The Struggles of the Justified

The spirit of sin, or inbred sin, technically called original sin, because it is inherited from Adam, is the state of heart out of which acts of sin either actually flow or tend to flow. Until this state is changed, the conquest of love over the soul is incomplete.

Regeneration introduces a power which checks the out breaking of original into actual sin, except occasional and almost involuntary sallies in moments of weakness or unwatchfulness. These are a source of grief and condemnation to the justified soul. They are a humiliating, yet only temporary defeat. For there is with all well instructed believers a resort to the blood of sprinkling, and a pleading of the promise, "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous."

Whedon: The Witness of the Spirit

Guest blog by Daniel D. Whedon (1808-1885):

Where God performs directly the work of justification and of regeneration, is it not to be expected that he will as directly give notice of so wonderful a mercy? And this thought suggests the reasonableness of the doctrine of the witness of the Spirit, directly testifying to us that we are born of God.

The witness of our own spirit is that self-judgment which we are rationally able to pronounce, in the light of consciousness and Scripture, that we are the children of God. This is a logical inference, drawn from the fruits we find, by self-examination, in our minds and external conduct.

But besides this, is there not felt in every deep religious experience, a simple, firm assurance, like an intuition, by which we are made to feel calmly certain that all is blessedly right between God and our own soul? Does not this assurance seem to come into the heart as from some outer source? Does it not come as in answer to prayer, and in direction, as if from him to whom we pray? Scripture surely makes the assuring and witnessing act of the Spirit to be as immediate and direct as the justifying or regenerating acts. Hereby, then, we have the witness of God's Spirit, concurrent with the witness of our own spirit, testifying to the work of our justification and adoption. "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God." Rom. viii, 16.

— Daniel D. Whedon, "The Doctrines of Methodism" Bibliotheca Sacra, April, 1862.

Conscience and the Work of Sanctification

It is interesting and instructive to note the relation of the Holy Spirit to conscience in the work of regeneration and sanctification. If man was created to be a temple of God, his spirit must be the holy of holies in which He dwells, and his conscience must be the Ark of the Covenant which carries His law. Sin defiled that sacred ark and rendered it offensive to the holy God. The scheme of redemption must have direct reference to the purification of the conscience. The writer to the Hebrews intimates that Mosaism "did not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience" ix. 9), and he exhorts the believer to "draw near, having his heart sprinkled from an evil (guilty) conscience" (x. 22). The conscience, relieved of guilt through faith in the atonement made by Christ, and ever after prompting to a life of obedience, is the spiritual organ in which the Holy Spirit evermore dwells, keeping watchful guard over the living law in the heart and constantly witnessing to the persevering believer that he is a child of God. Peace, the fruit of the Spirit, can dwell only with a "conscience void of offence." Holiness, the work of the Spirit, is also attested by conscience. "For our glorying is this, the testimony of our conscience that in holiness we behaved ourselves," etc. (II Corinthians i. 12, Revised Version).

— from The Gospel of the Comforter Chapter 19.

Why Entire Sanctification Does Not Accompany Regeneration

The question is often asked, "Why does not the Spirit entirely sanctify when He regenerates?" We answer, it is because that neither the consecration nor the faith of the penitent sinner is adequate to this complete work. The person then surrenders his bad things, he lays down his arms, quits his rebellion and sues for pardon. This is all that his faith grasps. But he soon learns that a deeper consecration is requisite, that all his good things, his possessions, his bodily powers, his intellectual faculties must be fully consecrated to Christ. To pour all his money into the treasury of his imperiled country and to give his life by enlisting in her military service is far different from the act of surrender as a prisoner of war. In the next place, faith for entire knowledge of one's spiritual needs and a larger comprehension of the vastness of the supply found in Jesus Christ. This deeper knowledge is not found in the spiritual babe.

Moreover, at the risk of being suspected of predestinarianism, I insist on another reason why the Spirit does not entirely purge the soul at the new birth. The impartation of spiritual life to a dead soul is wrought by the Spirit alone without the soul's co-operation, though it is active in conversion, but passive in regeneration. Theologians would call the first a case of synergism and the second an instance of monergism. If our distinction between these works of the Spirit is correct, it affords a sufficient reason why entire sanctification could not be wrought by the Spirit at the time of the new birth. The old man cannot be crucified without the co-operation of the new man. He must sign the death warrant of that sin in the flesh which the Son of God by His sacrifice for sin has condemned, in order to make that condemnation effectual for the destruction of "the body of sin" (Rom. vi. 6).

— from The Gospel of the Comforter, Chapter 14.

