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Pneuma 29 (2007) 254-280
A. S. Worrell’s New Testament: A Landmark Baptist-Pentecostal Bible Translation
from the Early Twentieth Century
Michael Kuykendall
Associate Professor of New Testament Studies, Golden Gate Baptist T eological Seminary,
Pacific Northwest Campus, Vancouver, Washington
MikeK@nwbaptist.org
Abstract
English Bible translation has always been ideological, exposing the religious traditions of the translators. But A. S. Worrell’s New Testament, published in 1904, is a rarity. Worrell was a Land- mark Southern Baptist who converted to Pentecostalism late in life, and his Bible version reflects this unique combination of Landmark and Pentecostal sympathies. This article identifies the marks of both theologies and the ways in whichWorrell integrated them into his singular Bible translation.
Keywords
Bible translation, Landmarkism, Pentecostalism, Bible translation philosophy, Baptist history, Pentecostal origins
Uncovering ideological agendas in recent Bible versions is not an exercise exclusive to the present generation. Indeed, the transmission and translation of English Bibles has always been ideological or sectarian, if by those terms we mean the translation is driven with theological purposes in mind — theological purposes that expose the religious traditions of the translators and publishers. Numerous sectarian efforts, especially Unitarian and immer- sionist, were available at the turn of the twentieth century. Among these is a lesser known yet unique translation of the New Testament produced by A. S. Worrell in 1904.1 Worrell was a Southern Baptist teacher, preacher,
1
A. S. Worrell, The New Testament, revised and translated by A. S. Worrell, With Notes and Instructions designed to aid the earnest Reader in obtaining a clear Understanding of the doctrines, Ordinances, and primitive Assemblies as revealed in these Scriptures (Louisville, KY: A. S. Worrell,
© Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2007 DOI: 10.1163/157007407X237944
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Greek scholar, editor, and evangelist who shifted from Landmark Baptist beliefs to Pentecostalism toward the end of his life. His Bible translation, like his life, reflects this unusual combination of Baptist and Pentecostal dispositions.
Born in Newton County, Georgia, on March 3, 1831, Worrell was con- verted in 1844 and called to preach in 1850. He graduated with honors from Mercer University, a Baptist school in Macon, Georgia, in 1855 and added an A.M. degree from there in 1858. Later he was termed “Dr. Worrell,” but where or when he attained this degree is not known.2 Nonetheless, his academic career was impressive. This included Professor of Greek and Latin at Missis- sippi College, Clinton, Mississippi (1855-1856) and Professor of Greek and Hebrew at Union University, Murfreesboro, Tennessee (1856-1857). After serving as Captain in the Confederate Army during the Civil War he became President of Mount Lebanon University, Mount Lebanon, Louisiana (1865- 1867); Principal of Baptist Female College, Lexington, Kentucky (1868- 1871); President of California College, Vacaville, California (1873-1875); President of Mount Pleasant College, Huntsville, Missouri (1878-1880); and President of Buckner College, Witcherville, Arkansas (1882-1884).3
Worrell’s literary career was just as productive. He edited, published, or owned the following periodicals: Soldier’s Friend (Atlanta, 1860s; Louisiana Baptist (1865-1866); Baptist Sentinel (Lexington, Kentucky, 1868-1871); Western Recorder (Louisville, 1871-1872); The Evangel (San Francisco, 1870s); and Gospel Witness (Louisville, 1893-1908). His published works include Review of Corrective Church Discipline (1860); Principles of English Grammar (1861); The First and Seventh Day Controversy (1896); Full Gospel Teachings
1904). It was reprinted by the American Baptist Publication Society in Philadelphia in 1907 and by Gospel Publishing House of Springfield, Missouri, in 1957 and 1980. The latter’s reprints changed the title to The Worrell New Testament: A. S. Worrell’s Translation With Study Notes. My own copy has Rhema Bible Institute (Kenneth Hagin Ministries) stamped on the cover. Appar- ently, Gospel Publishing House published it and allowed Rhema to place its own stamp on it. The page numbers footnoted below follow the 1904 edition. The later editions show revision in the preface (changes in punctuation, page numbering, section headings, and the addition of two paragraphs and the deletion of one).
2
Baptist historian William Cathcart, “Worrall [ sic], A.S., D.D.,” Encyclopaedia of Baptists, rev. ed., 2 vols. (Philadelphia: L. H. Everts, 1883), 2:1278 bestowed a doctorate upon Worrell, but it is not known when or where he received this. Ironically, Worrell appeared to denigrate such titles. In Appendix D of his New Testament he stated, “The Gospel of Jesus Christ knows nothing of such titles as Rev. and D.D., as applied to preachers.” Worrell, New Testament, 410.
3
William E. Paul, English Bible Translators (Jefferson, NC: McFarland), 260.
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(1900); Full Gospel Text-Book (1901); and Didactic and Devotional Poems (1906).4
Yet aside from his own publications Worrell was rarely mentioned in the popular literature of his era and is all but forgotten by both Baptists and Pen- tecostals today. Students interested in English Bible translation remember him solely for his hard-to-find New Testament.5 The following article examines Worrell and his writings, particularly his New Testament. It will confirm that his translation is not merely a forgettable sectarian effort, but instead a singu- lar hybrid of both Baptist and Pentecostal tendencies, as well as a historical example of the impossibility of producing a neutral Bible version.
Worrell’s Landmark Baptist Moorings
Like many Southern Baptists of his era, Worrell was a Landmarker. Landmarkism was an ultraconservative movement within the Southern Baptist Convention (hereafter SBC). Though some of its ideas existed sepa- rately before, the combination of tenets known as Landmarkism coalesced in the South about 1850. J. R. Graves (1820-1893) was the founder and great warrior of the movement and his story is necessarily intertwined with Worrell’s. William Henry Brackney asserts that Graves was “easily the most influential figure among Baptists in the American South of the later nineteenth century.”6 Brilliant, dogmatic, lover of controversy, and power- ful speaker and debater, Graves aggressively attacked other denominations
4
Ibid., 260-61. See also Wilfrid Lofft, “The Life of A. S. Worrell,” The Bible Collector (July- September 1984); biblecollectors.org/a_s_worrell.htm.
5
Paul ( English Bible Translators, 260-61) has the lengthiest article devoted to Worrell’s transla- tion. See also Michael Marlowe, “20th Century English Versions,” http://bible-researcher. com/versbib10.html, who incorrectly identifies Worrell as “an American Baptist educator and evangelist,” no doubt because of the American Baptist Publication Society reprint. Similarly, the fact that Worrell consistently used the word assemblies in his New Testament, coupled with the Gospel Publishing House’s connection to the Assemblies of God, has led at least one person to attach Worrell anachronistically to the Assemblies of God denomination. See F. Keith Mincey, “History of the English Bible,” http://battleoflife.org/history.html. From Baptist history only Cathcart mentions Worrell, devoting a quarter column. Modern historian James E. Tull briefly cites Worrell, labeling him as “a strong Landmarker” in High-Church Baptists in the South:The Origin, Nature, and Influence of Landmarkism (Macon, GA: Mercer University Press, 2000), 83. From Pentecostal history he is given a half column in Warren E. Warner, “Worrell, Adolphus Spalding,” in The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Move- ments, rev. ed., ed. Stanley M. Burgess and Eduard M. an der Maas (Grand Rapids, MI: Zonder- van, 2002), 1217.
