Did Elijah Ascend to Heaven?

QUESTION: Reconcile the translation of Elijah [in] II Kings 2:11 (1) with John 3:13 "And no one has ascended into heaven," and (2) I  Cor. 15:20,  "Flesh and blood. cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven."

ANSWER: It is evidently an elliptical quotation from Deut. 30:12, "Who shall go for us to heaven, and bring it (God's command) unto us," etc.; also Prov. 30:3, 4, "Neither have I the knowledge of the Holy One, who hath ascended up into heaven, and descended?" Christ omitted the last clause of these texts, the return from heaven with a message for men. The  context very clearly proves that this is the correct explanation. He is asserting his own sole competence to reveal heavenly truth, because he, the Son of man, is the only human teacher who has been in heaven and has brought down truths absolute and eternal. (2) Elijah's personality resides in his spirit. This certainly is in heaven. But on the mount of transfiguration he appeared in a visible form. We are taught in I Cor. 15:51, that when the dead are raised the living believers "will be changed in a moment." It is not unreasonable to suppose that Enoch and Elijah were the first fruits of this change of the living "in the twinkling of an eye."

— Steele's Answers pp. 113, 114.

Why Wesleyans Do Not Speak of "Sinless Perfection"

QUESTION: Why do Wesleyan advocates of Christian perfection decline the phrase, "sinless perfection"?

ANSWER: "I do not contend for the term 'sinless,'" said Wesley, "though I do not object against it." He gave no reasons, except that it would be misunderstood and be a stumbling block to those whose definition of sin includes all innocent infirmities, all mistakes, all failures to realize our perfect ideals of character and usefulness, all thoughts of evil; and some include all temptations to sin. Such a perfection we must not expect in the present life. Therefore the term "sinless" should be applied only to him who could confidently say, "Which of you convicteth me of sin?" No one who has ever sinned can apply this adjective to himself. But according to I John 3:9, every one may lead an unsinning career from his new birth onward through time and eternity by the grace of God appropriated by faith.

— Steele's Answers pp. 112, 113.

What is "Renouncing All"?

QUESTION: What is meant by renouncing "all that he hath" in order to become a disciple of Christ? Luke 14:88.

ANSWER: It means that we must renounce the selfish principle of using our property solely for our gratification and that we must henceforth use it to glorify God, as his stewards or trustees. Only fanatics insist on the literal interpretation that no man can become a true disciple until he has pauperized himself and his family. None of Christ's requirements are in collision with the necessary conditions of human life. Property is necessary to human existence. We must have food, raiment, shelter, fuel, medicine, tools, teachers and books if we would advance beyond savagery. Opponents of the Gospel delight to load up Christianity with a lot of impracticabilities, such as hating father and mother, lending money to rum-smelling tramps, and, becoming a pauper in order to become a disciple. In all these matters the first law of interpretation is common sense.

— Steele's Answers pp. 111, 112.

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.

Salvation in Two Installments

QUESTION: Why is entire sanctification distinct from the forgiveness of sins and subsequent thereto?

ANSWER: There is a distinction in the nature of these two works; the first act taking place in the mind of God, as the moral Governor, and the second an act of the Holy Spirit in the heart of the believer. Again, a sinner begging for pardon realizes his transgressions of God's law and his need of forgiveness and believes for this only. He has little or no realization of his depravity, and for this reason he has not faith for its removal. After the spiritual life has been inspired in him and has encountered inward antagonisms he is in a condition to appreciate his need of purification and to believe for it with a faith much stronger than that required for forgiveness. It is much easier for a child of God to trust his loving Father than it is for a sinner to trust in God who is angry with the wicked every day. Hence it is a merciful arrangement that salvation should be administered in two installments. If the faith requisite for entire sanctification must be exercised for pardon, no one would find pardon. He would not be in a condition to fulfill this requirement.

— Steele's Answers pp. 110, 111.

Mountain Removing Faith

QUESTION: Explain Mark 11:28, "especially mountain removing faith."

ANSWER; This is an Oriental proverb for the removal of some stupendous obstacle or the conquest of any appalling difficulty. It is to be symbolically interpreted, and not literally, unless the spirit of God should in a supernatural way inspire miracle working faith for such an object, which he has never yet done. When Christianity went forth from Jerusalem to conquer Jewish opposition, and pagan persecution, faith removed the Alpine mountains which stood in the path of a dozen unarmed, and unlearned fishermen and peasants. This text does not encourage anything spectacular or arbitrary. We are dependent upon the Holy Spirit for a knowledge of what we should pray for. When we know this, it is easy to believe. When God wants us to work miracles he will inspire in us miracle working faith.

— Steele's Answers p. 110.

The Age of the Holy Spirit is Opened!

