Part 6 — Chapter II. The Reconciliation Of Man To God, Or The Application Of Redemption Through The Work Of The Holy Spirit. (continued 6)

(j) Sanctification, both of the soul and of the body of the believer, is completed in the life to come,—that of the former at death, that of the latter at the resurrection.

Phil. 3:21—“who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of his glory, according to the working whereby he is able even to subject all things unto himself”; Col. 3:4—“When Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested, then shall we also with him be manifested in glory”; Heb. 12:14, 23—“Follow after peace with all men, and the sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord ... spirits of just men made perfect”; 1 John 3:2—“Beloved, now are we children of God, and it is not yet made manifest what we shall be. We know that, if he shall be manifested, we shall be like him; for we shall see him even as he is”; Jude 24—“able to guard you from stumbling, and to set you before the presence of his glory without blemish in exceeding joy”; Rev. 14:5—“And in their mouth was found no lie: they are without blemish.”

A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 121, puts the completion of our sanctification, not at death, but at the appearing of the Lord “a second time, apart from sin, ... unto salvation”(Heb. 9:28; 1 Thess. 3:13; 5:23). When we shall see him as he is, instantaneous photographing of his image in our souls will take the place of the present slow progress from glory to glory (2 Cor. 3:18; 1 John 3:2). If by sanctification we mean, not a sloughing off of remaining depravity, but an ever increasing purity and perfection, then we may hold that the process of sanctification goes on forever. Our relation to Christ must always be that of the imperfect to the perfect, of the finite to the infinite; and for finite spirits, progress must always be possible. Clarke, Christian Theology, 373—“Not even at death can sanctification end.... The goal lies far beyond deliverance from sin.... There is no such thing as bringing the divine life to such completion that no further progress is possible to it.... Indeed, free and unhampered progress can scarcely begin until [pg 875]sin is left behind.” “O snows so pure, O peaks so high! I shall not reach you till I die!”

As Jesus' resurrection was prepared by holiness of life, so the Christian's resurrection is prepared by sanctification. When our souls are freed from the last remains of sin, then it will not be possible for us to be holden by death (cf. Acts 2:24). See Gordon, The Twofold Life, or Christ's Work for us and in us; Brit. and For. Evang. Rev., April, 1884:205-229; Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, 657-662.

3. Erroneous Views refuted by these Scripture Passages.

A. The Antinomian,—which holds that, since Christ's obedience and sufferings have satisfied the demands of the law, the believer is free from obligation to observe it.

The Antinomian view rests upon a misinterpretation of Rom. 6:14—“Ye are not under law, but under grace.” Agricola and Amsdorf (1559) were representatives of this view. Amsdorf said that “good works are hurtful to salvation.” But Melanchthon's words furnish the reply: “Sola fides justificat, sed fides non est sola.” F. W. Robertson states it: “Faith alone justifies, but not the faith that is alone.” And he illustrates: “Lightning alone strikes, but not the lightning which is without thunder; for that is summer lightning and harmless.” See Browning's poem, Johannes Agricola in Meditation, in Dramatis Personæ, 300—“I have God's warrant, Could I blend All hideous sins as in a cup, To drink the mingled venoms up, Secure my nature will convert The draught to blossoming gladness.” Agricola said that Moses ought to be hanged. This is Sanctification without Perseverance.

Sandeman, the founder of the sect called Sandemanians, asserted as his fundamental principle the deadliness of all doings, the necessity for inactivity to let God do his work in the soul. See his essay, Theron and Aspasia, referred to by Allen, in his Life of Jonathan Edwards, 114. Anne Hutchinson was excommunicated and banished by the Puritans from Massachusetts, in 1637, for holding “two dangerous errors: 1. The Holy Spirit personally dwells in a justified person; 2. No sanctification can evidence to us our justification.” Here the latter error almost destroyed the influence of the former truth. There is a little Antinomianism in the popular hymn: “Lay your deadly doings down, Down at Jesus' feet; Doing is a deadly thing; Doing ends in death.” The colored preacher's poetry only presented the doctrine in the concrete: “You may rip and te-yar, You may cuss and swe-yar, But you're jess as sure of heaven, 'S if you'd done gone de-yar.” Plain Andrew Fuller in England (1754-1815) did excellent service in overthrowing popular Antinomianism.

To this view we urge the following objections:

(a) That since the law is a transcript of the holiness of God, its demands as a moral rule are unchanging. Only as a system of penalty and a method of salvation is the law abolished in Christ's death.

Mat. 5:17-19—“Think not that I came to destroy the law or the prophets: I came not to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass away, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass away from the law, till all things be accomplished. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven”; 48—“Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect”; 1 Pet. 1:16—“Ye shall be holy; for I am holy”; Rom. 10:4—“For Christ is the end of the law unto righteousness to every one that believeth”; Gal. 2:20—“I have been crucified with Christ”; 3:13—“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us”; Col. 2:14—“having blotted out the bond written in ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us: and he hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to the cross”; Heb. 2:15—“deliver all them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”

(b) That the union between Christ and the believer secures not only the bearing of the penalty of the law by Christ, but also the impartation of Christ's spirit of obedience to the believer,—in other words, brings him into communion with Christ's work, and leads him to ratify it in his own experience.

