Full Salvation is Available Now (Rewritten)

There’s no serious disagreement among Christians that full sanctification is necessary to enter Heaven. Where people often hesitate is on when that kind of purity can actually be reached. Many assume that as long as soul and body are joined together, the body must inevitably contaminate the spirit. According to this view, complete purity is impossible before death.

But this assumption rests on a very old mistake.

The idea that matter itself is inherently evil comes not from Scripture, but from ancient pagan philosophy—specifically from Gnosticism and Platonism. These systems taught that matter is eternal, un-created, and irreversibly corrupt. God, they claimed, merely shaped this flawed substance as best he could, but could never fully cleanse it. As a result, the soul was thought to remain defiled as long as it was trapped in the body, only to be purified later — after death — by some kind of fiery process.

This philosophy eventually gave rise to the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory. Protestantism rejected this idea of purification by fire, but often kept the same basic assumption by replacing it with what amounts to a “death‑purgatory” — the belief that full cleansing only happens at death.

After seventeen centuries, Christianity has still not fully shaken off this philosophical error.

Our purpose here is simple: to show that there is no evil — whether in matter or spirit — that the blood of Christ cannot cleanse, and that neither death nor punishment purifies the soul, but Jesus himself does. The only instrument he uses is truth, and the only agent is the Holy Spirit, the Sanctifier.

Everything that follows will rest on Scripture and lived Christian experience.

The question before us is this: Can Jesus save a believer from all sin — both outward acts and inward corruption — long before death?

JESUS IS A PRESENT SAVIOR

When the angel told Joseph, “You shall call his name JESUS, for he shall save his people from their sins,” (Matthew 1:21) the timing of that salvation isn’t explicitly stated. But the natural implication is that Jesus saves now. If a physician advertises that he cures cancer, we don’t assume he means years later, or only in the final moments of life. We assume he heals patients in the present.

Fortunately, Scripture gives us an inspired explanation of what Jesus’s saving work looks like. When Zacharias, filled with the Holy Spirit, prophesied about Christ, he spoke of an immediate redemption. He declared that God had “visited and redeemed his people” and raised up “a horn of salvation” so that we might be delivered from our spiritual enemies and serve God without fear, in holiness and righteousness, all the days of our life. (See Luke 1:67-79).

This deliverance was clearly spiritual, not political. It had nothing to do with Roman rule. And the result was not deferred to the afterlife, but meant to be lived out here and now. The language could hardly be clearer.

PAUL’S PRAYER FOR ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION

An even more direct statement appears in Paul’s prayer in 1 Thessalonians 5:23. Just before offering this prayer, Paul urges believers to live in ways that are humanly impossible without full salvation:

• “Rejoice always.”
• “Pray without ceasing.”
• “In everything give thanks.”
• “Abstain from every kind of evil.”

As John Wesley famously said, “I know no higher Christian perfection than this.”

Recognizing how demanding these commands are, Paul prays:

"May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." — 1 Thessalonians 5:23 NRSV.

Paul goes out of his way to be precise. He uses a rare and powerful word — ὁλοτελεῖς, meaning completely, through and through. The Latin renders it per omnia. Luther translated it beautifully as durch und durch — “through and through.”

Then Paul adds another rare term (ὁλόκληρον), emphasizing completeness in every part: spirit, soul, and body — each preserved entire, lacking nothing. This is not about something achieving its proper end (for which Paul usually uses the word perfect, τέλειος), but about totality — nothing missing, nothing left untouched.

And Paul is equally clear about when this happens. He prays that this complete sanctification will be followed by preservation “until the coming of the Lord Jesus.” That period obviously includes the believer’s earthly life. To push this prayer into the time after death would turn Paul into someone praying for the dead — a notion no Protestant accepts.

The sanctification, then, must occur in this life, and the wording strongly suggests it is instantaneous, not gradual. The verb “sanctify” (ἁγιάσαι) is in the aorist tense, pointing to a decisive act. Even scholars like Olshausen admit that the emphasis on “the God of peace himself” signals a new, powerful intervention of God — not merely slow spiritual growth.

NO PART OF HUMAN NATURE IS BEYOND CLEANSING

This passage also demolishes the idea that matter is inherently evil. Paul explicitly includes the body (σῶμα), which is fully material, among the parts to be sanctified. He also includes the soul (ψυχὴ) the seat of passions and desires shared with animals. And finally, the spirit (πνεῦμα), the intended dwelling place of God.

In other words, every part of human nature lies open to the cleansing power of Christ.

The same theme appears again in Hebrews, where the Apostle prays that God would “make you complete in everything good so that you may do his will” (Hebrews 13:21 NRSV). This must apply to the present life, because good works can only be done in time. 

HOLINESS IS EXPECTED NOW—NOT LATER

The Bible's expectation that believers bear the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22) applies to this life. If these virtues are required in perfection — and Scripture says they are — then their opposites must be removed. Perfect love leaves no room for hostility. Perfect meekness excludes sinful anger. And so on.

The same is true of God’s commands. All imperatives apply to the present moment. “Be holy” means be holy now. “Be perfect” means be perfect today. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart” either demands perfect love now — or it means nothing at all.

Likewise, the promises of sanctifying grace must be available now, or they are empty words. Faith can only rest on promises that apply to the present. Scripture speaks of the “destruction of the body of sin” followed by a decisive henceforth—a life no longer enslaved to sin before death.

WHAT ABOUT “AFTER YOU HAVE SUFFERED A WHILE”?

Some point to 1 Peter 5:10 as proof that perfection is delayed:

"...after that ye have suffered a while, [God will] make you perfect, stablish, strengthen, settle you." (KJV).

But if “after you have suffered a while” modifies “make you perfect,” then it must also modify “establish,” “strengthen,” and “settle,” since all four verbs are grammatically linked. That would mean believers are not strengthened or settled until after suffering — which contradicts the entire witness of Scripture.

A better reading, supported by scholars like Dean Alford, attaches the phrase to “who has called you.” In other words, God has called believers to eternal glory — which comes after suffering — but he perfects, strengthens, and establishes them now.

“And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, support, strengthen, and establish you.” (NRSV). 

This makes God a present help in suffering, not a distant one.

CONCLUSION

Jesus is not merely willing to overcome sin eventually. Christ longs to erase every stain now. As he is ready to pardon every sinner who comes to him in faith, so he is ready — this very moment — to cleanse every believer who trusts his promise of the Holy Spirit.

Christ is a present Savior, able to save completely, fully, and now.

 

 

---

This is a revision of Chapter 4 of Love Enthroned: Essays on Evangelical Perfection (1875) by Daniel Steele, completely rewritten with the assistance of Microslop CoPilot. The original chapter can be found here: FULL SALVATION IMMEDIATELY ATTAINABLE. The last part of the original chapter contains several testimonies to entire sanctification, which I have not attempted to re-produce here.