Amipotence and Sanctification
By Angela Wilson
Amipotence is a reflection of God’s love revealed in us through relationship- what we refer to as sanctification, transforming us both immediately, and over time.
Many years ago, I listened to a sermon on sanctification and tried to follow along, but I was having a hard time understanding the concept. I didn’t understand the concept and there were a lot of words being used that I hadn’t heard before and didn’t know their meaning. When the sermon ended, a dear saintly friend shook my hand and said, “Well, if you don’t understand sanctification now you never will!” I thought to myself, “I’m in trouble!”
Perhaps you’re feeling the same way about this new word, Amipotence. In his book, The Death of Omnipotence and the Birth of Amipotence, Thomas J. Oord writes, “Amipotence combines two Latin words ami and potens. The first means “love,” and we find it in words like “amicable,” “amity,” and “amigo.” The second is the Latin word for power or influence, and we find it in “potential” and “potency.” Amipotence is pronounced, “am” (as in “Amsterdam”), with a short “i” (as in “it”), and “po-tence” (similar to “moments”).”[1] To paraphrase Oord’s definition of Amipotence found in chapter 4, it is “intentional, relational, responsive, uncontrolling, divine and creaturely, love that promotes wholeness.”[2] Amipotence—love that promotes wholeness. That’s the short and sweet of it. How then, do we apply this new term, this new concept, to our walk with God?
I mentioned earlier how I struggled with the concept of sanctification. Phrases such as “as “the second blessing,” “the sinful nature,” or “original sin”[3] were of little help to me. ““Phrases such as “wholly sanctify,” “filled with the Holy Spirit,” “perfect love,” “pure in heart,” “indwelling sin,” “or “the mind of the flesh,””[4] were more helpful, although they still didn’t give me a complete understanding. The more I studied this idea of sanctification, I began to long for the experience. I began to pray and actively petition God to fill me with divine power, to purify me from within and transform me into the glory-revealing Image-Bearer I was created to be.
While sitting in the ICU with my infant son, I prayed, “Lord, please send someone to pray with me. Let Your holy fire fall on me and fill me with Your presence.” Soon a man appeared at the door to my son’s room. He asked to pray for my son and when he began to pray, he placed one hand on my son’s head, and one hand on mine. He prayed for my son’s healing then he began to pray over me, “…and Lord, let the fire fall on Angela! Fill her with the power of Your presence…” As he prayed, I felt a warmth spread over my body moving from the top of my head to the tips of my toes. The man finished and left the room as I wept with tears of joy. I knew in that moment that I was transformed by the power of God’s presence.
There were folks who talked about sanctification as a one-time experience, but that wasn’t my experience. I recognized, and experienced regularly, my need to continue to grow in God’s image—days when I was unkind, unloving, impatient, angry, selfish, and a whole host of other qualities that didn’t reflect the relationship with God I desired, and didn’t reflect the image of God to the people around me. As I discovered a new intimacy in relationship with God, those unloving, unlovable days began to diminish while the broken bits were being restored. My experience is unique and does not reflect the exact experience of others—it happened in an instant, but I’ve continued to grow in my walk with God.
“Wesley’s focus was on “perfect love,” rather than on the “entire sanctification” that brings us to that point.”[5] Wesley wrote in A Plain Account, “In one view, it is purity of intention, dedicating all the life to God. It is giving God all our heart; it is one desire and design ruling all our tempers. It is the devoting, not a part, but all our soul, body, substance to God. In another view, it is all the mind, which was in Christ, enabling us to walk as Christ walked. It is the circumcision of the heart from all filthiness, all inward as well as outward pollution. It is renewal of the heart in the whole image of God, the full likeness of him that created it. In yet another, it is loving God with all our heart, and our neighbor as ourselves.”[6]
As a pastor and Christ-follower, I believe amipotence is a reflection of God’s love revealed in us through relationship- what we refer to as sanctification, transforming us both immediately, and over time.
Bio: Angela Wilson is an Ordained Elder in the Church of the Nazarene serving as Senior Pastor of her local church in Summersville, WV. She also works as the Education/Disabilities Manager for Head Start in Summersville, WV. Angela’s husband Jim is her strongest supporter along with their five children and their families. Angela is passionate about helping others understand their relationship with God and how it shapes their relationship with the world around them. Her general approach to theology within a Wesleyan-Holiness context is to discover what it means to live a life of ordinary holiness.
OORD’S DRABBLE* RESPONSE
Angela Wilson insightfully connects amipotence with sanctification, and I agree that this link is both powerful and practical. It resonates with our lived experience of being transformed by God’s loving presence. Sanctification, after all, is an ongoing journey of moving away from sin and toward love. While John Wesley never used the word “amipotence,” the concept aligns well with his vision of sanctification as a life shaped by divine love. Angela rightly sees amipotence as God’s uncontrolling love revealed through relationship. That’s the very heart of sanctification. If more understood it this way, sanctification would be far more compelling in our world.
For more on Oord’s view on renovating the notion of sanctification, see this article.
* A drabble is an essay exactly 100 words in length.
[1]. Thomas Jay Oord, The Death of Omnipotence and Birth of Amipotence (Grasmere, ID: SacraSage Press, 2023).
[2]. Ibid. This is my paraphrase of Oord’s definition found in Ch. 4.
[3]. T. A. Noble, Holy Trinity: Holy People: The Theology of Christian Perfecting (Cambridge, United Kingdom: James Clarke & Co., 2013).
[4]. Ibid.
[5]. Ibid.
[6]. Ibid.