Its Claims
The nature and extent of the atonement
Salvation in Christ is whole: Jesus saves, sanctifies, heals, baptizes in the Spirit, and is coming as King; divine healing is provided in the atonement and belongs to the gospel's present gift. Work on this claim in the Workshop
Sanctification and holiness
Baptism in the Holy Spirit is a work of grace distinct from and subsequent to the new birth, empowering the believer for witness; in the classical Pentecostal statement it is witnessed by speaking in tongues as the initial physical evidence. Work on this claim in the Workshop
Regeneration and new birth
The new birth is a definite, datable experience of grace, ordinarily sought and received at the altar in prayer, and known by the believer's own testimony of sins forgiven and life made new. Work on this claim in the Workshop
Perseverance and assurance
The believer's standing is kept by abiding in Christ in the Spirit's power; the tradition's mainstream warns that willful, continued sin forfeits grace, and urges watchfulness unto the end. Work on this claim in the Workshop
The scope of salvation: individuals, communities, and creation
The Spirit is poured out on all flesh: salvation's gifts cross every line of race, sex, age, and station, and the last-days community of the Spirit is God's sign that the scope of salvation is the whole human family. Work on this claim in the Workshop
Historical Development
The movement globalized within a generation through missionaries who read their experience as the restoration of apostolic power for the end-times harvest. Doctrinally it divided: the Finished Work controversy (from 1910) separated those who held sanctification progressive after conversion from the Holiness Pentecostals' second-blessing pattern, and the 1916 Oneness controversy split off the Jesus' Name movement over the Godhead and the baptismal formula. Denominational consolidation (Assemblies of God 1914, and its 1916 Statement of Fundamental Truths adopting the Finished Work pattern and the initial-evidence doctrine) gave the classical form. The charismatic renewal from 1960 carried the Spirit-baptism experience into the historic churches, usually without the initial-evidence requirement, and Pentecostal scholarship from the 1980s restated the position academically while global Pentecostalism became the majority expression of the movement.
Interpretive Foundations
The position reads Acts as the church's abiding pattern rather than a closed apostolic preface: what the Spirit did at Pentecost, in Samaria, at Caesarea, and at Ephesus marks the shape of Christian experience still. Its hermeneutic is experiential and eschatological together: scripture is read in the congregation that expects the Spirit's present acts, and the nearness of Christ's return orders every other doctrine. The Lukan writings carry a weight in this tradition that the Pauline letters alone do not settle.
Biblical Evidence
The readings this position gives the foundational passages. The full evidence stands on the Scripture evidence index.
Principal Objections
The initial-evidence doctrine is objected to as building a universal requirement on a pattern Acts itself varies, and as dividing Christians into two classes. The subsequence doctrine is objected to from 1 Corinthians 12:13, where all are baptized by one Spirit into the body. Divine healing in the atonement is objected to pastorally where healing does not come. The tradition's defenders answer from the Acts pattern of distinct receptions of the Spirit, from the distinction between the Spirit's indwelling and his empowering, and from the eschatological reservation that healing's fullness, like resurrection, awaits the kingdom's completion.
Limitations of This Record
The position describes classical Pentecostal teaching of the Azusa lineage. It does not describe the Oneness Pentecostal doctrine of God, which the wider movement treats as a separate settlement; nor the charismatic renewal inside Catholic and mainline churches, which receives the experience without the classical doctrinal frame; nor prosperity teaching, which the classical statements do not contain and many Pentecostal bodies reject.
Sources
Primary: Assemblies of God Statement of Fundamental Truths (1916); The Apostolic Faith, Azusa Street Mission papers (1906-1908); William J. Seymour, The Doctrines and Discipline of the Azusa Street Mission (1915).
Secondary: Allan H. Anderson, To the Ends of the Earth: Pentecostalism and the Transformation of World Christianity (Oxford University Press, 2013); Amos Yong, The Spirit Poured Out on All Flesh: Pentecostalism and the Theology of Religions (Baker Academic, 2005).