6
William Henry Brackney, The Baptists (New York: Greenwood Press, 1988), 183.
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while holding high the supremacy of Southern Baptists. He was the editor of the Southern Baptist Review and the lengthy-tenured Tennessee Baptist, the most important vehicles disseminating Landmark beliefs.
Landmark Beliefs
Baptist historian Leon McBeth lists six major tenets of the movement: (1) Baptist churches were the only true churches in the world — since Baptist churches alone represented the only true church all other churches were merely religious societies; (2) the primacy of the local church — the only true churches (that is, Baptist churches) were the visible, local churches. There was no Bible teaching on the “invisible” or “universal” church. Anyone outside the visible, local Baptist church was not in the church; (3) church and kingdom are synonymous terms — the Kingdom of God was composed of the sum total of authentic Baptist churches only; (4) no pulpit affiliation with non-Baptists — no union revivals, non-Baptist ministers participating in ordinations, joint services, or any other ecumenical activity was appropri- ate; (5) only a church (that is, a local Landmark Baptist church) could do churchly acts — thus, only Landmark baptism (immersionist), Landmark Lord’s Supper (close communion), and Landmark preaching were valid. Baptisms in other churches were merely “water ceremonies.” Since prospec- tive members had no valid church, minister, or commission from Christ, persons seeking membership must undergo Baptist rebaptism, even if they were scripturally immersed in another denomination; and (6) Baptist suc- cessionism — Baptist churches have existed in every age by an unbroken historical line of succession. Since it was unthinkable that the Kingdom of God (that is, Baptist churches) could ever go out of existence, it naturally followed that there have always been Baptist churches throughout history, traceable to Jesus, John the Baptist, and the Jordan River. Those ancient Baptists may have used different names (such as Donatists, Bogomilles, and Waldenses), but they all had the marks of a Gospel (Baptist) church. All were identifiable through a martyr-filled “Trail of Blood.”7
Two other statements are in order here. First, a parallel to the primacy of the local church was Landmarkism’s insistence upon no ecclesiastical overlord
7
H. Leon McBeth, The Baptist Heritage (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1987), 446-61. See also idem, A Sourcebook for Baptist Heritage (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1990), 316-27; Robert A. Baker, Southern Baptist Convention and Its People, 1607-1972 (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1974), 208-19; Tull, High-Church Baptists, 1-83; and W. Morgan Patterson, Baptist Succession- ism: A Critical View (Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1969).
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telling the local church how to do missions, how to finance missions, or who was eligible to do missionary work. T is viewpoint was clearly evident in Landmarkism’s attempt to dismantle the SBC’s Foreign Mission Board in 1859. Second, a forgotten ancillary tenet of the Landmark movement was premillennialism. Of course, one did not have to be premillennial to be a Landmarker, nor were all Landmarkers premillenialists. Landmark stalwart and postmillennialist J. M. Pendleton was a case in point. Nevertheless, another example of Graves’s influence on the majority of Landmarkers and ultimately the SBC can be witnessed in his endorsement of premillennialism. In an era where Southern Baptists were predominantly postmillennial, Graves promoted a dispensational premillennialism that ultimately won the day by the twentieth century. He was the earliest Southern Baptist dispensationalist, wrote numerous articles on the subject, and published the first book on the topic in his denomination.8
The Graves-Howell Controversy
Within this cauldron of Landmark beliefs and Graves’s influence a young
man in his twenties made a name for himself. Worrell’s arrival on the liter-
ary scene coincided with the Graves-Howell Controversy. Baptist historian
James E. Tull states it plainly. “The Graves-Howell Controversy of 1858-
1860 was the greatest controversy that afflicted Southern Baptists until the
‘fundamentalist-moderate controversy’ of the last decades of the twentieth
century.”
9
R. B. C. Howell (1801-1868) helped lay the foundations of the
SBC and served as one of its greatest and most loyal leaders. He was pas-
tor of the prestigious First Baptist Church of Nashville from 1835-1850
before leaving to serve another church in Virginia. He was President of the
SBC from 1851 to 1859 and also served as President of no less than three
convention boards — Foreign Mission Board, Bible Board, and Sunday
8
For example, J. R. Graves, “Chiliasm in the 19th Century,” Southern Baptist Review 2, no. 5 (1856): 241-72; “The Second Advent of Christ: Is it Pre-millennial?” Southern Baptist Review 6, no. 4 (1860): 505-8; The Work of Christ in the Covenant of Redemption: Developed in Seven Dispensations (Memphis, TN: Baptist Book House, 1883); and The Dispensational Expositions of the Parables and Prophecies of Christ (Memphis, TN: Graves & Shankland, 1887). See James Spivey, “The Millennium,” in Has Our T eology Changed? Southern Baptist T ought Since 1845 , ed. Paul A. Basden (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1994), 230-62 and Danny E. Howe, “An Analysis of Dispensationalism and Its Implications for the T eologies of James Robinson Graves, John Franklyn Norris, and Wallie Amos Criswell” (Ph.D. dissertation, Southwestern Baptist T eological Seminary, 1988).
9
Tull, High-Church Baptists, 85.
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School Board. But when Howell left Nashville it gave Graves the chance to exercise his own influence in the Nashville church. Graves, who had joined the church five years earlier, was able to consolidate his leadership role dur- ing the decade of the 1850s and spread Landmarkism through writing and preaching. But when Howell returned to the First Baptist Church pulpit in 1857 to begin his second term as pastor a personal conflict ensued between the two men. Eventually, Graves made personal attacks against Howell, his pastor. In response to Graves’s disruptions the members of First Baptist Church expelled him along with forty-six of his followers.
But Graves continued to fight the local church’s discipline imposed upon him. He was able to convince the local association and the state convention to side with his view, and they exonerated Graves of all charges. Graves used his influence as editor to voice his side of the matter and it was here that Worrell’s name first surfaced. As part of the campaign to impugn Howell, Worrell wrote a book review in the Southern Baptist Review in which he attacked Howell’s views on the Lord’s Supper. Like the majority of Landmarkers, Worrell was close communion, particularly in cases where the partaker’s origin and mode of baptism was in question. Howell, on the other hand, was open commu- nion. Worrell called Howell’s views stultifying and contradictory to the true Baptist position. “Elder Howell,” he stated, “uses the objectionable term, evan- gelical, in speaking of Pedobaptist societies. . . .”10 Clearly, for Worrell, open communion was not an option for true members of the church. Later in the article Worrell mentioned Graves’s antipathy to “evangelical” books such as Howell’s. “The editor of the Tennessee Baptist has long and forcibly main- tained it, and lately refused to aid or abet in circulating the books of Baptist authors, in which such admissions are made, even though such books and tracts be put forth by Baptist Publication Societies.”11
Earlier that same year, 1858, Worrell wrote an article that displayed his deep Landmark entrenchment. The title was “How Far Are Baptists at Liberty to Affiliate with Unbaptized Professors of Religion?” His answer was not very far at all. By “unbaptized” Worrell meant anyone not baptized by immersion in a Baptist church. T us, any affiliation with those who did not follow those criteria was to be rejected. “As Baptists, we believe that ours is the Church of Christ, and of course, we are not at liberty to pursue any line of policy which tends
10
A. S. Worrell, “Open Communion Inculcated in Books Advocating Close Communion,” Southern Baptist Review 4, no. 4 (October 1858): 533.
