George Jeffreys, the Spirit of Christ, and Early Pentecostal Thinking on Spirit Reception

Abstract

The emerging pentecostal movement of the early twentieth century recognized the need to develop a coherent pneumato-soteriological framework from which to promote the pentecostal distinctive of Spirit baptism. In the midst of heated debate interwoven with various personality cults, a multiplicity of alternative models was advanced. George Jeffreys, the founder of the Elim Pentecostal Church, taught that Christians do not receive the Holy Spirit at conversion; they receive him only at the baptism in the Holy Spirit. Rather, Jeffreys asserted, it is the Second Person of the Holy Trinity who comes to indwell the believer at regeneration, and this Spirit of Christ is entirely distinct from and in no way synonymous with the Holy Spirit. Jeffreys’ Spirit of Christ teaching was widely promoted within the Elim movement during the 1920s and 1930s and was still being discussed within British Pentecostalism as late as the 1960s, before it faded into theological obscurity. Nevertheless, the implications of this early debate on Spirit reception remain a live issue within Pentecostalism today.