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.

Introduction to the Epistles of John (5): Purpose and Historical Setting

 

PURPOSE AND HISTORICAL SETTING.

In the estimation of deeply spiritual minds the First Epistle of John holds the highest place in that series of inspired writings which constitute the Bible. In the order of divine revelations it is probably the last. It may very properly be regarded as the interpreter of the whole series. It not only awakens the highest hopes of the believer, but it also confirms and satisfies them by showing our privilege of fellowship with the choicest spirits on the earth and our cloudless and continuous communion with the Father and the Son by the Holy Spirit given to all who here and now unwaveringly trust in our risen Savior and Lord. The Epistle furnishes a lofty ideal of that Christian society or brotherhood called the Church, and it insists that its present realization is a glorious possibility. If the love of God and man which flames throughout this book were burning brightly — not smoldering — in the heart of every professor of faith in Christ, all secular sodalities would lose their attraction, disintegrate and disappear before the superior magnetism of the Bride of Christ the Church.

Leviticus 26:1-13 - Blessings for Obedience

"1 Ye shall make you no idols nor graven image, neither rear you up a standing image, neither shall ye set up any image of stone in your land, to bow down unto it: for I am the LORD your God. 2 Ye shall keep my sabbaths, and reverence my sanctuary: I am the LORD. 3 If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them; 4 Then I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5 And your threshing shall reach unto the vintage, and the vintage shall reach unto the sowing time: and ye shall eat your bread to the full, and dwell in your land safely. 6 And I will give peace in the land, and ye shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid: and I will rid evil beasts out of the land, neither shall the sword go through your land. 7 And ye shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 8 And five of you shall chase an hundred, and an hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight: and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. 9 For I will have respect unto you, and make you fruitful, and multiply you, and establish my covenant with you. 10 And ye shall eat old store, and bring forth the old because of the new. 11 And I will set my tabernacle among you: and my soul shall not abhor you. 12 And I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people. 13 I am the LORD your God, which brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, that ye should not be their bondmen; and I have broken the bands of your yoke, and made you go upright." —  Leviticus 26:1-13 KJV.

PROMISES AND THREATENINGS AS SANCTIONS OF THE LAW AND MOTIVES TO HOLINESS.

This chapter is the fitting close of this book of the law, the twenty-seventh chapter being manifestly supplementary. In this chapter will be found outbeamings of Jehovah’s nature more majestic than anywhere else in the Pentateuch, except at the giving of the decalogue on the Mount Sinai. There, his terror was displayed; but here, his “vengeance and compassion join in their divinest forms.” The appeal is to the two greatest motives of the human heart — hope and fear. The union of these two great elements, the Law and the Gospel, constitutes the basis of genuine piety. The remarkable character of the revelation made in this chapter, which must have deeply affected Moses, will explain to the Hebraist the peculiarities observable in the style, especially in the threatenings — the strain and struggle in the diction, the cumulation of unusual words and modes of expression, several of which never occur again in the Old Testament, while others are only used by the prophets as quotations from this portion of the Pentateuch. 

“There is a marvellous and grand display of the greatness of God in the fact that he holds out before the people whom he has just delivered from the hands of the heathen and gathered round himself, the prospect of being scattered again among the heathen, and that, even before the land is taken by the Israelites, he predicts its return to desolation. These words could only be spoken by One who has the future really before his mind; who sees through the whole depth of sin, and who can destroy his own work and yet attain his end. But so much the more adorable and marvellous is the grace which, nevertheless, begins its work among such sinners and is certain of victory, notwithstanding all retarding and opposing difficulties.” — Auberlin. 

After a brief reiteration of the law respecting idolatry and sabbath-keeping, (verses 1 and 2,) the sublime sanctions of the law are unfolded in promises and threatenings. Verses 3-46.

Pre-Sinaitic Sacrifices (Part 2)

If the patriarchal sacrifices were instituted by the Creator, it is reasonable to suppose that they were not positive and arbitrary requirements, with no hint of the reasons on which they were grounded — man’s dependence on omnipotent power and his exposure to offended justice. This revealed reason would involve the element of propitiation. But if sacrifices were the natural outgrowth of man’s religious nature — the expression of his deepest spiritual necessities — they must have had some reference to sin, the saddest fact in his consciousness. In either case, whether they were ordained of God or were spontaneous with man, the notion of expiation would not have been entirely absent.

