After the death of Luther there was a struggle between the more calvinistic Lutherans and Melanchton who emphasized Luther's free will oriented teachings. Melanchton prevailed and his version of Lutheranism is what has dominated my country ever since. Catholicism and Calvinism were largely abandoned early on here and there is nothing Calvinistic about how the Norwegian Lutheran church presents Luther's teachings. Beyond that I don't know much about the details of what Melanchton taught. But he was instrumental in the developing of the Reformation in the direction of free will oriented teachings.
If you download Woodworth-Etter's biography then you should not miss her sermon "The fire and glory of God filling the temple" found in chapter 65. It compares the glory of the old covenant to the glory that came with Pentecost, with examples of the latter from her own ministry.
Earlier in the book she recounts a meeting she held in a rough neighboorhood in the mid-West in the 1890s. The people were suspicious and many among them were threatening. At one point she told them that God would strike down, as in kill, the first one who moved towards violence. That made things settle down and the next day the same people showed up with their hair combed and in better clothes.
In the sermon I mentioned she talks about how in the Old Testament the 120 priests blew their trumpets and the house was filled with the glory of God then says :
"If we go out to meet God clothed in white, washed in the blood of the Lamb; if we go out, all making the same sound; if we go out to glorify God, God will honor all the noise.
It is not excitement. God comes down to acknowledge the praise. They pressed the button, and the power of God came down. That same power will either save or destroy us some day. The house was filled with the power and glory of the Lord."
Well she knew what she was talking about.
I just read a short biography about Carrie Judd Montgomery (1858-1946) who was part of the healing revival as early as Etter was, after she herself got healed in 1879. Like Etter she finished well and her doctrine was sound. She also managed to embrace the new moves of the Holy Spirit as they emerged, including the Pentecostal revival in the early 1900s. Instead of embracing one then fending off the subsequent ones. She was perhaps not as spectacular as Etter was but certainly a forerunner.
curly sue (11-27-2017)