A.B. Simpson’s Fourfold Gospel profoundly shaped 20th-century evangelicalism. Its axiomatic missiological end—the reigning and coming King—demands a corresponding means: the deeper life found in Jesus as Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King. This deeper life forms a theology of purpose that anchors faithful waiting and witnessing. Without this distinction, the church becomes vulnerable to the false dichotomies of the Western theological canon—whether accommodated by Rome or modern theological trends.
Simpson’s engagement with mystical authors and eclectic spiritual practices continues to nourish contemplative spirituality within the deeper or higher Christian life. Some Alliance theologians, influenced by this trajectory, have gravitated into a “deep and high” ecclesiology under the banner of narrative theology—answering not merely, How shall we then live? but more crucially, Where are we going?
Simpson and the Grand Narrative
Although the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) originated in the West, Simpson progressively distanced himself from Western systems—political or ecclesial—that risked usurping the biblical storyline. He cast his vision more along the lines of the “coming out of her” church in Revelation yet for mission: not institutional dominance but a faithful people preparing for the King’s return.
For Simpson, the destination shapes the journey. The end of the age, revealed through the Great Commission, orients the Alliance’s mission as an Acts 1:8 family. His eschatology, laid out in The Coming One (1911) and his critique The Old Faith and the New Gospels (1914), sharply observed the early 20th century’s theological shifts—from Roman ecclesial power to Catholic inclusivism, echoed today in Protestant-progressive evangelicalism.
Eschatology and Missional Urgency
Simpson’s historical premillennialism looked both backward through the flow of history and forward to the World to Come. He anchored his vision in Matthew 24:14—“this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” For Simpson, this was not speculative prediction but a statement of divine purpose: the end of the age is bound to the global proclamation of the gospel.
Simpson’s historical premillennialism looked both backward through the flow of history and forward to the World to Come. He anchored his vision in Matthew 24:14—“this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.” For Simpson, this was not speculative prediction but a statement of divine purpose: the end of the age is bound to the global proclamation of the gospel.
A man of his era, Simpson recognized Christendom’s marginalization of the Jews and affirmed Zionism in a distinctly spiritual sense. Simpson believed that a Jewish homeland could awaken both Jewish hope and Christian mission in anticipation of “bringing back the King.” Yet he would not have equated the modern political state of Israel with the consummation of biblical promise. Instead, he viewed such events as providential openings for gospel mobilization. See Simpson’s last statement on eschatology.
Though cautious toward the speculative schemes of dispensational prophecy—especially those popularized by the Scofield Bible—Simpson nevertheless upheld a strict distinction between Israel and the Church. That framework, while giving his theology coherence, also blunted some of his eschatological clarity. Still, his outlook resisted reductionism, kept the Jewish people in view, and above all pressed the church toward missional urgency as the faithful response to the signs of the times. Therefore, Simpson himself was not free from the broader tendency of his era to conflate religion and race, a confusion that continues to trouble many of us today, where theological categories are too easily mapped onto ethnic identity, distorting both covenantal vocation and the witness of the gospel.
Rome, Supersessionism, and the Great Tradition
Simpson analyzed the ecclesial tensions surrounding Vatican I (1870), which entrenched papal supremacy, and anticipated how the transfer of the age allowed for imminency. Post-Vatican II Catholicism (1965) merged with Protestant kingdom-now theology, producing a narrative embarrassed by apocalyptic expectation.
Simpson analyzed the ecclesial tensions surrounding Vatican I (1870), which entrenched papal supremacy, and anticipated how the transfer of the age allowed for imminency. Post-Vatican II Catholicism (1965) merged with Protestant kingdom-now theology, producing a narrative embarrassed by apocalyptic expectation.
While Nostra Aetate (§4) offered gestures of reconciliation toward Judaism, Rome largely maintained its supersessionist posture, positioning itself as the “mother church” through Lumen Gentium (§16). For Simpson, this synthesis ruptured Scripture’s apocalyptic arc and the prophetic destination of New Creation.
The attraction of the “Great Tradition” today—seen in thinkers such as John Milbank, Stanley Hauerwas, N.T. Wright, James K.A. Smith, and Scot McKnight—seeks depth against evangelical superficiality. Yet these authors cannot escape Christendom’s ecumenical double binds which often remain ecclesially centered and introspective, missing Simpson’s missiological horizon.
Union with Christ and the Fourfold Gospel
Properly centered, theology would place the believer’s union with Christ at the core. Rome often confined this union to ecclesial mediation, while Simpson rooted it in the Spirit’s work of sanctification and eschatological hope. Union with Christ is not static—it longs for His future presence and reign in glory.
This is why the Fourfold Gospel matters for ecclesiology. Rooted in conversion, the deeper life, healing for service and expectation of the King’s reign, it confronts secularism through transformation and mission. It offers a Christ-centered narrative framework, not merely ecclesial sacramental mysticism.
Conclusion: Old Faith, New World
The Alliance’s motto—“All of Jesus for All the World”—points to contextual evangelization, not ecumenical ecclesiology. The Spirit’s work cannot be confined to the Western legacy or Rome’s supersessionist claims. Rather, the Fourfold Gospel provides discernment: a Christ-centered framework rooted in Scripture, looking toward His final coming, practiced in the eucharist with expectation: “I tell you, I will not drink from this fruit of the vine from now on until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Matt 26:29; cf. Luke 22:16).
Let the deep church and the old faith be means, not ends. The end is Christ Himself.
As Simpson wrote in his poem Himself:
“Once it was the blessing,
Now it is the Lord.”
“Once it was the blessing,
Now it is the Lord.”
The King is coming—and it is also up to us.
⸻
⸻
Endnotes
Franklin Pyles, Simpson’s Fourfold Gospel and the Missional Imagination (Alliance Academic Papers, 2019).
Franklin Pyles, Simpson’s Fourfold Gospel and the Missional Imagination (Alliance Academic Papers, 2019).
Paul L. King, Only Believe: Examining the Origin and Development of Classic and Contemporary “Word of Faith” Theologies (2009).
A.B. Simpson, The Gospel of the Kingdom (1890).
A.B. Simpson, The Old Faith and the New Gospels(1890).
H. Grattan Guinness, The Approaching End of the Age(1878).
Paul L. King, Genuine Gold: The Cautiously Charismatic Story of the Early Christian and Missionary Alliance (2006).
A.B. Simpson, Himself (poem, 1890).