Rom. 8:9, 10, 15—“ye are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you. But if any man hath not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but [pg 876]the spirit is life because of righteousness.... For ye received not the spirit of bondage again unto fear: but ye received the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father”; Gal. 5:22-25—“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, self-control; against such there is no law. And they that are of Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with the passions and the lusts thereof”; 1 John 1:6—“If we say that we have fellowship with him and walk in the darkness, we lie, and do not the truth”; 3:6—“Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither knoweth him.”

(c) That the freedom from the law of which the Scriptures speak, is therefore simply that freedom from the constraint and bondage of the law, which characterizes those who have become one with Christ by faith.

Ps. 119:97—“O how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day”; Rom. 3:8, 31—“and why not (as we are slanderously reported, and as some affirm that we say), Let us do evil, that good may come? whose condemnation is just.... Do we then make the law of none effect through faith? God forbid: nay, we establish the law”; 6:14, 15, 22—“For sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under law, but under grace. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? God forbid ... now being made free from sin and become servants to God, ye have your fruit unto sanctification, and the end eternal life”; 7:6—“But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that wherein we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter”; 8:4—“that the ordinance of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit”; 1 Cor. 7:22—“he that was called in the Lord being a bondservant, is the Lord's freedman”; Gal. 5:1—“For freedom did Christ set us free: stand fast therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke of bondage”; 1 Tim. 1:9—“law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and unruly”; James 1:25—“the perfect law, the law of liberty.”

To sum up the doctrine of Christian freedom as opposed to Antinomianism, we may say that Christ does not free us, as the Antinomian believes, from the law as a rule of life. But he does free us (1) from the law as a system of curse and penalty; this he does by bearing the curse and penalty himself. Christ frees us (2) from the law with its claims as a method of salvation; this he does by making his obedience and merits ours. Christ frees us (3) from the law as an outward and foreign compulsion; this he does by giving to us the spirit of obedience and sonship, by which the law is progressively realized within.

Christ, then, does not free us, as the Antinomian believes, from the law as a rule of life. But he does free us (1) from the law as a system of curse and penalty. This he does by bearing the curse and penalty himself. Just as law can do nothing with a man after it has executed its death-penalty upon him, so law can do nothing with us, now that its death-penalty has been executed upon Christ. There are some insects that expire in the act of planting their sting; and so, when the law gathered itself up and planted its sting in the heart of Christ, it expended all its power as a judge and avenger over us who believe. In the Cross, the law as a system of curse and penalty exhausted itself; so we were set free.

Christ frees us (2) from the law with its claims as a method of salvation: in other words, he frees us from the necessity of trusting our salvation to an impossible future obedience. As the sufferings of Christ, apart from any sufferings of ours, deliver us from eternal death, so the merits of Christ, apart from any merits of ours, give us a title to eternal life. By faith in what Christ has done and simple acceptance of his work for us, we secure a right to heaven. Obedience on our part is no longer rendered painfully, as if our salvation depended on it, but freely and gladly, in gratitude for what Christ has done for us. Illustrate by the English nobleman's invitation to his park, and the regulations he causes to be posted up.

Christ frees us (3) from the law as an outward and foreign compulsion. In putting an end to legalism, he provides against license. This he does by giving the spirit of obedience and sonship. He puts love in the place of fear; and this secures an obedience more intelligent, more thorough, and more hearty, than could have been secured by mere law. So he frees us from the burden and compulsion of the law, by realizing the law within us by his Spirit. The freedom of the Christian is freedom in the law, such as the musician experiences when the scales and exercises have become easy, and work has turned to play. See John Owen, Works, 3:366-651; 6:1-313; Campbell, The Indwelling Christ, 73-81.

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Gould, Bib. Theol. N. T., 195—“The supremacy of those books which contain the words of Jesus himself [i. e., the Synoptic Gospels] is that they incorporate, with the other elements of the religious life, the regulative will. Here for instance [in John] is the gospel of the contemplative life, which, ‘beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord is changed into the same image from glory to glory, as by the Spirit of the Lord’ (2 Cor. 3:18). The belief is that, with this beholding, life will take care of itself. Life will never take care of itself. Among other things, after the most perfect vision, it has to ask what aspirations, principles, affections, belong to life, and then to cultivate the will to embody these things. Here is the common defect of all religions. They fail to marry religion to the common life. Christ did not stop short of this final word; but if we leave him for even the greatest of his disciples, we are in danger of missing it.” This utterance of Gould is surprising in several ways. It attributes to John alone the contemplative attitude of mind, which the quotation given shows to belong also to Paul. It ignores the constant appeals in John to the will: “He that hath my commandments and keepeth them, he it is that loveth me”(John 14:21). It also forgets that “life” in John is the whole being, including intellect, affection, and will, and that to have Christ for one's life is absolutely to exclude Antinomianism.

B. The Perfectionist,—which holds that the Christian may, in this life, become perfectly free from sin. This view was held by John Wesley in England, and by Mahan and Finney in America.

Finney, Syst. Theol., 500, declares regeneration to be “an instantaneous change from entire sinfulness to entire holiness.” The claims of Perfectionists, however, have been modified from “freedom from all sin,” to “freedom from all known sin,” then to “entire consecration,” and finally to “Christian assurance.” H. W. Webb-Peploe, in S. S. Times, June 25, 1898—“The Keswick teaching is that no true Christian need wilfully or knowingly sin. Yet this is not sinless perfection. It is simply according to our faith that we receive, and faith only draws from God according to our present possibilities. These are limited by the presence of indwelling corruption; and, while never needing to sin within the sphere of the light we possess, there are to the last hour of our life upon the earth powers of corruption within every man, which defile his best deeds and give to even his holiest efforts that ‘nature of sin’ of which the 9th Article in the Church of England Prayerbook speaks so strongly.” Yet it is evident that this corruption is not regarded as real sin, and is called “nature of sin” only in some non-natural sense.

