The Three Kinds of Perfection (Rewritten)

When the Bible talks about “perfection” in relation to human beings, it doesn’t mean just one thing. In fact, much of the confusion around the idea of Christian perfection comes from blending together three very different meanings. Once we separate them, the picture becomes much clearer.

The Meaning of Being “Sons of God” (Rewritten)

To think clearly about Christian faith — and to stay true to what Scripture actually teaches — we need to be careful with phrases like “sons of God,” “children of God,” and “the Fatherhood of God.” These terms are often used loosely today, but the Bible uses them with precision.

Strictly speaking, there is only one being who is truly and literally the Son of God: Jesus Christ. He alone is Son by nature. His relationship to God is eternal, grounded in the divine nature itself, not created in time. That is why Scripture calls Him “the only begotten Son.” God is never described as the Creator of Jesus, but always as His Father. Christ’s sonship is unique and completely unshared.

The Sons of God and Our Place in God’s Story (AI Rewrite)

Where do human beings really fit in God’s creation? This isn’t just an abstract question for philosophers or theologians — it has real consequences for how we live. If a person truly understands who they are and what they are meant to become, it shapes their character, their choices, and their sense of purpose.

Scientists once speculated whether some future creature might surpass humanity, just as humanity surpasses animals. Observations from biology and geology were often brought into the discussion. But from a Christian perspective, the answer doesn’t rest in anatomy or evolution alone. Humanity holds a unique place because God Himself entered our human nature in Jesus Christ. That single fact elevates the human race beyond anything else that could ever walk the earth. God would not create a being greater than His own Son, who became fully human.

And yet, Scripture tells us something even more surprising: within humanity itself, a new order of life has already appeared — what the Bible calls the sons of God.

On the Governmental Theory of Atonement

THE GOVERNMENTAL THEORY.

III. The Scripture which comes nearest to a statement of the philosophy of the atonement is Rom. iii. 25: "Whom God set forth as a propitiation through faith, by His blood, for the exhibition of His righteousness, because of the passing over of the sins before committed in the forbearance of God." The question is, What is the nature of the righteousness exhibited in the setting forth of Jesus Christ as a propitiation? Is it the justice of the Judge or the justice of the Governor? In probation God is not dealing with us as a Judge, but as a Governor. The righteousness exhibited is not judicial, exact, distributive, giving to each his exact deserts, but rectoral, governmental, general justice, defined by Webster as that "which carries out all the ends of law, though not in every case through the channels of distributive justice, as we often see done by a parent or ruler in his dealings with those who are subject to his control." The atonement was necessary for the same reason, precisely, that the penalty of the violated law was necessary: it takes the place of that penalty, in the case of penitent believers, answering the same end as would be answered by the infliction of the penalty, maintaining divine law. A more exact definition is that of Miley: 

 

"The vicarious sufferings and death of Christ are an atonement for sin as a conditional substitute for punishment, fulfilling, on the forgiveness of sin, the obligation of justice in moral government." 

 

The advantages of this theory are:

On the Moral Influence Theory of Atonement

\I. We come now to our second division, in which the necessity of the atonement is located wholly in the obduracy of the sinful race which needs this wonderful display of love and sacrifice to melt it into contrition and obedient faith. It is commonly called

THE MORAL INFLUENCE THEORY,

though moral influence is incidental to all theories. But here it is the principal thing, the sole need and aim of the atonement. Man, not God, is to be propitiated; the work of Christ has no Godward aspect. If men would repent under other moral influences, the atonement were unnecessary. Christ is only a Saviour, not the Saviour. He is only one, the most prominent, of many moral benefactors, the efficacy of whose self sacrifice for others is the same in kind. He stands at the head of the noble army of martyrs who by their unselfish labors and contagious example of heroic self-immolation have turned many from sin unto righteousness. If this does not discrown our Divine Lord Jesus it certainly detracts from His honor as the unique Saviour. He cannot be put into a class without dimming His glory. He must stand alone.

On the Penal Satisfaction Theory of Atonement

 The question must be answered,

WHY IS THE ATONEMENT NECESSARY?

Who or what demanded it? We pass by the first answer, that it was necessary to satisfy the claim of Satan, who had captured the sinful race of men, and was holding them as his prisoners. For more than a thousand years this was the common answer. I do not say the only answer, because here and there one, like Athanasius, and John of Damascus, declared that the satisfaction was paid to God the Father. But under the stimulus of the Gospel quickening the intellect, this theological crudity of a tribute to Satan was outgrown, and the way was opened for a thorough discussion of the necessity of Christ's atoning death, for He must be lifted up, He must needs have suffered. Out of the various answers we shall have time to speak of only three: first, God's essential justice; secondly, man's obduracy in sin; and thirdly, the requirements of a Divine government, offering conditional pardon to a race of sinners. The first and the last locate the necessity on the Godward side, while the second locates it wholly on the manward side.

The Importance of Atonement (Introduction)

The seven allusions to the atonement in John's First Epistle demand a more extended discussion, in view of the importance of this central doctrine of Christianity so strongly emphasized by St. John.

