The Holy Spirit Never Denigrates Christ

The Holy Spirit never utters a word or prompts to an act derogatory to Christ. Since it is His office to glorify Christ, the Comforter will never degrade Him by denying or detracting from one of His claims. He professed to be an infallible Teacher, to be absolutely sinless, to set a faultless example, to have a right to universal obedience, to work miracles, to fulfill the prophecies, to be the Messiah of the Jews, the Light of the world, the Savior of men, the Son of God, in a sense so unique that He was the only-begotten; He declared that He would raise the dead, and judge the world; and, lastly, that He was one with the Father, having all power in heaven and on earth. The Paraclete is a mirror, wherein is reflected the image of the risen and invisible Jesus, as He truly is, without distortion. "The Spirit of truth which proceedeth from the Father, HE SHALL TESTIFY OF ME. . . He shall GLORIFY ME, for He shall receive of Mine and show (tell, Greek) it unto you." He never mars the symmetry of the God-man. "Wherefore I give you to understand that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed" (I Cor. xii. 3). 

Hence it is an incontestable fact of Church history that every lapse from orthodoxy has been preceded by spiritual decay. The Holy Ghost leaves the Church before she can deny the lordship of Jesus her great Head. For proof of this, study the religious history of New England. "Every spirit that confesseth not Jesus Christ come in the flesh, is not of God." This is Dean Alford's version, who asserts that the PERSON of Christ, and not some fact pertaining to Him, is the object of the confession. Whatever that spirit is that denies one claim of Christ, or obscures one feature of His glorious likeness, as it beams upon us in the Gospels, we may be well assured that this spirit is not the Divine Limner who portrayed that likeness with the pen of the four evangelists. When Jesus is ranked with Buddha, Confucius, Zoroaster, and Mohammed, in the style of our modern free-religionists, we may feel certain that the Spirit of truth does not suggest this degrading classification.

— Mile-Stone Papers  (1878) Part 1, Chapter 22.

The Spirit's Guidance Agrees with Scripture

The Spirit's inward utterances are never contrary to His declarations in the Holy Scriptures. This is too obvious to require proof. If any so-called spiritual guidance is repugnant to the plain teachings of God's Word as interpreted by that universal agreement styled the analogy of faith, this professed guidance must be erroneous. We have no just grounds for the expectation that the Paraclete will open to the believer, independently of his acquaintance with the original tongues, commentaries, lexicons, and other critical aids, the treasures contained in the Bible, and pour them into his mind without danger of error. Nevertheless, a perfectly candid enquirer, putting his intellect under the guidance of the Spirit in unwavering trust, though he may make many mistakes in non-essentials, will infallibly be led to Christ, the sum and substance of all saving truth.

— Mile-Stone Papers (1878) Part 1, Chapter 22.

What are Evil Qualities?

QUESTION: Why do you teach that entire sanctification removes all evil qualities, as anger, envy, etc.?

ANSWER: We do teach that in Christ provision is made for the removal of all tendencies to sin per se. Anger is not a sin per se, for God is angry with the wicked, and there is such a paradox as "the wrath of the Lamb." In the interest of justice, every good citizen ought to be angry enough with criminals, burglars, highway robbers, murderers to thrust them out, to assist to secure their arrest, trial and punishment. Entire sanctification delivers from things sinful in themselves, such as pride, envy, jealousy, avarice, ingratitude, impurity, etc. There are tendencies toward sin in the natural appetites, hunger, thirst, sleep, marriage, which require watchfulness and restraint to keep them from sinful excess, "lest," in the language of Paul, "I should become a castaway."

— Steele's Answers p. 131.

