Sancification and Regeneration in 1 John 1:9

QUESTION: Would not I John 1:9 alone, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness," naturally teach entire sanctification when regenerated, to one who is free from all preconceptions?

ANSWER: Perhaps it would, if he had failed to note the prayers for the entire cleansing of those who are already children of God and the exhortations to Christians to go on unto perfection. But an observant Greek reader would understand from the two verbs of different meaning in the aorist tense that two distinct and decisive works are to be done. Even Alford, who is not friendly to the doctrine of Christian perfection as taught by his brother churchman, John Wesley, admits that "to cleanse from all unrighteousness is plainly distinguished from to forgive us our sins; distinguished as a further process; as, in a word, sanctification distinct from justification. The two verbs are aorists, because the purpose and faithfulness and justice of God are to do each as one great complex act — to justify and to sanctify wholly and entirely." He says, "to do each," not both together, as one great act. In 1737 the Wesleys discovered "that men are justified before they are sanctified."

— Steele's Answers p. 135, 136.

Entire Sanctification and Pentecost

QUESTION: Does not Acts 2:39 teach that the three thousand were entirely sanctified at Pentecost?

ANSWER: Acts 15:9 is an undoubted proof text of this experience in the case of the Apostles and other disciples. The fulness of the Spirit is sometimes emotional rather than sanctifying. This is often the case when the Spirit descends upon a multitude, filling them with joy, entirely sanctifying those who are aspiring after this grace and regenerating penitent seekers of pardon and convicting sinners. The spirit of adoption crying in the heart, "Abba, Father," fills the convert with a feeling of fullness. For these reasons, Wesley did not employ this phrase, "Fullness of the Spirit," to denote entire sanctification, although he used at least a score of synonymous terms to denote this experience.

— Steele's Answers p. 134, 135.

Job's Afflictions

QUESTION: How long did Job's afflictions last?

ANSWER: Our only means of knowing is to infer from the intensity of Job's sufferings that they continued only a few days or weeks at the most.

— Steele's Answers p. 134.

Infirmity and Weakness

QUESTION: What is the meaning of "infirmity" in (1) Rom. 8:26, "The spirit also helpeth our infirmity," and (2) II Cor. 12:9, 10, "Gladly will I glory in my weakness"?

ANSWER: (1) A lack of strength to endure the temptations and trouble of this life; (2) a consciousness of weakness which caused Paul to ally himself with Christ so that he could say "when I am weak then am I strong." "An infirmity," says Fletcher, "is consistent with pure love to God and man; but a sin is inconsistent with love. An infirmity is free from guilt, and has its root in our animal frame; but a sin is attended with guilt and in our moral frame, springing either from the habitual corruption of our hearts, or from the momentary perversion of our tempers. An infirmity has its foundation in an involuntary want of power; and a sin is a willful use of the present light and power we have."

— Steele's Answers p. 134.

The High Calling of the Preacher

The humblest pulpit is higher than the dome of any state house in our country, yea, higher than the Federal Capitol itself. "He that winneth souls is wise. They that are wise shall shine as the brightness of the firmament; and they that turn many to righteousness, as stars for ever and ever."

Robert Hall once said that if two angels were sent down from heaven, one to sweep the streets of London and the other to be its lord mayor, they would not debate on the way the question, Which is the greater honor? All men are to be equally honored who equally fulfill their duty, whether to rock a cradle or to command the army at Gettysburg.

But to do as the God-man did when he preached up and down Galilee and Judea seems to be the most exalted occupation to which mortals can aspire. "I paint for immortality" was the reply of an artist who was asked why he lingered so long over one picture. The preacher who sways souls from sin to holiness preaches for eternity. His theme is the cross of Christ, the central point of human history. Scientific men may sneer at such a preacher as narrow because he confines himself to one theme, Christ crucified, not considering that this theme touches all human interests. It gives the amplest scope to mental, moral and spiritual development. The preacher may apply elevating and transforming truth to every state of society and to every subject of human thought. In God's ancient temple the layman could enter no farther than the court of the Jews, but the high priest could enter every apartment. The preacher is God's high priest in the temple of Christian truth to apply truth to all human transactions from the king on the throne to the beggar on the dunghill.

— Jesus Exultant Chapter 5.

What Language Did Jesus Use?

QUESTION: What language did Jesus use?

ANSWER: The Aramaic. The ancient name of Syria was Aram, the language of which was the northern branch of the Semitic, the tongue of the descendants of Shem. After the return from Babylon it was the dialect in which the Jews conversed and Jesus preached. The only remains of its literature in the Gospels are a few words in the New Testament: Talithacumi, ephphatha, Bethesda, Aceldama, Boanerges, and Bar-jonah. The Syriac and the Peshito versions very much resemble the Aramaic, as does the palimpsest of the Gospels recently discovered by two very learned and enterprising twin sisters, Mrs. Gibson and Mrs. Lewis, widows of Oxford professors.

— Steele's Answers pp. 133, 134.

The Biblical Proofs of Inbred Sin

QUESTION: What are the Biblical proofs of inbred sin or birth sin?

ANSWER: They are chiefly found in the Old Testament, such as Ps 51:5, "Behold I was brought forth in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me;" 58:3, "The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they are born, speaking lies." Job 15:14, "What is man, that he should be clean? And he that is born of woman, that he should be righteous?" Rom. 5:12-21 contains proofs that the effect of Adam's sin was universal. Eph. 2:3, "by nature children of wrath," has been considered a strong proof of original or inbred sin, but from the context we learn that Paul is describing adult, actual, responsible sinners, whom he deems worthy of punishment, expressed in the Hebrew idiom as "children of wrath." Richard Watson thought that John 3:6, "That which is born of the flesh is flesh," is the strongest proof of inbred sin to be found in the Bible. But scholars now study the meaning of words as used by different writers, and they agree that nowhere in John, and probably nowhere in the Gospels, is "flesh" used in a bad sense to denote depravity. "The flesh," says President Timothy Dwight, "is to be understood here in the physical, not in the moral, sense." "Flesh and spirit," says Westcott, "are not related to one another as evil and good; but as two spheres of being with which man is connected by the spirit of heaven, by the flesh to the earth."

