Chapter XIV: Section III: The Application Of Christ’s Redemption In Its Continuation (1)

Under this head we treat of Sanctification and of Perseverance. These two are but the divine and the human sides of the same fact, and they bear to each other a relation similar to that which exists between Regeneration and Conversion.

I. Sanctification.

1. Definition of Sanctification.

Sanctification is that continuous operation of the Holy Spirit, by which the holy disposition imparted in regeneration is maintained and strengthened.

Godet: “The work of Jesus in the world is twofold. It is a work
accomplished _for us_, destined to effect _reconciliation_ between
God and man; it is a work accomplished _in us_, with the object of
effecting our _sanctification_. By the one, a right _relation_ is
established between God and us; by the other, the _fruit_ of the
reëstablished order is secured. By the former, the condemned
sinner is received into the state of grace; by the latter, the
pardoned sinner is associated with the life of God.... How many
express themselves as if, when forgiveness with the peace which it
procures has been once obtained, all is finished and the work of
salvation is complete! They seem to have no suspicion that
salvation consists in the health of the soul, and that the health
of the soul consists in holiness. Forgiveness is not the
reëstablishment of health; it is the crisis of convalescence. If
God thinks fit to declare the sinner righteous, it is in order
that he may by that means restore him to holiness.” O. P. Gifford:
“The steamship whose machinery is broken may be brought into port
and made fast to the dock. She is _safe_, but not _sound_. Repairs
may last a long time. Christ designs to make us both safe and
sound. Justification gives the first—safety; sanctification gives
the second—soundness.”

Bradford, Heredity and Christian Problems, 220—“To be conscious
that one is forgiven, and yet that at the same time he is so
polluted that he cannot beget a child without handing on to that
child a nature which will be as bad as if his father had never
been forgiven, is not salvation in any _real_ sense.” We would
say: Is not salvation in any _complete_ sense. Justification needs
sanctification to follow it. Man needs God to continue and
preserve his spiritual life, just as much as he needed God to
begin it at the first. Creation in the spiritual, as well as in
the natural world, needs to be supplemented by preservation; see
quotation from Jonathan Edwards, in Allen’s biography of him, 371.

Regeneration is instantaneous, but sanctification takes time. The
“developing” of the photographer’s picture may illustrate God’s
process of sanctifying the regenerate soul. But it is development
by new access of truth or light, while the photographer’s picture
is usually developed in the dark. This development cannot be
accomplished in a moment. “We try in our religious lives to
practise instantaneous photography. One minute for prayer will
give us a vision of God, and we think that is enough. Our pictures
are poor because our negatives are weak. We do not give God a long
enough sitting to get a good likeness.”

Salvation is something past, something present, and something
future; a past fact, justification; a present process,
sanctification; a future consummation, redemption and glory.
David, in Ps. 51:1, 2, prays not only that God will blot out his
transgressions (justification), but that God will wash him
thoroughly from his iniquity (sanctification). E. G. Robinson:
“Sanctification consists _negatively_, in the removal of the penal
consequences of sin from the moral nature; _positively_, in the
progressive implanting and growth of a new principle of life....
The Christian church is a succession of copies of the character of
Christ. Paul never says: ‘_be ye imitators of me_’ (_1 Cor.
4:16_), except when writing to those who had no copies of the New
Testament or of the Gospels.”

Clarke, Christian Theology, 366—“Sanctification does not mean
perfection reached, but the progress of the divine life toward
perfection. Sanctification is the Christianizing of the
Christian.” It is not simply deliverance from the penalty of sin,
but the development of a divine life that conquers sin. A. A.
Hodge, Popular Lectures, 343—“Any man who thinks he is a
Christian, and that he has accepted Christ for justification, when
he did not at the same time accept him for sanctification, is
miserably deluded in that very experience.”

This definition implies:

(_a_) That, although in regeneration the governing disposition of the soul is made holy, there still remain tendencies to evil which are unsubdued.