In that sublime formula of worship, the Te Deum Laudamus, which has dropped from the lips of dying sires to living sons for fifteen centuries, there is found this sentence, referring to the work of Christ in opening the dispensation of the Spirit:

"When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death, 

Thou didst open the kingdom of heaven to all believers." 

To make the Church realize the presence of [the Holy Spirit], "The Executive of the Godhead," there must be more praying in the Holy Ghost, more preaching with the demonstration of the Spirit, more singing with the Spirit, and testifying as the Spirit giveth utterance, with the attesting fruit of the Spirit, love, joy, and peace. There must be more faith in the Holy Spirit as "the greatest gift that man could wish, or that heaven can send."

The Executive of the Godhead

For several years our mind has been laboring to invent some concise expression for the sum of all the offices of the Third Person of the Trinity, in the transformation, sanctification, and habitation of souls who fully believe in Christ Jesus. At last Dr. Hodge, [President of the Presbyterian Theological Seminary at Princeton, N.J. U.S.A.] has struck out with his die the very coin which our own mint has failed to stamp and contribute to the currency of Christian experience and theological discussion. "The Holy Ghost is the Executive of the Godhead." We telegraph our thanks to Princeton. May Dr. Hodge's mint continue to pour out its golden coin into our religious literature for many years more. This clear cut conception and expression of the work of the Spirit is exceedingly beautiful because it is indisputably true. Law emanates from the Father, and mercy and judgment are committed to the Son, while the Executive of both Persons is the ever blessed Spirit. Here we have the three departments of government: the legislative, the judicial, and the executive. Through the Holy Spirit the Father and the Son operate on human souls, reproving, regenerating, witnessing and sanctifying. We now see how a person may honor the Father, and in a measure the Son, and yet fail of obtaining the highest spiritual grace through a failure to honor the Holy Ghost, the blessed Comforter; just as a man may show all proper respect to the lawmaking and law-interpreting departments of our own government, and secure their action, and then miss his purpose at last by ignoring the last link necessary to its realization — the executive officer, without whose agency statutes and courts are ineffectual. We fear that there are many Christians who inadvertently fail in their tribute of respect, faith, and worship to the Holy Ghost, regarding him as an impersonal emanation or influence streaming from God, or as only another name for the Father, who can just as well without Him reach and transfigure their sin-stained souls, through the blood of the Lamb that taketh away the sin of the world.

On Hebrews 11:39, 40

QUESTION: Explain Heb. 11:39, 40, "And, these all, having had witness borne to them through their faith, received not the promise. God having provided some better thing concerning us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect."

ANSWER: The difficulty lies in the meaning of two words, "promise" and "perfect." Promise is here used for the thing promised, the resurrection of the body and the glorification of the soul and body in the likeness of the glorified God-man. This is the perfection for which the heroes of faith recorded in this chapter, "the Westminster Abbey of the Old Testament," are waiting till the Second Advent of Christ and the general resurrection. The souls of the blessed dead are neither unconscious, nor hidden away in some doleful place, but they are in heaven, according to the constant testimony of the New Testament Scriptures, enjoying all that is possible for disembodied spirits. They are in the heaven of glory, "with Christ, which is very far better" than perfect love to him on the earth, while they were subject to the limiting an instantaneous increase and perfection, "when soul and body will his glorious image bear." The history of the saints upon the earth must be finished before the completion of heaven comes on. So it may be very properly said that the patriarchs, prophets and ancient saints are waiting for the completion of our dispensation before their glory will be made perfect by the dawning of the day in which their bodies will live again. Blessed in their present condition, they are blessed also in their anticipation of a supreme and eternal perfection. Thus, the "promise" is the "perfection."

— Steele's Answers pp. 108-110.

Be Ye Perfect

QUESTION: Is Matt. 5:48 a precept or a prediction? We note that the revisors have changed the words, "Be ye perfect" to "Ye shall be perfect," making them a promise instead of a command.

ANSWER: Both forms are mandatory. All the requirements and prohibitions of the Decalogue, except the fifth, are in the indicative form, "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not." This is really in the Greek as strong as the imperative mood. Even though we had no expressed command, we would be bound to realize the highest ideal. This is found in the character of Jesus Christ. "While a better is in sight, we can rest in no good; and the refusal to move onward is to be a traitor to the highest, and so, finally, to the good itself," says Dr. Borden P. Bowne. Indifference in sight of spiritual perfection is a perilous attitude of a free moral agent professing faith in Christ.

— Steele's Answers pp. 108.

A Deeper Death?

QUESTION: Does the Bible teach that after we are wholly sanctified there is yet a deeper death?

