I openly proclaim and testify to the whole world that Jesus Christ can make the inside clean as well as the outside of His vessels unto honor; that purity of heart is real and inwardly worked, not merely a spotless robe covering unspeakable moral filth and leprosy. I believe with St. John, against the Gnostics, that if anyone claims to have no natural defiling stain of depravity, no bent toward sinful acts, and therefore no need of the blood of atonement, he is deceiving himself, and the truth is not in him. But if he confesses his lost condition, God is faithful and just not only to forgive, but also to cleanse from all sin, "actual and original" (Bengel).
I boldly affirm that we are living in the days when Ezekiel’s prophecy is fulfilled: "I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from ALL your filthiness and from ALL your idols I will cleanse you; I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes," (a case of evangelical legalism), "and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them. I will also save you from all your uncleannesses"; and in the days when the words of Jehovah, spoken through Moses, are verified in the experience of many believers: "The Lord thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the Lord thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live." I find St. Paul’s inspired unfolding of the Gospel gems dropped by Christ to be the exact fulfillment and realization of these predictions, especially when the Apostle says that "our old man is crucified with him" — that is, in the same way and with the same deadly effect — "that the body of sin might be destroyed " — "put out of existence" (Meyer); so that every mature believer may truly say, "it is no longer 1 that live" (R. V. Am. Committee).
I look with sorrow on the revival of a false perfection that caused disastrous harm in earlier generations. This counterfeit version imagines a perfect and permanent standing in Christ that is entirely separate from moral conduct and character. Its inevitable result, in many cases, is the rejection of God’s law as the rule of life and a serious lowering of Christian moral standards. It is a bad sign when Christian teachers make eloquent arguments on behalf of the flesh and build clever but mistaken Scriptural defenses for indwelling sin. As long as the believer lives in the body, preaching of this kind does not awaken a deep hatred of sin; instead, it dulls people’s sense of how dreadful sin is and leads them "to speak of the corruptions of their hearts in as unaffected and airy a manner, as if they talked of freckles upon their faces, and to run down their sinful nature only to apologize for their sinful practices; or to appear great proficients in self-knowledge, and court the praise due to genuine humility.”
We have observed that a group of popular evangelists has embraced the doctrines that lie at the foundation of Antinomianism, and that they are actively teaching these distinctive views in Young Men’s Christian Associations and summer schools.
Through articles in our Christian periodicals, I have done what I could to warn the public about the certain harmful results that will follow when these doctrines move from the few Christian teachers who, because of long-established Christian habits, are fortified against their dangerous tendency, to the many weak believers who may be trapped to their moral ruin by the appealing idea that one act of faith in Christ guarantees permanent freedom from condemnation and a lifelong license to walk in the flesh.
Some teachers of this doctrine may live in line with the purest ethical teachings of Christ because of what Joseph Cook calls "hereditary momentum," along with a personal experience of salvation from earlier years, before they adopted their present theological errors. But what will be the natural fruit in those who fully accept a theoretical error so closely tied to conduct and character, and who lack the safeguards just mentioned?
From what we know of the human heart, we fear many shipwrecks of moral character. People generally live below their creeds; very few rise above them. Illustration: A preacher riding on top of an omnibus in London spoke words of correction to a tipsy man sitting beside him, who was using very improper language, and warned him as a transgressor of God’s law. "Oh," said the man, "it is not by works, it is by faith, and I believe in Jesus Christ, and of course I shall be saved." Here is a man, one example among countless others, who is living in willful sin while dreaming of final salvation on the basis of a barren, fruitless, speculative belief that Jesus Christ died for his salvation — a faith that reforms conduct and transforms character no more than belief in the existence of the sea-serpent.
The fatal mistake is ignoring the Scriptural test of saving faith: evangelical works. It is true that the repentant believer who seeks pardon for sin is justified by faith only. But it is also true that on the day of Judgment the same person will be judged by works only — works that prove the genuineness of his faith (Jer. 17. 10; 32. 19; Ezek. 7. 3, 27:; 18. 20, 30; 1 Cor. 3. 8, 13-15; 2 Cor. 5. 10; GaI. 6. 5-8; especially Matt. 25. 31-46).
It is only fair to the Christian public that I acknowledge my own sense of inadequacy in handling this subject properly. For a long time I waited for some eminent theologian to speak up and refute a system of error that is being energetically promoted by people whose zeal deserves a better cause. At last, I have yielded to the urging of many Christian men to expose the character and tendencies of the system of doctrines against which this book is prayerfully directed. I have made free use of that great storehouse of weapons — "Fletcher’s Checks to Antinomianism." At times I have quoted sentences exactly as they stand and marked them with quotation marks. But often those marks could not be used because I changed the wording, either to shorten it, modernize it, or remove some personal reference.
In my quotations from the writings of the Plymouth Brethren and those sympathetic to them, I have tried to give the writer’s exact meaning as gathered from the context.
Whoever among my Christian friends may be grieved, I trust that the great day will reveal that truth has not been wounded, but rather cleared of errors and set forth in the robes of her native beauty.
This is a revision of the Preface to A Substitute for Holiness, or Antinomianism Revived (1887) by Daniel Steele, completely rewritten with the assistance of Microslop CoPilot. The original essay can be found here: PREFACE.
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