Asa Mahan
Asa Mahan (November 9, 1799 – April 4, 1889) was an American preacher, educator, and abolitionist whose ministry bridged Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, and the Oberlin Perfectionism movement, leaving a lasting mark on 19th-century evangelicalism. Born in Vernon, New York, to Samuel Mahan, a farmer, and Anna Brown, he was the fifth of nine children in a devout family. Converted at 20 during a revival in 1820, he studied at Hamilton College and Andover Theological Seminary, graduating in 1827. Ordained in 1827 as a Presbyterian, he pastored in Pittsford, New York, then Cincinnati’s Second Presbyterian Church (1829–1835), where his abolitionist preaching—calling slavery a sin—stirred both support and riots, notably during the 1834 Lane Seminary debates. Mahan’s preaching career peaked as he became the first president of Oberlin College (1835–1850), shaping it into a hub of revivalism and social reform alongside Charles Finney, whose “entire sanctification” doctrine he championed in works like Scripture Doctrine of Christian Perfection (1839). After resigning amid faculty disputes, he led Cleveland University (1855–1857), Adrian College (1860–1871), and pastored in Michigan and England, notably at East London Tabernacle in 1872. Married to Mary Hartwell Dix in 1828, then Mary L. Bushnell in 1866 after her death, he fathered seven children. His later years saw him in London, dying there in 1889 at 89, buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.
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Asa Mahan emphasizes the importance of surrendering all aspects of our lives to Christ for both salvation and sanctification. He highlights the need for sinners to repent, have faith in Jesus, and fully commit themselves to Christ to receive forgiveness, become children of God, and experience peace and joy. For believers struggling with living up to God's standards, Mahan stresses the necessity of confessing sins, renewing obedience, and trusting in Christ for victory over temptations and propensities. He warns against relying on human resolutions for sanctification but instead encourages complete trust in Christ for both justification and sanctification, leading to a life centered on Christ and producing love, obedience, and unmovable faith.
Dealing With "Evil Propensities"
When a sinner had inquired of me what he should do to be saved, I had known perfectly what needed to be done in his case. He needed to be instructed in regard to his sins, his ill-desert on account of sin, and his hopeless ruin in sin. He needed then to be directed to Christ as his only hope and refuge. Having given up his sins, and given himself wholly to Christ to be His servent forever, he must intrust his mortal and immortal interest to the mercy and grace of God in Christ. Under such instruction, the sinner, by "repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ," obtains pardon, "power to become one of the sons of God," and "peace and joy in believing." But when a believer had come to me and confessed that he was not living as God requires, and asked me how he should escape "the bondage of corruption," and attain to "the liberty of the sons of God," I had instructed him to confess his sins, put them away, renew his purpose of obedience, and go forth with a fixed resolution to do the entire will of God. Now, here was a fundamental mistake. We are not only to be justified by the faith of Christ, "but to sanctified also by the faith that is in Him." "Christ is of God made unto us," not only "wisdom and righteousness," that is, justification, but "sanctification and redemption" also. If you desire a victory over your tempers, your appetites, and all your propensities, take them to Christ, just as you take your sins to Him, and He will give you the victory over the former, just as He gives you pardon for the latter. He is just as able and ready to save you from the power as he is to deliver you from the condemnation of sin. Here is the only cause of your many shortcomings. In the matter of justification, you have trusted Christ, and He has done for you according to your faith. In the matter of sanctification, you have, instead of trusting Christ to "sanctify and cleanse you with the washing of water by the Word," resolved and re-resolved, and, as a consequence, have remained "carnal, sold under sin." So it will be, until you shall cease wholly from man and from yourself, and trust Christ universally. When He shall become the fixed and changeless center about which all your affections, and purposes, and hopes, and confidence, shall revolve, then shall "your righteousness go forth as brightness, and your salvation as a lamp that shineth," and in your love and obedience you shall be "as Mount Zion, which cannot be moved, but which abideth for ever." The command in the Bible is not Be strong in yourself, or in good resolution, but "Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might." Trusting in Christ, you will "always have all-sufficiency in all things, and be abundantly furnished unto every good work." It is not he that resolves, but "he that abideth in Christ, and Christ in him, that bringeth forth much fruit." It is because that "in my ignorance" I talked so much of human ability to do all that is required of us, and in reality trusted in my own resolutions, instead of putting "my hope and trust in the living God" in the matter of holy-living, that I am permitted to speak to you tonight of "the unsearchable riches of Christ," instead of being cast aside as a vessel unfit for its master's use. From this time onward let this be our changeless sentiment -- "Let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear."
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Asa Mahan (November 9, 1799 – April 4, 1889) was an American preacher, educator, and abolitionist whose ministry bridged Congregationalism, Presbyterianism, and the Oberlin Perfectionism movement, leaving a lasting mark on 19th-century evangelicalism. Born in Vernon, New York, to Samuel Mahan, a farmer, and Anna Brown, he was the fifth of nine children in a devout family. Converted at 20 during a revival in 1820, he studied at Hamilton College and Andover Theological Seminary, graduating in 1827. Ordained in 1827 as a Presbyterian, he pastored in Pittsford, New York, then Cincinnati’s Second Presbyterian Church (1829–1835), where his abolitionist preaching—calling slavery a sin—stirred both support and riots, notably during the 1834 Lane Seminary debates. Mahan’s preaching career peaked as he became the first president of Oberlin College (1835–1850), shaping it into a hub of revivalism and social reform alongside Charles Finney, whose “entire sanctification” doctrine he championed in works like Scripture Doctrine of Christian Perfection (1839). After resigning amid faculty disputes, he led Cleveland University (1855–1857), Adrian College (1860–1871), and pastored in Michigan and England, notably at East London Tabernacle in 1872. Married to Mary Hartwell Dix in 1828, then Mary L. Bushnell in 1866 after her death, he fathered seven children. His later years saw him in London, dying there in 1889 at 89, buried in Kensal Green Cemetery.