ANSWER: This question has the odor of Plymouth and Keswick, and of Geneva, the home of Calvin. Many good people cling to the doleful doctrine that sin is necessary to this present life and that it must continue till physical death in the case of the normal Christian, and that a perfectly holy man is something abnormal. The Bible teaches that Christ came into the world to destroy the works of the devil. Sin is the devil's masterpiece which the Lamb of God came into the world provisionally to destroy through the efficacy of faith in his blood. He has opened a fountain for sin and all uncleanness, not in the article of death or after our last heart-beat. Paul certainly contemplated a period of life after dying unto sin once for all, when, in answer to our question, in a slightly changed form, he quired thus: "We who died to sin, how shall we live any longer therein?" It is not a process, "are dying," but a completed act, "died." Strictly speaking, there are no degrees of death, although we hear men in the street using this phrase, "deader than Julius Caesar." Crucifixion, Paul's favorite word for the cessation of the self-centered life, is a decisive act admitting of no degrees, or "dying deeper down," "our old man was crucified" (aorist) subsequently explained by Paul's reference to his own experience in Gal. 2:20, "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer that I live" (American Revision). He did not need to die deeper down. The fact that he kept his body under by holding in check his innocent animal appetites, like those of Jesus Christ, does not prove the need of a deeper death in the one case any more than in the other.

— Steele's Answers pp. 107, 108.

On Luke 11:41

QUESTION: Explain Luke 11:41, "But rather give alms of such things as ye have; and behold, all things are clean unto you."

ANSWER: The exegetes are about equally divided, some saying, "By acts directly contrary to rapine and wickedness, show that your hearts are cleansed, and these outward washings are needless" (Wesley); and others assert that Jesus ironically describes the error of the Pharisees, "Give alms, forsooth, and make compensation for your extortions and cleanse of all your guilt." Jesus does not often use irony, but I think he uses it with good effect here. He casts no slur on almsgiving, but upon using, it as a cover for sin.

— Steele's Answers p. 106.

On Mark 16:17, 18 (The Snake Handling Verses)

QUESTION: Is Mark 16:17, 18 to be taken in its literal meaning? If so, have not all believers the power to cast out devils, to heal the sick, to drink deadly poisons and handle rattlesnakes without harm?

ANSWER: The Revision informs the reader that the last twelve verses of Mark are not in the two oldest manuscripts, and that some authorities have a different ending to his Gospel. Most of the experts regard it as "an apocryphal fragment" (Meyer) and that "the internal evidence is very weighty against Mark being the author." (Alford.) No less than twenty-one words and phrases occur in these verses, and some of them several times, which are never elsewhere used by Mark. For this reason I have for more than thirty years conscientiously refrained from quoting any part of this passage as a proof-text of any doctrine. It is thought that either he left his Gospel unfinished, having died in the middle of a sentence, or what is more probable, that the last part of his manuscript was accidentally torn off before any copies were made. In India a favorite method of annoying the missionary preaching in the open air is to bring him a cobra, whose bite is fatal, and ask him to handle it in proof of the truth of his sacred books. The grave doubt of the genuineness of this passage affords him a good reason for declining this test. We look in vain in the Acts of the Apostles for any instance of drinking poison or picking up snakes to demonstrate the divine origin of Christianity.

— Steele's Answers p. 105, 106.

Cartoons & Theological Controversy

QUESTION: Is the cartoon a proper instrument of theological controversy?

ANSWER: Some have thought that Paul used it for imparting religious instruction in Gal. 3:1 "before whose eyes Jesus Christ was depicted as crucified." It is better to understand Paul as saying that Christ crucified was vividly portrayed in his preaching. The comic cartoon was very early used as a weapon against Christ by pagans. Recently a wall of the barracks of the Pretorian guard, with which Paul was acquainted in his imprisonment at Rome, was laid bare, showing a rough cartoon of a cross to which a man with the head of a donkey was nailed. Beneath it a soldier is kneeling and these words are written, "Clovius worships his god." If the cartoon continues to be used, let the enemies of Christ have a monopoly of it. Let not professed Christians use it against one another.

— Steele's Answers p. 104, 105.

Is Accepting Christ Necessary?

QUESTION: Which is correct: "All will be saved except those who reject Christ," or "None will be saved except those who accept Christ?

ANSWER: Aside from infants and pious pagans living up to their best light in total ignorance of the Savior, my preference is to say, "Christ has begun to save the fallen race and he will save every one who will receive him as both Savior and Lord." Many sinners say, "I am not conscious of rejecting Christ," while they cannot say, "I am conscious of receiving Christ." This is the reason for my preference.

— Steele's Answers p. 104.

Why Not Now?