— Steele's Answers pp. 132, 133.

John's Conception of Sin

QUESTION: Does the word "sin" in I John I:7, "cleanseth us from all sin," refer to an act or a state?

ANSWER: According to John's definition of sin, "sin is lawlessness," it may refer to either. Here it is quite evident that it refers to a state. In the next verse the phrase, "have sin," is peculiar to John, and it always implies an act entailing guilt. See John 9:41; 15:22, 24; 19:11. Another peculiarity of John is that he does not trace sin along the line of heredity up to Adam, as Paul does, but he ascribes it to the devil. "He that committeth sin is of the devil." In this particular John imitates Christ, who emphasizes not so much the source of sin as its guilt and its cure; not the origin of the conflagration, but how to put it out. John does not contradict Paul; he only traces sin one step further back to the first sinner in the universe.

— Steele's Answers p. 132.have

Every Christian Should Consider the Call to the Ministry

Our contention is that every disciple of Christ, male or female, should covet the Christian ministry and in this attitude of mind sit down to examine the question of a personal call. Thus Christian parents in prayer and consecration should offer their sons and daughters to the Head of the church for the best possible service in the establishment of his universal kingdom. Should one in every Christian family be accepted the world would not be overstocked with ministers of various kinds, pastors, evangelists, teachers and deaconesses proclaiming saving truth to all nations, peoples and tribes. Such is the present disproportion between the harvest and the laborers. Timothy was well prepared to be the successor to St. Paul in the care of the churches, because his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois had diligently instructed him in Christian truth and dedicated him to the ministry of the gospel. Thousands have been trained in the theological seminary of a pious home. Bishop Simpson says that when an eminent preacher is needed the Lord first calls some praying mother, some Hannah to train her Samuel for the service of his holy temple. Others who have toiled all their lives in small churches in obscure places, unknown to fame, and others who have become world-renowned preachers, have come into the Christian ministry through the gateway of a mother's faith in God and careful spiritual training of her offspring.

It may not be an unpardonable infraction of the canons of sacred rhetoric for the writer of these lines to give this public expression of his gratitude to God for leading him into this sacred vocation through such a portal. In many instances the stars which are supposed to belong to the minister's crown rightfully belong to his faithful mother, some Monica wrestling with God for the conversion of her wayward Augustine, or some Susannah Wesley closeted weekly with each of her children in prayer and spiritual counsel. It is no wonder that from the nest which she builded and brooded in the humble Epworth manse there flew upward two eaglets till they were seen first by all England, then by all the world; the one "the greatest ecclesiastical organizer of a thousand years," and the other the writer of hymns for all the coming generations. If there were more of this offering children to God in the closet instead of sacrificing to the Moloch of fashion or of mammon, there would be fewer downfalls in the slippery paths of youth, and no scarcity of reapers in the ever-widening harvest field of the church of Christ.

— edited from Jesus Exultant (1899) Chapter 5.

All Christians are Called to Spread the Gospel

There is a sense in which every Christian, whether old or young, male or female, is called to preach the gospel. The first impulse of every regenerated soul is to run and tell the good news to others in the same family or neighborhood, shop or school. Andrew findeth Peter, and Philip, Nathaniel. On such informal but effective preaching, as on the wings of love and gladness, is the gospel of Christ to spread through all the world. Woe to that church which from month to month hears not the voice of the young convert in its assemblies. Its lease of life is short. God has no use for a sterile gospel. All may not be called to expound God's word or to define doctrines; but all are called to preach by example and testimony. Even the mutes are not excluded from this privilege and duty, for they can communicate with the slate and pencil, or with the dumb alphabet, and can all be persuasive by holy living.

The relation of experience is the most convincing preaching. A little girl of eight years came from her chamber to her mother, radiant with joy, and said, "Mother, God has pardoned my sins and given me a new heart; may I run across the street and tell the old cobbler?" "It will do no good, my child, for he is a confirmed and outspoken infidel," said the mother. "But it will do me good to tell him, and it may do him good, too; may I not go?" "Yes, if your heart is so much set on it." She went and told in artless simplicity of her sense of sin and guilt, of her repentant tears and prayers, of her trust in Jesus Christ who died to become her Saviour, of the light and joy which sprang up in her heart, of the feeling of love towards God, and of a voice sounding within saying, "Father, Father;" and whenever she thought of God he seemed no more like a policeman to arrest her, but a person more loving and tender than her mother. Before she finished her account of her joyful conversion her solitary hearer was in tears, which did not cease to flow until they were wiped away by the hand of divine mercy writing forgiveness on his believing heart.

When Paul rose to the summit of his eloquence, whether as a prisoner before Felix or Festus, or addressing the riotous Hebrews in their temple, he presented no elaborate chain of reasoning, but narrated in unadorned style his own experience of the transforming power which arrested him and, when he was obedient to the heavenly vision, made a new man of him when he had still in his pocket a commission to arrest and handcuff and drag to Jerusalem all the Hebrew disciples of Jesus found in Damascus.

Testifying of personal conscious salvation through faith is a kind of effective preaching to which all believers are called.

— edited from Jesus Exultant (1899) Chapter 5.