Dr. George Peck says: “In the life of the most perfect Christian there is every day renewed occasion for self-abhorrence, for repentance, for renewed application of the blood of Christ, for application of the rekindling of the Holy Spirit.” But why call this a state of perfection? F. B. Meyer: “We never say that self is dead; were we to do so, self would be laughing at us round the corner. The teaching of Romans 6 is, not that self is dead, but that the renewed will is dead to self, the man's will saying Yes to Christ, and No to self; through the Spirit's grace it constantly repudiates and mortifies the power of the flesh.” For statements of the Perfectionist view, see John Wesley's Christian Theology, edited by Thornley Smith, 265-273; Mahan, Christian Perfection, and art. in Bib. Repos. 2d Series, vol. IV, Oct. 1840:408-428; Finney, Systematic Theology, 586-766; Peck, Christian Perfection; Ritschl, Bib. Sac., Oct. 1878:656; A. T. Pierson, The Keswick Movement.

In reply, it will be sufficient to observe:

(a) That the theory rests upon false conceptions: first, of the law,—as a sliding-scale of requirement graduated to the moral condition of creatures, instead of being the unchangeable reflection of God's holiness; secondly, of sin,—as consisting only in voluntary acts instead of embracing also those dispositions and states of the soul which are not conformed to the divine holiness; thirdly, of the human will,—as able to choose God supremely and persistently at every moment of life, and to fulfil at every moment the obligations resting upon it, instead of being corrupted and enslaved by the Fall.

This view reduces the debt to the debtor's ability to pay,—a short and easy method of discharging obligations. I can leap over a church steeple, if I am only permitted to [pg 878]make the church steeple low enough; and I can touch the stars, if the stars will only come down to my hand. The Philistines are quite equal to Samson, if they may only cut off Samson's locks. So I can obey God's law, if I may only make God's law what I want it to be. The fundamental error of perfectionism is its low view of God's law; the second is its narrow conception of sin. John Wesley: “I believe a person filled with love of God is still liable to involuntary transgressions. Such transgressions you may call sins, if you please; I do not.” The third error of perfectionism is its exaggerated estimate of man's power of contrary choice. To say that, whatever may have been the habits of the past and whatever may be the evil affections of the present, a man is perfectly able at any moment to obey the whole law of God, is to deny that there are such things as character and depravity. Finney, Gospel Themes, 383, indeed, disclaimed “all expectations of attaining this state ourselves, and by our own independent, unaided efforts.” On the Law of God, see pages 537-544.

Augustine: “Every lesser good has an essential element of sin.” Anything less than the perfection that belongs normally to my present stage of development is a coming short of the law's demand. R. W. Dale, Fellowship with Christ, 359—“For us and in this world, the divine is always the impossible. Give me a law for individual conduct which requires a perfection that is within my reach, and I am sure that the law does not represent the divine thought. ‘Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect: but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus’ (Phil. 3:12)—this, from the beginning, has been the confession of saints.” The Perfectionist is apt to say that we must “take Christ twice, once for justification and once for sanctification.”But no one can take Christ for justification without at the same time taking him for sanctification. Dr. A. A. Hodge calls this doctrine “Neonomianism,”because it holds not to one unchanging, ideal, and perfect law of God, but to a second law given to human weakness when the first law has failed to secure obedience.

(1) The law of God demands perfection. It is a transcript of God's nature. Its object is to reveal God. Anything less than the demand of perfection would misrepresent God. God could not give a law which a sinner could obey. In the very nature of the case there can be no sinlessness in this life for those who have once sinned. Sin brings incapacity as well as guilt. All men have squandered a part of the talent intrusted to them by God, and therefore no man can come up to the demands of that law which requires all that God gave to humanity at its creation together with interest on the investment. (2) Even the best Christian comes short of perfection. Regeneration makes only the dominant disposition holy. Many affections still remain unholy and require to be cleansed. Only by lowering the demands of the law, making shallow our conceptions of sin, and mistaking temporary volition for permanent bent of the will, can we count ourselves to be perfect. (3) Absolute perfection is attained not in this world but in the world to come. The best Christians count themselves still sinners, strive most earnestly for holiness, have imputed but not inherent sanctification, are saved by hope.

(b) That the theory finds no support in, but rather is distinctly contradicted by, Scripture.

First, the Scriptures never assert or imply that the Christian may in this life live without sin; passages like 1 John 3:6, 9, if interpreted consistently with the context, set forth either the ideal standard of Christian living or the actual state of the believer so far as respects his new nature.

1 John 3:6—“Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not; whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither knoweth him”; 9—“Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin, because his seed abideth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is begotten of God.” Ann. Par. Bible, in loco:—“John is contrasting the states in which sin and grace severally predominate, without reference to degrees in either, showing that all men are in one or the other.” Neander: “John recognizes no intermediate state, no gradations. He seizes upon the radical point of difference. He contrasts the two states in their essential nature and principle. It is either love or hate, light or darkness, truth or a lie. The Christian life in its essential nature is the opposite of all sin. If there be sin, it must be the afterworking of the old nature.” Yet all Christians are required in Scripture to advance, to confess sin, to ask forgiveness, to maintain warfare, to assume the attitude of ill desert in prayer, to receive chastisement for the removal of imperfections, to regard full salvation as matter of hope, not of present experience.

