public from year to year, unaccompanied by attested cures, comes to be distrusted and neglected. Hence even the blood of sprinkling, potent to cleanse the heart from all unrighteousness, needs something more than the advertisement of the inspired penman; it needs the joyful voice of the healed leper, crying, "It hath cleansed me!"

Partakers of the Divine Nature?

QUESTION: In what sense are regenerated persons partakers of the Divine nature?

ANSWER: This is another figure for denoting a moral likeness to God. They who have Christian love, holiness, justice, and truth have a nature like God's nature. To insist that they literally have his nature is to insist that they are gods. Many difficulties are surmounted and many errors are avoided by the exercise of reason in discriminating between the literal and the metaphorical in the Holy Scriptures.

— from Steele's Answers p. 45.

In What Sense Was Adam a Son of God?

QUESTION: Luke 3:36 declares "Adam was the son of God." Must not a son be a partaker of the nature of his father?

ANSWER: Yes, if he is a real son. Adam was a figurative, not a real, son of God. He has but one son. All others who are like him in moral character are metaphorical sons of God. If they lose their similarity to him by ceasing to love what he loves and to hate what he hates, they lose their sonship and become figurative children of the devil because they have become like him.

— from Steele's Answers p. 45.

Accounts of the Resurrection

QUESTION: In the account of the resurrection of Jesus, Matthew and Mark say that there was one angel, or rather "an angel," but Luke and John say there were two. Please harmonize.

ANSWER: There is no discrepancy here, nor in the number of Marys at the tomb — two being mentioned by Matthew, Mark and Luke, while John speaks of Mary Magdalene alone. Similar instances are the demoniacs of Gadara, and the blind men at Jericho; where, in both cases, Matthew speaks of two persons, but Mark and Luke mention only one. Something peculiar in one rendered him more prominent than the other. When Lafayette revisited America in 1824, he was everywhere received with joy and much was said about him in the daily papers; some of which did not mention his son, who was with him, eclipsed not by the shadow of his father, but by his glory as a Major General in Washington's army. This is the sound rule of interpretation in such cases: "He who speaks of the larger number includes the smaller; he who mentions the smaller does not deny the larger."

— from Steele's Answers pp. 44, 45.