John Against the Gnostics.

 SUPPLEMENTARY STUDIES IN THE FIRST EPISTLE OF JOHN - Part 1.

It is said in the Encyclopædia Britannica that the persons addressed in this Epistle are "the instructed," and that the author's aim is "a deepening of the spiritual life and a confirmation of faith." To contribute something to this worthy aim I have deemed it a fitting occupation for the sunset hour of my life to voice to the whole company of believers "the message" of St. John, the aged, respecting the reciprocal indwelling of God in the soul, and of the soul in God as a result of love made perfect. It is also appropriate to the purpose of this book to divest the message of those misinterpretations which make it discordant and self-contradictory, and to set in a clear light the testimony of the last surviving eyewitness of our Lord to the utmost extent of salvation from sin under the dispensation of the Holy Spirit. Hence should this series of exegetical studies be occasionally polemical, it will not be from choice, but from necessity in vindicating vital truth and banishing deadly error.

When Was Paul Entirely Sanctified?

QUESTION: When was Saul entirely sanctified?

ANSWER: The fact is more important than the date. This fact is implied in all his exhortations and prayers, for he would not have urged others to obtain what he himself had not received. Nor would he have appealed to the Searcher of hearts as he did in 1 Thess. 2:10, to witness "how holily" he was living. In Gal. 1:15 there is noted a crisis in his experience after his conversion, which may have been his entire sanctification: "But when [it] was the good pleasure of God, who separated me (unto the Gospel Rom. 1:1) from my birth, and called (regenerated) me through his grace, to reveal His Son in me," etc. This is not the revelation of Christ in his natural vision, but rather the inward manifestation of Christ to his spiritual perception quickened into life when he was born from above. No unregenerate man can have an inward revelation of Christ. This may be Paul's phrase for his entire sanctification. It corresponds with modern experiences of this grace as the writer can testify.

— From Steele's Answers pp. 17,18.

When Did Paul Experience the Witness of the Spirit?

QUESTION: When did Paul receive the witness of the Spirit of adoption?

ANSWER: The first mention of the Holy Spirit in relation to him is in Acts 9:17, where Ananias declares the purpose of his mission to Saul, "that thou might be filled, with the Holy Spirit." The first offices of the Spirit to a penitent sinner trusting in Christ is to impart spiritual life and to witness his adoption into the family of God and to begin his sanctification by infusing the love of Christ. These are the blessings Saul received in Damascus. Some think he then and there received a full-fledged Christian character including entire sanctification ensphered in perfect love. But it is far more probable that this was a subsequent experience. Doubtless he advanced gradually from childhood to youth and, then to manhood in Christ. Entire sanctification requires a stronger faith than a penitent sinner can exercise, and, moreover, it is a gift for which he feels no special need, while overwhelmed with guilty fear in view of his past sins. In Gal. 1:15, 16, he speaks of two experiences, (1) called through his (God's) grace, and (2) the inward revelation of the Son, not to be confounded with the outward revelation of Christ in the sky, which blinded his eyes. This inward revelation could be made only to the inner eye purged from the film of sin as in the sixth beatitude, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God." In John 14:21 to those who already love Christ, and to them only, does he promise to manifest himself. Only these can receive this wonderful manifestation. Probably Saul, while studying his three years' course in theology in Arabia, under the tuition of the Paraclete, became capable of receiving this inward revelation.

— Steele's Answers pp. 177, 178.

The Centrality of the Cross in Paul's Preaching

"For I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified." — 1 Cor. ii. 2

