24
to the primacy of the crisis experience in the Keswick approach to sanctification (the crisis
experience of a deeper surrender to Christ)
41
and in the Wesleyan approach (the crisis experience
of entire sanctification).
42
Though, as Wesleyan scholar Melvin Dieter rightly states, John
definitive sanctification." ("The Reformed View," in Five Views on Sanctification, 77.) Note
what Bruce Demarest says elsewhere about progressive sanctification. "Scripture indicates that
the Spirits work of producing Christlikeness in believers is gradual and progressive rather than
sudden or instantaneous." ("Transformed into His Likeness," 408.)
41
J. Robertson McQuilkin quotes historian Steven Barabas, "[Every child of God] may
step into [his rightful inheritance] ,,not by long prayers and laborious effort, but by a deliberate
and decisive act of faith." ("The Keswick Perspective," in Five Views on Sanctification, 154.)
McQuilkin argues, "For Christians who are experiencing a subnormal life, reentry into normal,
supernatural Christian living is through the gate of surrender. . . . Depending on the intensity of
conflict, the length of time out fellowship, and ones personality, this decision may be a major
emotional crisis. But even without any emotion, in the sense of a turning point or a decisive
event, this decision is rightly called a crisis. For such a person, a normal, successful Christian
experience is not the product of a gradual process of spiritual development, let alone automatic
process. A decisive turning point is needed." (Ibid., 171.)
42
Melvin Dieter writes that for Wesley, entire sanctification is "a personal, definitive
work of Gods sanctifying grace by which the war within oneself might cease and the heart be
fully released from rebellions into wholehearted love for God and others." ("The Wesleyan
View," in Five Views on Sanctification, 17.) Laurence Wood argues that Wesley "insisted that