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THE BIBLICAL VIEW OF CHRISTIAN LIFE
by Ray Shelton
Wesley’s concept of holiness as sinless perfection was a legalistic misinterpretation of the Biblical concept of holiness. Let us now examine the Biblical theology of holiness and sanctification.
In the Bible, the root meaning of the Hebrew word, as well as the Greek word translated “holy” in the Scriptures, is “separation”. Something is holy when it is separated from common or human use and is separated to God. Hence with respect to persons and things it means “dedicated or consecrated to God”. This is clear from the phrase “holy unto the Lord” (Lev. 27:9, 14, 21, 23, 30, 32; see also Lev. 20:24-26). It does not mean “sinless” or “morally perfect”. This may be seen from the use of the term to describe things as well as persons. In the Old Testament, some things that are described as holy are “the ground” (Ex. 3:5; Josh. 5:15), “the ark of the covenant” (II Chron. 35:30), “the vessels of the tabernacle” (I Kings 8:4) and the place where they rested (I Kings 3:6, 8, 10). Since things cannot sin, they cannot be sinless. But they are holy; they are separated unto the Lord. Things and people are holy in virtue of their relationship to God Himself; whatever is separated unto and consecrated or dedicated to a deity or deities is holy apart from its ethical or moral purity. This nonethical meaning is clear from the use of the term to describe male and female temple prostitutes of some pagan gods (Deut. 23:17-18; II Kings 23:7). As these titles indicate, they were sacred ministrants attached to the Canaanite cults of the deity of fertility. They were holy in virtue of their relationship to the deity. It does not refer to their moral character. Of course there are moral and ethical implications of the worship of the true God. But this is secondary and subordinate in the concept of holiness. What is primary and foremost is the separation unto God.
“You shall be holy to me; for I the Lord am Holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine. (Lev. 20:26)
According to the legalistic misunderstanding of God’s being, the holiness of God like His righteousness is misunderstood in terms of the law. Holiness was understood legalistically as conformity to the law, moral perfection and sinlessness. The holiness of God is therefore the eternal conformity of God’s will and mind to His being which is law. He always thinks and acts in conformity to His holy being. It is impossible in the very nature of God for Him to do otherwise. According to these theologies, the absolute holiness of God is the purity and moral perfection of His being. It is accordingly the fundamental and essential attribute of God or, more exactly, the consummate and infinite moral perfection of all the attributes taken together. Each attribute has its perfection; holiness is the infinite moral perfection of the whole together. According to this theology, holiness is not one attribute among others but the total moral perfection of the Godhead that sets Him transcendently apart from and above all the creatures. As such holiness is the regulative principle, norm and standard of all of them. Accordingly, God’s love is holy love; His power is holy power; His will is a holy will. They are holy because He always acts consistent with His essential being which is law. Thus, in this legalistic theology, the holiness of God is understood legalistically.
According to the Scriptures, God is holy (Lev. 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:26; 21:8: Josh. 24:19; I Sam. 2:2; 6:2; Psa. 22:3; 99:3,5,9; Isa. 5:16; 6:3). He is the Holy One of Israel (I Kings 19:22; Psa. 71:22; 78:41; 89:18; Isa. 1:4; 5:24; 10:20; 16:6, etc.). But the Scriptures do not understand holiness legalistically as sinlessness. God is holy, not because of His sinlessness, but because He is separated from His creation and from false gods, which are a deification of His creation. In the Old Testament, there are three senses in which God is holy. These define the holiness of God.
a. God is holy in the sense that He is separated from His creation.
(Isa. 45:11-12; 57:15; 6:1-5; 17:7; 41:20; 54:5; Psa. 99:1-3, 5, 9). God is holy in the sense that He is separated from all that He has created. He is not to be confused or identified with His creation. Even though He is near the humble and contrite, He is not to be pantheistically identified with Nature. He is not Nature but Nature’s God, the Creator.
b. God is holy in the sense that He is separated from all false gods
(Isa. 40:18-20, 25-26, 28; 17:7-8).
“7 In this day men will regard their Maker, and their eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel; 8 they will not have regard for their altars, the work of their hands, and they will not look to what their own fingers have made, either the Asherim or the altars of incense.” (Isa. 17:7-8)
It was in this sense that Isaiah was overwhelmed with the holiness of God during the vision in the temple (Isa. 6:1-5). Isaiah feels the contrast between the true God and all the false gods that his people are worshipping. The worship of the true God by the seraphim brings conviction to Isaiah of the uncleanness of his lips and of the people’s in the midst of which he dwelt. With their lips they worshipped and praised false gods, not the true God, the King, the Lord of hosts. Seeing the Lord, Isaiah recognizes the awful character of their idolatry. “Woe is me! For I am lost!” God is holy because He is the Creator of all things; He is not to be confused with any of them; this holiness distinguishes Him from all false gods.
c. But God is also holy because He is the Savior, the Redeemer. God is holy in the sense that He is different from all other gods, because He is the Savior and the Redeemer. (Isa. 41;14; 43:3, 10-11, 14; 44:6-8; 45:5-6, 14, 16-19, 20-22; 46:9).
“Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel! I will help you, says the Lord; your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel.” (Isa. 41:14)
“For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior.” (Isa. 43:3)
In many places in the Old Testament, the Holy One of Israel is called your (our) Redeemer (Isa. 43:14; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7; 54:5). This also distinguishes the true God from all false gods.