The character and career of St. Paul are an inspiration to every believer in Christ and a model to every one of his ministers. That character will never cease to be admired by all who are capable of emotions of moral sublimity. It will be a dark day for the Christian church when this heroic apostolic example will have no imitators. He declared that after a course of bloody persecution he obtained mercy that he might stand forth as a conspicuous specimen of the wonderful power and condescending mercy of God, and as a pattern of all long-suffering to them who should hereafter believe on Him to life everlasting. We are justified in saying that Saul found pardoning grace that his course of labors and sufferings might be presented to every successive generation of Christian heralds as a model of all ministerial fidelity and devotion to his divine Master. His heroism is seen not only in his persistent surmounting of obstacles and dauntless courage to face foes thirsting for his blood, but also in the offensive doctrine to which he always gave prominence. He exalts and magnifies the most unpalatable truth of the gospel. He lifts up the bloody cross, awakening the anger of the Jew and the disgust of the Greek. To the one it was a stumbling-block and to the other foolishness. The Jew's worldly ideal of the Messiah was rudely shocked by the hammer that nailed the Nazarene to the tree. Even to this day he will not bow the knee to Jesus Christ because he says, in the words of a Hebrew college classmate, "I cannot worship a dead God." The cultured Greek, whose exquisite taste has given law to art, has his modern successors who are disgusted with a theology that has the blood of atonement as a cardinal element. Every audience before whom Paul "reasoned" was composed of Jews and Greeks whose prejudices were harshly assaulted, whose tastes were grossly offended by the very mention of the shameful cross as the instrument of blessing to mankind.

The Books Beyond the Gospels

QUESTION: Why should I receive the epistles of Paul, John and other apostles as authorities equal to the words of Jesus Christ?

ANSWER: Because he announced the incompleteness of his teachings and that the Holy Spirit would teach them truths which they could not bear to receive from his lips, such as the atonement, justification by faith, the in-gathering of the Gentiles, the change of the Sabbath from the seventh to the first day, the substitution of baptism for circumcision, the abolition of the whole Levitical law.

— From Steele's Answers p. 13.

Did Paul Disobey the Spirit in Going to Jeruslem?

QUESTION: Did not Paul disobey the Holy Spirit by going up to Jerusalem against the warning of the Prophet Agabus, who came down from that city and warned him by word of mouth and by an impressive object lesson (Acts 21:10-14) that he would there be bound and delivered into the hands of the Gentiles?

ANSWER: The Holy Spirit did not forbid Paul's going, but loudly revealed the consequences, if he did go. It brought out the true heroism of the apostle to the Gentiles. He could have interpreted the warning as a permission to secure his own safety, in accordance with Christ's command, "when they persecute you in one city flee ye to another," a command which Paul several times obeyed. But he believed that it was God's will that he should go on even if it cost him his life. It was God's way of bringing him to Rome, where he and not Peter organized the church in the world's capital city.

— Steele's Answers pp. 258, 259.

The Flesh

QUESTION: I am much perplexed by the different meanings of "flesh" in the N.T. Can you not give some light on this subject which will simplify matters?

ANSWER: The use of one word with several meanings is because there are more ideas than words in any language. It will help you to know that "flesh" has the signification of sinfulness only in Paul's epistles, who sometimes uses it in a good sense, as when he says "the life that I live in the flesh," meaning his body. Outside of Paul's epistles it means either the living tissue covering the bones, or the body as a whole, or all men when "all flesh" occurs. Paul does not use it as a synonym for sin, but as "proneness to sin," usually to sensuality, but sometimes it includes sins which are independent of the body; such as pride and malice. "Flesh" in the Gospels is not used in the moral sense, but in the physical, as in John 8:4, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh."

— Steele's Answers p. 252.

Daily in the Jaws of Death

QUESTION: Explain (1) Rom. 8:36, "For thy sake we are killed all the day long" (2) I Cor. 15:31, "I die daily."

ANSWER: (1) This is a verbatim quotation from Ps. 44:22, meaning exposure to death continually for their rebellion, some daily falling a sacrifice to the persecuting spirit of their enemies. (2) "I die daily," "I am daily in the very jaws of death" (Wesley). If the dead believers in Christ are never to have a glorious resurrection, what good reason have I for my daily exposure to martyrdom? Sometimes we hear an ignoramus in the pulpit quote this text to prove that there must always be sin in Christians, an idea as irrelevant to Paul's argument for the resurrection as the man in the moon. In II Cor. 11:23 he demonstrates his superior apostleship thus, "in labors more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in death oft." What stupidity in interpreting death in these three texts as a daily ineffectual cessation from sinning!

— Steele's Answers p. 238.

Was Paul the Father of Timothy?

QUESTION: Was Paul a married man and the father of Timothy, whom he calls his son?

ANSWER: In Acts 16:1, 3 we read that he was the son of a Christian Jewess, but his father was a Greek. Hence Timothy was uncircumcised when he was converted. This proves that his father was a Gentile.