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John paints only in black and white; there are no intermediate tints or colors. Take the words in 1 John 3:6 literally, and there never was and never can be a regenerate person. The words are hyperbolical, as Paul's words in Rom. 6:2—“We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein”—are metaphorical; see E. H. Johnson, in Bib. Sac., 1892:375, note. The Emperor William refused the request for an audience prepared by a German-American, saying that Germans born in Germany but naturalized in America became Americans: “Ich kenne Amerikaner, Ich kenne Deutsche, aber Deutsch-Amerikaner kenne Ich nicht”—“I know Americans, I know Germans, but German-Americans I do not know.”

Lowrie, Doctrine of St. John, 110—“St. John uses the noun sin and the verb to sin in two senses: to denote the power or principle of sin, or to denote concrete acts of sin. The latter sense he generally expresses by the plural sins.... The Christian is guilty of particular acts of sin for which confession and forgiveness are required, but as he has been freed from the bondage of sin he cannot habitually practise it nor abide in it, still less can he be guilty of sin in its superlative form, by denial of Christ.”

Secondly, the apostolic admonitions to the Christians and Hebrews show that no such state of complete sanctification had been generally attained by the Christians of the first century.

Rom. 8:24—“For in hope were we saved: but hope that is seen is not hope: for who hopeth for that which he seeth?”The party feeling, selfishness, and immorality found among the members of the Corinthian church are evidence that they were far from a state of entire sanctification.

Thirdly, there is express record of sin committed by the most perfect characters of Scripture—as Noah, Abraham, Job, David, Peter.

We are urged by perfectionists “to keep up the standard.” We do this, not by calling certain men perfect, but by calling Jesus Christ perfect. In proportion to our sanctification, we are absorbed in Christ, not in ourselves. Self-consciousness and display are a poor evidence of sanctification. The best characters of Scripture put their trust in a standard higher than they have ever realized in their own persons, even in the righteousness of God.

Fourthly, the word τέλειος, as applied to spiritual conditions already attained, can fairly be held to signify only a relative perfection, equivalent to sincere piety or maturity of Christian judgment.

1 Cor. 2:6—“We speak wisdom, however, among the perfect,” or, as the Am. Revisers have it, “among them that are fullgrown”; Phil. 3:15—“Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded.” Men are often called perfect, when free from any fault which strikes the eyes of the world. See Gen. 6:9—“Noah was a righteous man, and perfect”; Job 1:1—“that man was perfect and upright.” On τέλειος, see Trench, Syn. N. T., 1:110.

The τέλειοι are described in Heb. 5:14—“Solid food is for the mature (τελείων) who on account of habit have their perceptions disciplined for the discriminating of good and evil” (Dr. Kendrick's translation). The same word “perfect” is used of Jacob in Gen. 25:27—“Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents” = a harmless man, exemplary and well-balanced, as a man of business. Genung, Epic of the Inner Life, 132—“'Perfect' in Job = Horace's ‘integer vitæ,’ being the adjective of which ‘integrity’ is the substantive.”

Fifthly, the Scriptures distinctly deny that any man on earth lives without sin.

1 K. 8:46—“there is no man that sinneth not”; Eccl. 7:20—“Surely there is not a righteous man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not”; James 3:2—“For in many things we all stumble. If any stumbleth not in word, the same is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also”; 1 John 1:8—“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”

T. T. Eaton, Sanctification: “1. Some mistake regeneration for sanctification. They have been unconverted church members. When led to faith in Christ, and finding peace and joy, they think they are sanctified, when they are simply converted. 2. Some mistake assurance of faith for sanctification. But joy is not sanctification. 3. Some mistake the baptism of the Holy Spirit for sanctification. But Peter sinned grievously at Antioch, after he had received that baptism. 4. Some think that doing the best one can is sanctification. But he who measures by inches, for feet, can measure up well. [pg 880]Some regard sin as only a voluntary act, whereas the sinful nature is the fountain. Stripping off the leaves of the Upas tree does not answer. 6. Some mistake the power of the human will, and fancy that an act of will can free a man from sin. They ignore the settled bent of the will, which the act of will does not change.”

Sixthly, the declaration: “ye were sanctified” (1 Cor. 6:11), and the designation: “saints” (1 Cor. 1:2), applied to early believers, are, as the whole epistle shows, expressive of a holiness existing in germ and anticipation; the expressions deriving their meaning not so much from what these early believers were, as from what Christ was, to whom they were united by faith.