10 “You are my witnesses,” says the Lord, “and my servant whom I have chosen, that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He. Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me. 11 I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no Savior.” (Isa. 43:10-11)
6 “Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the Lord of Hosts: I am the first and the last; besides me there is no god. 7 Who is like me? Let him proclaim it, let him declare and set it forth before me. Who has announced from of old the things to come? Let them tell us what is yet to be.” 8 “Fear not, nor be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it? And you are my witnesses! Is there a God besides me? There is no Rock; I know not any.” (Isa. 44:6-8) (See also Isa. 45:5-6,14,18-19,21-22; 46:9.)
Of those who worship false gods Isaiah says,
“16 All of them are put shame and confounded, the makers of idols go in confusion together. 17 But Israel is saved by the Lord with everlasting salvation; you shall not be put to shame or confounded to all eternity.”
(Isa. 45:16-17)“20 Assemble yourselves and come, draw near together, you survivors of the nation! They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols, and keep on praying to a god that cannot save. 21 Declare and present your case; let them take counsel together! Who told this long ago? Who declared it of old? Was it not I, the Lord? And there is no other god besides me, a righteous God and a Savior, there is none besides me.” (Isa. 45:20-21; see also Hos. 13:4)
The true God is holy because He alone can save and deliver. He alone has the power. He alone has unlimited freedom; He alone can and will save because He alone is love.
God is holy because He is love. This truly set Him apart from all false gods. The true God is holy because He is love. That which sets God apart from all other gods and also from all creatures is that feature which is most characteristic of God Himself, His love. God has freely and sovereignly chosen to be love. His choice determines the good. The good is what God wills. And it is not whimsical nor arbitrary because it is God who has willed it.
“Thy will be done on earth as in heaven.” (Matt. 6:10, etc.)
God’s will is not determined by His nature; His nature is His will; He is what he chooses to be (Deut. 32:39; Isa. 45:7; 46:8-11). And God has chosen to be love and He has revealed that choice in the history of the children of Israel and supremely in Jesus Christ, His Son (John 3:16; I John 4:9-10). The true God is a God of sovereign love, not of sovereign justice nor of sinless perfection. And His people are holy when they love like God Himself does.
The word translated “sanctification” has the same root in the Greek and Hebrew as the word translated “holiness” and means “making holy”. Sanctification is the act of God by which man is separated from the worship of a false god and is dedicated to the true God. The term is not basically a moral or ethical concept. The idea of sanctification is soteriological concept before it is a moral concept. It is first of all a religious term and secondarily a moral term. Basically, it does not mean to make sinless or morally perfect but to separate from common or human use to God’s use, to belong to God. It means to dedicate and consecrate to God. To be sanctified is to be dedicated to God. The RSV correctly translates the verb as “consecrated” in I Tim. 2:21. Sanctification denotes first of all the soteriological truth that the Christian being saved now belongs to God. Paul uses the term to denote another way of looking at salvation; in I Cor. 1:30 he says,
“He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, whom God made our wisdom, our righteousness and santification and redemption”.
Justification emphasizes the right personal relationship to God, whereas sanctification emphasizes belonging to the true God rather than to a false god. The view that justification designates the beginning of the Christian life while sanctification designates the development of that life through the internal work of the Spirit is an oversimplification of the New Testament teaching and obscures this important truth that justification is also sanctification. The legalistic misinterpretation of justification as the imputation of the righteousness or merits of Christ to our account when we first believed leads to this misunderstanding of the relationship between it and sanctification. The distinction between positional sanctification and progressive sanctification reflects this legalistic misinterpretation of justification and sanctification; justification is misunderstood as one’s legal standing before God’s justice and positional sanctification is one’s standing before God’s holiness as sinless perfection; God does not see us sinners directly but as hidden “in Christ” who is sinless and perfect (He is the Son of God). This is a legalistic misunderstanding of sanctification. Progressive sanctification is thus understood as the practical progress to this sinless perfection, holiness. Paul never makes this distinction between positional and progressive sanctification. The word “sanctification” occurs only once in Romans (6:22) and is significantly omitted from the steps leading to glorification in Romans 8:29-30.
“29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, in order to be the first-born among many brethern. 30 And those whom he predestined he also called; and those whom he called he also justified; and those whom he justified he also glorified.”
This is because sanctification is just the other side of justification, and need not also be mentioned when the other is. When one is justified by faith, he is also sanctified, separated from his false god and separated to the true God and to Jesus Christ, God’s Son. Sanctification is not the act or process of making the Christian sinlessly perfect.
Don’t misunderstand me; I am not saying there is no present tense of santification. As there are three tenses of salvation: past tense, present tense, and future tense;
(1) the past tense of salvation – “we were saved” (Rom. 8:24; Eph. 2:5, 8; II Tim. 1:8; Titus 3:5);
(2) the present tense of salvation – “we are being saved” (I Cor. 1:18; 15:3; II Cor. 2:15);
(3) the future tense of salvation – “we shall be saved” (Matt. 10:22; Rom. 5:9; compare Rom. 13:11; I Thess. 1:10; Heb. 9:28);
correspondingly, there are three tenses of sanctification. In I Cor. 1:30, Paul speaks of the past tense of sanctification and in Romans 6:22 and I Thess. 4:3 he speaks of the present tense of santification. What I am objecting to is the misunderstanding of sanctification as an act or progress toward sinless perfection and making sinlessly perfect.