11
Ibid., 539.
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to overthrow it.”12 Worrell’s conclusion on the matter was austere as it was nar- row. Landmark Baptists, he asserted,
will not commune with unbaptized professors, because they think communion should be confined to members of the Church. T ey do not invite any but Baptists into their pulpits, because they do not consider it right that but members of the Church should attend to the business of the Church. Nor do they concede to them any privileges which they think belong exclusively to Church members, because they do not regard them as members of the Church. Finally, they do not regard their immersions or any of their official acts as valid because they believe that none but the proper officers of the church of Christ, have the right to do these things.13
Flush with victories that the association and state convention gave him and backed by a large group of supporters that included Worrell, Graves marched in May of 1859 to the annual SBC meeting in Richmond, Virginia, to install Landmark theology upon the entire denomination, including the dismantling of the convention’s Foreign Mission Board. The SBC, however, rebuffed him and poured salt on the wound by re-electing his nemesis Howell as president. The irenic Howell quickly resigned, but the damage against Landmarkism was already done. Tull writes, “The Landmarkers’ grasp for power at this convention was breathtaking in its scope and audacity, and brought the Convention itself to the verge of disastrous collapse.”14 Even though Graves’s outward attempt to tear apart the Foreign Mission Board and impose Landmark principles on the 1859 SBC was defeated, Landmarkism continued its inward growth. Indeed, Landmark embers still glow in many Southern Baptist churches today.
T e Mell-Worrell Controversy
A derivative of the Graves-Howell Controversy might be labeled the Mell-
Worrell Controversy. Patrick Hues Mell (1814-1888), like Howell, was a
favored son among Southern Baptists. Mell believed in some Landmark beliefs, specifically successionism, close communion, and the primacy of local church, but demurred from the more controversial aspects. His egregious error to fervent Landmarkers, however, was the publication, soon after the 1859 convention, of his book Corrective Church Discipline. Mell was con-
12
A. S. Worrell, “How Far Are Baptists at Liberty to Affiliate with Unbaptized Professors of Religion?” Southern Baptist Review 4, no. 1 (January 1858): 59.
13
Ibid., 60.
14
Tull, High-Church Baptists, 92; see 85-92 and McBeth, Baptist Heritage, 455-57.
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vinced that Graves held erroneous understandings of local church discipline. No doubt he believed that if the local association and state convention had upheld the Nashville church’s actions, then the near debacle at the 1859 con- vention would never have occurred. Mell noted several examples of public offenses against the local church, including the rejection of the church’s authority over a member’s life by refusing to obey its demands and by intentionally causing divisions within the body. In such cases the offender must be expelled immediately. This might seem harsh, but it protected the church and served as a warning to other church members.15 For Mell, the fundamental issue was the sovereignty of the local church. “Local churches have exclusive jurisdiction over their members.”16
Even though Graves’s name was never mentioned in Mell’s book, it was obvious to Landmarkers that the Graves-Howell affair was the referent. Land- markers answered back through the pen of Worrell, who responded to Mell with a massive book review titled Review of Corrective Church Discipline. It was published first in Graves’s Tennessee Baptist, then in the Landmark Banner, and finally put into book form and published by Graves through his Southwestern Publishing House. Worrell’s book review plus appendixes marshaled three hundred pages to disassemble Mell’s one-hundred-twenty-page book. Worrell stated the obvious. T ough no names were mentioned, Mell’s trea- tise “seems to look to a well-known case of discipline (?), which has been agitating the Baptist mind no little of late.”17 Worrell’s central attack upon Mell was to appeal not to how the majority of the local church might vote on an issue but to what the Bible says one should do. “The main question involved is this: Does the right to exercise discipline originate in the will of the majority of the Church? or does it take its origin in the will of Christ, as expressed in his word?”18 By inference, the church in Nashville was wrong for voting Graves and his followers out. “The object of the reviewer has been to expose such monstrous fallacies, and present the claims and authority of Christ above all other claims . . . not because a majority happen to vote for it, but because the act itself was done in accordance with, and by authority of, THE LAWS OF CHRIST. . . .”19
15
Patrick Hues Mell, Corrective Church Discipline: With a Development of the Scriptural Principles Upon Which It Is Based (Charleston, SC: Southern Baptist Publication Society, 1860), 11-14, 25-29.
16
Ibid., 62.
17
A. S. Worrell, Review of Corrective Church Discipline (Nashville: Southwestern Publishing House, 1860), xxxii.
18
Ibid.
19
Ibid., xxiii.
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Worrell concluded that Mell’s views were radically wrong. T eologically, they were based upon “the absurd Romish dogma of Church infallibility. . . . Professor Mell holds that the decision of the Church, right or wrong, is final.”20 His last words on the matter were, “if any ‘harsh language’ has been used, it has been directed at the principles, and not the author of Corrective Church Discipline.”21 Nevertheless, Worrell’s book was peppered with words such as “absurd,” “wicked,” “irregular,” “monstrous,” “invalid,” “dangerous,” and “fal- lacious.” It must have been unrealistic not to treat the book review as a per- sonal attack.
To Worrell’s and fellow Landmarkers’ dismay, too few Baptists took note of his dismantling of a dismantler. Worrell protested that Mell’s book was a par- tisan effort and he asked that his review be given wider Baptist audience. The larger (that is, non-Landmark Baptist) publishing societies, however, refused to fan the flame. This prompted one Landmarker to complain that “Prof. Mell wrote a ‘Corrective Church Discipline,’ which was published by all the papers of a certain type in the land. . . . This newfangled discipline has been sawed, and split, skinned and dissected and ‘driv up’ by the logic and analysis of Prof. Worrell.”22
The dressing down of a respected SBC leader by a young Worrell reveals that he was now well on his way to being a Landmark leader. After his service in the Civil War, Worrell became President of Mount Lebanon University in Mount Lebanon, Louisiana, in 1865 at the age of thirty-four. From there he moved to Lexington, Kentucky, in 1868 to begin service as the Principal of Baptist Female College. Meanwhile, he continued to edit and write on Land- mark themes. In 1871 he wrote an article in his Baptist Sentinel that laid down seven principles, which he called “Baptist axioms.” T eir narrowness confirmed his state of thinking in the 1870s. Worrell believed that every Baptist would “cheerfully subscribe” to the following:
1. That the only scripture churches are found among the Baptists. . . . 2. That it is the duty of every truly converted person to be a member of
some Baptist church. . . .
3. That there never was, nor is now, any necessity for any “church” organiza-
tion, save that found among the Baptists.
20
Ibid., 173-74.
21
Ibid., 176.
22
The Landmarker quoted is only known by his initials J.J.D.R. See reformedreader.org/rbb/ mell/biography/1phmchapter09.htm.