When N. T. believers are said to be “sanctified,” we must remember the O. T. use of the word. “Sanctify” may have either the meaning “to make holy outwardly,” or “to make holy inwardly.” The people of Israel and the vessels of the tabernacle were made holy in the former sense; their sanctification was a setting apart to the sacred use. Num. 8:17—“all the firstborn among the children of Israel are mine.... I sanctified them for myself”; Deut. 33:3—“Yea, he loveth the people; all his saints are in thy hand”; 2 Chron. 29:19—“all the vessels ... have we prepared and sanctified.” The vessels mentioned were first immersed, and then sprinkled from day to day according to need. So the Christian by his regeneration is set apart for God's service, and in this sense is a “saint” and “sanctified.” More than this, he has in him the beginnings of purity,—he is “clean as a whole,” though he yet needs “to wash his feet” (John 13:10)—that is, to be cleansed from the recurring defilements of his daily life. Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:551—“The error of the Perfectionist is that of confounding imputed sanctification with inherent sanctification. It is the latter which is mentioned in 1 Cor. 1:30—‘Christ Jesus, who was made unto us ... sanctification.’ ”

Water from the Jordan is turbid, but it settles in the bottle and seems pure—until it is shaken. Some Christians seem very free from sin, until you shake them,—then they get “riled.” Clarke, Christian Theology, 871—“Is there not a higher Christian life? Yes, and a higher life beyond it, and a higher still beyond. The Christian life is ever higher and higher. It must pass through all stages between its beginning and its perfection.”C. D. Case: “The great objection to [this theory of] complete sanctification is that, if possessed at all, it is not a development of our own character.”

(c) That the theory is disapproved by the testimony of Christian experience.—In exact proportion to the soul's advance in holiness does it shrink from claiming that holiness has been already attained, and humble itself before God for its remaining apathy, ingratitude, and unbelief.

Phil. 3:12-14—“Not that I have already obtained, or am already made perfect: but I press on, if so be that I may lay hold on that for which also I was laid hold on by Christ Jesus.” Some of the greatest advocates of perfectionism have been furthest from claiming any such perfection; although many of their less instructed followers claimed it for them, and even professed to have attained it themselves.

In Luke 7:1-10, the centurion does not think himself worthy to go to Jesus, or to have him come under his roof, yet the elders of the Jews say: “He is worthy that thou shouldest do this”; and Jesus himself says of him: “I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.” “Holy to Jehovah”was inscribed upon the mitre of the high priest (Ex. 28:36). Others saw it, but he saw it not. Moses knew not that his face shone (Ex. 34:29). The truest holiness is that of which the possessor is least conscious; yet it is his real diadem and beauty (A. J. Gordon). “The nearer men are to being sinless, the less they talk about it” (Dwight L. Moody). “Always strive for perfection: never believe you have reached it” (Arnold of Rugby). Compare with this, Ernest Renan's declaration that he had nothing to alter in his life. “I have not sinned for some time,” said a woman to Mr. Spurgeon. “Then you must be very proud of it,” he replied. “Indeed I am!” said she. A pastor says: “No one can attain the ‘Higher Life,’ and escape making mischief.” John Wesley lamented that not one in thirty retained the blessing.

Perfectionism is best met by proper statements of the nature of the law and of sin (Ps. 119:96). While we thus rebuke spiritual pride, however, we should be equally careful to point out the inseparable connection between justification and sanctification, and their equal importance as together making [pg 881] up the Biblical idea of salvation. While we show no favor to those who would make sanctification a sudden and paroxysmal act of the human will, we should hold forth the holiness of God as the standard of attainment, and the faith in a Christ of infinite fulness as the medium through which that standard is to be gradually but certainly realized in us (2 Cor. 3:18).

We should imitate Lyman Beecher's method of opposing perfectionism—by searching expositions of God's law. When men know what the law is, they will say with the Psalmist: “I have seen an end of all perfection; thy commandment is exceeding broad” (Ps. 119:96). And yet we are earnestly and hopefully to seek in Christ for a continually increasing measure of sanctification: 1 Cor. 1:30—“Christ Jesus, who was made unto us ... sanctification”; 2 Cor. 3:18—“But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit.” Arnold of Rugby: “Always expect to succeed, and never think you have succeeded.”

Mr. Finney meant by entire sanctification only that it is possible for Christians in this life by the grace of God to consecrate themselves so unreservedly to his service as to live without conscious and wilful disobedience to the divine commands. He did not claim himself to have reached this point; he made at times very impressive confessions of his own sinfulness; he did not encourage others to make for themselves the claim to have lived without conscious fault. He held however that such a state is attainable, and therefore that its pursuit is rational. He also admitted that such a state is one, not of absolute, but only of relative, sinlessness. His error was in calling it a state of entire sanctification. See A. H. Strong, Christ in Creation, 377-384.

A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 116—“It is possible that one may experience a great crisis in his spiritual life, in which there is such a total surrender of self to God and such an infilling of the Holy Spirit, that he is freed from the bondage of sinful appetites and habits, and enabled to have constant victory over self instead of suffering constant defeat.... If the doctrine of sinless perfection is a heresy, the doctrine of contentment with sinful imperfection is a greater heresy.... It is not an edifying spectacle to see a Christian worldling throwing stones at a Christian perfectionist.”Caird, Evolution of Religion, 1:138—“If, according to the German proverb, it is provided that the trees shall not grow into the sky, it is equally provided that they shall always grow toward it; and the sinking of the roots into the soil is inevitably accompanied by a further expansion of the branches.”

See Hovey, Doctrine of the Higher Christian Life, Compared with Scripture, also Hovey, Higher Christian Life Examined, in Studies in Ethics and Theology, 344-427; Snodgrass, Scriptural Doctrine of Sanctification; Princeton Essays, 1:335-365; Hodge, Syst. Theol., 3:213-258; Calvin, Institutes, III, 11:6; Bib. Repos., 2d Series, 1:44-58; 2:143-166; Woods, Works, 4:465-523; H. A. Boardman, The “Higher Life” Doctrine of Sanctification; William Law, Practical Treatise on Christian Perfection; E. H. Johnson, The Highest Life.

