Frost, Rain, and the Eternal Son: From Pentecostal Fear to Reformed Assurance

I had the immense privilege of being born into an immeasurably rich spiritual heritage. My father was the unquestioned prophet, priest, and king of his home, and regularly led his family in theologically-rich family devotionals, brought about by his own extensive studying.

Despite growing up in a Pentecostal church, and attending one from the time of his marriage to my mother, by the grace of God and through the specific circumstances of his salvation, my father maintained a Calvinist-sympathetic soteriology, contra the typical Arminian theology found in Pentecostalism.

At the age of three, my father taught me how to read, explicitly that I might read the Scriptures, and grow in the faith.

Indeed, my childhood was a veritable garden of spiritual richness; I had a faithful father who modeled so well the Heavenly Father, a patient and humble mother whose gentle instruction daily encouraged us, a sister and brother who were just as eager as I to memorize more passages and spend time together singing hymns, and grandparents who had been praying for me before I was born, always ready with a prayer or Scripture.

Even so, with all this, as I grew older, a frost threatened this idyllic garden I existed in; a frost that I in time came to understand was orchestrated by the Creator Himself, designed to prick the conscience of one who had grown far too content in her pride, an unfounded pride in a weak doctrine that I did not question, because of the pride I possessed in my own intellect.

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A Growing Frost

It is commonly taught and held in Pentecostal churches that Pentecostal theology is the end-all of instruction, or the “only true” teaching and interpretation left in a virtual quagmire of doctrines, denominations, and dogmas.

I accepted this without question in my youth, despite my own private misgivings and dissatisfaction with inconsistencies I saw, heard, heard and read.

Once my siblings and I were around seven years old, my father introduced us to apologetics, and the source material from whence we studied was incidentally written by a Calvinistic scholar.

As such, I particularly wrestled with assurance of salvation, and how critical the gift of the Holy Spirit and spiritual tongues (considered one and the same to Pentecostals) was to one’s progressive sanctification and the keeping of eternal life.

Moreover, while my childhood church denounced Calvinism, it did not entirely ignore the passages of Scripture that promise perseverance of the saints, instead explaining them away to only refer to those presently saved, or as a means to encourage the “backslider” to return to faith.

These explanations, combined with witnessing the regular occurrences of Holy Spirit “fire” falling upon those who had received the gift, my penchant for bull-headedly worrying through something I did not understand with pure intellect (which led to hours where I would unintentionally happen upon a heresy in trying to understand salvation—oh Molinism, how you falsely assured me for all of two minutes!), and alas, my very wretched pride, I resolved to continue pushing forward against the discomfort my conscience felt with these experiences.

If I had but just humbled myself and earnestly sought out my father with my concerns and questions, I am certain that his God-given wisdom would have, in comforting me with the Gospel, also expedited his own growing discernment against the theology he had always been inundated in.

However, I foolishly did no such thing, and spent most of the years of my adolescence worried I had finally committed the unforgivable sin, leaping from emotional highs to emotional lows.

On one day, I might be truly refreshed in the promises of God and His Word, only to be brought so low by my own sin that I felt the need to spend all hours of the night on my face, sobbing and seeking the gift of tongues so that I might deserve forgiveness.

Truly, at times my behavior bordered on the ascetic, and I am sorrowful over how my own pride kept me from rejoicing in the mercy of my assured forgiveness in those moments.

And so, the frost threatened to grow into a blight.

I found myself feeling dread at spending time in prayer alone: how could I recount all the sins I should remember?

Would I lose my salvation for not practicing speaking in tongues? Would I wake up one morning and find my family raptured, and I, the sinful one, left behind?

I even lost my joy for church.

How could I, a good Pentecostal, feel so unsettled with displays of the Holy Spirit “fire?” How dare I shrink from being “slain” in the spirit?

Fear, like the cold hand of winter, had wrapped its icy grip around my heart, and I indeed felt frostbitten, as if I was watching my own spiritual limbs lose their vigor to press on.

The narrow Way seemed to me narrow indeed, and beset with much wind and storm.