At the same time it is reasonable to suppose that this idea was not distinct and prominent in the minds of the patriarchs, because the holiness of God had not yet been emphatically disclosed — that bright background on which the grim deformities of sin are portrayed. To the patriarchs God always turned the benignant and merciful side of his nature. He talks with Abraham as a friend, putting him quite at ease in his presence, and his wife laughs with incredulity while hearing the words of promise from the Lord’s lips. There is no inspiration of painful awe, no putting off the sandals to stand upon ground sanctified by the tread of the most holy Jehovah. From Adam to Moses there is no specific revelation of the holiness of the Supreme One. We look in vain in the book of Genesis, the record of patriarchal life, for the words holy and holiness as descriptive of the Divine character.

The hour for the revelation of this attribute did not arrive till the exiled Moses, at Horeb, turned aside from his flock to “see this great sight,” the bush burning yet not consumed. Exodus 3:3. The footsteps of the inquisitive Hebrew shepherd are suddenly arrested by the awful words, “Draw not nigh hither!” A new aspect of Jehovah’s nature is from this hour to be unfolded with ever-increasing splendour: “I am holy.” Sin having now, for the first time since the fall, its proper measure, becomes, by contrast, “exceeding sinful,” and needs to be purged from the conscience by blood distinctly expiatory.

We arrive at the same conclusion when we trace the history of man through the period in which he had only that internal sense of right and wrong called the unwritten law; which, indeed, constitutes him a subject of God’s moral government, and renders him amenable to the penalties of violated law, but is without that vivid apprehension of guilt which overwhelms his soul when that law, still legible within, takes on the form of an objective code written in stone by the finger of God amid the quakings of burning Horeb. Now, as never before, he regards himself as a sinner. “The law entered, that the offence might abound.” Romans 5:20. Now he needs relief from conscious guilt by a method of expiation bearing the unmistakable signature of his offended God. His forgiveness must be as authentically announced as his guilt has been glaringly demonstrated. Hence the provision for the typical purgation of the conscience is the logical sequence of the decalogue. Sinai has rendered the institution of the sin offering a necessity for the peace and salvation of the penitent sinner. 

— Commentary on Leviticus.

The Third Book of the Pentateuch

The third book of the Pentateuch was denominated by the Jews the  וַיִּקְרָ֖א (Vayikra), from the initial word, “And he called out.” Since the Seventy translated it into Greek it has been known in all the European languages by the name of LEVITICUS, from the prominent part in the sacrificial ritual performed by the sacerdotal tribe of Levi. But since the term Leviticus suggests the Levites, who are mentioned but once in the entire book, and then incidentally and proleptically, (Leviticus 25:32, 33,) in relation to the redemption of houses, we think that the Seventy applied a misnomer to this book. The Talmud, with less brevity but more truth, calls it, The Law of the Priests, and also, The Book of the Law of Offerings.

It is the rubric of that minute and burdensome system of sacrifices which Jehovah, in his wisdom, devised for the spiritual culture of the Hebrews, and for prefiguring “Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.” The only historical portion is that relating to the consecration of Aaron and his sons, their first offering of sacrifice, the judicial death of Aaron’s two elder sons, Nadab and Abihu, (chap. 8-10:7,) and the arrest and execution of a blasphemer. Leviticus 24:10-23.

The space of time covered by this book is one month. For our data compare Exodus 40:17 with Numbers 1:1.

The cursory reader discovers no orderly arrangement of topics, but the patient student discovers deep underlying principles which give system and symmetry to the contents of the book. In addition to its great value in the interpretation of the New Testament, wholly written by persons of Jewish faith, and in elucidating their conception of Christian doctrine, especially the atonement, and of the exegesis of the Epistle to the Hebrews, it is a repository of Jewish antiquities. It is, moreover, a book deeply interesting to scientists, as containing the earliest classifications of zoology and ornithology, and a minute diagnosis of the dreadful scourge of the leprosy. The commingling of facts and laws of which the events are the occasion, as in the Book of Numbers, strongly confirms the genuineness of the book and the authenticity of its statements.

— Commentary on Leviticus

Are the Ten Commandments Still in Force?

QUESTION: Are the Ten Commandments still in force? (2) If so explain II Cor. 3:7-11.

ANSWER: Christ confirmed them in Matt. 22:10, and in Mark 10:19. (2) There is no collision between these passages. The more glorious dispensation of the Gospel does not vacate or abrogate the moral law. The atonement made by Christ honors and establishes the law (Rom. 3:21-31). We are still under the law as the rule of life, but not as the ground of justification. If we were, we should all be condemned. Nor are we under the law as the impulse to service, which is not fear of the law, but love to the Lawgiver.