— Steele's Answers, p. 233.

The Gift of Ministerial Power

QUESTION: What is the gift in I Tim. 4:14, "Neglect not the gift, that is in thee," etc.? (2) Also II Tim. 1:14, "That good thing * * * committed to thee"?

ANSWER: The ability to read the Scriptures publicly, to exhort and to teach, which ability had been solemnly recognized by Paul and the elders in his public ordination in which the unction of the Spirit necessary to success is invoked and received by the candidate through faith. (2) This is that spoken of in verse 6, "Stir up the gift of God which is in thee by the putting on of my hands." This gift of ministerial power could slumber, like embers beneath the ashes, unless Timothy should enkindle and quicken it into a flame. A pulpit on fire is a great attraction. If the fire has gone out or is smothered, the pews will soon become empty.

— Steele's Answers pp. 217, 218.

Pentecost and the Founding of the Church

"Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he shall guide you into all the truth: for he shall not speak from himself; but what things soever he shall hear, [these] shall he speak: and he shall declare unto you the things that are to come He shall glorify me: for he shall take of mine, and shall declare [it] unto you" — John 16:13, 14 (Revised Version).

This intimate identification of the Spirit's mission with the person of Christ and the success of His work was because in the wisdom of God it was seen to be necessary to the establishment and universal spread of His kingdom. There is truth in the argument that the existence of the Church as the visible exponent of Christ's kingdom is the great proof of the resurrection and divinity of its Founder. This is true. But our contention is that the Church which was not organized when Jesus Christ, its living head, ascended, would not have had a beginning on the earth without the Pentecostal gift. This idea has found expression in that beautiful and inspiring formula of worship, the Te Deum Laudamus, called by Canon Liddon "at once a hymn, a prayer and a creed," in these sublime words,

"When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death,
Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers."

Were All the Disciples Backsliders?

QUESTION: A prominent evangelist teaches that the disciples were all backsliders before Pentecost and had to be reclaimed. He used John 21 to prove his point, especially the conversation between Jesus and Peter. Is he not mistaken?

ANSWER: Yes, he is egregiously mistaken. The recurrence of seven of the apostles to their former occupation waiting calmly for some sign from the Master which should determine their future was not indicative of backsliding, but it was in accord with the intimation in Luke 22:36 that they must now be self-supporting preachers as Paul was an example in Acts 18:3, II Thess. 3:8. It is very evident that the thrice-repeated question to Simon Peter had reference, not to the other apostles, but to him alone, and that it related to his three denials of Christ in the court of the high priest's house.

— Steele's Answers pp. 210, 211.

The Habitation of the Human Spirit by the Holy Spirit

Professor Austin Phelps remarks that next to the mystery of the Three Persons in the one divine nature is the habitation of the human spirit by the Holy Spirit interpenetrating its substance with his vitalizing presence, pervading all the faculties of the human mind, becoming the life of its life, the soul within a soul, in a sense to which no other union makes any approximation. "He that is joined to the Lord is one Spirit" (1 Cor. vi. 17). This mystical union is symbolized by the human body united with the head, the branches and the vine, the union of husband and wife, the dependence of the temple on its corner-stone. Paul has a union with Christ by the Holy Spirit so intimate that he speaks of his own heart throbbing in the bosom of Jesus Christ: "For God is my record, how greatly I long after you all in the bowels of Jesus Christ" (Phil. i. 8). It has been said that such is the Spirit's efficacy that there is not one thought, feeling, or emotion pervading the man Jesus Christ, amid the glories of the upper Sanctuary, but may be said to be reproduced in the experience of his people on the earth, so that their every want and sorrow vibrates to him like the touching of a chord of which he is instantly aware. This telegraphic connection is implied in the joy of the angels over one penitent sinner, a ripple wave of gladness rolling over all the heavenly hosts. This communion of feeling is because the Holy Spirit who dwells in Christ dwells also in his people.

— Jesus Exultant (1899) Chapter 12.

When Was Jesus Glorified?

QUESTION: When was Jesus glorified?

