Love at War (Rewritten)

As long as sin exists in the world, love cannot remain passive. Love must fight. Christ himself came out of the Father’s love not merely to soothe the world, but to confront it — to bring a sword against sin. The cross stands at the center of this conflict, a rallying point for forces hostile to evil. The sinful soul is like a fortified stronghold, crowded with enemies opposed to Christ. Love advances on that stronghold step by step, determined to conquer and fully possess it.

1. Pardon through Christ’s Atoning Blood

The first move of love is the offer of forgiveness through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.

Love Revealed (Rewritten)

Love is a mystery. We can’t pin it down with a neat definition. The best we can do is describe the moments when it awakens in the soul. If human love already stretches beyond explanation, divine love goes infinitely further. It is an ocean so deep that neither human reason nor even angelic intellect can sound its depths. Anyone who has never personally known the love of God will find this subject closed to them intellectually. It opens only with the key of experience.

Love is not something the mind manufactures. It does not come from logic or analysis. It arises freely from the soul when it encounters what it loves. God is not merely loving — God is love made visible. And God’s perfect love toward humanity is meant to awaken a corresponding love for God in the human heart. The mirror that reflects this love may be cracked and uneven. Human souls, even at their best on earth and even under grace, are fractured by weakness and enduring flaws. Still, a person’s love for God can surge forward with the full strength of their being.

Leviticus 1:3

"If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD." — Leviticus 1:3 KJV.

Burnt sacrifice — The עֹלָ֤ה (‘olah) is so called because it ascends to heaven in the consuming flames. It should always be translated whole burnt offering. It is a holocaust, because the sacrifice was entirely consumed. It symbolizes the devotement of the entire man — soul, body, and spirit — to the service of God. Perfect love to him is more than all whole burnt offerings. Mark 12:33. As fire purifies what it does not consume, it typifies the Sanctifier consuming inward sin and cleansing the indestructible essence of the soul. Every sacrifice was in part a burnt offering, because Jehovah’s special portion was consumed by fire, the symbol of his presence.

Without blemish — תָּמִ֖ים (tamim), perfect. Defective sacrificial animals are described in chap. 22:20-24, as the blind, broken, maimed, scabbed, having wens, or scurvy, parts lacking or superfluous; also the castrated, spoken of as cut, crushed, bruised, or broken. An animal was an imperfect offering under eight days old. Exodus 22:30. What a sermon is this, preached morning and evening through the centuries, on the sinlessness of Jesus Christ, “the Lamb without blemish and without spot!” 1 Peter 1:19.

Of his own voluntary will — Of his own free choice: “not grudgingly or of necessity, for God loveth” a willing offering.

At the door of the tabernacle — This precise spot is designated in order to prevent any secret idolatrous rites under the mask of the prescribed ritual. The prohibition of all other places for sacrifice was also a strong safeguard of the national unity. Another altar was a political secession. Joshua 22:11-34.

Before the Lord — That is, to Jehovah. The rendering in the Authorized Version is sustained by some scholars. It is true that all burnt offerings, being chiefly self-dedicatory, must be purely voluntary. But the Hebrew is the same here as in Exodus 28:38, and Leviticus 22:20, 21, and is correctly rendered in the Authorized Version. But in Leviticus 19:5 and 22:19, 29, the word is rendered “own will,” as it is here.

Trust and Consecration

Some writers on advanced Christian experience magnify the will, and say to inquirers, Yield, bow, submit, to the law of Christ. While the evangelist of the Wesleyan type says, Believe, believe Christ's every word. Both are right. Perfect trust cannot exist without perfect consecration. Nor can we make over all our interests into Christ's hands without the utmost confidence in his word.

Hence, crucifixion with Christ implies perfect faith in him, not only when he is riding in triumph into Jerusalem amid the huzzas of enthusiastic men and the hosannas of willing children, but when the fickle multitude are crying, "Crucify him." From the beginning Jesus intimated that discipleship must be grounded on an acceptance of himself, stripped of all the attractions of riches or honor. To know him after the flesh, from some selfish and worldly motive, is to fail to know him in that way which insures eternal life. To an enthusiastic scribe who had just seen the glorious display of power in the healing of Peter's wife's mother and the casting out of demons, and who was taking only a romantic, rose-colored view of discipleship prompting the thoughtless promise, "I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest," Jesus replied, "The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head." "Let him who follows me know that he is following a pauper, fed at the tables of friends, and soon to be buried as a beggar at their expense." "If any man will be my disciple, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me."

Here over the very gateway of the kingdom of Christ, stand chiseled the stoney words "Crucifixion of self." Hence, it is no stern requirement of the so-called higher Christian life; it is the condition of the lowest degree of spiritual life. The higher the degree of life the higher the required consecration.

— Half-Hours with St. Paul Chapter 10.

Sin as a Condition of Heart

QUESTION: Is the word sin ever used in the Bible to denote a state or condition of heart?

ANSWER: Yes. When a man sins he takes on a sinful character. "Not only does sin have its seat in the will; it is a state of the will. it is not merely a series of voluntary acts; it consists rather in the fixed moral preferences; it is character, a moral perversity, a false direction." (Prof. Stevens, Methodist Review, September, 1904.)

— Steele's Answers pp. 118, 119

Dr. Huntington on Inbred Sin

QUESTION: In a recent editorial on Christian Perfection, Dr. Buckley says that, in the judgement of many persons, Dr. Huntington demonstrates successfully that the theory of inbred sin cannot be sustained. Later on, Dr. Buckley says: "Almost every Christian finds sooner or later after his conversion what may be described as the 'roots of bitterness.'" Would Dr. Huntington say that?

ANSWER: I think he would. He contends that sin is only in the will, and not in the intellect nor in the sensibility, both being inevitable, being "absolutely caused." But he admits that "inbred derangement, perversion, disorder, are more or less, in believers; but more cloudless certainty can scarcely exist in a mathematical axiom than that, whatever is upon us by the unavoidable operation of fixed law, is not our sin."

— Steele's Answers pp. 71, 72. 

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a reference to a book by De Witt Clinton Huntington entitled Sin and Holiness or What It Is to be Holy (1898). A Internet search will turn up a few old reviews of this book.