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4. That the cause of Christ would be promoted, and the demands of truth sub-
served, if every child of God, now a member of some other denomination,
would see and repudiate his errors, and cast his lot with the Baptists. 5. That it is the duty of Baptists . . . to do all they can to convince others of
their errors, and if possible, lead them to embrace the whole truth. 6. That our deeds and words should accord with our views, or faith. . . . 7. That we should exert an undivided influence in favor of the truth, regard-
less of the frowns or smiles of the world or of errorists. . . .23
During the decade of the 1870s and into the 1880s Worrell served Baptist educational entities and continued editorship in Kentucky, California, Missouri, and Arkansas. The last Baptist notation available concerning Worrell is found in Cathcart’s Encylopaedia. The author judiciously averted current arguments over Landmarkism and merely stated, “He is now president of Mount Pleasant College, Huntsville, Mo. The college is fortunate in obtaining such a president.”24 Therefore, based upon his upbringing, education, service, publications, and teachings, Worrell holds solid SBC Landmark credentials. This rich Baptist ideology finds its way into his Bible translation.
Landmark Baptist Influences in Worrell’s New Testament
Overall, Worrell’s New Testament offered a moderate revision of the recently
published American Standard Version (1901), mostly toward more literal renderings. He made use of the Greek text of Westcott and Hort, along with Scrivener’s modifications, but added his own unique contributions. One area of improvement centered on the Greek tenses, particularly the aorist indicative. Worrell was astonished that little regard had been paid to them by the King James revisers or by the recent English Revised Version (1881) or the American Standard Version. The translation work of Rotherham, Young, and Broadus were more faithful in this matter, but Worrell stated, “If these Scriptures are truly inspired, they must have been verbally inspired; and, if verbally inspired, the tense of every verb must have been inspired; and, being inspired, every tense ought to be duly translated. To handle the tenses carelessly, is to trifle with the word of God.”25
23
A. S. Worrell, “How Shall Baptists Regard and Treat Other Denominations?” Baptist Senti- nel 2 (June 1871), 245.
24
Cathcart, “Worrall,” 2:1278.
25
Worrell, New Testament, iii.
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Worrell’s claim for greater fidelity to the original Greek and his cry for a verbal inspiration that filtered all the way down to the Greek tenses led him (he believed) to distance himself from any ideology.
It is needless to say, after what has been said above, that this book appears in the inter- est of no denomination of Christians; nor does the writer expect any of them, as such, to adopt it; albeit, he does expect intelligent Christians, into whose hands it may fall, who are hungering and thirsting for the Gospel of Christ, to appreciate it; and to help in its distribution over the land, regardless of all petty sect opposition.26
Worrell’s declarations notwithstanding, a closer look at this translation and its accompanying notes reveals a strong sectarian disposition that favors Baptist ideology. The clearest Landmark Baptist influence in Worrell’s translation is found in his treatment of the following four items — baptism, church, missions, and eschatology.
Baptism through Immersion and by Baptist Authority
First, Baptists, especially Landmarkers, appealed to the correct mode (immer- sion) and authority (local Baptist church) for the ordinance of baptism. Worrell’s alliterative sermonizing reveals his support for baptism by immersion.
Had all these revisers correctly translated instead of transferred, the Greek word bap- tidzo, Christendom would not be compelled to blush at the immense absurdity of calling three entirely different acts baptism. Had they translated baptidzo immerse — which the scholarship of the world required — no one would have been so simple as to call either sprinkle or pour immersion; but as they failed to translate baptidzo, those who are ignorant of the Greek had no certain means of knowing that immersion, sprin- kling, and pouring might not all find shelter under this untranslated word, baptize or baptism. Had they translated baptidzo immerse, then every one would have known that sprinkling and pouring were not immersion. T us an immense wrong has been done in failing to translate baptidzo.27
Consequently, Worrell’s New Testament rendered each instance of baptidzo and its cognates with “immersion,” “immerse,” and “immerser.” For example, Matthew 3:1, 6 read, “Now in those days came John, the Immerser, preach- ing in the wilderness of Judaea, . . . and they were being immersed by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.” Another example was Acts 2:38.
26
Ibid. 27
Ibid., ii.
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“And Peter said to them, ‘Repent and be immersed each one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, unto remission of sins; and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.”
Worrell’s New Testament, then, duplicated the concerns of numerous nine- teenth-century Baptists on the correct interpretation of the Greek term bap- tidzo.28 His version constituted the last original effort in the long line of immersionist Bibles that cropped up throughout the century.29
Autonomy of the Local Church to Perform Missionary Work
The second and third items, church and missions, are taken together since they overlap in Worrell’s body of work. Like strident in his support of the correct translation of of his New Testament he declared:
baptidzo, Worrell was equally
ecclesia. In the preface
T en a failure properly to translate ecclesia has, likewise, wrought untold mischief. The word . . . rightly translated, would have afforded no shelter for the vast ecclesiasticisms that have overshadowed and well-nigh crowded out of being the simple, independent, local assemblies, that were established in the first centuries of Christianity. Ecclesia should have been translated assembly or congregation; and this would have been a rebuke to those who would swallow up all local assemblies in a consolidated denomi- nation, or ecclesiasticism. The concrete use of the word ecclesia [ sic] justifies nothing beyond a local, independent assembly of believers. . . . The largest body of Christians here on earth that can exist under the use of the word ecclesia [sic], is a single assembly or congregation of believers; and all those bodies of Christians that have merged their existence into an ecclesiasticism, or organized denomination, have simply missed God’s thought on the subject.30
28
See, e.g., T omas Jefferson Conant, The Meaning and Use of Baptizein (New York: Ameri- can Bible Union, 1864); Roger A. Bullard, “From Scotland to Philadelphia, 1739-1912: The Lineage of the ‘Baptist Bible,’” I Must Speak Plainly: Essays in Honor of Robert G. Bratcher, ed. Roger L. Omanson (London: Paternoster Press, 2000), 97-110; and Edward C. Starr, “A Sectar- ian Bible,” The Chronicle XVII (January 1954), 33-48.
29
Strictly speaking, The Holy Bible: An Improved Edition , published in the fall of 1912, was the last immersion Bible published. However, that version was the final revision of a translation that reverted back to the American Bible Union immersionist translations that commenced in 1850. T us, Worrell’s New Testament can be fairly labeled as the last original immersion Bible. Both translations were not popular and both can be seen as serving as an obsolescent bridge to twentieth-century Bible translation concerns of idiomatic translation.
30
Worrell, New Testament, ii. Later editions edited out the sentences beginning with “The concrete use . . .” and then add a paragraph on the correct translation of sabbaton. I could not find whether Worrell himself or the publisher made these changes.
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T us, Worrell translated every instance of ecclesia as “assembly” and the word church was never found in his version. For example, 1 Corinthians 1:2 was written “to the assembly of God which is at Corinth.” In the same way, an emphasis upon the local church over the universal church was a noted empha- sis of the version. An example was Worrell’s understanding of Matthew 16:18. “And I also say to you, that you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build My assembly, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.” His note on the verse offered a concession to the idea of the universal church while retaining the primacy of the local church. Worrell related that “[t]he word ecclesia, in this connection, evidently refers to the larger use of the word, to denote all the saved, rather than a local congregation of believers. The larger ecclesia will not be complete till all true believers are safe in Heaven.”31
Tese statements reveal Worrell’s Landmark Baptist leanings on the sacred- ness and autonomy of the local church. In like fashion they bring out his Landmark approach concerning missions. The “ecclesisasticisms” above were a reference to denominations and to their mission boards. The last chapter of one of Worrell’s books was devoted to his understanding of missions. At one point he asserted, “It was in order for an individual ecclesia, as God’s ratifying agency, to send out missionaries to preach to the heathen; but now the ecclesias have been remanded to the rear by self-appointed leaders!”32 And later, “T ere is absolutely nothing in the Scriptures at all like any of the modern denomina- tions of Christians, and there is nothing like a modern mission board. T ese are some of the works of men. God never, so far as His word teaches, sanctioned the existence of anything larger than a local congregation of believers.”