II. Perseverance.

The Scriptures declare that, in virtue of the original purpose and continuous operation of God, all who are united to Christ by faith will infallibly continue in a state of grace and will finally attain to everlasting life. This voluntary continuance, on the part of the Christian, in faith and well-doing we call perseverance. Perseverance is, therefore, the human side or aspect of that spiritual process which, as viewed from the divine side, we call sanctification. It is not a mere natural consequence of conversion, but involves a constant activity of the human will from the moment of conversion to the end of life.

Adam's holiness was mutable; God did not determine to keep him. It is otherwise with believers in Christ; God has determined to give them the kingdom (Luke 12:32). Yet this keeping by God, which we call sanctification, is accompanied and followed by a keeping of himself on the part of the believer, which we call perseverance. The former is alluded to in John 17:11, 12—“keep them in thy name.... I kept them in thy name.... I guarded them, and not one of them perished, but the son of perdition”; the latter is alluded to in 1 John 5:18—“he that was [pg 882]begotten of God keepeth himself.” Both are expressed in Jude 21, 24—“Keep yourselves in the love of God.... Now unto him that is able to guard you from stumbling...”

A German treatise on Pastoral Theology is entitled: “Keep What Thou Hast”—an allusion to 2 Tim. 1:14—“That good thing which was committed unto thee guard through the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in us.” Not only the pastor, but every believer, has a charge to keep; and the keeping of ourselves is as important a point of Christian doctrine as is the keeping of God. Both are expressed in the motto: Teneo, Teneor—the motto on the front of the Y. M. C. A. building in Boston, underneath a stone cross, firmly clasped by two hands. The colored preacher said that “Perseverance means: 1. Take hold; 2. Hold on; 3. Never let go.”

Physically, intellectually, morally, spiritually, there is need that we persevere. Paul, in 1 Cor. 9:27, declares that he smites his body under the eye and makes a slave of it, lest after having preached to others he himself should be rejected; and in 2 Tim. 4:7, at the end of his career, he rejoices that he has “kept the faith.” A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 115—“The Christian is as ‘a tree planted by the streams of water, that bringeth forth its fruit in its season’ (Ps. 1:3), but to conclude that his growth will be as irresistible as that of the tree, coming as a matter of course simply because he has by regeneration been planted in Christ, is a grave mistake. The disciple is required to be consciously and intelligently active in his own growth, as the tree is not, ‘to give all diligence to make his calling and election sure’(2 Pet. 1:10) by surrendering himself to the divine action.” Clarke, Christian Theology, 379—“Man is able to fall, and God is able to keep him from falling; and through the various experiences of life God will so save his child out of all evil that he will be morally incapable of falling.”

1. Proof of the Doctrine of Perseverance.

A. From Scripture.

John 10:28, 29—“they shall never perish, and no one shall snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who hath given them unto me, is greater than all; and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand”; Rom. 11:29—“For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance”; 1 Cor. 13:7—“endureth all things”; cf. 13—“But now abideth faith, hope, love”; Phil. 1:6—“being confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ”; 2 Thess. 3:3—“But the Lord is faithful, who shall establish you, and guard you from the evil one”; 2 Tim. 1:12—“I know him whom I have believed, and I am persuaded that he is able to guard that which I have committed unto him against that day”; 1 Pet. 1:5—“who by the power of God are guarded through faith unto a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time”; Rev. 3:10—“Because thou didst keep the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of trial, that hour which is to come upon the whole world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.”

2 Tim. 1:12—τὴν παραθήκην μου—Ellicott translates: “the trust committed to me,” or “my deposit”= the office of preaching the gospel, the stewardship entrusted to the apostle; cf. 1 Tim. 6:20—“O Timothy, keep thy deposit”—τὴν παραθήκην; and 2 Tim. 1:14—“Keep the good deposit”—where the deposit seems to be the faith or doctrine delivered to him to preach. Nicoll, The Church's One Foundation, 211—“Some Christians waken each morning with a creed of fewer articles, and those that remain they are ready to surrender to a process of argument that convinces them. But it is a duty to keep. ‘Ye have an anointing from the Holy One, and ye know’ (1 John 2:20).... Ezra gave to his men a treasure of gold and silver and sacrificial vessels, and he charged them: ‘Watch ye, and keep them, until ye weigh them ... in thy chambers of the house of Jehovah’ (Ezra 8:29).” See in the Autobiography of C. H. Spurgeon, 1:225, 256, the outline of a sermon on John 6:37—“All that which the Father giveth me shall come unto me; and him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” Mr. Spurgeon remarks that this text can give us no comfort unless we see: 1. that God has given us his Holy Spirit; 2. that we have given ourselves to him. Christ will not cast us out because of our great sins, our long delays, our trying other saviors, our hardness of heart, our little faith, our poor dull prayers, our unbelief, our inveterate corruptions, our frequent backslidings, nor finally because every one else passes us by.

B. From Reason.

(a) It is a necessary inference from other doctrines,—such as election, union with Christ, regeneration, justification, sanctification.

Election of certain individuals to salvation is election to bestow upon them such influences of the Spirit as will lead them not only to accept Christ, but to persevere and be saved. Union with Christ is indissoluble; regeneration is the beginning of a work of new creation, which is declared in justification, and completed in sanctification. All [pg 883]these doctrines are parts of a general scheme, which would come to naught if any single Christian were permitted to fall away.