In the midst of my struggle, my Lord, the Maker of Heavens and Earth, breathed warmth into my soul with one simple conversation, a conversation where I saw how He truly does use all things for His glory and my good.

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Spring Rains

A friend who shared the title of Pentecostal called me one summer day to excitedly share how he had been blessed with the gift of tongues.

I was enthused for him, up until the moment that he remarked with great relief that it was a load off his mind to know he was assured entrance into Heaven now.

I did not understand this, and further discourse led me to discover that he was a Oneness Pentecostal.

Unfamiliar as I was with the denomination, I debated with him on salvation by grace alone for over an hour, and upon the close of the conversation, immediately began to research Onesness Pentecostals, and the history of Pentecostalism.

Of all the theological matters I had found questionable over my life of serving the Lord, considering myself the same as one who I knew, unequivocally, to believe a heresy, could not be borne.

The frost began to melt, and the more I studied, the faster it trickled away.

In His perfect wisdom and love Lord saw fit, soon after, to allow me to endure a great personal trial, and to endure it alone.

Had this trial come about at any other time in my life, my hope in salvation would have been tested to the limits of my confused understanding of it, and I know not how I would have endured.

However, as I weathered this new storm, it was a strange relief to feel rain upon my face—a tempestuous rain, and one that battered me much about, but a rain that washed away the last of the frost, and whose winds pushed me to the Rock of Ages, Who I was finally fully understanding to be my Yesterdays, Todays, and Tomorrows; unable to be taken from me, for I could not be taken from Him.

My studying of soteriology through church history revealed not only the full beauty of salvation, but how long the catholic church had held this correct interpretation, and how much joy there was to be found in proper and reverential worship.

These revelations of knowledge, these manifestations of beauty of the Bride of Christ and her Bridegroom, heartened my very spirit as I learned more and more to trust only in Christ, my hope in Life and Death.

And I understood both then and now that this sorrowful trial was a mercy, that I might be hastened in discovering the comfort of the Gospel.

What a privilege to have been allowed to suffer in the discovering of it, for this storm, alongside the years of frost, shattered my pride, and allowed me to only focus on Christ and His faithfulness, and not my own intellect, or “correctness.”

I rejoice in this, for it enables me to not look down upon those with improper doctrine, but to understand their situation as someone who was once there, and who was shown great grace and mercy in spite of myself.

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The Light of the Eternal Son

Unbeknownst to me, my sister and cousin were also studying Reformed theology, and as time passed, we were overjoyed to find we were all on the same page, and found much repose in our joint studies and conversations.

Around two years after I began studying, my siblings and I presented a four-page paper that we had spent months drafting to my parents, to share our concerns about our childhood church, Pentecostal and dispensational theologies, and request permission to begin searching for a Reformed church.

My wonderful, godly parents, who have not ceased to grow in wisdom and holiness, not only understood our concerns, but shared most of them, and granted us permission.

The Lord continued to give kindness where none was deserved, and my siblings and I quickly found Grace Presbyterian Fresno where I became a member and remained so until my marriage, when I became a member of the URC in Santa Clarita.

In both churches, I have found wealth beyond measure.

I had never before experienced, outside of my family, what it was to be discipled and poured into by older women, the elders, and my pastor, and to share unfettered joy in the gathering of the saints and regular administration of the Sacraments.

I am thankful more and more for the faithful work of those who have gone before us, to preserve the proper teaching of the Gospel and apostolic traditions.

The garden of my faith has flourished much by the work of the Holy Spirit, made richer and with a greater bounty through the study of theology, marriage, and beautiful, holy times of suffering; and now, when the storms have come, my eye is not dimmed by a diluted Gospel; when I look up in the midst of rain and wind, I can always see the Son, who is faithful where I am faithless, and will never abandon or forsake me.

Surrounded by the brilliance of His radiance, no storm can ever freeze or block the Way to Zion, for I do not walk alone or by the merit of my own strength, but cling to my Shepherd who has gone before.

“What is your only comfort in Life and Death?
That I am not my own, but belong with body and soul, both in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ.”

Heidelberg Catechism Question and Answer I