— Steele's Answers pp. 260, 261.

When Did Christ Fulfill the Law?

QUESTION: When did Christ fulfill the law (Matt. 5:17); was it at at his resurrection?

ANSWER: The Law was threefold, ceremonial, political, and moral. The first two parts were fully accomplished and ceased to be obligatory, when Christ died. But the moral law was conformed by Christ's obedience and atonement, and by the inspiration of love to the Law-giver he potentially perfected the obedience of those who believe in Him; i e., He made it possible for his saints perfectly to keep the law by perfectly loving Him, the revelation of God. Moreover, he deepened the requirement of  the law, going back of the act to the motive, to the impure look and to hatred, the essence of murder.

— Steele's Answers p. 249.

Is It Wrong to Raise Mules?

QUESTION: Is it wrong to raise mules in the light of Lev. 19:19, "Thou shalt not let thy cattle gender with a diverse kind: thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed; neither shall a garment mingled with linen and woolen come upon thee"?

ANSWER: In the Old Testament the law embraces not only moral actions, such as are right or wrong as discoverable by conscience, or revealed in the Decalogue, but also acts violating the code of ceremonial purity, and acts forbidden by the Judicial law which relates solely to the Jewish nation. These three kinds of laws are intermingled in the Pentateuch. The Jew regards all of them as morally obligatory. Hence he regards the breeding of mules as sinful because it is forbidden by the ceremonial law, which the Christian is under no obligation to keep, because Christ abrogated it in Mark 7:19, "This he said making all meats clean," R. V. The Jewish farmer deems it wicked to put a pumpkin seed in a hill of corn, or to wear a linsey woolsey garment, or one made of cotton and wool, sometimes called crugget, a comfortable clothing within reach of the poor. The highest magnifying glass fails to find any moral element in Lev. 19:19. Hence the mule is not an outlaw, nor is his breeder a sinner.

— Steele's Answers pp. 234, 235.

A Higher School of Faith

"Nevertheless I tell you the truth; It is expedient for you that I go away: for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him unto you." — John 16:7 KJV.

The withdrawal of the visible Christ and the substitution of His visible presence in the Paraclete whom He sent was the introduction of His disciples into a higher school of faith. Hitherto they had walked chiefly by sight. The Miracles of their Master had appealed to their reason through the senses. They were not entirely destitute of faith, else they would not have forsaken their fish-nets and followed the Man of Nazareth. But their faith was weak; it needed to be exercised and developed by struggles in a far different arena. They must be taught the spiritual nature of Messiah's kingdom. The visible presence of Christ as a veritable man had been a help to the primary lesson they had already learned; it would be a hindrance to the advanced lesson now to be learned. They must learn that deliverance from sin and restoration to true holiness consist not in outward ceremonials and prescribed rituals, nor in abstract truths grasped by the intellect, but in a vital union with a personal Saviour effected by the Spirit.

Liberty and Law

QUESTION: What is the relation of Liberty to Law?

ANSWER: Perfect obedience to Law is perfect freedom, because the consciousness of law is lost in love, which prompts us to do spontaneously and gladly all the loved Lawgiver requires. Duty is not seen because LOVE is written over it in so large letters. Whom the Son maketh free is free indeed. His yoke is easy. Love knows no burden.

— Steele's Answers pp. 195, 196.

Are the 10 Commandments Still in Force?

QUESTION: Our holiness preacher says the Decalogue is not in force now, having been nailed to the cross and is not binding now. Is this so?

ANSWER: Paul, in Col. 2:14, is speaking of "forgiveness of trespasses." Christ's atoning death affords a new ground of our acceptance with God instead of the plea that we have perfectly kept his law, which condemns us all, for we have all sinned, and therefore are excluded from legal justification. But evangelical justification is now possible, because God through Christ has taken away the law as the ground of justification, but not as THE RULE OF LIFE. This is what Paul means when he says, "We are not under the law but under grace." Some have done much harm by teaching that believers are not under obligations to keep the moral law. They are called Antinomians. See the book entitled, "A Substitute for Holiness," published by the Christian Witness Co., for an extended answer to this pernicious error.

— Steele's Answers pp. 187, 188.

A Triumphant Testimony

"And they overcame him [Satan] by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony." — Rev. 12:11.

