"I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh: for as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity unto iniquity; even so now yield your members servants to righteousness unto holiness." — Romans 6:19 KJV.
"I am speaking in human terms because of your natural limitations. For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to greater and greater iniquity, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness for sanctification." — Romans 6:19 NRSV.
Ἀνθρώπινον λέγω διὰ τὴν ἀσθένειαν τῆς σαρκὸς ὑμῶν. ὥσπερ γὰρ παρεστήσατε τὰ μέλη ὑμῶν δοῦλα τῇ ἀκαθαρσίᾳ καὶ τῇ ἀνομίᾳ εἰς τὴν ἀνομίαν, οὕτως νῦν παραστήσατε τὰ μέλη ὑμῶν δοῦλα τῇ δικαιοσύνῃ εἰς ἁγιασμόν. — Romans 6:19
In the King James Version of the Bible, the phrase reads “righteousness unto holiness.” This does not refer to the initial holiness that comes with regeneration, but — as Dean Alford explains — to perfect holiness. In other words, believers are called to “present their members as servants to righteousness, leading to — resulting in — perfect holiness.”
Both the King James and Revised Versions recognize an important distinction here. They affirm that there is a definite order: righteousness comes first, and perfect holiness follows. Righteousness — understood as evangelical justification — always precedes entire sanctification. This order makes sense. Righteousness is harmony with God’s law; holiness is conformity to God’s nature. The first lays the foundation for the second.This distinction matters deeply, because a major practical question depends on it: Should I seek entire sanctification? The answer hinges on understanding that justification comes first. It took eight years of serious Bible study for two young men in England — one of them John Wesley — to arrive at the truth “that men are justified before they are sanctified.” While they were still earnestly pursuing heart purity, God, as Wesley put it, “thrust them out to raise a holy people.”
That moment in Wesley’s life would hardly deserve a prominent place — let alone the opening page of the Methodist Episcopal Church’s Book of Discipline, signed by every American bishop — if it were not tied to this crucial truth: justification precedes sanctification. And from that truth flowed the great purpose of Methodism itself — to raise a holy people by spreading scriptural holiness across the world.
The fiery zeal of early Methodism rested on a clarified theology. Just as Luther stripped away the layers of error that Romanism had piled onto the doctrine of justification — burying it beneath works and despair — so Wesley cleared the doctrine of sanctification from centuries of confusion. He rejected the ideas that holiness comes by works, by slow growth, by imputation, by death, or by purgatorial suffering after death.
Instead, Wesley pointed believers to the risen Christ, emphasizing His intercessory work in sending the Holy Spirit in Pentecostal power. That Spirit, flowing like a river through the ages, cleanses completely all who are willing to enter in.
This clear recognition of the divine order — pardon first, purity afterward — directly refutes the idea that justification and entire sanctification occur at the same moment, or that regeneration itself is entire sanctification. If there is a period between the planting of divine love in the heart and the perfection of that love through the fullness of the Holy Spirit, then the so-called “residue theory” must be true. During that interval, “the flesh lusts against the Spirit,” and the Spirit contends with the flesh until it is finally crucified.
The priority of justification over entire sanctification cannot be reconciled with the modern doctrine of imputed holiness, which claims that the first act of faith permanently incorporates the believer into Christ’s glorified body, so that all of Christ’s holiness is immediately credited to them. But this raises a problem: When is the believer justified? Scripture answers clearly — at the moment of faith. If sanctification is fully imputed at the same instant, then the two works collapse into one, leaving no room for growth or cleansing afterward.
Some attempt to escape this difficulty by arguing that justification occurred for all believers when God judged sin at the Cross. But this is not the justification by faith taught by Paul. How can someone believe eighteen hundred years before they are born? And if both justification and sanctification rest solely on an eternal decree, then they must be simultaneous — merely two sides of the same act.
There is yet another error, taught by many Roman Catholics and some Protestants, which claims that justification is only complete once sanctification is finished. This idea underlies the doctrine of purgatory, which treats post-mortem suffering as restorative punishment. But this contradicts the biblical truth that Christ grants full and perfect pardon to every repentant believer. Purgatory assumes punishment remains; the gospel declares forgiveness complete.
Taken together, these errors only reinforce the conclusion that the biblical order of salvation—justification followed by entire sanctification—is the only theologically consistent position. It aligns with Scripture, sound theology, and lived Christian experience.
So the question each believer must face is this: Have I moved beyond justification into entire sanctification? If not, why? What is holding me back from a state of grace so deeply desirable? Do I truly honor the Holy Spirit if I neglect to seek that crowning blessing which comes only through His work
Some readers may now ask, How long after justification can I receive entire cleansing? Scripture offers no timetable. There is no divine calendar marking the interval. The moment you recognize a deeper need in your heart — and believe, with unwavering surrender and persistent faith, that Christ fully meets that need — you may expect to receive the blessing.
With this in mind, consider these passages prayerfully:
Paul urges believers to present themselves as servants to righteousness “leading to sanctification,” and later says that their “fruit” is sanctification, ending in eternal life (Romans 6:19, 22). He declares that Christ is made to us “righteousness, sanctification, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30). God’s will, he says plainly, “is your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). Elsewhere, believers are chosen “unto salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” (2 Thessalonians 2:13). Hebrews reminds us that the struggle against sin has not yet reached its final extremity (Hebrews 12:4). Peter speaks of sanctification as the Spirit’s work leading to obedience and cleansing through Christ’s blood (1 Peter 1:2).
The many commands that call believers to entire sanctification strongly suggest a decisive, completing act. A careful study — using either a concordance, or Bible study software — confirms this. The same is true of the language surrounding the baptism of the Spirit and being filled with the Spirit. Acts 15:8–9 makes this explicit: God gave the Holy Spirit to the Gentiles just as He did to the apostles, “cleansing their hearts by faith.” Peter’s point is clear — the apostles’ hearts were cleansed on the day of Pentecost.
One respected English scholar, though skeptical of the idea that the inward tendency to sin can be fully removed in this life, makes an important admission. He notes that the New Testament never clearly describes sanctification as a gradual process — except, perhaps, in Revelation 22:11, and even there only tentatively. According to him, the only unmistakable gradualism appears beyond the final judgment — and even that is uncertain.
He further observes that only in Hebrews 2:11 and 10:14 is the present tense of sanctify used of believers: “He that sanctifieth and they that are sanctified are all of one,” and “by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified.” Even here, a gradual process is not required by the grammar.
In light of this scholarship, the burden of proof shifts. It is no longer on those who affirm instantaneous sanctification, but on those who insist it must be gradual. And for any Greek student still unconvinced, a careful study of the verb tenses for “sanctify” and “perfect” in the New Testament will prove deeply instructive.
This is a revision of Part 1, Chapter 6 of Mile-stone Papers (1878) by Daniel Steele, written with the assistance of Microslop CoPilot. The original chapter can be found here: RIGHTEOUSNESS UNTO SANCTIFICATION.
No comments:
Post a Comment