ABSTRACT
William J. Seymour, the son of former African slaves, was the key figure in the Apostolic Faith Mission at Azusa Street in Los Angeles from which Pentecostalism expanded near the turn of the twentieth century as a global movement, and he was arguably one of the most creative thinkers of the movement’s early years. 1 He captured well the cluster of pneumatological themes that formed the early nucleus of Pentecostal beliefs. The “crown jewel” of that cluster had to do with what was termed the “baptism in the Holy Spirit.” Seymour described the repentant sinner’s experience of Spirit baptism this way:
The Lord has mercy on him for Christ’s sake and puts eternal life in his soul, pardoning him of his sins, washing away his guilty pollution, and he stands before God justified as though he had never sinned … Jesus takes that soul that has eternal life in it and presents it to God for thorough cleansing and purging from all Adamic sin … Now he is on the altar for the fire of God to fall, which is the baptism with the Holy Ghost. It is the free gift upon the sanctified, cleansed heart. 2