The blood of atonement, so appropriated as to prompt to unceasing testimony, is the infallible weapon of victory. So long as Satan could point to the broken law, he could say, "Your case is hopeless, there is no pardon, no mercy in law; it is a straightedge to lay on your character and show its crookedness. It cannot make you straight. It must condemn you. So all your attempts to be righteous are vain. You would do wisely to throw off all allegiance to that hard Master who reaps where he has not sown, whose law is impracticable, and whose commandments are grievous." But the death of Christ puts a new hope into the despairing soul. It brings to an end the reign of law. so far as it is the ground of pardon. The blood of Christ lays a practicable basis for the forgiveness of sins. Thus the devil and his hostile powers are deprived of their strength, which rested on the law as the sole ground of justification.

— Half-Hours With St. Paul, Chapter 17.

If It is Impossible to Keep the Law of God Why Should Anyone Be Held Guilty?

QUESTION: If it is impossible to keep the law of God, why should we be condemned for not keeping it? (2) Do we need pardon for unconscious violations of a perfect law?

ANSWER: Law has several meanings in the Scriptures. The Adamic or Paradisaical law, the Levitical or Ceremonial law, and the Moral law. Only the latter are we bound to obey. It is possible for every one who is born of God to keep this law, because he loves Christ the Lawgiver, who makes the moral law to be "the law of liberty," not liberty to sin, but emancipation from the dominion of evil. Hence it is possible for every one to keep the royal law, the king of all laws, the law of love which carries the moral law in its bosom, for it is possible for every man, through penitent faith in Christ, to be born into the kingdom of love. (2) The law of love cannot be unconsciously violated, for if love turns to hatred, or indifference, consciousness must note the change. An act put forth in love may inadvertently harm my neighbor, but this is not sin. Do I not sin if I fail to keep the Adam law? The only expressed law given in Paradise was a prohibition. The implied Adamic law was love up to the full measure of his capacity, undiminished by sin. I am not required to serve God with Adam's powers, but with my present abilities crippled by sin. "Where little is given, little is required." Under the atonement everybody who knows the distinction between right and wrong has, through faith in Christ, the gracious ability to abstain from sinning — posse non peccare. The Lord Jesus be praised! This is the next best thing to the heavenly state — non posse peccare — the inability to sin. The first state leads to the second. Glory to God! The declaration that God's law cannot be kept reflects on both his justice and his goodness.

— Steele's Answers 116, 117.

The Law of Moses

QUESTION: (1) How much is included in what is termed the Law of Moses? (2) Is this the same as that referred to in the New Testament as "the Law"? (3) As Christians, what is our relation to the Mosaic Law?

ANSWER: (1) It is the legislative part of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It consisted of three portions, the Moral, the Ceremonial. And the Judicial. (2) The Moral embraces the Decalogue and certain ethical precepts such as relate to marriage, etc. This is binding on all Christians. The Ceremonial and the Judicial or civil law of the Hebrew nation are not binding on Christians. (3) When Paul says we are justified without the Law, he means we are not under obligation to plead that we have kept the moral law in order to be accepted. It is not the ground of our justification, but it is still the rule of life, and obedience to it is the fruit if faith in Jesus Christ. It will always be obligatory.

— Steele's Answers pp. 80, 81.

Freed From the Law?

QUESTION: In what sense are Christian believers freed from the Law?

ANSWER: (1.) It is true that all mankind are, by the atonement, forever freed from the necessity of pleading that we have perfectly kept the law, in order to acceptance with God. We are freed from the necessity of legal justification. Such a necessity would shut up a sinful race in eternal despair. We are freed from the law as the ground of justification. Our ground of justification is the blood of Christ shed for us.

(2.) Nor are true believers, who have received the Spirit of adoption, under the law as the impulse to service. They are not spurred on to activity by the threatened penalties of God's law. Love to the Law-giver has taken the place of fear of the law as a motive. This is specially true of those advanced believers, out of whom perfect love has cast all servile, tormenting fear. Before emerging into this experience, there is a blending of fear and love as motives to service. In this state the believer is not wholly delivered from legalism. But the law is put into the heart of the full believer, and its fulfillment is spontaneous and free. "I will run the way of Thy commandments when Thou shalt enlarge my heart." The Septuagint Version, used by our Lord Jesus, reads: "I have run .... Since," etc. "Without the law," says St. Paul, as an outward yoke laid upon the neck, "but under law to Christ." Love to Christ absorbs into itself all the principles of the moral law, and prompts to their glad performance. Hence, "Love is the fulfillment of the law." This is the meaning of Rom. vii. 6, as translated in the Revision which corrects the blunder of King James' version from a faulty MS., making the law of God die, instead of the believer's dying to it; that is, ceasing to be actuated by its terrors, and becoming obedient from the new principle of love. "But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that wherein we were holden; so that WE SERVE IN NEWNESS OF THE SPIRIT, and not in the oldness of the letter."