Sanctification and Pentecost

The following letter, together with the printed article to which it refers, has been sent to the Question Box, with the suggestion that it be answered in a separate article:

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"In the Evangelical Messenger, the organ of the Evangelical Association, of Oct. 5, the editor states that a minister says he recently heard a young preacher of said church in a sermon declare that the disciples did not receive the blessing of sanctification on the day of Pentecost, but simply the enduement of power for their great work. And that another young minister said we did not know when and where the disciples were sanctified. The editor in his article says the brother wishes to know whether this is correct teaching according to the Word of God and the standard of the church. In answering the question, he says the two young brothers were correct, and that he would like to see the Scripture proof to the contrary. He states that the Scripture did not definitely state anywhere, when and where any one of the twelve was entirely sanctified. He further says, many teach that this occurred on the day of Pentecost, that what the disciples received on that day was the blessing of entire sanctification. But he says: The Pentecostal blessing and the blessing of entire sancti6cation are entirely different; and that the teaching which makes the Pentecostal enduement identical with entire sanctification is slipshod, careless, lacks in preciseness and discrimination, and leads to much confusion. It, lowers the standard of entire sanctification, slurs over the great central principle of holiness, and switches the whole doctrine of sanctification into a groove where it does not fit.

"Now, I would like to know, through your paper, whether that is correct teaching.

"1. Is it a fact that the disciples were not entireh sanctified on the day of Pentecost ?

"2. If we don't know when and where they were sanctified, how do we know they were sanctified ?

"3. Is it correct that the Pentecostal blessing was simply an enduement of power, and not entire sancti- fication ?

"4. Is it true that the two blessings are entirely dis- tinct and different!

"I enjoy Bible holiness in my heart, and preach it wherever I go, and I would like to have these things explained for my benefit and the benefit of thousands of the readers."

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We commend the spirit of both the letter and the article which has called it forth. Both writers are manifestly seeking to know the truth. A preliminary word should be said respecting the manner of Christian experience. We learn from books and from the lectures of some theological professors that both regeneration and entire sanctification are states of grace sharply defined, entered upon instantaneously after certain very definite steps, and followed by certain very marked results. But the young preacher soon learns that there are eminently spiritual members of his church whose experiences have not been in accordance with this regulation manner. They have passed through no marked and memorable crises. Hence they have no spiritual anniversaries. The young pastor is puzzled by these anomalies. At last, if he is wise, he will conclude that the books describe normal experiences to which the Holy Spirit does not limit itself, and that an abnormal method of gaining a spiritual change or elevation is by no means to be discounted.

1. In this question the article has been misapprehended. The writer's real doubt is that "the disciples were all sanctified wholly, at one and the same time," while the conditions are "almost wholly subjective and personal." It should be borne in mind that the ten days of waiting, prayer, and religious conference graphically described in Arthur's "Tongue of Fire" strongly tended to assimilate their different characteristics and peculiarities. The fact that the hearts of some of them were cleansed by faith — enough to be said, "The first shall be last, and the last shall be first." He will recognize many as having fulfilled his commandment, "Be ye perfect," who have not dared to use that great word, imagining that it excludes all errors, infirmities, and ignorances. Some such I have intimately known. When asked, "Are you enjoying perfected holiness?" they would say, "I am not sure." But when asked, "What would be your feeling if you should see the Son of God, the final Judge, descending on his great white throne?" they instantly reply, "I would fly to meet him half way, if possible." This absence of "all fear that has torment" is a proof positive of perfect love. It is the only adequate cause of such an effect. In estimating the number of the entirely sanctified in the Apostolic age, and in every other age since, we are not to be limited to those who have passed through an instantaneous experience, a memorable transition and uplift, though this is, as Wesley says, "infinitely desirable," while admitting that "this great work may be gradually wrought in some." Fletcher, the able expounder and eminent defender of this Wesleyan doctrine, says that "to deny that imperfect believers may and do gradually grow in grace, and of course that the remains of their sins may, and do, gradually decay, is as absurd as to deny that God waters the earth by the daily dews, as well as by thunder showers; it is as ridiculous as to assert that nobody is carried off by lingering disorders, but that all men die suddenly or a few hours after they are taken ill." Hence there was in John S. Inskip more than a spice of humor, there was a good sense and wise philosophy in his invitation to gradualists to come to the altar as seekers of perfected holiness, "Come, ye brethren and sisters who expect to attain this grace by degrees, come to the altar and get along a good bit to-day." Sometimes this "good bit" was the step that reached the prize.