(b) It accords with analogy,—God's preserving care being needed by, and being granted to, his spiritual, as well as his natural, creation.

As natural life cannot uphold itself, but we “live, and move, and have our being” in God (Acts 17:28), so spiritual life cannot uphold itself, and God maintains the faith, love, and holy activity which he has originated. If he preserves our natural life, much more may we expect him to preserve the spiritual. 1 Tim. 6:13—“I charge thee before God who preserveth all things alive” (R. V. marg.)—ζωογονοῦντος τὰ πάντα = the great Preserver of all enables us to persist in our Christian course.

(c) It is implied in all assurance of salvation,—since this assurance is given by the Holy Spirit, and is based not upon the known strength of human resolution, but upon the purpose and operation of God.

S. R. Mason: “If Satan and Adam both fell away from perfect holiness, it is a million to one that, in a world full of temptations and with all appetites and habits against me, I shall fall away from imperfect holiness, unless God by his almighty power keep me.”It is in the power and purpose of God, then, that the believer puts his trust. But since this trust is awakened by the Holy Spirit, it must be that there is a divine fact corresponding to it; namely, God's purpose to exert his power in such a way that the Christian shall persevere. See Wardlaw, Syst. Theol., 2:550-578; N. W. Taylor, Revealed Theology, 445-460.

Job 6:11—“What is my strength, that I should wait? And what is mine end, that I should be patient?” “Here is a note of self-distrust. To be patient without any outlook, to endure without divine support—Job does not promise it, and he trembles at the prospect; but none the less he sets his feet on the toilsome way” (Genung). Dr. Lyman Beecher was asked whether he believed in the perseverance of the saints. He replied: “I do, except when the wind is from the East.” But the value of the doctrine is that we can believe it even when the wind is from the East. It is well to hold on to God's hand, but it is better to have God's hand hold on to us. When we are weak, and forgetful and asleep, we need to be sure of God's care. Like the child who thought he was driving, but who found, after the trouble was over, that his father after all had been holding the reins, we too find when danger comes that behind our hands are the hands of God. The Perseverance of the Saints, looked at from the divine side, is the Preservation of the Saints, and the hymn that expresses the Christian's faith is the hymn: “How firm a foundation, ye saints of the Lord, Is laid for your faith in his excellent word!”

2. Objections to the Doctrine of Perseverance.

These objections are urged chiefly by Arminians and by Romanists.

A. That it is inconsistent with human freedom.—Answer: It is no more so than is the doctrine of Election or the doctrine of Decrees.

The doctrine is simply this, that God will bring to bear such influences upon all true believers, that they will freely persevere. Moule, Outlines of Christian Doctrine, 47—“Is grace, in any sense of the word, ever finally withdrawn? Yes, if by grace is meant any free gift of God tending to salvation; or, more specially, any action of the Holy Spirit tending in its nature thither.... But if by grace be meant the dwelling and working of Christ in the truly regenerate, there is no indication in Scripture of the withdrawal of it.”

B. That it tends to immorality.—Answer: This cannot be, since the doctrine declares that God will save men by securing their perseverance in holiness.

2 Tim. 2:19—“Howbeit the firm foundation of God standeth, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his: and, Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness”; that is, the temple of Christian character has upon its foundation two significant inscriptions, the one declaring God's power, wisdom, and purpose of salvation; the other declaring the purity and holy activity, on the part of the believer, through which God's purpose is to be fulfilled; [pg 884] 1 Pet. 1:1, 2—“elect ... according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, in sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ”; 2 Pet. 1:10, 11—“Wherefore, brethren, give the more diligence to make your calling and election sure: for if ye do these things, ye shall never stumble: for thus shall be richly supplied unto you the entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.”

C. That it leads to indolence.—Answer: This is a perversion of the doctrine, continuously possible only to the unregenerate; since, to the regenerate, certainty of success is the strongest incentive to activity in the conflict with sin.

1 John 5:4—“For whatsoever is begotten of God overcometh the world; and this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our faith.” It is notoriously untrue that confidence of success inspires timidity or indolence. Thomas Fuller: “Your salvation is his business; his service your business.” The only prayers God will answer are those we ourselves cannot answer. For the very reason that “it is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good pleasure,” the apostle exhorts: “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling” (Phil. 2:12, 13).

D. That the Scripture commands to persevere and warnings against apostasy show that certain, even of the regenerate, will fall away.—Answer:

(a) They show that some, who are apparently regenerate, will fall away.

Mat. 18:7—“Woe unto the world because of occasions of stumbling! for it must needs be that the occasions come; but woe to that man through whom the occasion cometh”; 1 Cor. 11:19—“For there must be also factions [lit. ‘heresies’] among you, that they that are approved may be made manifest among you”; 1 John 2:19—“They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they all are not of us.” Judas probably experienced strong emotions, and received strong impulses toward good, under the influence of Christ. The only falling from grace which is recognized in Scripture is not the falling of the regenerate, but the falling of the unregenerate, from influences tending to lead them to Christ. The Rabbins said that a drop of water will suffice to purify a man who has accidentally touched a creeping thing, but an ocean will not suffice for his cleansing so long as he purposely keeps the creeping thing in his hand.

(b) They show that the truly regenerate, and those who are only apparently so, are not certainly distinguishable in this life.

