What about the Latter rain/Manifest sons of God movement
Question 60072
Few movements in modern church history have proved more persistently influential or more theologically problematic than the Latter Rain revival of the late 1940s and the doctrine of the Manifest Sons of God that grew from it. Though the names may be unfamiliar to many Christians today, the ideas continue to circulate widely, often under different labels and frequently embedded in movements that show no awareness of their origins. Understanding where these teachings came from and what they actually claim is not a matter of historical curiosity; it is a practical exercise in discernment that has direct bearing on the health of the contemporary church.
Where It All Began
In February 1948, a revival broke out at the Sharon Orphanage and Bible School in North Battleford, Saskatchewan, Canada. The principal leaders were George Hawtin, Percy Hunt, and Herrick Holt, and the meetings quickly drew attention from across North America. The revival was characterised by intense spiritual experiences, claims of restored spiritual gifts, and the conviction that something of extraordinary significance was underway. Within months it had spread widely through Pentecostal and independent circles.
The movement adopted the name “Latter Rain” from Joel 2:23 and James 5:7, passages that speak of agricultural rain in the Palestinian growing cycle. The claim was that God was now pouring out His Spirit in a final and greater wave than Pentecost, preparing the church for the imminent return of Christ. In October 1949, the Assemblies of God formally condemned the movement, identifying its key teachings as departures from Scripture. That condemnation proved prescient, though it did not slow the movement’s spread.
The Core Claims
The Latter Rain movement rested on several interconnected convictions. The most foundational was that God was restoring the five-fold ministry offices of apostles and prophets, which the movement believed had been absent from the church for centuries. This restoration was not a side issue but the structural claim on which everything else depended. New apostles and prophets were being raised up with authority to govern the church and release fresh revelation, and existing denominational structures were inadequate vessels for what God was doing.
Alongside this came a developed theology of impartation: the idea that spiritual gifts and anointings could be transferred directly from one person to another through the laying on of hands. This went well beyond the biblical pattern of prayer and commissioning in Acts 6 and 13, becoming a kind of spiritual economy in which attending the right ministry and receiving the right laying on of hands was the mechanism for spiritual advancement. The teaching produced both genuine hunger and considerable manipulation, with ministry platforms built around the ability to “impart” extraordinary experiences.
The most theologically dangerous element, however, was the doctrine that came to be known as the Manifest Sons of God, drawn from a significant misreading of Romans 8:19. That verse speaks of creation waiting “with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God.” In its context, Paul is describing the whole created order groaning together under the curse of sin and awaiting its liberation at the resurrection of believers (Romans 8:20-23). The sons of God whose revelation creation awaits are the redeemed humanity who will be fully glorified at the return of Christ. Paul is not describing an elite class within the church who will achieve glorification before death and before Christ’s return.
What the Manifest Sons Teaching Actually Claims
The Latter Rain teachers developed from this misreading the idea that a special company of “overcomers” within the church would attain to a state of spiritual perfection, receive their glorified bodies while still on earth, and manifest as the sons of God before Jesus returned. Some versions of the teaching held that Christ could not return until this company had been perfected and had exercised dominion over the earth on His behalf. This is a form of what has elsewhere been called “Joel’s Army” theology, describing an end-time company of invincible, glorified saints who would take dominion prior to the Second Coming.
The problems here are substantial and serious. This is sinless perfectionism, a doctrine Scripture does not teach and which contradicts the clear teaching of passages such as 1 John 1:8 and Romans 7. It makes the return of Christ contingent on the church’s achievement rather than on the Father’s timing. It creates a two-tier Christianity in which some believers are admitted to a higher order, producing exactly the spiritual elitism and pride that Paul addresses in Corinth. And it replaces the biblical expectation of the Rapture with a dominionist programme in which the church establishes the kingdom before Christ arrives, which is incoherent within any straightforward reading of the prophetic Scriptures.
What the Bible Actually Says About “Latter Rain”
It is worth pausing to ask what the Bible actually says about the “latter rain” these teachers invoked. The Hebrew word malkosh refers to the spring rains of March and April that were essential to the Israelite harvest, contrasted with the yoreh, the early autumn rains of October and November. Joel 2:23 promises restoration of these rains as part of God’s blessing on a repentant Israel. James 5:7 uses the agricultural imagery as a metaphor for the patient waiting of the believer for the coming of the Lord.
When Peter stands up at Pentecost and declares “this is what was spoken by the prophet Joel” (Acts 2:16), he is identifying Pentecost as the inauguration of Joel’s fulfilment. But the full scope of Joel’s prophecy has not yet been exhausted. “All flesh” points forward to a final and complete fulfilment that is still future: the outpouring of the Spirit on Israel at the moment of her national conversion when Christ returns (Zechariah 12:10; Romans 11:26), and the universal presence of the Spirit throughout the millennial age. Pentecost was the beginning of the fulfilment, not its totality.
This concession, however, does not give the Latter Rain teachers any ground to stand on. The future fulfilment of Joel 2 is tied specifically to Israel, not to the charismatic church in North America. It is eschatological and sovereign, taking place at and after the Second Coming, not something accessible through apostolic networks and conference impartations. The Latter Rain movement was right that something beyond Pentecost remains on the prophetic horizon. What it got wrong was identifying who that future outpouring concerns, when it occurs, and what it involves. “All flesh” in Joel’s fullest sense points to a post-Tribulation, millennial reality that God will bring about at His appointed time. No restored apostle can bring it forward.
Why These Ideas Keep Reappearing
The Latter Rain movement was formally condemned in 1949, but its core ideas did not disappear; they migrated. The doctrine of restored apostles and prophets flowed directly into what would become the New Apostolic Reformation. The Manifest Sons theology resurfaced in “Kingdom Now” and dominionist teaching in the 1980s. The impartation theology became foundational to the “anointing” culture of the charismatic movement. The expectation of a glorified end-time army of overcomers reappeared in “Joel’s Army” and related streams. The language changes; the underlying structure remains recognisable.
This pattern of recycling is itself instructive. Ideas that are genuinely scriptural tend to remain stable over time because they are anchored in the text. Ideas that are driven by spiritual ambition and a hunger for experiential intensity tend to morph and reappear because the appetite they feed is real, even when the theological framework they provide is not. There is nothing wrong with longing for the Spirit’s work, for genuine spiritual power, for the church to be what God intends her to be. The question is always whether the framework offered to channel that longing is actually drawn from Scripture or whether it has been imposed on Scripture to serve a different agenda.
So, now what?
If you encounter teaching about restored apostles with governing authority over the wider church, end-time armies of perfected believers, or the need for a second and greater outpouring of the Spirit beyond Pentecost, you are almost certainly in contact with ideas that trace back to the Latter Rain movement, whether or not the connection is acknowledged. The test is always the same: take it to Scripture. Romans 8:19 is about the resurrection of all believers at Christ’s return, not a pre-return glorification of an elite company. The “latter rain” of Joel 2 was identified by Peter as Pentecost. Apostolic authority in the New Testament was grounded in eyewitness testimony to the risen Christ (Acts 1:21-22; 1 Corinthians 9:1), not in a spiritual experience received at a conference. The hunger for genuine spiritual power is itself a good thing. It simply needs to be directed by the whole of Scripture rather than by teachers who have read their own programme into a handful of texts.
“But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” 2 Timothy 3:14-15