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DR. REUBEN ARCHER TORREY
Miles J. Stanford
Having witnessed some of the deleterious results of Dr. Lewis Sperry Chafer's erroneous emphasis regarding one aspect of truth (acceleration of sanctification), we are now faced with the disastrous results of Dr. Reuben Archer Torrey's erroneous use of one word of truth: baptism, instead of filling.
DR. R. A. TORREY -- When it comes to the over-all picture, both Dr. Chafer and Dr. Torrey have their place among the top theologians of the past one hundred years or more. Dr. Chafer's valuable ministry continues to flow from Dallas Theological Seminary which he founded [and Chafer Theological Seminary], and the Systematic Theology which he authored. Dr. Torrey's important ministry is carried on through Moody Bible Institute which he helped D.L. Moody establish, and Biola Bible College which he founded, plus his well-known and much used doctrinal textbook, What the Bible Teaches.
ALL IS NOT WELL -- While we can express admiration and appreciation for these two towering heroes of the faith, each of them developed a spiritual limp, a veritable theological Achilles heel in the realm of the Christian's walk and service. Dr. Chafer's lameness that has turned so many aside was based upon personal conviction, while Dr. Torrey's was caused by personal carelessness.
THE TORREY TECHNIQUE -- Dr. Torrey clearly taught that every believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit at the moment of regeneration, and is at the same time baptized by the Spirit into the Body of Christ. There was never a question concerning this aspect of his teaching about the Holy Spirit.
The Torrey problem concerns the filling with the Spirit. He taught that one was to be filled by faith, that it was a crisis experience, and that it had to do primarily with power for service. And he insisted upon referring to the filling as "the baptism with the Spirit."
Dr. Torrey postulated the proposition that "the baptism with the Holy Spirit is an operation of the Spirit distinct from and subsequent and additional to His regenerating work." "In regeneration there is an impartation of life, and the one who receives it is saved; in the baptism with the Holy Spirit there is an impartation of power and the one who receives it is fitted for service."
TEACHING OR TERMINOLOGY? -- There are those who insist that Dr. Torrey's teaching concerning the filling with the Spirit was correct, but that his terminology was incorrect. Actually, neither his teaching nor his terminology was scriptural when it came to the filling with the Spirit.
Dr. Torrey taught that the "baptism with the Spirit" (wrong terminology) was to be received through faith and the fulfilling of a long list of conditions, and that it had to do with supernatural power and gifts for service rather than with grace of character. It is this Torrey formula of filling by faith and conditions followed by Dr. Wm. Bright that causes the problems extant in the Campus Crusade for Christ ministry.
CAPRICIOUS CARELESSNESS -- The late Dr. Ernest M. Wadsworth, for many years director of the Great Commission Prayer League, once shared a telling instance of the Torrey problem which illustrates the importance of precision in the use of doctrinal terms, especially in public ministry.
"It was a well-known fact that Dr. Torrey used the terms 'baptism' and 'filling with the Spirit' very loosely, and he had been widely quoted by some of the most erratic of the cultists as supporting their position, which led to great excesses in practice.
"At the Montrose Bible Conference,, Dr. W. P. White, founder of The Biblical Seminary in New York, was on the platform as co-speaker with Dr. Torrey. When the latter said, 'What we all need tonight is a new baptism of the Holy Spirit!' Dr. White said, in a stage whisper, 'You mean "filling," do you not, Dr. Torrey?' The preacher turned on him and replied, 'What difference does it make how I say it? These men know what I mean.'
"After the meeting they went to Torrey Lodge, and soon Dr. Torrey called Dr. White into his room and thanked him for what he had whispered to him at the meeting, acknowledging that it was best to speak of the things of the Spirit in the correct terms.
"He told Dr. White that he regretted that certain Pentecostal leaders quoted him as they did, since he did not believe their teaching on the Person and work of the Holy Spirit. He admitted that he used the terms 'baptism' and 'filling' with the Spirit synonymously, but he did not think it best to call attention publicly to his mistake, and did not see the necessity for correcting the word 'baptism' in his books--even though he himself used the scriptural term thereafter."
THE CRUELEST BLOW OF ALL -- It is not generally known, although the Pentecostals are prone to proclaim it, that it was none other than the evangelical Dr. R. A. Torrey who supplied most of the "theology" upon which Pentecostalism bases its "baptism with the Holy Ghost."
The evangelist Geo. T. B. Davis wrote, "R. A. Torrey is cited by Pentecostals with particular frequency and is of unusual significance to Pentecostalism in connection with the Spirit's baptism. Through a world-wide evangelistic tour with Charles Alexander in 1904 Torrey, then president of the evangelically influential Moody Bible Institute, spread among the believers in many places the message of the Spirit's subsequent baptism and hence served as a kind of John the Baptist figure for later international Pentecostalism.... Judging from the movement's literature, Torrey was, after Wesley and Finney, the most influential figure in the pre-history of Pentecostalism.
"Pentecostalism found in Torrey's theology of the Spirit a special affinity. Donald Gee, one of Pentecostalism's foremost theologians, says that it was, perhaps, Dr. R. A. Torrey who first gave the teaching of the baptism with the Holy Ghost a new and certainly more scriptural and doctrinally correct, emphasis on the line of "power from on high," especially for service and witness.'
"It was also in the writings of other evangelicals such as A. J. Gordon, F B. Meyer, A. B. Simpson, and Andrew Murray that Pentecostalism found teaching that supported the later distinctively Pentecostal experience of a subsequent baptism with the Holy Ghost."
What of these abovementioned so-called giants of the faith? Although their devotional writings are highly prized by hungry-hearted believers, when it comes to their teaching concerning the Holy Spirit baptism, "there is death in the pot!"
DR. A. J. GORDON -- In his book The Ministry of the Holy Spirit (Foreword written by F. B. Meyer), Dr Gordon wrote, "It seems clear from the Scriptures that it is still the duty and privilege of believers to receive the Holy Spirit by a conscious, definite act of appropriating faith, just as they received Jesus Christ.... Probably his best known work is The Ministry of Healing, a book greatly valued by the Pentecostals.
DR A. B. SIMPSON -- Founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (CMA), as well as Nyack Bible Training Institute (Nyack Institute), Dr. Simpson was completely Arminian. He established the Alliance upon his "four-fold" Gospel: Christ our Saviour, Christ our Sanctifier, Christ our Healer, Christ our coming King. Much like the "four-square" Gospel of the flamboyant Aimee Semple McPherson.
Although Dr. Simpson opposed tongues, he also opposed eternal security. He not only taught that healing is in the Atonement, but that self must be cast out in order for the believer to be filled with the Holy Ghost! For him "the Holy Spirit is with all Christians, but there is a far deeper sense in which He resides in those who have yielded themselves to Him in full surrender and consecration and given Him the right of way. The Holy Spirit may convert one hundred souls but only become the indwelling Guest of the ones who give Him right of way." The Alliance continues in line with Dr. Simpson's teaching.