Feature
7 July 2025
Revival is an evocative word, stirring up visions of mass conversions and church renewal. The word inspires prayer and invigorates conversations. In recent times, the Asbury revival of February 2023 has also sparked an increase—indeed, a revival—of interest in this phenomenon.
Revival is rooted in Scripture and church history. The notion permeates Scripture, from Israel’s cycles of covenant renewal and Ezekiel’s vision of dry bones coming to life to the climactic events of Christ’s resurrection and the Day of Pentecost. According to historical theologian Richard Lovelace (in Dynamics of Spiritual Life, p. 21), renewal, revival, and awakening draw on “biblical metaphors for the infusion of spiritual life in Christian experience by the Holy Spirit” (e.g., Rom. 6:4; Eph. 1:17-23). Reviving what was dead or in decay is central to the Christian worldview.
As for the influence of church history, consider the following definition offered by historian David Bebbington (in Victorian Religious Revivals, p. 1): “Those outpourings of the Spirit, which result in the quickening of the church and the conversion of sinners”. Bebbington quotes the Wesley Banner, a nineteenth-century British revivalist magazine, which borrowed the statement from a contemporary American periodical. This reveals a common outlook on both sides of the Atlantic conditioned by “those outpourings” experienced back then.
This article reflects on the waves of outpourings in America, Britain, and continental Europe in the 1730s and 40s, known as the “First Great Awakening”. Led by figures like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and John Wesley, this was arguably the seminal event that birthed our modern evangelical paradigm of revival, encompassing the twofold expectation in the definition above: (1) the conversion of pre- and nominal believers, and (2) the spiritual renewal of believers and the church.
What historical insights might we draw for today?
The Cause of Revival: God Alone
The First Great Awakening was marked by a consensus that the extraordinary revivals breaking out across America and Europe were doubtless the work of God.
Jonathan Edwards published his account of the mass conversions in Northampton in 1735 as A Faithful Narrative of the Surprizing Work of God. He found surprising how God had “gone out of, and much beyond, His usual and ordinary way” in the extent and speed of the revival. Edwards’s account would become a theological frame through which to interpret other revival events.
Lest we assume such perspectives were the preserve of Calvinists like Edwards, John Wesley, though staunchly Arminian, was also a strong proponent of the free and sovereign work of God. Wesley repeatedly used Pentecost language of the Lord’s power coming down to describe the revival movement. In his debate with Whitefield over divine and human agency, Wesley went so far as to affirm, in his published journal on August 24, 1743, that God’s grace “is irresistible at that moment” of conversion, though can be resisted before and after that. Furthermore, in a letter dated June 1, 1760, he explained that God is sovereign in sanctifying as well as justifying, acting “when as well as how he pleases”. Therefore, eighteenth-century revivalists across the Calvinist-Arminian divide agreed that the remarkable developments they had witnessed were the decisive, sovereign acts of God.
This consensus that God caused the awakening should caution us against paradigms of revival that fixate on human methods. We cannot engineer revival. True revival is not the product of an effective altar call, stirring sermon or rousing worship experience. It is no less than the transcendent and surprising work of God alone.
The Conduct of Revival: Prayer and Preaching
We cannot make revival happen, but we can prepare for it and steward it well, especially through prayer. A “Concert of Prayer” was convened in 1744 amongst ministers from England, Scotland, and America. Reflecting on the awakening, they were humbled that “the Lord was found of people when they sought Him not” and wondered if the blessing would be all the greater “if there be an abundant united seeking and looking for Him” (Richard Owen Roberts ed., Scotland Saw His Glory, p. 184). If God alone can bring about revival, then we should seek Him through concerted prayer.
Prayer meetings do not birth revival, but they sometimes play midwife to it. John Wesley recorded in his published journal on May 19, 1769, that there was a day of fasting and prayer for a revival of God’s work, where people kept gathering up till the watch-night, and “then it was that God touched the hearts of the people”. In our efficient and tightly regulated modern-day lives, are we ready to make room in our schedules for God to move?
Gospel-centred preaching and its salutary effect on hearers were also crucial to the conduct of the awakening. From Edwards’s “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” to Wesley’s “The Almost Christian” (both preached in 1741), preachers spoke boldly of God’s holiness and the coming judgment, awakening people from nominal faith, first to a deep conviction and sometimes open confession of their sins, and then toward a full embrace of God’s justifying grace. Whitefield, who preached his version of “The Almost Christian”, consistently stressed the necessity of justification by faith and the experience of new birth.
Richard Lovelace contends that “only a fraction of the present body of professing Christians are solidly appropriating the justifying work of Christ in their lives” (Dynamics, p. 101). Hence the need for continual renewal, especially through robust preaching on justification and sanctification, in the right order. We rely on justification for our sanctification, not the other way round.
We ought to reclaim for our churches the spiritual dynamics of revival—to preach the gospel faithfully, to confess our sins mutually, to embrace God’s grace wholeheartedly, and perhaps, as the Spirit moves, to let our gatherings overrun!
The Consequence of Revival: Sanctifying Church and Society
Finally, let us consider the impact of revival. Eighteenth-century revivalists stressed that true revival should be judged not so much by the height of spectacular revival experiences, but by the depth of transformed lives thereafter. Only time will tell. A decade after the Scottish revivals of the 1740s, the minister William Haley found himself “fully perswaded that the gracious fruits of that glorious work… abide” in the life and testimony of converts (Arthur Fawcett, The Cambuslang Revival, p. 172). Methodist converts were urged to participate in societies, classes, and bands, and pressed on toward entire sanctification. Growth in holiness was the lasting measure of revival fruit.
Beyond the church, true revival would usher in blessings for society. Edwards was convinced that full-fledged revival would extend beyond personal to social concerns. In his Thoughts on the Revival (1740), Edwards opined that if only people would abound in deeds of love and mercy as they did in praying, hearing, singing, and religious meetings and conference, they would “bring the God of love down from heaven to earth”. Similarly, Wesley, in the “Large” Minutes of 1753-63, stated that the purpose of Methodism was to “spread scriptural holiness over the land”. The First Great Awakening was a period of cultural revitalisation for Protestant Europe and America, leading to a reduction of vices and crimes, enhanced social and familial relationships, and a host of other societal reforms.
Evidently, the goal is not the revival event, but the lasting transformation of lives within and without the church, according to the will of God. Our gospel horizons need to expand. Revival is not just given for us individually, or even just for the church, but for the world.
Conclusion
It is instructive that the Asbury revival of 2023 manifested several of the features described above. It happened unexpectedly and surprisingly. It began with people tarrying after a routine chapel service, making space and time for God. It was stirred up by the confession of sin. People were converted and spiritually revitalised. Its long-term impact remains to assessed—the Asbury story is still being written. Nevertheless, the event assures us that God still shows up. Revival can happen in our day.
This short article has scratched the surface of a vast topic. The points covered are selective and non-exhaustive, offering modest insights for further consideration. If there is one lesson above all, it is that the eighteenth-century revivalists were not so much pursuing revival as they were relentlessly pursuing God. May we rekindle such fire for God today.
Rev Timothy Ang is a minister of the Chinese Annual Conference (CAC) of The Methodist Church in Singapore, and currently pastors at Holy Covenant Methodist Church. He is also pursuing a part-time PhD in Church History at the University of Aberdeen, researching the eighteenth-century Methodist revival.