Outside the Wesleyan Tradition and within Calvinism, there developed a Deeper Life Movement. This movement became dissatisfied with the teaching of Calvinism about the Christian life. This movement originated in the England in 1875 at the Keswick and Lake District of northern England. It had its origin in the Moody-Sankey evangelistic campaign of 1873-1874 and the writings of the American religious leaders Asa Mahan, W.E. Boardman, and especially Mr. and Mrs. Robert P. Smith. The Anglican vicar of Keswick, The Rev. T. D. Harford-Batterby, held the first conference on his own church grounds in 1875, lasting one week, and has been held every year since. Most of the speakers come naturally from England, but many have come from America and other parts of the world. Among the better known are Donald G. Barnhouse, F. B. Meyer, H. C. G. Moule, Andrew Murray, John R. W. Stott, Hudson Taylor, and R. A. Torrey. Most of the supporters came from Christians of the Reformed Calvinistic tradition, and especially from the evangelical Anglicans. Unlike the Wesleyan-Arminian teaching concerning holiness, the Keswick teaching maintains that in the Christian the tendency of sin is not extinguished but merely counteracted and controlled by the victorious living by the Spirit of God. The Christian life is Spirit-empowered-law-keeping, where the Spirit of God enables the believer to live up to the standard of holiness in the law. The movement aims to promote “practical holiness”, and its motto is “All one in Christ Jesus”.
The week-long conference follows a definite, set schedule each year.
a. On the first day the addresses are devoted to the disabling effect of sin on the believer’s life.
b. On the second day the addresses deal with the provision that God has provided through the cross to deal with sin in the believer’s life, not only with the guilt of sin but with its power. Much attention is focused on Romans chapters 6-8, where Paul presents the believer’s death with Christ to sin that sets free from the slavery of sin. Keswick does not teach the possibility of eradication of the sinful nature, or the possibility of sinless life. That is, there is no second work of grace that eradicates the believer’s sinful nature. The Christian life is Spirit-empowered-law-keeping, where the Spirit of God controls the sinful nature to enable the believer’s new nature to live up to the standard of the law.
c. The third day is devoted to teaching on consecration, which is man’s complete surrender to the Lordship of Christ, involving both a crisis and a process.
d. On the fourth day the teaching centers on the Spirit-filled life. It is taught that all Christians have received the Holy Spirit at regeneration, but not all are controlled by Him. The fullness of the Spirit is experienced by complete surrender to Christ, and by abiding in this state of surrender.
e. On Friday the theme is Christian Service, which is the natural result of Spirit-filled life. Keswick has always stressed the importance of missions and deeply influenced the missionary movement.
A quantity of literature is produced each year, among which is the yearly report The Keswick Week, The Keswick Convention, the journal The Life of Faith (since 1879), and the volumes of the Keswick Library (since 1894). Local “Keswick” conferences are held in various cities throughout the world.
Let us now examine the Biblical theology of Romans 7.
“7:7 What then shall we say? That the law is sin? By no means! Yet, if it had not been for the law, I should not have known sin.
I should not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet.’ 7:8 But sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, wrought in me all kinds of covetousness. Apart from the law sin lies dead. 7:9 I was once alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived and I died; 7:10 and the very commandment which was for life I found to be death to me. 7:11 For sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, deceived me and by it killed me. 7:12 So the law is holy,
and the commandment is holy and just and good. 7:13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! It was sin, working death in me through what is good, in order that sin might be shown to be sin, and through the commandment might become exceedingly sinful. 7:14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under sin. 7:15 I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 7:16 Now if I do what I do not want, I agree that the law is good. 7:17 So then it is not longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. 7:18 For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right, but I cannot do it. 7:19 For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. 7:20 Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin which dwells within me. 7:21 So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil is present with me. 7:22 For I delight in the law of God according to the inner man,” 7:23 but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind and taking me captive to the law of sin which is in my members. 24 O wretched man that I am! who will deliver me from the body this death? 25a Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! ” (Rom. 7:7-25a ERS)
Although some Christian theologians have interpreted this struggle of Romans chapter 7 as the normal Christian life, other Christian theologians reject this interpretation of the Romans 7 experience and teach either a second work of grace that eradicates the sinful nature from the Christian, delivering him from the Romans 7 experience, or the suppression of the works of the flesh (sinful nature) by the power of the Holy Spirit. But in either case, the Christian is still left under the law as a rule and standard of life and the “walk in the Spirit” is interpreted as nothing more than Spirit-empowered law-keeping. According to this teaching, the Holy Spirit is given to the Christian to empower him to keep the law and to make him morally perfect, conforming to the divine standard given in the law. This legalistic interpretation of the Christian life is the source of many of the psychological problems that Christians have today.
Legalism has either of two psychological effects on the person in bondage to the law. He becomes either self-righteous or afflicted with a guilt complex. This self-righteousness is a special form of pride which is the chief by-product of idolatry (Psa. 40:4). It is most often connected with the externalization and detailed extensions of the law. It expresses itself in the attitude of the Pharisees who keep the minutiae of the law but overlook the spirit of the law (Matt. 15:1-19). Also the legalist is not only self-righteous but sits in judgment on others who do not conform to the law and has little place for mercy. He becomes like the god he acknowledges and worships — the law. When he is shown mercy, he does not in turn show mercy to those in his debt (Matt. 18:23-35).