_John 13:10_—“_He that is bathed needeth not save to wash his
feet, but is clean every whit_ [_i. e._, as a whole]”; _Rom.
6:12_—“_Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye
should obey the lusts thereof_”—sin _dwells_ in a believer, but it
_reigns_ in an unbeliever (C. H. M.). Subordinate volitions in the
Christian are not always determined in character by the
fundamental choice; eddies in the stream sometimes run counter to
the general course of the current.

This doctrine is the opposite of that expressed in the phrase:
“the essential divinity of the human.” Not culture, but
crucifixion, is what the Holy Spirit prescribes for the natural
man. There are two natures in the Christian, as Paul shows in
_Romans 7_. The one flourishes at the other’s expense. The vine
dresser has to cut the rank shoots from self, that all our force
may be thrown into growing fruit. Deadwood must be cut out; living
wood must be cut back (_John 15:2_). Sanctification is not a
matter of course, which will go on whatever we do, or do not do.
It requires a direct superintendence and surgery on the one hand,
and, on the other hand a practical hatred of evil on our part that
coöperates with the husbandry of God.

(_b_) That the existence in the believer of these two opposing principles gives rise to a conflict which lasts through life.

_Gal. 5:17_—“_For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the
Spirit against the flesh; for these are contrary the one to the
other; that ye may not do the things that ye would_”—not, as the
A. V. had it, “_so that ye cannot do the things that ye would_”;
the Spirit who dwells in believers is represented as enabling them
successfully to resist those tendencies to evil which naturally
exist within them; _James 4:5_ (the marginal and better
reading)—“_That spirit which he made to dwell in us yearneth for
us even unto jealous envy_”—_i. e._, God’s love, like all true
love, longs to have its objects wholly for its own. The Christian
is two men in one; but he is to “_put away the old man_” and “_put
on the new man_” (_Eph. 4:22, 23_). Compare Ecclesiasticus 2:1—“My
son, if thou dost set out to serve the Lord, prepare thy soul for
temptation.”

_1 Tim. 6:12_—“_fight the good fight of the faith_”—ἀγωνίζου τὸν
καλὸν ἀγῶνα τῆς πίστεως = the beautiful, honorable, glorious
fight; since it has a noble helper, incentive, and reward. It is
the commonest of all struggles, but the issue determines our
destiny. An Indian received as a gift some tobacco in which he
found a half dollar hidden. He brought it back next day, saying
that good Indian had fought all night with bad Indian, one telling
him to keep, the other telling him to return.

(_c_) That in this conflict the Holy Spirit enables the Christian, through increasing faith, more fully and consciously to appropriate Christ, and thus progressively to make conquest of the remaining sinfulness of his nature.

_Rom. 8:13, 14_—“_for if ye live after the flesh, ye must die; but
if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall
live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons
of God_”; _1 Cor. 6:11_—“_but ye were washed, but ye were
sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus
Christ, and in the Spirit of our God_”; _James 1:26_—“_If any man
thinketh himself to be religious, while he bridleth not his tongue
but deceiveth his heart, this man’s religion is vain_”—see Com. of
Neander, _in loco_—“That religion is merely imaginary, seeming,
unreal, which allows the continuance of the moral defects
originally predominant in the character.” The Christian is
“_crucified with Christ_” (_Gal. 2:20_); but the crucified man
does not die at once. Yet he is as good as dead. Even after the
old man is crucified we are still to mortify him, or put him to
death (_Rom. 8:13; Col. 3:5_). We are to cut down the old rosebush
and cultivate only the new shoot that is grafted into it. Here is
our probation as Christians. So “die Scene wird zum Tribunal”—the
play of life becomes God’s judgment.

Dr. Hastings: “When Bourdaloue was probing the conscience of Louis
XIV, applying to him the words of St. Paul and intending to
paraphrase them: ‘_For the good which I would, I do not, but the
evil which I would not, that I do,_’ ‘_I find two men in me_’—the
King interrupted the great preacher with the memorable
exclamation: ‘Ah, these two men, I know them well!’ Bourdaloue
answered: ‘It is already something to _know_ them, Sire; but it is
not enough,—one of the two must perish.’ ” And, in the genuine
believer, the old does little by little die, and the new takes its
place, as “_David waxed stronger and stronger, but the house of
Saul waxed weaker and weaker_” (_2 Sam. 3:1_). As the Welsh
minister found himself after awhile thinking and dreaming in
English, so the language of Canaan becomes to the Christian his
native and only speech.

