- Home
- Speakers
- A.B. Simpson
- Whosoever Will Save His Life Shall Lose It
A.B. Simpson

Albert Benjamin "A.B." Simpson (1843 - 1919). Canadian-American preacher, author, and founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), born in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island. Raised Presbyterian, he experienced conversion at 14 and studied at Knox College, Toronto, graduating in 1865. Ordained, he pastored in Ontario, then Louisville, Kentucky, where his church grew to 1,000 members. In 1881, after a healing experience, he moved to New York, founding the independent Gospel Tabernacle to reach the marginalized. In 1882, he launched The Word, Work, and World magazine, and in 1887, merged two ministries to form the C&MA, emphasizing the "Fourfold Gospel": Christ as Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King. Simpson authored 101 books, including The Fourfold Gospel, and composed hymns like "Jesus Only." In 1883, he started Nyack College, training 6,000 missionaries. Married to Margaret Henry in 1866, they had six children. His global vision sent 1,500 missionaries to 40 countries by 1919. Simpson’s teachings on holiness and divine healing shaped modern Pentecostalism.
Download
Sermon Summary
A.B. Simpson emphasizes that Christ teaches the essence of resurrection and life, highlighting that true Christianity offers not just moral guidance but the transformative power of resurrection life. This life begins with a definitive moment of crisis where believers die to sin and are reborn to live for God, marking a clear transition akin to the dawn of a new day. Simpson encourages believers to recognize their identity in Christ, asserting that death is merely a passage to eternal life, with the cross leading to everlasting glory.
Scriptures
Whosoever Will Save His Life Shall Lose It
First and foremost Christ teaches resurrection and life. The power of Christianity is life. It brings us not merely law, duty, example, with high and holy teaching and admonition; it brings us the power to follow the higher ideal and the life that spontaneously does the things commanded. And it is not only life, but resurrection life. It begins with a real crisis, a definite transaction, a point of time as clear as the morning dawn. It is not an everlasting dying and an eternal struggle to live. But it is all expressed in a tense that denotes definiteness, fixedness and finality. We actually died at a certain point and as actually began to live the resurrection life. Let us reckon ourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ (Romans 6:11). And death is only the pathway and portal To the life that shall die nevermore; And the cross leadeth up to the crown everlasting, The Jordan to Canaan's bright shore.
- Bio
- Summary
- Transcript
- Download

Albert Benjamin "A.B." Simpson (1843 - 1919). Canadian-American preacher, author, and founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA), born in Cavendish, Prince Edward Island. Raised Presbyterian, he experienced conversion at 14 and studied at Knox College, Toronto, graduating in 1865. Ordained, he pastored in Ontario, then Louisville, Kentucky, where his church grew to 1,000 members. In 1881, after a healing experience, he moved to New York, founding the independent Gospel Tabernacle to reach the marginalized. In 1882, he launched The Word, Work, and World magazine, and in 1887, merged two ministries to form the C&MA, emphasizing the "Fourfold Gospel": Christ as Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King. Simpson authored 101 books, including The Fourfold Gospel, and composed hymns like "Jesus Only." In 1883, he started Nyack College, training 6,000 missionaries. Married to Margaret Henry in 1866, they had six children. His global vision sent 1,500 missionaries to 40 countries by 1919. Simpson’s teachings on holiness and divine healing shaped modern Pentecostalism.