Edward Irving (1792-1834)
An
evangelical Church of Scotland minister who sought to get back behind the
anticharismatic stance of the Protestant Reformation and reintroduce the
charismatic dimension to Protestantism. A man of creativity and singular powers
of expression, he became critical of his fellow evangelicals early in his
ministry. Receiving the gift of prophesy and a message from God, to the British
Protestantism of his day, he jumped at the invitation to become minister of a
small congregation in London in 1822. Here his pulpit gifts were soon
recognized, and by 1827 the great Regent Square Church was erected to hold the
crowds. Fearful of liberalism and
disillusioned with the entrepreneurial optimism of evangelicalism, his
romanticism led him, in company with so many Confessional Protestants, to seek
the answers to the needs of the present in a golden age of the past. This age
was the Reformation, but while most British Confessionalists sought the answer
in Reformation doctrine, he as usual beat his own path. He discerned much of
the power of the Reformation to lie in its sacramental theology, and thus he
particularly stressed the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in baptism, a charismatic sacramentalism. His expectations were
heightened when he came in touch with some of the first Evangelical Anglican
premillennialists. In the imminent return of Jesus Christ, he saw the removal
of liberalism and evangelicalism; but even more he saw a brief period prior to
the Second Advent when there would be a latter-rain outpouring of the Holy
Spirit. With his exuberance and expectation he became the first major
popularizer of nineteenth century premillennialism, leading such recognized
fathers of the movement as J. N. Darby and other early Plymouth Brethren into
this new understanding. He was now advocating a charismatic eschatology.
The
next stage in Irving's development was his conviction that the
"extraordinary" gifts of the Holy Spirit would be given once again
just prior to the Second Coming. This he preached and for this he waited.
During this period he also developed a charismatic Christology in which he
taught that in the incarnation Jesus Christ received human nature after the
fall, but that the activity of the Spirit kept him from sin. Such views created
much opposition in the Church of Scotland, opposition that intensified when he
announced that his new views opened up a universal triumph of Christ which
could no longer bear with traditional Calvinism.
Then in the spring of 1830 word came that speaking in tongues had occurred in
the west of Scotland, and within a year, manifestations were present in Regent
Square Church. Debarred from his pulpit by the presbytery, and subsequently
deposed by the Church of Scotland General Assembly (1833), Irving and his
supporters, almost all former Evangelical Anglicans, found their way into what
became known as the Catholic Apostolic Church. Those gifted with apostleship
consigned Irving to a significantly lesser rank, which he accepted, only to die
within a matter of months.
An
evangelical Church of Scotland minister who sought to get back behind the
anticharismatic stance of the Protestant Reformation and reintroduce the
charismatic dimension to Protestantism. A man of creativity and singular powers
of expression, he became critical of his fellow evangelicals early in his
ministry. Receiving the gift of prophesy and a message from God, to the British
Protestantism of his day, he jumped at the invitation to become minister of a
small congregation in London in 1822. Here his pulpit gifts were soon
recognized, and by 1827 the great Regent Square Church was erected to hold the
crowds. Fearful of liberalism and
disillusioned with the entrepreneurial optimism of evangelicalism, his
romanticism led him, in company with so many Confessional Protestants, to seek
the answers to the needs of the present in a golden age of the past. This age
was the Reformation, but while most British Confessionalists sought the answer
in Reformation doctrine, he as usual beat his own path. He discerned much of
the power of the Reformation to lie in its sacramental theology, and thus he
particularly stressed the presence and power of the Holy Spirit in baptism, a
charismatic sacramentalism. His
expectations were heightened when he came in touch with some of the first
Evangelical Anglican premillennialists. In the imminent return of Jesus Christ,
he saw the removal of liberalism and evangelicalism; but even more he saw a
brief period prior to the Second Advent when there would be a latter-rain
outpouring of the Holy Spirit. With his exuberance and expectation he became
the first major popularizer of nineteenth century premillennialism, leading
such recognized fathers of the movement as J. N. Darby and other early Plymouth
Brethren into this new understanding. He was now advocating a charismatic
eschatology.