2. Explanations and Scripture Proof.

(_a_) Sanctification is the work of God.

_1 Thess. 5:23_—“_And the God of peace himself sanctify you
wholly._” Much of our modern literature ignores man’s dependence
upon God, and some of it seems distinctly intended to teach the
opposite doctrine. Auerbach’s “On the Heights,” for example,
teaches that man can make his own atonement; and “The Villa on the
Rhine,” by the same author, teaches that man can sanctify himself.
The proper inscription for many modern French novels is:
“Entertainment here for man and beast.” The _Tendenznovelle_ of
Germany has its imitators in the sceptical novels of England. And
no doctrine in these novels is so common as the doctrine that man
needs no Savior but himself.

(_b_) It is a continuous process.

_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_”; _3:15_—“_Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be
thus minded: and if in anything ye are otherwise minded, this also
shall God reveal unto you_”; _Col. 3:9, 10_—“_lie not one to
another; seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings,
and have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge
after the image of him that created him_”; _cf._ _Acts
2:47_—“_those that were being saved_”; _1 Cor. 1:18_—“_unto us who
are being saved_”; _2 Cor. 2:15_—“_in them that are being saved_”;
_1 Thess. 2:12_—“_God, who calleth you into his own kingdom and
glory._”

C. H. Parkhurst: “The yeast does not strike through the whole lump
of dough at a flash. We keep finding unsuspected lumps of meal
that the yeast has not yet seized upon. We surrender to God in
instalments. We may not mean to do it, but we do it. Conversion
has got to be brought down to date.” A student asked the President
of Oberlin College whether he could not take a shorter course than
the one prescribed. “Oh yes,” replied the President, “but then it
depends on what you want to make of yourself. When God wants to
make an oak, he takes a hundred years, but when he wants to make a
squash, he takes six months.”

(_c_) It is distinguished from regeneration as growth from birth, or as the strengthening of a holy disposition from the original impartation of it.

_Eph. 4:15_—“_speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all
things into him, who is the head, even Christ_”; _1 Thess.
3:12_—“_the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one
toward another, and toward all men_”; _2 Pet. 3:18_—“_But grow in
the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ_”;
_cf._ _1 Pet. 1:23_—“_begotten again, not of corruptible seed, but
of incorruptible, through the word of God, which liveth and
abideth_”; _1 John 3:9_—“_Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no
sin, because his seed abideth in him: and he cannot sin, because
he is begotten of God._” Not sin only, but holiness also, is a
germ whose nature is to grow. The new love in the believer’s heart
follows the law of all life, in developing and extending itself
under God’s husbandry. George Eliot: “The reward of one duty done
is the power to do another.” J. W. A. Stewart: “When the 21st of
March has come, we say ‘The back of the winter is broken.’ There
will still be alternations of frost, but the progress will be
towards heat. The coming of summer is sure,—in germ the summer is
already here.” Regeneration is the crisis of a disease;
sanctification is the progress of convalescence.

Yet growth is not a uniform thing in the tree or in the Christian.
In some single months there is more growth than in all the year
besides. During the rest of the year, however, there is
solidification, without which the green timber would be useless.
The period of rapid growth, when woody fibre is actually deposited
between the bark and the trunk, occupies but four to six weeks in
May, June, and July. _2 Pet. 1:5_—“_adding on your part all
diligence, in your faith supply virtue; and in your virtue
knowledge_”—adding to the central grace all those that are
complementary and subordinate, till they attain the harmony of a
chorus (ἐπιχορηγήσατε).

(_d_) The operation of God reveals itself in, and is accompanied by, intelligent and voluntary activity of the believer in the discovery and mortification of sinful desires, and in the bringing of the whole being into obedience to Christ and conformity to the standards of his word.