The word " atonement" appears but once in the New Testament, and is in that text a mistranslation for "reconciliation," as in the R. V. of Rom. v. 11. But the idea of the atonement, hinted at in the Gospels, where it could not be intelligibly explained as a ransom for many (Matt. xx. 28), is after the death and resurrection of Christ fully unfolded under such terms as "redemption through His blood," "gave Himself for our sins," "reconcile . . . by the cross," "hath given Himself a sacrifice to God," "Christ suffered for us in the flesh," "He is the propitiation for our sins," and many similar expressions. It is the central fact of Christianity perpetually emphasized in the Lord's Supper, which ordinance sooner or later is discontinued wherever the idea of redemption through the blood of the Son of God is no longer preached. When Ralph Waldo Emerson was pastor of a Unitarian church in Boston, about seventy years ago, he ceased to administer the Holy Communion, and being asked by his deacons for the reason for omitting this sacrament,, replied that "it was giving undue prominence to one among many good men." From the standpoint of his theology, which made Jesus Christ a mere man, the son of a Jewish sire, his answer was logical, the memorial of the death of Christ was an invidious distinction.

If liberalism has no place for the atonement, orthodoxy has no ground to stand on without it. Hence we must defend it against all assailants. We must demonstrate it as a fundamental fact, and we must so wisely state the philosophy of that fact that its enemies will find it impregnable. We are, however, very thankful that men can be saved by relying on the fact with little or no knowledge of the philosophy, and even with an exceedingly erroneous philosophy, as we shall soon see.

But if a correct philosophy of the atonement is not necessary for the salvation of penitent believers, it is necessary to the salvation of that orthodoxy which produces penitent believers in Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world. The Gospel is under obligation to answer the inquiries which it has awakened by stimulating the intellect in all the Bible-reading nations. 

The question must be answered: WHY IS THE ATONEMENT NECESSARY?

[To be continued.]
 

Sin Not.

 SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES IN THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN - Part 4. 

"Sin not."

Sin is a small word, but it occupies a large place in human history. The trail of this serpent is upon us all. Upon the holiest of the sons of Adam it has left scars. In all others who have not applied the Divine cure it is a running sore, a virus poisoning the whole soul and threatening eternal ruin. Under God's moral government sin can never be happy. It may, for a short time, be delirious, and sing, and laugh, and dance. But delirium is not felicity. Sin grieves the heart of infinite love. 

This sorrow prompts the attempt to apply the atonement, the only remedy. This must be adapted to man's free agency. It cannot be forced upon him against his consent. He cannot be saved as a thing; he must be saved as a person by a free compliance with conditions, not as a bale of goods from a burning warehouse, but as a person intelligently and providently securing a life preserver and binding it upon him. Such a life preserver God has provided in the blood of His Son, which John in the first chapter of his First Epistle announces as the perfect remedy, "the double cure," saving from wrath and making pure. 

What is It "to have Sin"?

  SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES IN THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN - Part 3. 

 What is it to have sin?

We have examined the historical setting of this Epistle, and have shown it is aimed to refute an error destructive of both the spiritual life and the moral principles of Christians. We have shown from the opening words of the Epistle that John designed the extinction of this Gnostic error. We are now prepared to examine the text most frequently urged against the doctrine of perfect holiness in this life. "If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us " (i. 8). 

What class of people does John have in mind? When he says "we," does he mean all Christians, including himself, as some expositors say, Christians just described as walking in the light, and by the blood of Christ cleansed from all sin? Dean Alford answers this question thus, 

"St. John is writing to persons whose sins have been forgiven them (ii. 12), and, therefore, necessarily the present tense, 'we have,' refers not to any previous state of sinful life before conversion, but to their now existing state, and the sins to which they are liable in that state." 

But the answer is not satisfactory. It implies that "we have sins " which we have not committed, sins to which we are only "liable." It accuses every angel in Heaven, while keeping his first or probationary state, and Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, before their first sinful volition, of having sin, because they were liable to sin. It asserts a palpable contradiction, that persons cleansed from sin still "have sin." It makes the beloved apostle stultify himself by such a self-contradiction and absurdity. Again he perpetrates the same paradox: "This state of needing cleansing from all present sin is veritably that of all of us, and our recognition and confession of it is the very first essential of walking in light." I can get no other meaning out of these words than that sin "is the very first essential" of holy living, for walking in the light is walking in holiness.

God is Light

 SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES IN THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN - Part 2. 

But John's most effectual refutation of error is in the bold statement of the truth as verified by experience. We call the especial attention of preachers of the Gospel to this peculiarity of John. Christians, if genuine, not nominal, cannot be reminded too often that their religious life is "a matter of positive, demonstrable, realized facts," the witness of the Spirit crying in their hearts, Abba, Father, the transition from death to life consciously realized, which is the beginning of life eternal in the persevering believer who knows that he is in Christ and Christ in him, and "that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son," and is conscious of the indwelling of the Comforter and Sanctifier, making him a "habitation of God through the Spirit."