The Antinomian Error

Theological errors move in cycles, some times of very long periods. They resemble those comets of unknown orbits which occasionally dash into our solar system; but they are not as harmless. Often they leave moral ruin in their track. Since all Christian truth is practical, and aims at the moral transformation of men, all negations of that truth are deleterious; they not only obscure the truth and obstruct its purifying effect, but they positively corrupt and destroy souls.

This is specially true of errors which release men from obligation to the law of God. After St. Paul had demonstrated the impossibility of justification by works compensative for sin, and had established the doctrine of justification through faith in Christ which works by love and purifies the heart, there started up a class of teachers who drew from Paul's teachings the fallacious inference that the law of God is abolished in the case of the believer, who is henceforth delivered from its authority as the rule of life. Hence they became, what Luther first styled, Antinomians (Greek anti, against, and nomos, law).

Had the Rich Young Man Kept the Whole Law?

QUESTION: Did the rich young man keep all the commands, or only those relating to our fellowmen?

ANSWER: Though only those in the second table were named by Christ, it is highly probable that the young man professed to have kept the entire Decalogue.

— Steele's Answers p. 73.

The Error of Antinomianism

Theological errors move in cycles, some times of very long periods. They resemble those comets of unknown orbits which occasionally dash into our solar system; but they are not as harmless. Often they leave moral ruin in their track. Since all Christian truth is practical, and aims at the moral transformation of men, all negations of that truth are deleterious; they not only obscure the truth and obstruct its purifying effect, but they positively corrupt and destroy souls.

This is specially true of errors which release men from obligation to the law of God. After St. Paul had demonstrated the impossibility of justification by works compensative for sin, and had established the doctrine of justification through faith in Christ which works by love and purifies the heart, there started up a class of teachers who drew from Paul's teachings the fallacious inference that the law of God is abolished in the case of the believer, who is henceforth delivered from its authority as the rule of life.

Can Law Alone Save?

QUESTION: Explain Galatians 3:22-25 and answer the question, Can a sinner come to Christ through the constraint of the law alone without faith in Christ?

22 But the scripture hath concluded all under sin, that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to them that believe.  23 But before faith came, we were kept under the law, shut up unto the faith which should afterwards be revealed.  24 Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.  25 But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster.  (KJV)

ANSWER: Paul teaches the opposite, that law can only show the sinner's guilt, but cannot remove it; just as the straight-edge used by the carpenter cannot straighten out the crooks which it reveals. If the legalist or moralist could find perfect rest of soul in his own good works, he would never feel the need of the Saviour to give him rest. He must despair of salvation on the ground that he has perfectly kept the law before he will plant his feet on the new ground, faith in Christ. He will then render glad obedience to him as his Benefactor and will no longer need a pedagogue or child-leader to drag his unwilling feet. Love to the Lawgiver has taken the place of fear of the law. But law is still his rule of life. Believing in Christ is what is meant by coming to Christ. By faith he is united with Christ and by faith he stands. He is freed from the moral law as the ground of acceptance with God and also as a motive to good works, which will now spontaneously appear as the fruit of faith. This is what we mean when we say the believer is not freed from the law as the rule of life.

— from Steele's Answers pp. 46, 47.

The Holy Spirit in the Old and New Testaments

QUESTION: State in a few words the difference between the work of the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament and the New in the production of piety in the human heart.

ANSWER: He is the Author of all the piety from Adam to the convert of today. But since Pentecost he has had a perfect chest of tools to work with, all the facts of Christ's earthly history and all the truths deduced therefrom by the inspired apostles. The result is that of a joyful assurance of sonship to God has taken the place of the servile feeling, characteristic of the saints under the Law. This transition is described in Gal. 4:7. The distinguishing peculiarity of the New Testament salvation is the attestation by the Holy Spirit of the believers adoption into the family of God and of the entire sanctification of those who claim their full heritage in Christ.

— from Steele's Answers pp. 37, 38.