Mal. 3:18—“Then shall ye return and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not”; Mat. 13:25, 47—“while men slept, his enemy came and sowed tares also among the wheat, and went away.... Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind”; Rom. 9:6, 7—“For they are not all Israel, that are of Israel: neither, because they are Abraham's seed, are they all children”; Rev. 3:1—“I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and thou art dead.” The tares were never wheat, and the bad fish never were good, in spite of the fact that their true nature was not for a while recognized.

(c) They show the fearful consequences of rejecting Christ, to those who have enjoyed special divine influences, but who are only apparently regenerate.

Heb. 10:26-29—“For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more a sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful expectation of judgment, and a fierceness of fire which shall devour the adversaries. A man that hath set at nought Moses' law dieth without compassion on the word of two or three witnesses: of how much sorer punishment, think ye, shall he be judged worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?” Here “sanctified” = external sanctification, like that of the ancient Israelites, by outward connection with God's people; cf. 1 Cor. 7:14—“the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife.”

In considering these and the following Scripture passages, much will depend upon our view of inspiration. If we hold that Christ's promise was fulfilled and that his apostles were led into all the truth, we shall assume that there is unity in their teaching, and shall recognize in their variations only aspects and applications of the teaching of our Lord; in other words, Christ's doctrine in John 10:28, 29 will be the norm for the [pg 885]interpretation of seemingly diverse and at first sight inconsistent passages. There was a “faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints,” and for this primitive faith we are exhorted “to contend earnestly” (Jude 3).

(d) They show what the fate of the truly regenerate would be, in case they should not persevere.

Heb. 6:4-6—“For as touching those who were once enlightened and tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Spirit, and tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, and then fell away, it is impossible to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame.” This is to be understood as a hypothetical case,—as is clear from verse 9 which follows: “But, beloved, we are persuaded better things of you, and things which accompany salvation, though we thus speak.” Dr. A. C. Kendrick, Com. in loco: “In the phrase ‘once enlightened,’ the ‘once’ is ἅπαξ = once for all. The text describes a condition subjectively possible, and therefore needing to be held up in earnest warning to the believer, while objectively and in the absolute purpose of God, it never occurs.... If passages like this teach the possibility of falling from grace, they teach also the impossibility of restoration to it. The saint who once apostatizes has apostatized forever.” So Ez. 18:24—“when the righteous turneth away from his righteousness, and committeth iniquity ... in them shall he die”; 2 Pet. 2:20—“For if, after they have escaped the defilements of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled therein and overcome, the last state is become worse with them than the first.” So, in Mat. 5:13—“if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted?”—if this teaches that the regenerate may lose their religion, it also teaches that they can never recover it. It really shows only that Christians who do not perform their proper functions as Christians become harmful and contemptible (Broadus, in loco).

(e) They show that the perseverance of the truly regenerate may be secured by these very commands and warnings.

1 Cor. 9:27—“I buffet my body, and bring it into bondage: lest by any means, after that I have preached to others, I myself should be rejected”—or, to bring out the meaning more fully: “I beat my body blue [or, ‘strike it under the eye’], and make it a slave, lest after having been a herald to others, I myself should be rejected” (“unapproved,” “counted unworthy of the prize”); 10:12—“Wherefore let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.” Quarles, Emblems: “The way to be safe is never to be secure.” Wrightnour: “Warning a traveler to keep a certain path, and by this means keeping him in that path, is no evidence that he will ever fall into a pit by the side of the path simply because he is warned of it.”

(f) They do not show that it is certain, or possible, that any truly regenerate person will fall away.

The Christian is like a man making his way up-hill, who occasionally slips back, yet always has his face set toward the summit. The unregenerate man has his face turned downwards, and he is slipping all the way. C. H. Spurgeon: “The believer, like a man on shipboard, may fall again and again on the deck, but he will never fall overboard.”

E. That we have actual examples of such apostasy.—We answer:

(a) Such are either men once outwardly reformed, like Judas and Ananias, but never renewed in heart;

But, per contra, instance the experience of a man in typhoid fever, who apparently repented, but who never remembered it when he was restored to health. Sick-bed and death-bed conversions are not the best. There was one penitent thief, that none might despair; there was but one penitent thief, that none might presume. The hypocrite is like the wire that gets a second-hand electricity from the live wire running parallel with it. This second-hand electricity is effective only within narrow limits, and its efficacy is soon exhausted. The live wire has connection with the source of power in the dynamo.

(b) Or they are regenerate men, who, like David and Peter, have fallen into temporary sin, from which they will, before death, be reclaimed by God's discipline.

Instance the young profligate who, in a moment of apparent drowning, repented, was then rescued, and afterward lived a long life as a Christian. If he had not been [pg 886]rescued, his repentance would never have been known, nor the answer to his mother's prayers. So, in the moment of a backslider's death, God can renew repentance and faith. Cromwell on his death-bed questioned his Chaplain as to the doctrine of final perseverance, and, on being assured that it was a certain truth, said: “Then I am happy, for I am sure that I was once in a state of grace.” But reliance upon a past experience is like trusting in the value of a policy of life insurance upon which several years' premiums have been unpaid. If the policy has not lapsed, it is because of extreme grace. The only conclusive evidence of perseverance is a present experience of Christ's presence and indwelling, corroborated by active service and purity of life.

On the general subject, see Edwards, Works, 3:509-532, and 4:104; Ridgeley, Body of Divinity, 2:164-194; John Owen, Works, vol. 11; Woods, Works, 3:221-246; Van Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, 662-666.

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