33
Such strong language did not find its way into the text of his New Testament. His appendix, however, confirmed his view on mission boards.
The assembly’s “chief end” is “to carry, or send, the Gospel, as far as practicable, to all parts of the world,” this is an ideal definition of an assembly of God, or an assembly of Christ. . . . The plural (assemblies) is used, but in a manner to show that each local assembly was independent under God, and was entrusted with self-government . . . The idea of a consolidated ecclesiasticism is nowhere found in the New Testament Scriptures.34
31
Ibid., 29.
32
A. S. Worrell, Full Gospel Text-Book (Louisville, KY: Pentecostal Publishing Co., 1901), 286.
33
Ibid., 287.
34
Worrell, New Testament, 405.
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Dispensational Premillennialism
The last Landmark Baptist influence in Worrell’s New Testament stems from his eschatology. Like Graves before him, Worrell was a dispensational premil-
lennialist, and he devoted a full chapter in one of his books to promoting
it. Once again, though this was not a bedrock doctrine of Landmarkism,
it is intriguing to note that the consensus view of late nineteenth-century
Southern Baptists was postmillennialism. Worrell chose the minority view,
a view that is easily traced back to his theological mentor Graves, and thus
constitutes a solid byproduct of his Landmarkism.
Succinctly, dispensationalism believes in a pretribulational rapture of the
saints, followed by seven years of tribulation on earth, second coming of
Christ, and then the millennium. Worrell’s premillennialism shone through
markedly in his note on 1 T essalonians 4:15-17. His translation read this way:
For this we say to you, in a word of the Lord, that we, the living who remain over to the coming of the Lord, shall in no wise precede those who fell asleep; because the Lord Himself will descend from Heaven, with a shout, with a voice of an archangel, and with a trumpet of God; and the dead in Christ shall rise first; after that we, the living who are left over, will be caught up together with them in clouds, into the air, to meet the Lord; and so shall we always be with the Lord.
Worrell’s note on these verses flatly stated, “We believe there will be a pre-tribulation rapture of those who are watching, waiting, and otherwise ready for it.”35
What was implicit in 1 T essalonians 4 was made clear elsewhere — Wor- rell believed in a partial rapture of the saints. For example, Matthew 24:40-41 read, “T en two men will be in the field; one is carried off, and one is left behind; two women will be grinding at the mill, one is carried off, and one is left behind.” His note declared that these verses referred to
the pre-tribulation rapture, when only those who are prepared will be caught up; and the others, because not prepared, will be left behind. This refers to Christ’s coming in the mid-heavens to receive the watching, ready ones, and not to His visible coming with the saints . . . A Christian who is not ready will be left behind at the rapture, and remain on earth, to go into the tribulation, and may share in martyr honors later.36
35
Ibid., 300.
36
Ibid., 43-44. Worrell’s notes were rife with premillennial thought. See, e.g., Matt. 24:4-8, 34; Luke 21:36; Rev. 3:10, 21; 20:1-8; and “Anti-Christ” and “Judgments” in his appendix.
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Thus, Worrell’s New Testament certainly displayed his Baptist underpinnings. As such it can be evaluated as another sectarian translation. But what makes Worrell’s work stand apart from similar sectarian Bible translations begins with the dramatic personal conversion he made late in life.
Worrell’s Shift toward Pentecostalism
Worrell’s proneness toward strongly held viewpoints carried through to his holiness teachings as well. Once he became convinced of Pentecostalism’s truths he shifted theological gears to embrace the burgeoning movement. This shift occurred after he underwent a Saul-like conversion from Landmark Baptist to Spirit-filled Pentecostal.
Baptized in the Spirit
After his tenure as President of Buckner College in Witcherville, Arkansas,
ended in 1884, Worrell dropped from view. He was not ministering in education or editorially. The impression one receives is that Worrell was preaching and teaching itinerantly. Even his hometown was not known for sure, but he resurfaced in Louisville by 1893. Then something happened to Worrell at the age of sixty. His penchant for italicizing the words he chooses to emphasize rises to another level of emphasis through capitaliza- tion. In his own words:
When I had been a Christian, after a fashion, for forty-seven years, and a preacher about thirty-three, I completely surrendered myself to the Lord; intending to be his forever and without conditions. Soon after this, I was consciously infilled by the Holy Spirit, an experience differing, in some respects, from anything I had ever realized before. Formerly, I had, on many occasions, had the Spirit mightily on me and blessedly with me; but, on the occasion referred to, the Spirit was far more mightily and blessedly IN me; and I realized, at that time, the opening up of the well of living water IN me, whose blissful flow has never since subsided. This occurred on the night of the 10th of August, 1891.37
From this point forward, in spite of opposition from Southern Baptist “brethren,” Worrell devoted his energies to propagating the Full Gospel
37
A. S. Worrell, Full Gospel Teachings (Louisville, KY: Charles T. Dearing, 1900), 53-54. On page 70 Worrell adds that the “blessed experience” that occurred “on that memorable night” was “about 2 or 3 o’clock.”
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message. This included preaching and teaching about holiness, editing a journal called Gospel Witness beginning in 1893, writing two books (pub- lished 1900-1901), and culminating in his English translation of the New Testament in 1904 — all produced from his home in Louisville. He was, therefore, quite open and interested when the Azusa Street Revival erupted in Los Angeles, California, in April 1906.
Worrell and the Azusa Street Revival
Numerous theological trends were percolating at the end of the nineteenth
century. Expectation for a “latter rain” outpouring of the Holy Spirit, frontier
revivalism, altar calls for personal evangelism, the Keswick conventions, the
formulation of personal holiness and sanctification as a Pentecostal experi-
ence, and a recovery of divine healing and speaking in tongues all served
as a backdrop for a turn-of-the-century explosion in Christianity. Charles
Parham’s church in Kansas was experiencing tongue-speaking by 1901. The
famed 1904-1905 Welsh revival led by Evan Roberts was being published
abroad. All of these trends merged in 1906 at a mission on Azusa Street in
Los Angeles. Led primarily by William Seymour, a spiritual renewal occurred
that attracted onlookers from around the world and emphasized the doctrines
of personal holiness, baptism of the Holy Spirit, tongues, divine healing,
power for ministry, and the quick return of Jesus Christ. The Azusa Street
Revival is generally assigned the dates of 1906 to 1913. But the ongoing
significance of the events can be seen in that every modern-day Pentecostal
or Charismatic group can be traced in some way to Azusa Street.
38
Personal friends wrote to Worrell about tongues speech occurring at Azusa
Street, and many of them were converted as a result of these manifestations.
Worrell traveled to Los Angeles to investigate for himself the charismatic out-
break, and he became one of numerous early seekers at Azusa Street. The Azusa Street Revival was a cross-denominational phenomenon and several
38
See Joe Creech, “Visions of Glory: The Place of the Azusa Street Revival in Pentecostal His- tory,” Church History 65, no. 3 (1996), 405-24; Robert Owens, “The Azusa Street Revival: The Pentecostal Movement Begins in America,” in The Century of the Holy Spirit: 100 Years of Pente- costal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001, ed. Vinson Synan (Nashville: T omas Nelson, 2001), 39-68; idem, Speak to the Rock: The Azusa Street Revival: Its Roots and Its Message (Lan- ham, PA: University Press of America, 2001); and Cecil M. Robeck Jr., “Azusa Street Revival,” in The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements , rev. ed., ed. Stanley M. Burgess and Eduard M. van der Maas (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 344-50.