ANSWER: To glorify God or Christ is to make him known and acknowledged as being all that he claims to be. Christ is spoken of several times as being glorified (John 12:28; 13:31; 17:10); but in his prayer in John 17:1 he still prays for glorification. We infer that his body was not changed by his resurrection, it still being flesh and bones. (Luke 24:39). This glorification occurred after leaving the earth. It was too dazzling for mortals to see; it almost killed Saul of Tarsus and John (Acts 9:4; Rev. 1:17).

— Steele's Answers p. 189.

On Churches, Sects, and Associations

QUESTION: Why do we not find the history and statement of doctrines of the National Holiness Association in any of the cyclopedias or church history?

ANSWER: Because it is not a sect or denomination. It does not advocate any doctrines differing from universal Methodism. It aims to benefit the members of all evangelical churches and all others whom they can reach.

QUESTION: Please define the words "church" and "sect," and show whether they are antagonistic or harmonious.

ANSWER: The "church" or ecclesia is an assembly of those who love and obey the Lord Jesus Christ, observe their own religious rites, hold their own meetings for the promotion of their own spirituality and for the conversion of sinners and the disciplining of all nations, and who manage their own affairs according to regulations prescribed for the body for order's sake. "Sect" is not, as some erroneously say, from the Latin verb seco, "I cut," denoting something cut off, but from sequor, "I follow," denoting the disciples of some leader of philosophy or religion. In the four Gospels and the Acts it is never used as a term of reproach, but in a good sense, except in the erroneous English version of Acts 24:5,15, where the prosecuting attorney, the orator Tertullus, styles Paul "the ringleader of the sect of the Nazarenes," and Paul replies, "I confess unto thee, that after the Way which they (the Jews) call a sect (Revision), so serve I the God of my fathers." Here his plea is that his sectarianism is in perfect harmony with loyal membership in the Jewish church. Dr. Campbell, in his Dissertation IX, Part 4, Notes on the Four Gospels, proves that in the Epistles the word "heresy" (sect), when not associated with terms having a bad meaning, never has an evil signification. The conclusion is that "church" and "sect" are not antagonistic, but, as Pharisees, Sadducees and Herodians, were all in good standing in the Jewish church, because they believed in Moses, so Presbyterians, Baptists, Methodists, etc., all loving and obeying the same Savior, are loyal members of his body, his church.

— Steele's Answers pp. 183, 184.

The Holy Spirit & Pentecost

QUESTION: (1) Have we any Scriptures that indicate that the disciples were sanctified wholly before Pentecost? (2) Does the Holy Spirit take up his abode in the entirely sanctified heart? (3) Is not the gift of tongues necessary today to mark the incoming of the Spirit to abide permanently?

ANSWER: (1) No. The passage in John 20:22 indicates some spiritual gift, rather than the person of the Spirit. (2) Yes. See John 1416, 17, 23; 15:16; I Cor. 6:19; James 4:5. "That spirit which he made to dwell in us yearneth for us even unto jealous envy" (American Revised Version, margin). (3) Tongues were one of the extraordinary gifts (not graces) named in I Cor. 12:4-11. Says Paul, "Tongues are for a sign, not to them that believe, but to the unbelieving." In our day they are not needed. Christianity has better proofs of its truth in its transformation of individuals and nations.

— Steele's Answers p. 182.

Transformed by the Grace of Our Lord Jesus Christ

It will be spiritually healthful to dwell upon a few of the desperate cases which illustrate the power of the Gospel.

Paul thus describes a miracle of the Holy Ghost wrought in Corinth: "Neither fornicators, nor adulterers, nor drunkards, nor idolaters, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor revilers, nor extortioners shall inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you; but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God." Look at this rogues gallery, — as vile a gang as ever were sentenced to State-prison, — transformed by the grace of our Lord Jesus into a company of seraphs fit to be enthroned beside the archangels.

See Augustine, a rake transformed by the Holy Spirit, in answer to his mother's prayers, into the saintly Christian bishop. It was the power of the Spirit which changed John Newton, the captain of a slave-ship, into an eminent minister of the gospel of love, and the vicious tinker of Elstow, transfigured by the regenerating and sanctifying Spirit, into the glorious dreamer and author of Pilgrim's Progress, a book which has a grip on an earthly immortality next to the Bible itself. Take one of the many remarkable conversions of our own times; that of Jerry McAuley, notorious as the wickedest man in New York, a thief, drunkard, ex-convict, and noted river pirate. He was when nineteen years old sent to prison for fifteen years and six months. After he signed the temperance pledge, "he fell five times in the first few months and got fighting drunk." But after he let the Holy Spirit have the right of way through all his being he never fell again. He established a rescue mission in which hundreds, if not thousands, of sinners of his class were saved before his death, and many since he went up to receive a victor's crown.

