As Patient As God?

QUESTION: Must the wholly sanctified be as patient in their finite capacity as God himself in his infinity?

Ans. Yes. The command is, "Be ye perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect" in love. If your vessel be filled with love, God can be no more than full. He is the perfect infinite and every Christian is required to be a perfect finite. It is to be noted that the exact rendering of the Greek in the R. V., "Ye shall be perfect," is not promissory, but mandatory. Alford. here remarks, "No countenance is given in this verse to perfectibility in this life." Taking the word in its evangelical sense of a heart filled with pure love, Alford's remark is a fiat denial of Christ's plain command in Matt. 5:48. Such a denial is a very serious matter.

— Steele's Answers pp. 148, 149.

The Unbelieving Spouse

QUESTION: What is the meaning of "sanctified" and "holy" in 1 Cor. 7:14: "For the unbeliving husband is sanctified in the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified in the brother: else were your children unclean; but now they are holy"?

ANSWER: When either the wife or the husband becomes a Christian and the other party continues in the marriage relation, consenting to the religious change, he or she is measurably withdrawn from the contamination of heathenism and brought under the saving influence of Gospel truth and the Holy Spirit. This is the peculiar sense of "sanctified" and "holy" here used. The unconverted party is presumably on the road to salvation, and the children escape a pagan education and learn the way of salvation.

— Steele's Answers pp. 74, 75.