_John 17:17_—“_Sanctify them in the truth: thy word is truth_”; _2
Cor. 10:5_—“_casting down imaginations, and every high thing that
is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every
thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ_”; _Phil. 2:12,
13_—“_work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; for it
is God who worketh in you both to will and to work, for his good
pleasure_”; _1 Pet. 2:2_—“_as new‐born babes, long for the
spiritual milk which is without guile, that ye may grow thereby
unto salvation._” _John 15:3_—“_Already ye are clean because of
the word which I have spoken unto you._” Regeneration through the
word is followed by sanctification through the word. _Eph.
5:1_—“_Be ye therefore imitators of God, as beloved children._”
Imitation is at first a painful effort of will, as in learning the
piano; afterwards it becomes pleasurable and even unconscious.
Children unconsciously imitate the handwriting of their parents.
Charles Lamb sees in the mirror, as he is shaving, the apparition
of his dead father. So our likeness to God comes out as we advance
in years. _Col. 3:4_—“_When Christ who is our life, shall be
manifested, then shall ye also with him be manifested in glory._”

Horace Bushnell said that, if the stars did not move, they would
rot in the sky. The man who rides the bicycle must either go on,
or go off. A large part of sanctification consists in the
formation of proper habits, such as the habit of Scripture
reading, of secret prayer, of church going, of efforts to convert
and benefit others. Baxter: “Every man must grow, as trees grow,
downward and upward at once. The visible outward growth must be
accompanied by an invisible inward growth.” Drummond: “The
spiritual man having passed from death to life, the natural man
must pass from life to death.” There must be increasing sense of
sin: “My sins gave sharpness to the nails, And pointed every
thorn.” There must be a bringing of new and yet newer regions of
thought, feeling, and action, under the sway of Christ and his
truth. There is a grain of truth even in Macaulay’s jest about
“essentially Christian cookery.”

A. J. Gordon, Ministry of the Spirit, 63, 109‐111—“The church is
Christian no more than as it is the organ of the continuous
passion of Christ. We must suffer with sinning and lost humanity,
and so ‘_fill up ... that which is lacking of the afflictions of
Christ_’ (_Col. 1:24_). Christ’s crucifixion must be prolonged
side by side with his resurrection. There are three deaths: 1.
death in sin, our natural condition; 2. death for sin, our
judicial condition; 3. death to sin, our sanctified condition....
As the ascending sap in the tree crowds off the dead leaves which
in spite of storm and frost cling to the branches all the winter
long, so does the Holy Spirit within us, when allowed full sway,
subdue and expel the remnants of our sinful nature.”

(_e_) The agency through which God effects the sanctification of the believer is the indwelling Spirit of Christ.

_John 14:17, 18_—“_the Spirit of truth ... he abideth with you,
and shall be in you. I will not leave you desolate; I come unto
you_”; _15:3‐5_—“_Already ye are clean.... Abide in me ... apart
from me ye can do nothing_”; _Rom. 8:9, 10_—“_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 the spirit is life because of righteousness_”; _1 Cor.
1:2, 30_—“_sanctified in Christ Jesus ... Christ Jesus, who was
made unto us ... sanctification_”; _6:19_—“_know ye not that your
body is a temple of the Holy Spirit which is in you, which ye have
from God?_” _Gal. 5:16_—“_Walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not
fulfil the lust of the flesh_”; _Eph. 5:18_—“_And be not drunken
with wine, wherein is riot, but be filled with the Spirit_”; _Col.
1:27‐29_—“_the riches of the glory of this mystery among the
Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: whom we
proclaim, admonishing every man and teaching every man in all
wisdom, that we may present every man perfect in Christ; whereunto
I labor also, striving according to his working, which worketh in
me mightily_”; _2 Tim. 1:14_—“_That good thing which was committed
unto thee guard through the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in us._”

Christianity substitutes for the old sources of excitement the
power of the Holy Spirit. Here is a source of comfort, energy, and
joy, infinitely superior to any which the sinner knows. God does
not leave the soul to fall back upon itself. The higher up we get
in the scale of being, the more does the new life need nursing and
tending,—compare the sapling and the babe. God gives to the
Christian, therefore, an abiding presence and work of the Holy
Spirit,—not only regeneration, but sanctification. C. E. Smith,
Baptism of Fire: “The soul needs the latter as well as the former
rain, the sealing as well as the renewing of the Spirit, the
baptism of fire as well as the baptism of water. Sealing gives
something additional to the document, an evidence plainer than the
writing within, both to one’s self and to others.”