1. The second psychological effect of legalism is a guilt complex. If the legalist does not become self-righteous, then he usually becomes afflicted with a guilt complex. This psychological effect is most often connected with the quantitization of the law. Since he cannot know the precise amount of merit attached to each good deed or how much he has acquired, a legalist has no certainty. In addition, no matter how well he has lived, it is always possible for him to slip into a terrible sin whose demerit will outweigh all his merit. As a result of this uncertainty, the legalist is led to look constantly within himself to see whether he measures up to the divine standard, the law, which he has chosen as his ultimate criterion. If he believes himself constantly falling short of this standard, he will develop a guilt complex.
2. This second psychological effect of legalism is the most common among Christians who have been misled into legalism. Because of the intense desire placed by God in the believer to please God, the Christian entrapped in legalism internalizes the law, applying it not only to external actions but to every thought and motive as well as every word and deed. Because of the sin resulting from legalism (legalism itself is sin — the sin of idolatry of the law), the guilt accompanying this sin is added to all the imagined guilt of the evil thoughts and motives resulting from close, detailed introspection. The result is often a very intense guilt complex bordering on the neurotic. Because of the widespread legalistic teaching in Christian churches, it is not surprising that so many Christians are afflicted with such guilt complexes.
The moral and ethical result of legalism is the moral dilemma: the contradiction between what man is and what he ought to be. Since man under law falls short of the ideal of moral perfection, the standard of righteousness, the law, he is faced with the disparity between the real and the ideal self, between what he is and what he ought to be. The Christian statement of this dilemma is given classic expression by the Apostle Paul in his famous analysis of the experience of the man under law in Romans chapter 7 — “For the good that I would do, I do not. But the evil which I would not, that I do.” (Rom. 7:19 ERS)
This predicament has led the legalistic theologians to conclude that sin is intrinsic to human nature. Rabbinic Judaism, for example, developed the theory of the evil nature or “yetzer hara.” Augustine used the doctrine of original sin (originale peccatum) or inherited inborn sinful nature to explain why men always fall short of the divine standard. But this doctrinal expedient of the sinful nature is unnecessary since the moral dilemma can be explained by the fact that the law cannot make alive and therefore cannot produce righteousness.
“Is the law against the promises of God? Certainly not; for if a law had been given which can make alive, then righteousness would indeed by the law.” (Gal. 3:21).
The purpose of the law is the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20), not salvation.
“For no human being will be justified in his sight by works of the law since through the law comes the knowledge of sin.” (Rom. 3:20)
To attempt to live the Christian life by the law is to misuse the law and is to place the Christian under law. The man under law, who looks to it to save him from sin and give him life ( Rom. 7:10), finds that the law cannot save him, but on the contrary discovers that the law arouses sin.
“While we were in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit to death.”
(Rom. 7:5 ERS)
Thus being under law becomes the opportunity for sin which results in death ( Rom. 7:8-11). Thus legalism (being under law) produces the opposite from what it intended. This is like other forms of idolatry; a false god always betrays its worshippers into the very opposite of what they expected from the false god (Isa. 44:9, 10; 45:16, 17, 20, 21). The man under law, who practically deifies the law ( Rom. 7:22, 25b) and looks to it to save him from sin and give him life ( Rom. 7:10), finds that the law cannot save him, but on the contrary he discovers that the law arouses sin ( Rom. 7:15) and becomes opportunity for sin which results in death ( Rom. 7:8-11).
And not only that, but also since death (primarily spiritual death) leads to sin ( Rom. 5:12d ERS), the man under law is practically in spiritual death (the law separates him from God), and sin is the result of that death. This is what the Apostle Paul concludes at the end of his discussion of the legalistic struggle in Romans 7 ( Rom. 7:21-23 ERS)
What is the relationship of the Christian to sin? Because the Christian has died with Christ and has been raised with Him into new life to God, he is no longer a slave to sin but a slave to God and to righteousness (Rom. 6:1-10). He is to reckon himself to be dead to sin with Christ and alive to God in Christ (Rom. 6:11). He is therefore to stop letting sin reign as a slave master in his mortal body to obey its desires (Rom. 6:12). Neither is he to present the member of his body as instruments of unrighteousness to sin as a slave master but he is to present himself to God as one who has been brought him from death to life and the members of his body to God as instruments of righteousness (Rom. 6:13).
“6:10 For the death he died, he died to sin once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God. 6:11 So you also must reckoned yourselves to be dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. 6:12 Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal bodies, to make you obey their desires. 6:13 Do not yield your member to sin as instruments of unrighteousness, but yield yourselves to God as men who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments of righteousness.” (Rom. 6:10-13 ERS)
According to this passage, and others, the Christian does not have to sin and should not sin. Christ has saved him from sin as well as from death. Christ has set him free from the slavery of sin. He can sin but he does not have to sin. He does not have a sinful nature that makes him sin or because of which he will sin. He is free to sin or not to sin. And if a Christian sins, it is because he chooses to sin, not because his sinful nature makes him do it. But why do Christians choose to sin? The scriptural answer to this question is twofold:
(1) because he yields to the temptations of the world (I John 2:15-17), of the desires of the flesh (James 1:13-14) and of the Devil (I Cor. 7:5), or
(2) because he is “under law” (Rom. 6:14); that is, he is trying to live or walk by the law.