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Baptists were involved from the outset, including Joseph Smale, Richard Spurling, Ben Irwin, A. H. Post, Elmer Fisher, G. B. Cashwell, and William Durham.39 To this list Worrell must also be added.
Upon his return home to Louisville Worrell wrote an article in his paper that stated, “One might as well try to sweep back the waters of the Pacific, as to attempt to check this mighty display of God’s power.”40 In a subsequent article Worrell offered more inside information on the unfolding events. He cautioned of antagonistic “movements” taking place — one from God and the other from Satan. T at God was at work in Los Angeles was indisputable. Satan had a hand in the movement as well, however. Worrell wrote, “T ere are real gifts of tongues here in Los Angeles, and other gifts of the Spirit. Satan is trying to counterfeit these; and, beyond any reasonable doubt, he has suc- ceeded in counterfeiting the gift of tongues, and some of the other gifts as well. The proofs cannot be elaborated in this article.”
41
T at statement has led some to consider that Worrell did not agree wholly with the gift of tongues. But the rest of the article clearly affirmed Worrell’s acceptance of the gift. His disclaimer was aimed at counterfeit giftedness.42
39
On Baptist attitudes toward Pentecostalism see J. A. Hewett, “Baptist Pentecostals and Charismatics,” in The New International Dictionary of Pentecostal and Charismatic Movements , rev. ed., ed. Stanley M. Burgess and Eduard M. van der Maas (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 363-64; Douglas McBain, “Mainstream Charismatics: Some Observations of Baptist Renewal,” in Charismatic Christianity and Sociological Perspectives, ed. Stephen Hunt, Malcolm Hamilton, and Tony Walter (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), 43-59; Albert Frederick Schenkel, “New Wine and Baptist Wineskins: American and Southern Baptist Denominational Responses to the Charismatic Renewal, 1960-1980,” in Pentecostal Currents in American Protes- tantism, ed. Edith L. Blumhofer, Russell P. Spittler, and Grant A. Wacker (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1999), 152-67; and Vinson Synan, The Twentieth-Century Pentecostal Explosion (Altamonte Springs, FL: Creation House, 1987), 25-38.
40
A. S. Worrell, “Wonderful Works Going on in Los Angeles,” Gospel Witness 16 (September 1906), 30; taken from Edith L. Blumhofer, The Assemblies of God: A Chapter in the Story of American Pentecostalism: Volume I-to 1941 (Springfield, MO: Gospel Publishing House, 1989), 103.
41
Larry Martin, ed., Holy Ghost Revival on Azusa Street: The True Believers, Part Two: More Eyewitness Accounts (Joplin, MO: Christian Life Books, 1999), 78. Martin took this from an undated Gospel Witness article by Worrell titled “The Movements in Los Angeles.” It was reprinted in Triumphs of Faith in December of 1906.
42
For example, Grant Wacker ( Heaven Below: Early Pentecostals and American Culture [Cam- bridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001], 148) writes that Worrell was more a sympathetic onlooker who never made the commitment toward a theology of tongues. In addition, Warner (“Worrell,” 1217) mentions that Worrell, a Baptist scholar, editor, evangelist, and college presi- dent, became a “seeker for the baptism of the Spirit at the Azusa Street Mission.” Again, accord- ing to Worrell’s own testimony this baptism of the Spirit seems to have occurred years earlier. Perhaps what Warner referred to was a confirmatory experience of speaking in tongues.
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This was followed with yet another work titled “An Open Letter to the Opposers of This Pentecostal Movement,” in which Worrell attempted to rea- son with those who were forming negative opinions of the movement. It was here that he made some of his strongest statements in support of Pentecostal- ism. Critics, he wrote, are guilty of the logical fallacy of “sweeping classification” by claiming the movement was in league with the Devil. He called for the opposition to confess their sins for wrongly classifying “His [God’s] innocent ones,” and for offending the Holy Spirit. The consequences, he announced, were eternal: “The pastor, or ‘the church,’ or the school, that mistreats, denounces and expels one of the Spirit-immersed ‘little ones,’ commits an awful crime, that must be followed by terrible consequences to the guilty!”43 Worrell’s last words to detractors were just as pointed: “Let those who will pay no attention to the Scriptures regarding the use of tongues go off to themselves, until they get sick and tired of their anarchy, and then return to the Book.”44
Characteristic of Landmarkism was its nature of exclusiveness and its will- ingness to combat perceived error. Tese traits can also be seen in Worrell’s exclusive claims of and battle for the defense of the Full Gospel. Pentecostalism’s truths, as Worrell understood them, made their way into his New Testament.
Pentecostal Influences in Worrell’s New Testament
Worrell’s New Testament barely predated the Azusa Street Revival. But many
of the Pentecostal doctrines floating around in the late 1890s and early 1900s, coupled with his own decade of personal growth in the Full Gospel and witnessed in his two books, climax in his Bible translation. Worrell’s Pentecostal sympathies are clearest in his explanatory footnotes, yet even textual choices betray his leanings. The following section addresses examples from the following four areas: Word of Faith, deliverance and tongues, divine healing, and baptism in and gifts of the Holy Spirit.
Word of Faith
First, the Word of Faith or “positive confession” movement among Pente- costals was spurred by E. W. Kenyon and later popularized by Oral Roberts,
43
A. S. Worrell, “An Open Letter to the Opposers of T of God Heritage (Spring 1992), 17. T November 1907.
44
Ibid., 18. See Warner, “Worrell,” 1217 and Paul,
e Pentecostal Movement,”
is reprint was originally published in
Assembly Triumphs of Faith in
English Bible Translators, 261.
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Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Charles Capps, and Fred Price, among others.45 Early on Worrell spoke the language of Word of Faith that retains its popularity today through health and wealth theology. He purposed to teach his readers the secrets on how to live a holy life. The five steps were: (1) there must be a case of re-generation; (2) after regeneration comes con- secration, “the yielding or transferring of one’s self and all his belongings and appertainings, to God, to be wholly subject to the divine will and management in all things ; . . .”; (3) one is now in an attitude to receive the Holy Spirit; (4) after asking for the Holy Spirit it remains for him to receive the Holy Spirit; and (5) that “Christ may come within.”46 It is under (4) that the positive confession terminology plainly came through. The seeker “having complied with the conditions upon which the Holy Spirit is promised, he is to believe that he has received the Spirit , and hence that he HAS the Spirit. . . . Receiving anything by faith, is believing that we have it on the testimony of God’s word , and that, too, regardless of feeling . . . . Faith simply accepts something on the testimony of God; believing that we have it, before we feel, or know, that we have it.”47
One example often cited by modern Word of Faith proponents is the believer’s need for a God-like faith. A favored proof text is Mark 11:22-23, specifically the phrase, “have faith in God.” Worrell’s translation of these verses comprised a literal yet unique understanding among all English Bible transla- tions. “And Jesus, answering, saith unto them, ‘Have the faith of God. Verily I say to you, whosoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says comes to pass; he shall have it.”