“Few flowers yield more honey than serves the bee for its daily
food.” So we must first live ourselves off from our spiritual
diet; only what is over can be given to nourish others. Thomas à
Kempis, Imitation of Christ: “Have peace in thine own heart; else
thou wilt never be able to communicate peace to others.” Godet:
“Man is a vessel destined to receive God, a vessel which must be
enlarged in proportion as it is filled, and filled in proportion
as it is enlarged.” Matthew Arnold, Morality: “We cannot kindle
when we will The fire which in the heart resides; The Spirit
bloweth and is still; In mystery our soul abides. But tasks in
hours of insight willed Can be in hours of gloom fulfilled. With
aching hands and bleeding feet, We dig and heap, lay stone on
stone; We bear the burden and the heat Of the long day, and wish
’t were done. Not till the hours of light return All we have built
do we discern.”

(_f_) The mediate or instrumental cause of sanctification, as of justification, is faith.

_Acts 15:9_—“_cleansing their hearts by faith_”; _Rom. 1:17_—“_For
therein is revealed a righteousness of God from faith unto faith:
as it is written, But the righteous shall live from faith._” The
righteousness includes sanctification as well as justification;
and the subject of the epistle to the Romans is not simply
justification by faith, but rather righteousness by faith, or
salvation by faith. Justification by faith is the subject of
_chapters 1‐7_; sanctification by faith is the subject of
_chapters 8‐16_. We are not sanctified by efforts of our own, any
more than we are justified by efforts of our own.

God does not share with us the glory of sanctification, any more
than he shares with us the glory of justification. He must do all,
or nothing. William Law: “A root set in the finest soil, in the
best climate, and blessed with all that sun and air and rain can
do for it, is not in so sure a way of its growth to perfection, as
every man may be whose spirit aspires after all that which God is
ready and infinitely desirous to give him. For the sun meets not
the springing bud that stretches toward him with half that
certainty as God, the source of all good, communicates himself to
the soul that longs to partake of him.”

(_g_) The object of this faith is Christ himself, as the head of a new humanity and the source of truth and life to those united to him.

_2 Cor. 3:18_—“_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_”; _Eph.
4:13_—“_till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the
knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the
measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ._” Faith here is
of course much more than intellectual faith,—it is the reception
of Christ himself. As Christianity furnishes a new source of life
and energy—in the Holy Spirit: so it gives a new object of
attention and regard—the Lord Jesus Christ. As we get air out of a
vessel by pouring in water, so we can drive sin out only by
bringing Christ in. See Chalmers’ Sermon on The Expulsive Power of
a New Affection. Drummond, Nat. Law in the Spir. World,
123‐140—“Man does not grow by making efforts to grow, but by
putting himself into the conditions of growth by living in
Christ.”

_1 John 3:3_—“_every one that hath this hope set on him_ (ἐπ᾽
αὐτῷ) _purifieth himself, even as he is pure._” Sanctification
does not begin from within. The objective Savior must come first.
The hope based on him must give the motive and the standard of
self‐purification. Likeness comes from liking. We grow to be like
that which we like. Hence we use the phrase “I like,” as a synonym
for “I love.” We cannot remove frost from our window by rubbing
the pane; we need to kindle a fire. Growth is not the product of
effort, but of life. “_Taking thought_,” or “_being anxious_”
(_Mat. 6:27_), is not the way to grow. Only take the hindrances
out of the way, and we grow without care, as the tree does. The
moon makes no effort to shine, nor has it any power of its own to
shine. It is only a burnt out cinder in the sky. It shines only as
it reflects the light of the sun. So we can shine “_as lights in
the world_” (_Phil. 2:15_), only as we reflect Christ, who is
“_the Sun of Righteousness_” (_Mal. 4:2_) and “_the Light of the
world_” (_John 8:12_).