Modern Methodists would receive a healthful spiritual tonic in studying the triumphs of the Gospel as preached by Wesley and Whitefield, disarming desperate and infuriated men, turning cursings into blessings, drunkards into sober men, whole communities of ignorant, besotted, and belligerent colliers into intelligent, peaceable Christians, thickly dotting their once semi-pagan region with elegant Wesleyan chapels, filled with joyful worshipers singing the hymns of the Wesleys, whose faith in the Holy Spirit's power to save was so strong that they risked their lives in preaching, to these worse than beasts at Ephesus, the glorious gospel of Christ. They believed that it could change lions into lambs. God signally honored their faith. O for such preachers everywhere, to-day and to-morrow and forever as long as sinners are found on the earth!

Well may the triumphant believer sing [with Charles Wesley], —

"Thou dost conduct thy people

Through torrents of temptation;

Nor will we fear while thou art near

The fire of tribulation;

"The world, with sin and Satan,

In vain our march opposes;

In thee we will break through them all

And sing the Song of Moses."

— Jesus Exultant Chapter 11.

The Endowment of Power

"For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, that ye may be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inward man; that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; to the end that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which passeth knowledge, that ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God. Now unto him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us, unto him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus unto 10all generations for ever and ever. Amen."  — Ephesians 3:14-21 (ASV 1901)

The prayer of Paul for the Ephesians sanctions our entreaty for a blessing beyond perfect purity, even that we may "be strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man."

This brings us to our theme, the endowment of power.

Catching Corinthians by Guile?

QUESTION: Did St. Paul do right when he "caught the Corinthians by guile, being crafty"? See II Cor. 12:16.

ANSWER: His enemies slanderously said that he preached for money, not asking for it directly, but making Titus a cat's-paw to procure money for him craftily, while he was pretending to preach without burdening the people with the contribution box. Paul repeats their charge in order to refute it. All obscurity would have been avoided if he had written "They say," "I caught you," etc., as in 10:10.

— Steele's Answers, p. 169.

Putting Off the Body of the Flesh

"...in whom ye were also circumcised with a circumcision not made with hands, in the putting off of the body of the flesh, in the circumcision of Christ..." (Colossians 2:11 ASV)

Col. 2:11 contains a notable instance of the apostle Paul strengthening his assertion of the completeness of the cleansing of the believer, by the invention of a noun found nowhere else in the whole range of Greek literature. The word is ἀπέκδυσις (apekdusis), "putting off the body of the flesh" (R.V.), not "of the sins" of the flesh, as in the K.J.V., which is a gloss teaching deliverance from sinning. The R.V. teaches the greater deliverance from the sin-principle or tendency called original sin. Let us scrutinize Paul's invented compound noun, made up of two prepositions, ἀπό (apo) and ἐκ (ek), and the verb δύο (duo), all signifying the putting off and laying aside, as a garment, an allusion to actual circumcision. Meyer's comment shows the strength of this word:

Whereas the spiritual circumcision divinely performed consisted in a complete parting and doing away with this body [of sin], in so far as God, by means of this ethical circumcision, has taken off and removed the sinful body from man [the two acts are expressed by the double compound], like a garment drawn off and laid aside.

The italics are Meyer's. If this does not mean the complete and eternal separation of depravity, like the perpetual effect of cutting off and casting away the foreskin then it is impossible to express the idea of entire cleansing in any human language. This radical change of nature from sinful to holy is effected "by or by means of, the circumcision of Christ," i.e., which is produced through Christ by the agency of the Holy Spirit, procured by him. We do not accept the suggestion of Meyer that this Christian transformation is represented in its ideal aspect. God does not tantalize his children with unattainable ideals. He does not command perfection where it cannot be realized through his grace. He is not a hard master, reaping perfection where he has sown only imperfection. "His commandments are not grievous."

— edited and adapted from Half-Hours With St. Paul, Chapter 16.