Only Wycliffe’s version from the late fourteenth century and Robert Young’s Holy Bible, a hyper-literal and awkward translation from 1862, presented a similar translation of “have the faith of God.” All other English versions across the translation philosophy spectrum from formal to paraphrase have trans- lated this phrase “have faith in God.” Modern English Bible translators, there- fore, understand exete piston theou as an objective genitive (God receives the faith from his people). Worrell, followed by modern Charismatic teaching,
45
See Vinson Synan, “Streams of Renewal at the End of the Century,” in The Century of the Holy Spirit , 100 Years of Pentecostal and Charismatic Renewal, 1901-2001 , ed. Vinson Synan (Nashville: T omas Nelson, 2001), 357-59. It is easier to see why Kenneth Hagin’s Rhema Bible Institute, a strong advocate of Prosperity Gospel theology, was attracted to Worrell’s version.
46
Worrell, Full Gospel Teachings , 87-89.
47
Ibid., 88-89.
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opted for a subjective genitive (God produces the faith in his people). Worrell explains his choice in his note at Mark 11:22:
Have the faith of God ; translators generally render this, ‘Have faith in God;’ but, if this had been the thought, it would have been easy to have expressed it in the Greek. Faith originates with God; and those who have real faith have His faith; the same perhaps as “the faith which is of the Son of God.” (Gal 2:20) this mountain: nothing short of the faith of God can remove mountains; but His faith, operating through His obedient children, can accomplish this, (Acts 3:6; 9:34).48
It appears that Pentecostals should give more credit to Worrell in this area of Word of Faith, especially since he predates Kenyon.
Deliverance and Tongues
Second, Worrell’s openness toward the Full Gospel teaching of casting out
demons and speaking in tongues was revealed in his note on Mark 16:9-20. Modern Bible translations recognize that these verses were not original with Mark. Nonetheless, Worrell explained,
The two oldest manuscripts, and some other documents, end this Gospel with v. 8. The doctrines taught in these verses are true, however, whether Mark wrote them or not. The casting out of demons is taught in Matt. 10:8, and in many Scriptures; as also healing. Speaking with tongues is provided for in Acts 2:4; I Cor. 12, etc.; taking up serpents (accidentally, of course), Acts 28:3-5; and drinking poison (through mistake) is provided for in John 14:13, 14.49
It might be argued that Worrell was speaking strictly toward New Testament- era realities for these two manifestations. But his discussion on the gift list found in 1 Corinthians 12:4-11, a listing that includes healings, miracles, discerning of spirits, and tongues, implied a modern application. “If the assemblies were made up of Spirit-filled members, no doubt, many, or all the above gifts, if needed, would still be bestowed, for the edification of the members, for the advancement of the cause of Christ in the world, and for the glory of God.”50
48
Worrell, New Testament, 148. 49
Ibid., 77.
50
Ibid., 247.
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Divine Healing
Third, Worrell’s support for divine healing composed one of his strongest
appeals in favor of Pentecostal doctrine. He devoted an entire chapter to
divine healing in one of his books. Speaking in the third person, Worrell
mentioned three times his own experience as one being healed and as conduit
healer. He recalled, “The writer himself was healed of five diseases that,
seemingly, were fastened upon him for life. Many, too, have been healed
in connection with his own ministry; and many more have been healed
under the ministry of others.”
51
Worrell was adamant, even condemnatory toward others, for the legitimacy
of modern-day divine healing. To those professional preachers who opposed it
he stated, “Before God, I charge every preacher who opposes divine healing as
taught in the word of God, as being a foe to these Scriptures; and, since he is
to be judged by the word of God, I wish to warn him, in advance, of his con-
demnation at the grand assizes.”
52
He added that it was a “Satanic assumption”
to believe that the age of miracles had passed. Accordingly, Worrell was willing
to withstand the slings of his Southern Baptist “brethren” and anyone else on
this matter. To be called “innovators” or “cranks” or even “heretics” for the
cause of the Full Gospel is little price to pay for “truth.”
53
Worrell’s views on divine healing, therefore, came through clearly in his
books. But did they find their way into his New Testament? Matthew 8:16-17 stated, “And, when it was evening, they brought to Him many demoniacs; and
He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, that it might
be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, ‘Himself took our
infirmities, and bore our sicknesses.” Worrell’s footnote explained, “T
Scriptures make it certain that Christ made provision in His atonement for the
bodies of His followers. Healing for the body is manifestly a Gospel provision;
ese
51
Worrell, Full Gospel Teachings, 101; see 95-113.
52
Ibid., 102.
53
Ibid., 107. On pages 110-11 Worrell answered objections from straw men concerning the doctrine of healing. A few of his observations reflect interesting interpretations of Scripture. For example, why did Paul direct Timothy to take a little wine for his stomach (1 Tim. 5:23)? Worrell answered, “Because he supposed it would help him; the unfermented juice of the grape being an excellent article of food.” Another question: Why did the Lord not remove Paul’s thorn (2 Cor. 12:7-10)? Worrell: “I suppose he did, when Paul saw the reason why the Lord permitted Satan to buffet him. It would be very exceptional treatment, if the Lord should let one’s trial continue after he has learned the lesson he designed to teach him. I have no idea that Paul was buffeted by Satan with that thorn all the remnant of his life.” Such statements make it more understandable why Worrell refused medical treatment for himself after contracting cancer.
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and its Author alone can revoke it. Of course, unbelief will deprive any indi- vidual of this Gospel provision.”54 Even more obvious was this note on healing found in his appendix: “Healing is provided in the atonement of Christ. . . . Healing is a part of the Gospel. . . . It is only the normal, or Spirit-filled Chris- tian that has any right to expect healing.”55 Worrell’s note on James 5:14-15 was just as forthright. “As Christians learn to live the Spirit-filled life, and through the Spirit come into vital union with Christ enthroned within, they may have all their diseases healed, (Matt. 8:16 17; Ps. 103:3-5); receive strength in their bodies, (Isa. 40:31); and become in health even as their souls prosper, (III John).”56
Worrell followed his convictions on healing to the end. When he died in July 1908 the local newspaper ran a full column obituary entitled “Divine Healer to the Last,” and described Worrell as an eccentric but godly man who refused any kind of medical help for the stomach cancer that eventually took his life.57
Baptism in and Gifts of the Holy Spirit
The fourth area of Pentecostal influence is observed in the baptism of the Holy Spirit and through the gifts of the Spirit. Beginning in 1891 Worrell began preaching a Full Gospel that included a secondary experi- ence subsequent to regeneration. Several of the notes in his New Testament confirmed this viewpoint. In fact, there were times when both Baptist and Pentecostal features blended together. For example, Worrell’s emphasis on the biblical mode of baptism and on the baptism of the Holy Spirit was found in his note on the Pentecost experience of Acts 2:4: “Filled with the Holy Spirit meant ‘they were also immersed in the Holy Spirit.’ . . . This gracious experience — whether considered as an immersion in the Holy Spirit, or a filling with, or the gift of, is the privilege of every true believer, (v. 39), and his duty. (Eph. 5:18).”58
Later, in Acts 8, Peter and John visited Philip in Samaria to pray with the new converts so that they too might receive the Holy Spirit, “for as yet He had fallen upon no one of them, but they had only been immersed in the name of
54
Worrell, New Testament, 12.