(_h_) Though the weakest faith perfectly justifies, the degree of sanctification is measured by the strength of the Christian’s faith, and the persistence with which he apprehends Christ in the various relations which the Scriptures declare him to sustain to us.

_Mat. 9:29_—“_According to your faith be it done unto you_”; _Luke
17:5_—“_Lord, increase our faith_”; _Rom. 12:2_—“_be not fashioned
according to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of
your mind, that ye may prove what is the good and acceptable and
perfect will of God_”; _13:14_—“_But put ye on the Lord Jesus
Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts
thereof_”; _Eph. 4:24_—“_put on the new man, that after God hath
been created in righteousness and holiness of truth_”; _1 Tim.
4:7_—“_exercise thyself unto godliness._” Leighton: “None of the
children of God are born dumb.” Milton: “Good, the more
communicated, the more abundant grows.” Faith can neither be
stationary nor complete (Westcott, Bible Com. on _John 15:8_—“_so
shall ye become my disciples_”). Luther: “He who _is_ a Christian
is _no_ Christian”; “Christianus non in esse, sed in fieri.” In a
Bible that belonged to Oliver Cromwell is this inscription: “O. C.
1644. Qui cessat esse melior cessat esse bonus”—“He who ceases to
be better ceases to be good.” Story, the sculptor, when asked
which of his works he valued most, replied: “My next.” The
greatest work of the Holy Spirit is the perfecting of Christian
character.

_Col. 1:10_—“_Increasing by the knowledge of God_”—here the
instrumental dative represents the knowledge of God as the dew or
rain which nurtures the growth of the plant (Lightfoot). Mr.
Gladstone had the habit of reading the Bible every Sunday
afternoon to old women on his estate. Tholuck: “I have but one
passion, and that is Christ.” This is an echo of Paul’s words:
“_to me to live is Christ_” (_Phil. 1:21_). But Paul is far from
thinking that he has already obtained, or is already made perfect.
He prays “_that I may gain Christ, ... that I may know him_”
(_Phil. 3:8, 10_).

(_i_) From the lack of persistence in using the means appointed for Christian growth—such as the word of God, prayer, association with other believers, and personal effort for the conversion of the ungodly—sanctification does not always proceed in regular and unbroken course, and it is never completed in this life.

_Phil. 3:12_—“_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 Jesus Christ_”; _1 John
1:8_—“_If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and
the truth is not in us._” Carlyle, in his Life of John Sterling,
chap. 8, says of Coleridge, that “whenever natural obligation or
voluntary undertaking made it his duty to do anything, the fact
seemed a sufficient reason for his _not_ doing it.” A regular,
advancing sanctification is marked, on the other hand, by a
growing habit of instant and joyful obedience. The intermittent
spring depends upon the reservoir in the mountain cave,—only when
the rain fills the latter full, does the spring begin to flow. So
to secure unbroken Christian activity, there must be constant
reception of the word and Spirit of God.

Galen: “If diseases take hold of the body, there is nothing so
certain to drive them out as diligent exercise.” Williams,
Principles of Medicine: “Want of exercise and sedentary habits not
only predispose to, but actually cause, disease.” The little girl
who fell out of bed at night was asked how it happened. She
replied that she went to sleep too near where she got in. Some
Christians lose the joy of their religion by ceasing their
Christian activities too soon after conversion. Yet others
cultivate their spiritual lives from mere selfishness. Selfishness
follows the line of least resistance. It is easier to pray in
public and to attend meetings for prayer, than it is to go out
into the unsympathetic world and engage in the work of winning
souls. This is the fault of monasticism. Those grow most who
forget themselves in their work for others. The discipline of life
is ordained in God’s providence to correct tendencies to
indolence. Even this discipline is often received in a rebellious
spirit. The result is delay in the process of sanctification.
Bengel: “Deus habet horas et moras”—“God has his hours and his
delays.” German proverb: “Gut Ding will Weile haben”—“A good thing
requires time.”

(_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 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 __ 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.

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 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.

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.