This is legalism and in Romans 7 Paul explains what happens when a Christian becomes entrapped in this legalism. He is under law and sin has dominion or lordship over him.
“For sin shall not have lordship over you, for you are not under law but under grace.” (Rom. 6:14 ERS).
That is, if you are under law, sin will have lordship or dominion over you. And legalism puts you under law and sin as a slave master has dominion over you. Therefore, legalism causes sin and when legalism tries to solve this problem of sin in the Christian life, it fails. Then it tries to explain its failure by blaming sin on the sinful nature. The real cause of the problem is not the sinful nature but the legalism, that is, being under law. The Christian will sin when he is placed under law (Rom. 6:14 ERS and Rom. 7:18-19 ERS). The doctrine of the sinful nature contributes to this problem. Christians, who believe that they have a sinful nature, expects that they will sin; and, of course, they will do what they expect to do. Again, Christians do not have a sinful nature and they do not have to sin. The temptation to sin is not sin and the tendency to sin is not the sinful nature; the desires of the body are not inherently sinful. God created them and placed them in man’s body. But man must not become a slave to them. God in Christ’s death and resurrection has provided deliverance from the slavery to them. God has given us His Spirit to implement this deliverance.
Let us now examine Biblical theology of the Holy Spirit.
A. THE CHRISTIAN AND THE HOLY SPIRIT.
B. THE BAPTISM WITH THE SPIRIT.
C. PENTACOSTALISM.
D. MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE BAPTISM WITH THE SPIRIT.
E. THE CHRISTIAN AND LEGALISM.
A. THE CHRISTIAN AND THE HOLY SPIRIT.
True Christians (not nominal Christians, in name only) have the Holy Spirit. True Christians have accepted Christ and put their faith in Him and His death and resurrection. And as such they have received the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus ( Rom. 8:2). To be born again and to be alive to God is by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does this by revealing Christ and convicting (convincing) the unsaved of their need for Christ (John 16:7-11); The Spirit presents Christ to the unbeliever in the preaching of the Gospel. To receive Christ is also to receive the Holy Spirit. Paul says in Romans 8:9 to the believers at Rome,
To be “in the Spirit” is to be saved, and to be “in the flesh” is to be unsaved (Romans 7:5). But not everyone who has the Spirit dwelling in him is filled with Spirit; some are not “walking according to the Spirit”, but “according to the flesh” ( Romans 8:4; Gal. 5:16, 25). And to walk according to the flesh is to attempt to live the Christian life by human effort alone apart from the Spirit of God; such ones attempt to live up to the divine standard in the law. They are under law and thus experience only defeat and frustration ( Rom. 6:14 ERS and Rom. 7:18-19 ERS). They are trying to do what only the Holy Spirit can enable them to do. To be under law is to walk according the flesh (by human effort). To walk according to the Spirit and to be led by the Spirit is not to be under law ( Gal. 5:18). Those who walk according the Spirit bring forth the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit cannot be had apart from the Spirit; no human effort can produce that fruit. But those who walk according the Spirit fulfill the law without being under law.
“13:8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another; for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law. 13:9 The commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this sentence, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 13:10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” (Rom. 13:8-10).
The goal is not moral or sinless perfection (conforming to the divine standard in the law) but love: love of God and love of our neighbor. This goal can be reached only if one is filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18-20).
B. THE BAPTISM WITH THE SPIRIT.
And a Christian is filled with the Spirit if he has been baptized with the Holy Spirit. The baptism with the Holy Spirit has been misunderstood as the second work of grace that eradicates the sinful nature. This is not what the phrase means in the New Testament. The phrase “to baptize with the Holy Spirit” was first used by John the Baptist (Matt. 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33) of him who was to come after John, that is, the Christ or Messiah. Luke reports in Acts that the risen Jesus said,
“John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit” (Acts 1:5).
This is obviously a reference to the coming of the Holy Spirit at the first Pentecost, of which Jesus also said,
“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8).
This baptism with the Holy Spirit was an empowerment for service, to be His witnesses. Later, Peter refers to Pentecost as the baptism with the Spirit when he explains what happened at the conversion of Cornelius, the centurion:
“15 As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them just as on us at the beginning. 16 And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said, ‘John baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 17 If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could withstand God?” (Acts 11:15-17).
How did Peter recognize that Holy Spirit had fallen on them and the gift of the Spirit? Because the same thing happened to them that happened to Peter and the others at Pentecost, they spoke with other tongues or languages (Acts 2:4; 9:44-47). This sign of the baptism with the Spirit of Cornelius, and those with him, was also the sign to Peter, and those with him, that the Spirit was also given to the Gentiles. Luke also refers to the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost as being filled with the Spirit;
“3 And there appeared to them tongues as of fire, distributed and resting on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues, as the Spirit gave them utterance” (Acts 2:3-4).
