E.W. Kenyon and His Message of Faith: The True Story

Kenyon wrote in this same vein: "The thing that made Methodism so mighty in its early days was a continual confession of the things for which Mr. Wesley stood." Echoing Watson’s thoughts he continued, "When they stopped affirming, faith stopped growing, and believing or acting upon the Word became more and more difficult."30

Palmer advocated what she called the "shorter way" into the experience of holiness. She taught that holiness was available, like justification, on the basis of faith alone. The necessary thing was to meet the conditions set forth in the Scriptures and then to believe the promises, accepting the Word of God alone as the evidence. Phoebe came to a conclusion regarding the Scriptures: "Whatever my feelings may be, I will believe God’s immutable Word unwaveringly, irrespective of emotions."18

Palmer felt God had led her to see the necessity of believing without any other evidence than the Word of God. If God’s conditions were met, God was to be trusted to do His part, with or without any emotional witness. Holiness was to be accepted by faith before there was any conscious change or witness of the Spirit.

Eventually Kenyon followed Torrey’s lead and rejected Holiness teaching on sanctification. Kenyon also appeared to echo Torrey in his teaching about receiving the "baptism" by faith (though he used a different term for the experience, calling it "receiving the Holy Spirit" or "being filled with the Holy Spirit"). Torrey, like Kenyon, predated the Pentecostal movement and did not believe that tongues were necessary to demonstrate that the Spirit had come.
God’s most positive and unqualified promises must be appropriated by faith...There is a faith that goes beyond expectation, a faith that just puts out its hand and takes what it ask

is brought out very clearly by Mark in 11:24: "What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them."
When one who has a clear title to a piece of property deeds it to me, it is mine as soon as the deed is properly executed and recorded, though it may be some time before I enter into the experimental joy of it…In like manner, as soon as we, having met the conditions of prevailing prayer, put up to God a petition for anything according to His will, it is our privilege to know that the prayer is heard, and that thing which we have asked of Him is ours.
Now apply that to the baptism with the Holy Spirit...
If the conditions have been met, any reader may ask God to baptize him with the Holy Spirit. He can then say when the prayer has gone up, "That prayer was heard; I have what I have asked; I have the baptism with the Holy Spirit."
I know of no better way of knowing than by God’s Word. I would believe God’s Word before my feelings any day.25
Torrey’s teaching on receiving the Holy Spirit by faith illustrates perfectly the concept of faith Kenyon taught throughout his ministry: Determine the will of God by the Word of God, ask in faith, and believe that you receive without any other evidence but God’s Word.26
It might be pointed out that Torrey encouraged the one desiring the Holy Spirit to believe he receives and then to confess he has (present tense) the Holy Spirit without any other evidence than the Word of God.

or feeling, or power. The truth is, the Spirit Himself is the baptism. Christ baptizes, and it is with or in the Spirit that He baptizes us... the Holy Ghost Himself is our indwelling life.27
Because Simpson influenced Kenyon in many areas of his theology, he will be examined in more detail in a later chapte

Kenyon would have been challenged to examine the Scriptures by Torrey’s assertion. In Kenyon’s notebook of Torrey’s teachings, there is a concluding statement written and underlined as though it had really hit home. It says, "Holy Spirit is a Person."

A. B. Simpson
A. B. Simpson, founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance and pioneer in divine healing, was another voice that stressed the person of the Holy Spirit. Simpson’s teaching further challenged Kenyon’s view of sanctification and pointed him toward inviting the Holy Spirit to live in him as his "indwelling life."
Simpson wrote a two-volume study on the Holy Spirit entitled The Holy Spirit, or, Power from on High (1896). It is a Genesis-through-Revelation study of the Spirit’s ministry. In volume 2 he wrote:
What is the baptism imparted to us by Christ?
Sometimes we hear this spoken of as if He baptized us with something different from Himself, some sort of influence,

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