The Holy Spirit in Regeneration

Regeneration is the lodgement by the Holy Spirit of the new principle of life. This is love to God, which is the ruling motive of every genuine Christian. There is a radical and an essential difference between those who are born again and the best of those who lay claim to only natural goodness, a beautiful moral character revolving around self as a center. But the great transition from spiritual death to spiritual life does not make the child of God at once complete in holiness. The Holy Spirit in sanctification does not work magically, nor mechanically like a washing machine, "but by the influence of grace, in accordance with the essential constitution of man, and in the way of a vital process, only by degrees completely renewing the soul." While the Spirit in the new birth touches the whole nature, the thoughts, the feelings and the will, so that the man is a new creature, his renewal is not complete in any part. At first he is in spiritual knowledge only a babe. His faith is unsteady and often mingled with distrust, while his love is not usually strong enough to secure uninterrupted victory over temptation. The enthronement of love does not immediately render the pleasures of sin unattractive, nor destroy the painfulness of self-denial, nor instantaneously change sinful habits. Such is the state of immature converts to Christ, "the flesh lusting against the Spirit." The Corinthians were characterized as "carnal, walking as men." We know that John says that "he that has been born of God sinneth not" when he is describing those whom he styles "fathers" or adult believers, just as Paul describes the same class as having "crucified the flesh with the passions and lusts." Neither of these apostles is describing an ideal Christian, as some teach who deny the possibility of complete deliverance from depravity in this life. They are describing regeneration at its climax, the glorious possibilities of the birth from above, when it has culminated in perfected holiness.

The adverse influences and tendencies which continue after the new birth imperil the very existence of the new principle of love to God by overcoming and choking it, unless it is continually nourished and strengthened by divine grace. Strength is supplied to the believer by the inner presence of the Holy Spirit. His indwelling is by faith. If faith declines, the Spirit's sphere in the soul is narrowed. If confidence in God is "cast away" — a possible act against which we are warned in the Scriptures (Heb. x. 35) — then the Spirit withdraws, or rather, is excluded by unbelief, and love, the vital spark of the spiritual life, expires. Hence the question whether the Spirit shall be a merely transient impulse toward purity, or a lasting power, depends on the free will of the regenerate soul. The parable of the sower is exemplified to-day in the case of those who have no depth of earth. Their love to Christ soon degenerates into a mere sentiment with little or no influence on practical life, and in a short time the sentiment itself entirely evaporates, and the soul becomes "twice dead, plucked up by the roots" (Jude 12 ). What is the safeguard against such a disaster? It is such an indwelling of the fulness of the Spirit as excludes everything contrary to the divine nature by filling and flooding the soul with a love that is ever enlarging the vessel and ever filling it to the brim. Then love is perfect in the sense that it is no longer mixed in kind and so weak in degree as to be unable to encounter the temptation successfully. Says Prof. Candlish:

The new life of Christianity is a unity, and though, on account of the imperfect and abnormal condition of most Christians, it does not show itself with perfect symmetry, yet it tends toward moral excellence and perfection in every direction, and the more vigorous the central principle of religious life is, the more will particular virtues be developed and increased.

— edited from The Gospel of the Comforter Chapter 14.

Scriptural Proof that the Saved can be Lost

QUESTION: What do you regard as the strongest Scriptural proof that a person who has been truly converted may be finally and eternally lost?

ANSWER: The words of Christ in John 15:1, 6 can have no other meaning. A person who is "a branch in me" (Christ) may become fruitless and "withered" and "cast forth as a branch," and "gathered" and "cast into the fire," and "burned." If this figurative language is not a solemn, deliberate and graphic declaration of the possible perdition of a soul once regenerated and savingly united with Christ, then it is impossible to express this idea in human language. These words should lead every professor of Christ to ask himself daily, am I bringing forth such fruit as Jesus Christ is looking for, (1) the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22) and (2) the fruit of saved souls (John 4:36) "How a man can be 'in Christ,'" says Bishop Westcott, "and yet afterwards separate himself from him, is a mystery neither greater nor less than that involved in the fall of a creature created innocent." The scholarly bishop must have forgotten that the fall of a Christian under the assaults of the devil is less mysterious than the fall of the angels who fell without temptation.

— Steele's Answers pp. 197, 198.

The Five Foolish Virgins

QUESTION: Were the five foolish virgins regenerated?

ANSWER: Yes; they were all companions of the Bride, all had brightly burning lamps or torches, all up to a certain time were fully prepared to meet the Bridegroom. The moral of the parable is the blessedness of endurance unto the end through the faith which secures and preserves the fullness of the Holy Spirit of whom olive oil is the emblem (Zech. 4:3-14, I John 2:20, 27), and the sad failure of some to secure a full preparation for the future exigencies of the spiritual life. See Matt. 13:3-7.

— Steele's Answers p. 187.

Justification and Regeneration

QUESTION: Are justification and regeneration always concomitants?