This coming of the Holy Spirit to them, which is the baptism with the Spirit, is the initial in-filling of the Spirit. Later they were again filled with Spirit (Acts 4:31). We believe that each believer, like these first believers, may be baptized with the Spirit as the initial in-filling of the Holy Spirit and may be refilled with the Spirit as the Spirit sees fit. Paul exhorted the Ephesian believers to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18). If anyone objects to the use of the phrase “baptized with the Spirit” to refer this initial filling of the Spirit, I will not quibble with him, as long as he recognizes that Christian believers should be filled with the Spirit and that there must be a first filling of the Spirit which may occur at conversion or later. Whether one speaks in tongues at this first filling of the Spirit, which one may do as the Spirit leads, is between him (or her) and the Spirit. But I will tell you that if anyone makes an issue with God of not speaking with tongues, he may not be filled the Spirit until he yields. This yielding to the Spirit is the necessary condition for being filled with Spirit. Paul makes it clear in his letter to Romans that presenting our bodies and its members to God is the logical implication of our acknowledgment of Jesus as Lord and Savior ( Rom. 6:13 ERS; 12:1-2); and that includes presenting or yielding one’s tongue. This does not mean that the Christian believer has become morally perfect or that he must clean up his life before he can be filled with the Spirit; the Holy Spirit will take care of cleaning up the believer’s life after he is filled with the Spirit.
One more point; speaking in tongues at the initial filling of the Spirit is not the gift of tongues of which Paul speaks in I Cor. chapters 12 to 14. While all believers may speak in tongues at the initial filling of Spirit, not all have the gift of tongues and the accompanying gift of interpretation of tongues. The Spirit distributes the gifts of the Spirit as he wills (I Cor. 12:11). As Paul makes clear in I Cor. 12, the gifts of the Spirit are manifestations of the Spirit in the body of Christ for the common good (I Cor. 12:7). The empowering of the gifts and ministries of the Spirit are to be concrete expressions of love for one another in the body of Christ and those outside. The preaching of Gospel should be accompanied by signs and wonders:
“3 It [the so great salvation] was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard him, 4 while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his own will” (Heb. 2:3-4).
The gift of tongues is not the speaking in tongues at the baptism of the Holy Spirit. But this is not the only misunderstanding of the baptiam of the Holy Spirit; the baptism of the Holy Spirit was misunderstood to be the Holiness second work of grace that was believed to eradicate the sinful nature in the Christian. At the beginning of the twentieth century during the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the baptism of the Holy Spirit was misunderstood to be the Holiness second work of grace that was believed to eradicate the sinful nature in the Christian.
C. PENTECOSTALISM.
The Pentecostal movement began as an offshoot of the Holiness Movement. It began at a small school, Bethel Bible School, in Topeka, Kansas, which was founded by a Holiness evangelist, Charles Fox Parham. Parham had concluded that speaking in tongues was the sign of the second work of grace, after a student, Agnes Ozman, experienced speaking in tongues, or glossolalia, in January, 1901. The teaching and practice spread rapidly among Holiness groups. They became known as Pentecostals because they identified their experience with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the 120 gathered in the upper room on the day of Pentecost recorded in Acts 2. They called their experience the “baptism of the Holy Spirit” on the basis of the promise of the risen Jesus recorded in Acts 1:5, “John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.” The movement came to Southern California in 1906 when a student of Parham, William J. Seymour, a black Holiness evangelist from Houston, Texas, came to Los Angeles, Calif., and began to hold revival meetings at an abandoned African Methodist Episcopal Church on Azuza Street in downtown Los Angeles. The Azuza Street Revival from 1906 to 1909 became the center from which Pentecostalism became a world movement. Other Holiness groups were pentecostalized rapidly as leaders of Holiness Movement came to Azuza Street to investigate what was happening there. Among the Azuza Street “pilgrims” were G. B. Cashwell (North Carolina), C H. Mason (Tennessee), Glen Cook (California), A. G. Argue (Canada), and W. H. Durham (Chicago). Within a year from the opening of the Azuza Street meetings (April, 1906), these and others spread the Pentecostal message across the nation.
But many of the Holiness groups were not willing to believe that speaking in tongues was sign of the second work of grace. Sharp controversies and divisions developed within several Holiness denominations on whether speaking in tongues was the sign of the second work of grace. The Pentecostals left or were forced to leave their Holiness denominations and they formed the first Pentecostal denominations, among which were the Pentecostal Holiness Church, the Church of God in Christ, the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), the Apostolic Faith (Portland, Oregon), the United Holy Church, and the Pentecostal Free-Will Baptist Church. Most of these churches were located in the southern states and experienced rapid growth after the Pentecostal Revival. Two of these, the Church of God in Christ and the United Holy Church, were predominantly black.
A controversy developed among these churches about sanctification. Some like Parham and Seymour taught that speaking with tongues was the sign of the “second work of grace”, but others held that the baptism of the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues was a “third work of grace”. Then there were those like William H. Durham who in 1910 began to teach his “finished work” theology, which taught that sanctification is progressive work of the Holy Spirit based on the finished work of Christ on Calvary. The baptism of the Holy Spirit was the first filling of the Holy Spirit by which one is enabled by the Holy Spirit to live and minister. The Assemblies of God was formed in 1914 based on Durham’s teaching and soon became the largest Pentecostal denomination in the world. Most of the Pentecostal Churches after 1914 were formed on the model of Assemblies of God. They include the Pentecostal Church of God, the International Church of the Four Square Gospel (founded in 1927 by Aimee Semple McPherson), and Open Bible Standard Church.