Wesley studied a great variety of terms and phrases expressive of this experience, a good example for all its teachers. I have counted up twenty-six, but "the baptism of (or with) the Spirit," and "the fullness of the Spirit," are phrases not used by him, probably because there is an emotional fullness of a temporary nature, not going down to the very roots of the moral nature. Nor did he use "receiving the Holy Ghost," because "in a sense of entire sanctification" the phrase is not scriptural and not quite proper; for they all received the Holy Ghost when they were justified. Wesley did not, probably for the same reason, use "Pentecostal blessing" though Charles Wesley did in a letter to John, saying, "Your day of Pentecost is not fully come; but I doubt not it will; and you will then hear of persons sanctified as frequently as you do now of persons justified." Were John Wesley now living, I think he would express a deep sympathy with the closing sentences of the article under criticism and quoted at the end of the letter. I think that the best way to restore this doctrine to the evangelical pulpits is to begin by preaching on the offices of the Holy Spirit in convicting of sin and in the new birth and the witness of the Spirit direct and indirect, topics on which many Christian people are in lamentable ignorance. When any one has received the Regenerating Spirit, then is the time to instruct him respecting the Sanctifying Spirit and to urge that he be received by faith. We must be wise as serpents, studying the best way of presenting truths distasteful to prejudiced minds.

— Steele's Answers pp. 126-131.

Undoubted Knowledge of Spiritual Realities

We are promised a knowledge of salvation by the remission of sins. Paul speaks in emphatic condemnation of those who are never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. He is speaking not of an intellectual grasp of the truth, but of its spiritual realization. The English reader of the Pauline Epistles fails to discover the fullness and certainty of the knowledge of spiritual realities on which the apostle insists.

In his struggle of mind and strain of style to express the Christian's privilege of full and undoubted knowledge of spiritual realities he accumulates epithets which burden his sentences as in Col. ii. 2: "That their hearts might be comforted being knit together in love, and unto all riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the acknowledgment of the mystery of God and of the Father, and of Christ."

He employs the compound word ἐπίγνωσις (epignosis), full knowledge, when he wishes to be emphatic, instead of γνῶσις (gnosis), knowledge. Bishop Ellicott and Dean Alford authorize this strengthened translation in the following passages: Eph. i.17, "That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the full knowledge of Him;" Eph. iv. 13, "till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the (full) knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ;" "perfect knowledge of the Son of God;" Col. iii. 10, "renewed unto perfect knowledge after the image of Him that created him;" 1 Tim. ii. 4, "who willeth all men to be saved and come to the certain knowledge of the truth;" 2 Tim. iii. 7, "ever learning, and never yet able to come to the full knowledge of the truth." Peter uses the strengthened form in his Second. Epistle i. 8, "toward the perfect knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."

— Mile-Stone Papers (1878) Part 1, Chapter 22.

The Inward Revelation of the Spirit

Christian experience, especially in its higher phases, abundantly testifies to the certitude of the inward revelations of the Comforter. The burden of this testimony, all along the Christian ages, is not that dogmatic truth is inwardly revealed, but that the facts of personal justification and entire sanctification, fundamental to complete Christian character, are disclosed to all who perfectly trust in Him who is able to save to the uttermost.

Nor will the attestation of these souls, who with Moses have trodden the Mount of God, and conversed with Him face to face in spiritual communion, be invalidated in the estimation of the wise, by the fact that they have been stigmatized as fanatics, Pietists, Lollards, Mystics, Waldenses, Quakers, and Methodists. For in this series of opprobrious nicknames we find the real apostolical succession, and not in an unbroken chain of prelatical ordinations. The martyr fires, which illumined the dark ages, conserved our spiritual Christianity against councils and inquisitions. What was the heresy of Tauler, Suso, Eckhart, Madame Guyon, Luther, and Wesley, but the manifestation of Christ to the believer, through the Holy Spirit, certifying forgiveness, renewing and sanctifying the soul.

Church Entertainments

QUESTION: Is it wrong for a person entirely sanctified to attend. church entertainments; if so, why?