ANSWER: It would not be safe for God to do a work for us without at the same time doing a work within. This unsafe thing every priest does who pronounces absolution, for he cannot get inside of the person and create him anew. It is true that some time may elapse after the burden of guilt is consciously removed — the real spiritual birthday — before there is a joyful assurance through the Spirit's testimony to adoption.

— Steele's Answers pp. 179, 180.

Baptized Into Christ

QUESTION: Is the statement that we are "baptized into Christ" of Rom. 6:3, and Gal. 3:27, to be understood to mean that water baptism actually brings the believer into a saving union with Christ, and that without it or until it has been performed, we are not really saved?

ANSWER: No, for often the sign, water baptism, is by metonomy put for the thing signified, inward cleansing, begun by the regeneration of the Holy Spirit. Hence, the Westminster Catechism wisely says, "Grace and salvation are not so inseparably annexed unto it (baptism) as that no person can be regenerated or saved without it, or that all, who are baptized are undoubtedly regenerated." Unless the administrator of water baptism can read the heart of the candidate he may affix the sign in the absence of the thing signified as did Peter in the baptism of Simon Magus in Acts 8:13-23. If water baptism saves, it follows that Paul generally left his converts unsaved, for he says in I Cor. 1:14, "I thank God that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius." It seems that Peter, in Acts 2:38, thought baptismal regeneration was the invariable Divine order, but he was corrected in 10:44-48, when the Spirit fell on the hearers before they were baptized.

— Steele's Answers pp. 175, 176.

Do Children Need to be Born Again?

QUESTION: Some young men in evangelical pulpits are teaching that there is a seed of goodness in children which, if properly developed, will supersede the necessity of the new birth.

ANSWER: Only life can impart life. The child has not spiritual life, but only the capacity for receiving it from above. This capacity may be filled so early and quietly as to leave no memorable spiritual birthday. If children were nurtured in the atmosphere of spiritual homes with godly parents as models, daily worshiping at the family altar, such regenerations would be more frequent. They are ideal. Lord hasten the day when every professedly Christian home shall be "the gate of heaven" to all the children born therein.

— Steele's Answers p. 175.

Punctuation in Matthew 19:28

QUESTION: How can we follow Christ "in the regeneration," as stated in Matt. 19:28, since he was never regenerated?

"And Jesus said unto them, 'Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.'" (KJV)

ANSWER: The querist has failed to note the punctuation marks. When the commas are properly noted, it will be found that our Lord Jesus assures his disciples that "In the regeneration (the evangelized world) when he shall sit, etc., then they who had followed him should also sit," etc. This predicts the great honor and authority of the twelve apostles when the gospel shall have reconstructed the human society. The earlier edition of the American Bible Society had no comma after "me," but all the later editions are correct.

— Steele's Answers p. 162.

Entire Sanctification at Conversion?

QUESTION: The same preacher [see yesterdays' post] says that he was entirely sanctified when he was converted. Is this a Wesleyan experience?

ANSWER: No. This doctrine of Count Zinzendorf that "the moment the believer is justified, he is sanctified wholly, and from that time he is neither more or less holy even unto death," was stoutly and constantly opposed by Wesley, because it denies imparted holiness and insists on the imputed holiness of Christ. Let this Methodist preacher canvass his church and ascertain how many of his members were wholly sanctified when they were converted. The result of his inquiry will be that he has no converted members, if entire sanctification is identical in time with regeneration, and not the consummation of a work begun at conversion.

— Steele's Answers p. 160.

Sanctified Wholly

"And the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who will also do it." (1 Thessalonians 5:23, 24 ASV.)

1 Thess. 5:23 is a text which implies that the regenerate are not entirely purified, and that they may be in answer to prayer. This implies that it is in this life. The expanded "amen" after this prayer "Faithful is he that calleth you, who will also do it," is a declaration that it is God, and not death, who is the author of this work.

There is an important word, ὁλοτελής (holoteles), which is found nowhere else in the New Testament nor in the Septuagint. It is an adjective in form with an adverbial meaning (Kuhner, 264.3). If Paul intended to pray that the Thessalonians might all be sanctified, there were three everyday adjectives which he might have used to express "all." He employed this unique term, meaning "wholly to the end," or "quite completely," because he had realized in his own experience the uttermost sanctification, and he saw that it was the privilege of every believer. This rare and peculiar word is rendered in the Vulgate per omnia, "in your collective powers and parts." "Marking," says Ellicott, "more emphatically that thoroughness and pervasive holiness which the following words specify with further exactness." He thus translates it: "But may the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly, and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved whole without blame in the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." A Greek version of the Old Testament was made by Aquila in which this word occurs in Deut. 13:16, to express the idea of "every whit." We have been explicit in defining this word as indicating the completeness of individual sanctification which is presently presented in detail, and not the cleansing of the totality of the Thessalonian church — may God sanctify you all. Of course the apostle's prayer for the entire purification of the individual includes every individual in the church.

Fit for Heaven?