D. MISUNDERSTANDING OF THE BAPTISM WITH THE SPIRIT.
At the beginning of the twentieth century during the Pentecostal outpouring of the Holy Spirit, the baptism of the Holy Spirit was misunderstood to be the Holiness second work of grace that was believed to eradicate the sinful nature in the Christian. There were other Pentecostals that rejected this Holiness interpretation of the baptism of the Holy Spirit; they believed that the baptism of the Holy Spirit supressed or overcame the sinful nature so that believer who had received the baptism of the Holy Spirit could live a victorious Christian life – Spirit-empowered law-keeping.
Neither of these interpretations of the baptism of the Holy Spirit are Biblical; man in general and the Christian in particular does not have a sinful nature. Man sins because he is spiritually dead; “because of which [death] all sinned.” (Rom. 5:12d ERS) – not because he has a sinful nature.
And many Christians experience the lordship of sin when they are placed under law and are not under the grace of God ( Rom. 6:14 ERS). They sin, not because they have a sinful nature, but because they have been practically placed back into spiritual death.
Now since there is no sinful nature that causes the believer to sin, then the baptism of Holy Spirit is not the eradication or suppression of the sinful nature. But since the Christian sins when he or she is put under law ( Rom. 6:14 ERS), the baptism of the Holy Spirit may also be a deliverance from being under law to being under grace.
“7:25b So then, I myself am a slave to the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin.
8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus. 8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death. 8:3 For what the law could not do, in that it is weakened through the flesh, God Himself, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh,
8:4 in order that the righteous acts of law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit.” (Rom. 7:25b-8:4 ERS)
God delivers believers from being under law through His word of unconditional love which says that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ ( Rom. 8:1 ERS). This is a word of grace and places the Christian back under grace. Being under law conditions God’s love by our sins. God says that His love is unconditioned by our sins. Therefore, God does not condemn us for our failure under the law but delivers us from being under law and places us back under grace. For in His love, by His grace, God delivers us from the law of sin and of death by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ ( Rom. 8:2 ERS) and thus from wrath which is condemnation ( Rom. 8:1 NAS).
This deliverance by the operation of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has been misinterpreted as an eradication of the sinful nature. But the law of sin and law of death is not the sinful nature. The law of sin is the operation of sin as a slavemaster and the law of death is the operation of death which separates man from God. The law of death brings the man under law into captivity to the law of sin ( Rom. 7:23). That is, death leads to sin [“because of which [death] all sinned” ( Rom. 5:12d ERS).
“The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law” (I Cor. 15:55 ERS)].
No sinful nature is necessary to explain the Romans 7 experience; the man under law sins because he is practically spiritually dead; the law separates him from God. And since the law cannot make alive ( Gal. 3:21), it therefore cannot produce righteousness. For the Christian to place himself under the law is the same as placing himself in spiritual death; it has the same results — sin. For the Christian under law, the law has taken the place of the Holy Spirit; the law thus separates the Christian from God, and that is spiritual death. Romans chapter 7 is not the normal Christian life; it is the struggle of the man under law, entrapped in the bondage of legalism, of being under law. And if the Christian falls into this legalism, there is deliverance.
“Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Rom. 7:25a).
This deliverance often takes place with the baptism of the Holy Spirit. The baptism with the Holy Spirit is the initial infilling with the Spirit. And if the believer is in bondage under the law, then he or she will be set free from this bondage when they are filled with the Spirit. But since the Christian life is often misinterpreted as living by the law, then the spirit-filled believer is often placed back again under law. And then the believer sins, and some interpret these sins as the lost of salvation and the need to be saved again. Among some other, this fall into sin is interpreted as an expression of sinful nature of the believer who has yielded to his sinful nature rather than living according to his new nature. Both these teachings misunderstand the reason for the fall into sin and do not recognize that the cause of the sin is being under law ( Rom. 6:14 ERS).
Being under law does not mean that the law is the cause of sin. As Paul points out in Romans 7:7-12, the law is good but for the man under law, sin uses the law as an opportunity to become active. And this law of sin becomes active because of the law of death ( Rom. 7:23). The law of God is not the law of sin, but being under the law allows the law of sin to become operative. And the law of sin becomes operative because the being under law allows the law of death to become operative. For the law cannot make alive ( Gal. 3:21), but brings death ( Rom. 7:10). Deliverance from the law of sin is by the deliverance from the law of death and deliverance from the law of death is by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus ( Rom. 8:2). Thus the law or power of action of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus frees us from the law or power of action of sin and the law or power of action of death. Since death leads to sin, the Spirit delivers from sin by giving us life in Christ which is deliverance from death. The law is not able to do this; it is through the death of Christ ( Rom. 8:3) who put an end to sin’s reign over us (“condemn sin in the flesh”) by his death for us (II Cor. 5:14-15; Rom. 6:10). The result ( Rom. 8:4) is that the righteous acts of the law are fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. To walk after the flesh is to try to do the righteous acts of the law by human effort (“the flesh”). The believer must not do it that way. Romans chapter 7 shows us the failure of this way. Only as we are delivered from being under the law (we died to the law in Christ’s death: Rom. 7:4) and are set free from the law of sin and from the law of death by the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus ( Rom. 8:2 NAS), do we experience the resurrection victory of Christ over sin and death.