55
Ibid., 412.
56
Ibid., 345.
57
“Divine Healer to the Last,” Louisville Courier-Journal, August 1, 1908; taken from Warner, “Worrell,” 1217.
58
Worrell, New Testament, 164.
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the Lord Jesus. T en they laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit” (Acts 8:16-17). Worrell’s note on these verses proclaimed, “T is wonderful Gift is the rightful heritage of all true believers; and it is highly proper now that Spirit-filled ministers and members should instruct new con- verts in regard to this great privilege, and pray that they may receive Him.”59
Another example was Paul’s encounter with the disciples of John the Baptist in Acts 19 and Worrell’s emphases commingle again
. . . . did you receive the Holy Spirit, after having believed?” And they said to him, “Nay, we did not even hear whether there is a Holy Spirit.” And he said to them, “Into what, then, were ye immersed?” And they said, “Into John’s immersion.” And Paul said, “John immersed with an immersion of repentance, saying to the people that they should believe on Him coming after him; that is, on Jesus.” And, having heard this, they were immersed into the name of the Lord Jesus; and Paul having laid hands on them, the Holy Spirit came upon them, and they were speaking with tongues, and prophesying. (Acts 19:2-6)
Worrell’s note on these verses related that the “[r]eception of the Holy Spirit cannot take place till after one has accepted Christ as his Savior. But many never receive the Spirit, so as to be filled with His Holy Presence. . . . Millions of Christians are now equally ignorant of this unspeakable privilege! It is a great pity that Christianity should ever have fallen below the standard of the Spirit-filled life.”60 Worrell then took note of the fact that John’s disciples need to be rebaptized in the name of Jesus. Echoing Landmark Baptist theology, he wrote, “When one’s immersion is essentially defective, it may become one’s duty to be re-immersed, on getting the proper light.”61 Considering the depth of Pentecostal doctrine expounded in the footnotes of Worrell’s New Testament, it is genuinely surprising that the American Bap- tist Publication Society republished it in 1907. On the other hand, the fact that Gospel Publishing House, an Assemblies of God agency, reprinted it twice (1957 and 1980) becomes much more understandable.
Conclusion
Worrell’s theology changed and his New Testament confirms an integration of Landmark Baptist and Pentecostal beliefs. In the end, Worrell let go of
59
Ibid., 175. 60
Ibid., 194. 61
Ibid.
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old beliefs, modified others, and adopted new ones in order to fit his newly held Full Gospel theology. The doctrines he adopted were the obvious ones mentioned above — Word of Faith, deliverance and tongues, divine heal- ing, and baptism in and gifts of the Holy Spirit. The others were adapted in a variety of ways.
One example of modification was Worrell’s new interpretation of baptism. Early Pentecostals, like Landmarkers, followed the doctrine of baptism by immersion. What Worrell let go of, however, was his insistence upon immer- sion into the membership of a Baptist church. Previously, the immersed remained “unbaptized” since they were not immersed in the true church — the Baptist church. Under his New Testament appendix heading of “Immerse, immersion,” Worrell wrote that baptism was now simply “the ordinance in which a penitent believer puts on Christ as Savior and Lord.”62
Worrell retained his strong views on the primacy of the local church as well. As a Landmarker the ideal ecclesia was the autonomous local Baptist church. But as a Pentecostal,
the ideal Ecclesia is a local congregation, having complete autonomy in itself; having fellowship with other kindred bodies of Christians, but no organic union with them. . . . the members exhibiting, in their lives and characters, “fruit of the Spirit”; and the members of the body displaying the Gifts of the Spirit, (I Cor. 12:8-11); for both the “graces,” or “fruitage,” and “the gifts,” of the Spirit, must exist in the ideal Gospel Ecclesia.63
Likewise, Worrell’s attitude toward ecclesiasticisms — denominations and their mission boards — was another Landmark issue that was “rebaptized” into Pentecostalism. As a Landmarker, Worrell chastised denominational mission boards for not allowing the local Baptist church to make its own decisions. As a Pentecostal, he devoted a full chapter to missions in Full Gospel Text- Book, in which he wrote, “God sends out His ministers directly or through the board of a Gospel ecclesia; but there is absolutely no record of His send- ing through any such agency as a modern mission board.”64 The “religious denominations,” he chastised, “are not qualified” to preach the gospel. Why? “With such inadequate missionaries — inadequate because not filled with the Holy Spirit — the denominational boards are not competent to execute our Lord’s commission to evangelize the world.”65 Missions now, Worrell believed, rested with Spirit-filled ministers leading Spirit-filled congregations.
62
Ibid., 414.
63
Worrell, Full Gospel Teachings , 21-22. 64
Worrell, Full Gospel Text-Book , 286-87. 65
Ibid., 289.
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Eschatology was another doctrine that was easily transferred from Land- mark Baptist to Pentecostal since both groups were essentially dispensational premillennial. Nevertheless, modification can be seen in Worrell’s support for a partial rapture of the saints. It follows from the exclusivity of other Land- mark doctrines that only the true (Landmark) Baptists were those who were to be raptured, while the rest of Christendom remained behind to face tribula- tion alongside wicked unbelievers. But later, according to his New Testament notes, the saints ready to be raptured changed to
the full overcomers, who give themselves and their all to Christ; live a Trinity-filled life (Eph. 3:16-19); pass through the crucifixion (Gal. 2:20), and become conformed to Christ’s death (Phil. 3:10); and put on the full life of Christ (Eph. 4:13); being partak- ers of the Divine Nature and holiness of God, (2 Pet. 1:4; Heb. 12:10) — all such will, we believe, be caught up to God before the great tribulation begins, and will be identified with the ruling force of Christ (Rev. 3:21).66
The impression readers were left with was that only Full Gospel Christians would be whisked away in a rapture that escaped tribulation.
Worrell stands as an intriguing part of American church history and offers a unique contribution in at least three ways. First, he leaves a unique legacy for Baptist history, particularly as an illustration of a person who paradigm-shifted from the virulent narrowness of Landmark Baptist beliefs to an openness toward and embracement of Pentecostalism. Next, Worrell serves as a unique observer to the beginnings of the Pentecostal Movement in America. His New Testament and books revealed current Full Gospel thinking and his editorials became an eyewitness to the nascent movement. Last, Worrell provides unique input into the translation of the English Bible. His New Testament should not be simply labeled as another immersionist version but rather regarded as an exclusive sectarian example that incorporated both Baptist and Pentecostal readings. But more than this, Worrell’s New Testament is a case in point for the blind sectarianism that occurs in Bible translation — blind in its unawareness that his textual choices were highly ideological and unwilling to consider com- peting viewpoints. Worrell did not see himself as a promoter of any one ideol- ogy, let alone two. In his mind he was simply publishing the truth. He endeavored “to lay aside, as far as possible, all pre-conceived and inherited notions of this inspired Book.”67 Yet he could not do it. Nor do recent English Bible translations always recognize how much their own sectarian tendencies
66
Worrell, New Testament, 300-1. 67
Ibid., iii.
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filter through. Today, arguments over formal versus functional translation, the legitimacy of gender inclusiveness, and denominationally-driven guidelines are modern illustrations of potentially blind sectarianism. It is impossible to produce a neutral English Bible translation. Worrell exemplified that long ago.
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