QUESTION: If inbred sin is merely a hereditary tendency to sin, is the soul that is regenerated but without the experience of entire sanctification fit for heaven?

ANSWER; The new birth entitles to the adoption of sons and to life everlasting. "If children, then heirs of God," etc. Heirship gives the title, but does not give the complete fitness. This must be sought by the believer. If while seeking completed holiness he sud­denly dies, he is saved by virtue of the new covenant in which God promises to save all who perseveringly trust in him. The truth is, everyone who loves God in the first degree desires what John calls perfect love initiated by entire sanctification, and that this state of grace is the heritage of every infant cut off in infancy and of every soul born of God and called to Christ. This is an inference from all the promises made by a covenant-keeping God, and not a special revelation found in the Holy Scriptures which would almost certainly have been abused.

— Steele's Answers pp. 136,137.

But, Don't Infants Need the New Birth?

QUESTION: If the necessity for regeneration is found in our fallen nature, do not infants need the new birth?

ANSWER: Certainly. But if cut off from life before becoming accountable, they are unconditionally saved by the second Adam from the wrong tendency entailed by the first Adam. If allowed to attain intellectual and moral development, the new birth is left to their free choice.

— Steele's Answers p. 119.

Does New Birth Impart the Divine Nature?

QUESTION: Does not the new birth impart the Divine nature?

ANSWER: Properly speaking, only one man has the Divine nature, the only Son of God. The regenerate are figuratively called sons of God and are said to partakers of the Divine nature. This means that they have, through the Holy Spirit, taken on the likeness of God, in outline at least, a similarity to Christ, loving what he loves and hating what he hates.

— Steele's Answers p. 111.

Living Without Sin

QUESTION: Are we to understand that the regenerated can live without sin?

ANSWER: They can live much better without it than with it. The eccentric Billy Hubbard was once asked this question. His reply was: "Yes, I can get along without sin first-rate." According to 1 John 3:9, 10, this is the boundary line between the children of God and the children of the devil. There is grace enough to keep every child of God from ever stepping over the fiery boundary between the known right and the known wrong.

— Steele's Answers p. 67.

Can Christians Live Without Sin?

QUESTION: Are we to understand that the regenerated can live without sin?

ANSWER: "Sin properly defined," says Wesley, "is the willful transgression of the known law of God." The new birth implants a new principle in the heart which gives him victory over sin. The principle is love to God "shed abroad in the hearts by the Holy Spirit." It is unnatural for one who loves God willfully to violate his known command. Hence John says: "He that is born of God sinneth not." There is an improper definition of sin of a wider sweep embracing the least deviation from the absolute holiness of God, not only in voluntary and intelligent acts, but also in the depraved tendency inherited from Adam and perfectly involuntary. This is called by theologians "original sin." The Methodists, and Arminians generally, teach that this lacks the essential elements of sin which are volition and guilt. From this kind of sin regeneration does not deliver. But it does enable the believer to resist every temptation to transgress the visible, fiery boundary between what is known to be right and what is known to be wrong. It does greatly weaken that "bent to sinning" which entire sanctification removes, but it does not remove the soul from the sphere of temptation. Every soul in probation is within bow-shot of the devil, as was the Son of God himself while on the earth.

— Steele's Answers pp. 58, 59

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EDITOR'S NOTE: I have discovered that people are often shocked to discover what John Wesley actually taught on this topic. Compare what Steele says above with what Wesley says in the quotes compiled here: THE JUSTIFIED AND REGENERATE STATE DOES NOT ADMIT OF COMMITTING SIN.

Can Anyone in the Flesh Please God?

QUESTION: Paul says in Rom. 8:9, "They that are in the flesh cannot please God." Since all who live on the earth are in the flesh, is it not impossible for any living man to please God?

ANSWER: The word flesh has both a good and a bad meaning. In this text flesh means the domination of evil inclinations. No man who is thus dominated can please God. But when the evil propensities are controlled by the regenerating Holy Spirit, God is pleased. Every man in the world may please God by repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. The flesh may not only be controlled but be crucified.

— from Steele's Answers p. 52.

The Natural Man

QUESTION: In 1 Cor. 4:12 Paul speaks of the natural man. What are his characteristics? Our preachers says he is regenerate.

"But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God:for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Corinthians 2:14 KJV.)

ANSWER: He is not spiritual but wholly animal. He has a sensuous nature with its subjection to appetite and passion. In Jude 19 he is "sensual," "earthly" and "devilish." If a man is known by the company he keeps, the natural man must be a bad fellow in great need of regeneration and entire sanctification. Except in 1 Cor. 15:44 "natural" Greek "physical" is in the New Testament always used in a bad sense. The preacher is a blind guide. We fear that both he and his hearers will fall into a ditch hard to get out of.

— from Steele's Answers pp. 51, 52.