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It's not, uh, you know, a top-down organization. It's a it's a general council, and so that's why I think that the voices, um, come from different trajectories and and give us insight into what we believe. And so we have, you know, the Pentecostal Evangel for, uh, over 100 years served as the official voice of the Assemblies of God, but there are all kinds of perspectives. And that's one of the things I brought out in the book is just sort of the varieties of of flavors in which people saw things like eschatology. And those matter, um, even though they're not in an official sense, but it does give a glimpse into what is the AG and what do we believe? Yeah, it kind of gives the the parameters of the realm of acceptable of acceptable opinion, I think maybe would be one way of putting it.
Sure. So so those are the sources. So if you're looking, and here I'm going to really focus on the authoritative sources, not the advisory ones, the ones that are controlling, that'd be the Statement of Fundamental Truths and the bylaws. And so if you had to in one sentence say the Assemblies of God eschatology is what, would that one sentence be?
Yeah, Assemblies of God, uh, is a premillennial, uh, Pentecostal eschatological group. And, um, you know, that that's best summed up, I think, in the four-fold gospel that we hold: the four cardinal doctrines—savior, healer, um, spirit baptizer, and soon-coming king—uh, that that four-fold really gives us a picture of what is sort of the summary of Pentecostal theology. And so, you know, we are a premillennial group; we expect the the soon coming of Jesus. And from the very beginning, that definitely is, um, has definitely been the single thread that has held it all together. You know, there's been debates about different parts of that, but all along the way we believe that that that Jesus Christ, who went to heaven, um, is coming back to earth to set up a millennial kingdom. And, uh, that that's the core of what we believe is that, uh, that Christ is coming, and the world will be changed when he does.
And so, kind of as a follow-up to that, because I know that there is a very live, um, argument that is had among the majority and the minority of Assemblies of God ministers and of course among scholars as well, is that if I remember correctly, are four statements, uh, on eschatology, which would be Articles 13, 14, 15, and 16. I, it's the blessed hope, um, yeah, the blessed hope, the uh, the millennium. So the four eschatological fundamental truths is what I call them: the the blessed hope, the millennium, the final judgment, the new heaven, the new earth. And those those four really work together; they are the core pillars of premillennialism. Right, the the blessed hope is the return of Jesus Christ to earth—the whole point is the earth—so that the second one, the millennial reign, that Jesus Christ can physically rule on earth and sort of restore the earth; and, um, and then the final judgment is the third pillar, and that's, uh, what happens when God purifies the earth and the cosmos of evil in preparation for the fourth one, which is the, uh, the new heavens and new earth, where what was lost in Eden is fully restored. And so those four work together; um, you can't take one of them out and replace them for another. And so having four eschatological fundamental truths—of the 16, one-fourth of our doctrine—is the emphasis that Jesus is coming back and what that's going to mean for our world. But of course, when you when you talk about premillennialism, there are a variety of kinds of premillennialism. And for for purposes of clarity, let me just give you two: there is what you might call, um, dispensational premillennialism, in which Christ returns for the saints before or during the tribulation; and then there's what you might call classical premillennialism, in which Christ returns, uh, for the saints after the tribulation. And the language of the blessed hope, which is, you know, that the dead will be raised and those who are living will be translated to meet the Lord in the air, combined with the the bylaw statements about the doctrines and practices disapproved of, seem to indicate that, you know, officially speaking, we are okay with pre-trib and mid-trib premillennialism. But having said that, there's an allowance clause that I think needs to be thrown in there, because the allowance clause seems to open up the realm of of potential opinion much broader than that. So can you talk a little bit about all that?
Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, without a doubt, sort of historically at a popular level as well as an official level, um, you know, pre-tribulation views of eschatology have been a dominant position for us. So that that's the view that, you know, Christ is going to come back, but first he's going to come back and remove the church from the, uh, world while there's a tribulational time. And that was really motivated by early Pentecostals' view of what we call bridal theology—that, you know, we are the bride and Jesus Christ is the bridegroom, and he's coming, and, uh, he's going to take us to heaven for for the marriage supper of the lamb. And so for early Pentecostals, particularly holiness Pentecostals, not so much us, um, later as that development went, uh, there was the idea that if you weren't filled with the Holy Spirit, you weren't really ready for the the coming of Christ. So to join the bride would be to be spirit-filled. So so early Pentecostals at Azusa Street, William Seymour believed this, um, J. King and others believed this, that if that the filling of the Holy Spirit was preparation for the rapture. And so so these sort of threads are very Pentecostal ways of understanding that that rapture doctrine, um, um. Now that that's waned a little bit by the time the sons of God, um, came together. And so so that that view is certainly dominant, but there was a lot of debate about that too. And so when when the, uh, when the official statement was made, you notice that actually the the first fundamental truth, um, doesn't mention the tribulation. So there's no official position. In fact, in the Statement of Fundamental Truths, there's never been an official position, um, but in the constitution bylaws they were very concerned that people would would sort of abuse that idea and, uh, that somebody could go through the tribulation, because there were Pentecostals who taught that that, you know, the reason you're filled with the Holy Spirit was what Pumm said is to endure the tribulation. And so there were ideas like that that they wanted to make sure that, you know, some God ministers weren't teaching. But but it was a matter of saying in the in the constitution bylaw, say this, that it's, you know, you can hold these beliefs personally; we just don't want you to teach them because it causes confusion. And so that's always kind of been AG's position on this is that, you know, there there's some variety of views in tribulational ways of looking at things: some early people were mid, some were, you know, ardently pre, um, and then there were some who were post, and they just said, you know, hey, if you're that, um, you can you just you can hold that; just please don't teach it because it causes confusion. And so that's been our position, um, within the official doctrine for a long time. And and in my book, I show how the varieties of that are actually present. D.W. Kerr actually believed in three raptures. And so there's some variety in there that, you know, the people who wrote the, uh, wrote the position on the Statement of Fundamental Truths were not rabid premillennial or pre-tribulationists.
Yeah, and J. Rosswall—I don't have the book in front of me, but J. Flower has a quote that you, uh, I think it's Jay Rossflower has a book that you give that basically he says, you know, look, let's let's not be overly precise about stuff that you can't be overly precise about. That's my that's my way of interpreting it. But yeah, no, that's exactly what he said. And you know, as as formative as he is to the Assemblies and particularly as general secretary, which he spent most of his, uh, life as, uh, it was that it's like there's there's a lot in here, you know; there's all kinds of things about tribulation and about, uh, you know, Armageddon and the antichrist and all. There's a lot of there's a lot of varying positions in that, and he said, you know, it's best if we not major on the minors. The the hope is that Jesus Christ is coming again; that's what that's what holds us together, and that's really the important part: you know, Jesus is coming, and he's coming soon, and we expect him to come soon. And that was his major major emphasis.
So what's what's I guess the uptake of this is this: what's very clear is that our official doctrine is very clearly premillennial, and there's some allowance for a range of, and and I'm being careful here, there's some allowance for a range of opinion on things like, um, tribulational views, um, this the allowance clause weirdly enough also comes after our statements on eternal security, millennialism, and universalism, which always just puzzled me. Yeah, I I don't know how exactly that would work if you had a universalist in the Assemblies of God. Yeah, anyway, all right, that's that's a subject for another day, so let's keep on moving.
I think it's very interesting that when we talk about the Statement of Fundamental Truths, we should not try to milk it for more than what it presents itself as being. And you make a point of this toward the end of the book when you talk about the sort of implied methodology of the Statement of Fundamental Truth. And I want to read the preface that's actually part of the of the Statement of Fundamental Truths and that you can find in our constitution. It says, "The Bible is our all-sufficient rule for faith and practice. This Statement of Fundamental Truth is intended simply as a basis of fellowship among us, um, i.e., that we all speak the same thing (1 Corinthians 1). They also mentioned Acts 2:42. The phraseology—this is a continuing quote—the phraseology employed in the statement is not inspired nor contended for, but the truth set forth held to be essential to a full gospel ministry. No claim is made that it covers all biblical truth, only that it covers our need as to these fundamental doctrines." So what does that mean?
Yeah, I mean, that was motivated, um, obviously the Assembly started as