ANSWER: The phrase "church entertainment" is a solecism, an impropriety of speech, a contradiction in terms — suggesting the idea of a conglomerate of the church and the theater, or the ball-room, or the card party. A pure heart desires a holy place for worship dissociated from fun and frolic. He wants to take his children on the Lord's day to a temple consecrated to God., where the very place will inspire reverence. This cannot be in the edifice where the children and youth often assemble for amusement. There seems to be an incongruity between purity of heart and the frivolities of the so-called church entertainments. Many of the public readings in them are so low as to awaken disgust in a person of refined taste, to say nothing of a holy heart. For these reasons the writer gives them a tremendous letting alone. They lead downward. and not upward. Right-down Christian earnestness eschews them. They prevent the coming of a revival and they kill the revival that has holcome.

— Steele's Answers pp. 125, 126.

Esau's Failed Repentance?

QUESTION: Explain Heb. 12:17: "For he (Esau) found no place of repentance, though he sought carefully with tears.

ANSWER: If the questioner had read this text in a Bible which is up to date, the American Revision, he would not have wasted his postage stamp and his time by sending to the Christian Witness for light, for that version sets an electric light in it, thus: "For he found no place for a change of mind in his father, though he sought it diligently with tears." Esau could not by his whimpering persuade the old gentleman to recall the decision which favored Jacob by giving him the birthright, the lawful inheritance of Esau. The Twentieth Century version is: "Indeed, he never found an opportunity for repairing his error, though he begged. for the blessing with tears."

— Steele's Answers p. 125.

Does John 6:48-58 refer to Holy Communion?

QUESTION: Does John 6:48-58 have reference to the Lord's Sup­per, especially these words, "except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood ye have not life in yourselves"?

ANSWER: To say that it does would make that rite absolutely necessary as a saving ordinance. In the formal institution of the holy eucharist a year afterwards, no such idea is suggested. The idea is that as the body contains the blood and the blood contains the life we must appropriate Christ's entire humanity in order to receive and maintain spiritual life. We obtain this life, not by eating the symbols, but by eating or appropriating Christ himself. This view is that of Origen, Basil the Great, Augustine, Calvin, Luther most emphatically, and. Wesley with less emphasis, saying, "It refers remotely, if at all, to the Lord's Supper," and such modern exegetes as Adam Clarke, Moses Stuart, Alford and Meyer. On the other side of this question are all the ritualistic sacramentarians, both Roman and Anglican. We regret to say that American Methodism is committed to the ritualistic and not the spiritual interpretation by this prayer in the communion service: "Grant us. . . so to eat the flesh of thy Son Jesus Christ and drink his blood that we may live and grow thereby." If American Methodism ever backslides so far as to become ritualistic, it will be through this unfortunate connection of these words with the Lord's Supper, which is not the source of life, but a means of grace, as everything is which brings Christ into our minds as our atoning Savior.

— Steele's Answers p. 123, 124.

Purgatory?

QUESTION: What do you think of the following: "If a man will not let the Holy Spirit burn his selfishness out of him in this life, it will have to be done in the next"?

ANSWER: This is the doctrine of the Roman Catholics, who have borrowed from Grecian paganism purgatorial fires for curable sinful souls. It is also the teaching of modern Universalism that all the souls unfit for heaven when they leave the body will be purified by a limited punishment and will then be admitted to the life everlasting. The Scriptural basis for this doctrine is lack­ing. There is not the remotest hint that the work of the Holy Spirit in the sanctification of believers can be done after death, nor is there anywhere in the Bible any intimation that saving faith in Christ, followed by the new birth, is possible after the spirit becomes disem­bodied. There is positive proof that the sentences on the day of judgment are final and irreversible. It is equally certain that repentance and regeneration do not take place between death and the resurrection, for Christ says, "they that have done evil shall come forth unto the resurrection of damnation." The idea that good men will arise from bad men's graves implies the possibility that wicked men may arise from graves in which righteous men were buried! This is preposterous. The extension of probation till the day of judgment might solve some theological difficulties, but it would greatly weaken, if not destroy, the motive to repentance in the present life. Nothing that we have here said con­tradicts the possibility of a believer aspiring after perfect purity finding on his death-bed. All persevering believers belong to the new covenant which insures not only heaven but a fitness for heaven as the gift of God in probation.

— Steele's Answers pp. 122, 123.