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APPENDIX G
NOTE CONCERNING THE MISINTERPRETATION OF HOLINESS AN SANCTIFICATION
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.
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 santification. 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.
Although The Deeper Life Movement became dissatisfied with the teaching that the Romans 7 experience is the normal Christian experience, they taught that in the Christian this tendency to sin (the sinful nature) is not extinguished but merely counteracted and controlled by the victorious living by the Spirit of God, and that the Christian life is Spirit-empowered-law-keeping, where the Spirit of God enables the believer to overcome this tendency and live up to the standard of holiness in the law. 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 [desire or lust] if the law had not said, ‘You shall not covet [desire or lust].’ 7:8 But sin, finding opportunity in the commandment, wrought in me all kinds of covetousness [desire or lust]. 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.
1. 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).
2. 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.
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 this 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 from sin, 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.
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.
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