The Christian life is not Spirit-empowered law-keeping, that is, being under the law and coming up to standard of the law by the power of the Spirit. For the believer is not under law ( Rom. 6:14) because he is dead to the law ( Rom. 7:4, 7:6). Thus the walk according the Spirit is not Spirit-empowered law-keeping but is Spirit-filled law-fulfilling by love ( Rom. 8:4; 13:10); it is a joyful walk filled with the Spirit, trusting Him who loves us and gave Himself for us. And is a law necessary when we love and trust God? The law is for those who do not love and trust God — though it will not save them — the law cannot make them alive and it cannot produce righteousness ( Gal. 3:21), the righteousness of faith (Rom. 4:5, 13). But if the believer by faith is walking according to the Spirit, he will fulfill the righteous acts of the law ( Rom. 8:4). He will love God with his heart, soul, and mind, with his whole being, and he will love his neighbor as he loves himself. And this walk in the Spirit is possible only by being filled with the Spirit. And this fulfillment of the righteous acts of the law is not Spirit-empowered law-keeping. It is to walk by the Spirit and to walk by the Spirit is to be led by the Spirit, and if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law:
“But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law.” (Gal. 5:18).
Legalism is a temptation and an obstacle to the walk in the Spirit by faith. As good and right as the law is (Rom. 7:10), this law is not man’s highest good, and observing the Ten Commandments is not man’s righteousness. God Himself is man’s highest good, and trust in and love for God is his righteousness. This love fulfills the law ( Rom. 13:8-10), which a legalistic living by the law does not do. Man’s basic problem is not “Are you keeping the law?” but “Which god are you trusting?” Is it the true God or is it a false one? This is not just the problem of the non-Christian and the unbeliever but also the problem of the Christian. Many psychological problems that Christians have are the result of a divided loyalty. They are trying to hang onto the true God and a false god at the same time. This double-mindedness, this divided faith (James 1:7-8) makes a Christian psychologically and morally unstable and hinders his walk with the Lord.
And strange as it may seem, this is the situation behind the Romans 7 kind of experience of many Christians. As we observed above, the experience of Romans 7 is the experience of the man under law. And if a Christian is having this kind of experience, it is because he has placed himself under law which God says he is not under, for he is under grace ( Rom. 6:14 ERS). He is attempting to serve two masters at the same time: the law and the Holy Spirit. And it cannot be done ( Gal. 5:18). It only creates psychological and moral problems: guilt on the inside and sin and failure on the outside. Being indwelt by the Holy Spirit, the Christian does not need to walk by the law but by the Spirit. The Christian’s goal is not moral perfection but the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). The Apostle Paul’s question in Galatians 3:3 is particularly relevant and right to the point: “Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?”
Paul’s obvious answer to this rhetorical question is “No“. For “as you… have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him” (Col. 2:6). By faith they have received Christ so they walk in Him by faith. This walk is not the striving for moral perfection. Moral perfection is perfection by the flesh, by the works of the law, and is contrary and opposed to the fruit of the Spirit and the righteousness of faith (Gal. 5:19-21). The weakness, if not the error, of most Christian preaching and teaching is that it is an exhortation of the Christian to perfection by the flesh, by the works of the law. Having begun in the Spirit, the Christian is urged to seek moral perfection. The Holy Spirit is brought into this kind of preaching, if at all, as the source of power to enable the Christian to keep the law. This Spirit-empowered law-keeping is not what Paul means when he speaks of “walking according to the Spirit” ( Rom. 8:4; see also Gal. 5:16, 25). To walk by the Spirit is to be led by the Spirit, and if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law:
“But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law.” (Gal. 5:18).
To walk according to the Spirit is to make all one’s decisions with reference to the Holy Spirit as He personally guides, fills and empowers the believer. The walk in the Spirit is the moment by moment walk of faith and personal trust in the God who personally by His Holy Spirit reveals and communicates Himself along each step of that walk. The “normal” Christian life is this walk according to the Spirit and is not a legalistic Spirit-empowered law-keeping, but a biblical Spirit-filled law-fulfillment by love ( Rom. 8:4; 13:10). Christian legalism not only ignores the clear statements of the Scriptures that the Christian is not under law ( Rom. 6:14 ERS), but also ignores the equally clear statements of the Scriptures that the Christian is dead to the law.
“Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law through the body of Christ, so that you may belong to another, to him who has been raised from the dead in order that we may bear fruit to God.” (Rom. 7:4; Gal 2:19)
Not only is the Christian dead to sin but is also dead to the law. Through Christ’s death, the believer has died to sin and to the law, and now in the resurrected Christ he is alive to God.
“But now we are discharged from the law, dead to that which held us captive, so that we serve not under the old written code
but in the new life of the Spirit.” (Rom. 7:6)
The Christian has passed from under the reign of death and sin unto reigning in life in Christ Jesus (Rom. 5:17). The law was the rule in the dispensation of death (II Cor. 3:6-7); the letter kills and the law condemns. The Holy Spirit is the rule of life in the new dispensation of life (II Cor. 3:17-18). Since the Spirit gives life (II Cor. 3:6), the dispensation of life is the dispensation of the Spirit (II Cor. 3:8), the Era of the Spirit. Since the Christian has passed from death to life, he has passed from the rule of the law to the rule of the Spirit. The law as the rule of Christian life has no place in the Era of the Spirit. And if the law has no place in the Era of the Spirit, legalism as an idolatry and misunderstanding of the law has no place in the Era of the Spirit either.