William Atkinson: Jesus before Pentecost
William P. Atkinson, Jesus before Pentecost (Eugene, OR: Cascade Books, 2016), 222 pages.
Unapologetically Pentecostal, Atkinson, an ordained minister, presents Jesus through the eyes of a Pentecostal believer as well as through the eyes of a scholar (Edinburgh)—that is, as a theological historian he views Jesus in the “then and there,” while as a Pentecostal, he views Jesus in the “here and now” (1).
I have watched over a seven-year span (four books) as Atkinson has fine-tuned his writing skills. As I read Jesus Before Pentecost, though certainly scholarly, at times it was as if I was reading a devotional (as space permits, I will include such passages).
This latest book looks at the well-known Pentecostal pillars of Jesus as savior, healer, baptizer in the Spirit, and soon-coming King. He acknowledges the five-fold pattern which includes Jesus as sanctifier, but chooses to examine the four-square “rubric,” as that is the pattern of his own tradition (UK-based Elim Pentecostal Church). He accurately notes that this four-square gospel foundation of Pentecostalism exposes the “inaccurate criticism” that Pentecostals are Spirit-centered and give short shrift to Jesus.
It is Atkinson’s contention that “someone who looks at Jesus through Pentecostal eyes thereby gains helpful insight by means of that perspective” (7). If, as he believes, “what you see depends on where you are looking from” (40), this brings certain things to the foreground, such as the miraculous healing ministry of Jesus and his anointing of God’s Spirit.
Before delving into the attributes of Jesus under the four-square pattern, Atkinson defends the use of the Gospel of John as the primary source of truth about the historical Jesus. Atkinson wishes to draw his picture of Jesus from ancient eyes, so eyewitness testimony is paramount, especially what the witnesses say that Jesus said about himself.
Atkinson carefully builds a case that supports the use of John. Given the evidence from John (19:25–26; 20:2–5), he concludes “It is a deep irony … that the fourth gospel appears as little more than a footnote in major studies of Jesus’ history” (16). In addition to the gospels and Paul, Atkinson also considers non-biblical sources such as Josephus, Quadratus, the Gospel of Thomas, and Q (as a body of oral tradition) (12ff., 34).
Savior. According to Atkinson, Pentecostalism directly assaults “pie in the sky” (my words) theology. “Salvation will not be presented in Pentecostal communities as only a hope for the life to come.” He follows with a discussion of enjoying “the benefits of God’s kingdom in their present lives” (47). Jesus is savior in many ways, for example, he saved people from the immediate threat of being drowned, he saved people from social estrangement, he saved people from physical hunger, and he saved people from God’s silence and from God’s absence (48–50). On a lighter note, “Jesus’ teaching effectively ‘saved’ listeners from the frustrations of listening to other teachers whose input seems to have smacked of hypercritical superficiality (Mark 1:22)” (50). More important, Jesus saved from Satanic bondage and divine judgment.
Atkinson concludes this chapter poignantly:
What the feeding of the five thousand represented was further recalled and highlighted at the last supper. … While there was no miraculous multiplication of the bread on this latter occasion, his words pointed forwards … to the cross that lay soon ahead. … Perhaps he foresaw that countless thousands, not just five thousand, would benefit from the breaking of this latter bread. He was to give his life for the world (78).
Healer. In this chapter, Atkinson informs the reader that not only does he write as a Pentecostal but also as a medical doctor (Edinburgh), before entering ordained ministry (80). Here he engages with scholars and leaders of his own denomination.
This chapter goes on to discuss in brief but substantial ways the very claims of miracles in Jesus’s ministry, the origin of sickness in Jesus’s thought, Jesus’s authority over evil spirits, and the role of the subject’s faith and to whom it should be directed.
However, the last two sections were the most interesting and meaningful. First, he discusses healings and the identity of Jesus. Noting that Jesus acknowledged that there were other exorcists around (Mark 9:8), he did not see his ministry as simply continuing their good work,
but as uniquely eschatological in character (Luke 11:20)… . Satan’s defeat had begun … repentance—a return to God the king—should follow. …
Jesus regarded his healings as signs and expected people to look beyond the healings themselves and to look at him, Jesus, in their light. He is the one prophesied by John. … Healings should in this sense incite faith that Jesus was acting on behalf of Israel’s God (John 11:42). (104, 105)
Finally, Atkinson lays out the case that Jesus’s healing ministry, ironically, led to his death (107). Jesus healed on the Sabbath, and to the consternation of the temple leaders who confronted him, deliberately continued to do so. According to John, the raising of Lazarus from the dead “led directly to Jesus’ being arrested and executed (John 11:53)” (108). The Sabbath healings in Galilee and Jerusalem and the “climactic healing of Lazarus near Jerusalem would seal those earlier thoughts and plans: Jesus would have to die” (113).
Baptizer in the Spirit. The two pillars that preceded—Jesus as savior and healer—are not unique to Pentecostalism (neither is soon-coming King), so this chapter may be of greater significance to the Pentecostal believer than the others. Although Atkinson writes that he would “if necessary correct Pentecostal thinking in this area” (124), I noted no corrections.
Jesus freely received power and authority from heaven by the Spirit, and freely gave it to his team (140). “There is no reason to suppose, then,” Atkinson writes, “that Jesus expected his co-missioners to experience any less success in their mission than he did in his, for they were now equipped with divine authority by the Spirit’s agency” (141).
After the resurrection, with the cross behind him, Jesus proceeded with his mission, which would now be taken internationally.
When his promises were fulfilled, the first generation of believers discovered all sorts of ways that Jesus was involved in their experience of the Spirit, beyond merely assuring them that it was going to happen. Thus they rightly picked up both John the Baptist’s promise and his language, and identified the exalted Jesus as their “baptizer in the Spirit” (Acts 11:16; 1 Cor 12:13). … Pentecostals are not wrong to regard this as a promise and activity of Jesus; neither is it wrong to associate it with power and authority to engage in the mission Jesus both initiated and commanded. (151)
Soon-coming King. There are two issues in this pillar and Atkinson discusses both: the imminent return of Christ and his kingly nature. Pentecostals hold with great passion Jesus’s return, though their “fervor has cooled over the course of the twentieth century. It remains a central Pentecostal conviction that Jesus will return in power and glory to rule and judge the world …” (156). In the beginning of the Pentecostal movement (and even today), this fervor in Pentecostal thinking was not misplaced, and it translated into a zeal for evangelism (187).
Atkinson notes that not only was Jesus nailed to the cross, but so was his crime—“king of the Jews”: “Jesus died as a deeply traumatized and virtually deserted man. He died as a convicted criminal. But he died labeled a king” (170). In the epilogue appropriately titled “In the Time Before He Comes,” Atkinson concludes: “As he had sent some out in pairs to further his mission in preaching and healing, so too they would send out others in the same mission, until he came once again, as the king he had always been. Maranatha; Come, Lord Jesus” (189).
For a heady but semi-devotional read, I highly recommend Jesus before Pentecost.
Reviewed by Robert W. Graves
Full disclosure: Atkinson serves on the Board of Advisors of The Foundation for Pentecostal Scholarship for which Robert Graves is the co-founder and president.
Publisher’s page: https://wipfandstock.com/jesus-before-pentecost.html