If the blessing of conscious completeness in Christ, and the abiding Comforter and Sanctifier, is by faith only, why not now? Today is the day of salvation. Full salvation surrounds you like a shoreless ocean. Appropriate to your utmost capacity today. You will gain nothing by waiting. There is no lack for God to supplement, and there is no particular in which you can improve yourself and make yourself more acceptable to Him. Neither sanctification nor justification is by works. Works involve the element of time; but faith says, "Now, this instant, Thou, O God, wilt receive my offering."

"But," says doubt, "suppose that I feel just the same after I thus believe, what then?"

Keep on believing the promise, and insisting that God is true. He may delay for days and weeks the declaration of your complete acceptance, in order to develop and test your faith. The longer the delay, if you trust unwaveringly, the more marvelous the manifestation of Christ to your soul as your complete Saviour, when the Comforter takes the things of Christ and shows them unto you. The Syrophoenician woman lost nothing by pressing her suit against chilling discouragements. Faint not.

— Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1, Chapter 15.

Let Yourself Go

Some teach that consecration must be a perfect and distinct act, preceding faith as a distinct act. But we can never surrender to a person whom we do not trust. So that faith, simple faith, lies at the bottom of every step God-ward. We have recently seen a beautiful illustration of the need of trust in order to complete consecration. A glass-worker makes a beautiful, yet exceedingly frail, ornament, and brings it to his friend as a gift. He says, "This is yours; it is very delicate, and must be touched with the greatest care.

"But," says the friend, whose hand has been out stretched for several minutes, "why do you not let go your grasp and give it to me?"

"O, because I am afraid that you will take hold of it so strongly as to break it, and all my labour will be lost," replies the giver.

"But you say that it is mine; let it go, then, and if it is shattered in the transfer, the loss will be mine and not yours."

If your gift of yourself to Christ is in good faith, let yourself go; and if you break all in pieces, you have lost nothing; it is His loss. Perhaps He can make a better use of you, thus shattered, than He could with your wholeness. In His service a broken heart is a thousand times more efficient for good than a whole one.

— Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1, Chapter 15.

Consecration and Trust

There are but two steps down into the pool which makes whole — consecration and trust. Difficulties attend both steps. Some are in doubt whether they surrender all to the disposal of Christ. To such we say, Consecrate all you know, and then all you do not know. This includes all your assets. God asks no more than this. At this point many fail, through fear that they are to become paupers, when God means to endow them with untold wealth. What, let Christ become my Lord indeed! Is it safe to give Him complete control over my heart, to be the Sovereign of my will, the Owner of all my property, while I sink down to a mere stewardship under Him. Will He not take some cruel advantage of me? Will He not command me to hard service? Will not reproaches be heaped up on me, if I avow before men and angels that I am wholly Christ's? Very likely He will honour you by entrusting to you some difficult labour. If you go into partnership with Him, you must share all the reproach which comes upon the firm. You are advised beforehand that Jesus is an unpopular character in what is called the best society. "If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of His household?" "The world will hate you, because it hateth Me: but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." Hence there can be no perfect consecration without an accompanying perfect trust.

— Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1, Chapter 15.

Your Good Name or God's Glory?

Perfect reliance on Christ is impossible so long as you are cherishing your good name as a treasure more precious than His glory. I think that He had ministers of His Gospel especially in view when He said, "How can ye believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that cometh from God only?" This is not a rebuke for a jealous care of our moral standing, since an untarnished name is, with preachers, an indispensable condition of success, but for a weak truckling to a public opinion, hostile to unadulterated Christian truth. Some are tempted to temporize, and tone down the Gospel to please men on whom they think themselves dependent. Reader, your reputation is not too good to give to the Lord Jesus. Paul's self-surrender included his popularity. "If I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ."

— Mile-Stone Papers Part 1, Chapter 15.

Church Membership Conditions

QUESTION: What moral right has the church to make conditions for membership which were not required in the apostolic church?

ANSWER: Very little is said in the New Testament about the qualifications for church membership beyond faith in Christ and obedience to his moral precepts. But should the experience of many generations uniformly result in the conviction that certain courses of conduct are invariably detrimental to faith and strongly tend to a destruction of good morals, the church has a right to forbid such practices.

— Steele's Answers p. 103, 104.

Virtue vs. Holiness

What is the specific difference between virtue and holiness? Repression. Virtue is the triumph of right against strong inward tendencies toward the opposite. Jesus triumphed over outward temptations to sin, and was holy. Mary Magdalene, by divine grace, triumphed over strong inward tendencies toward vice, and was virtuous. The repressive theory of holiness, involving, as it must, the co-working of the human soul with the divine Represser, confounds the broad distinction between holiness and virtue, and banishes holiness from the earth, substituting virtue instead. In fact, we do not see any possibility, by this theory, for a fallen man ever to become holy in the sense of the entire extinction of inbred sin. If this is only repressed here it may be only repressed for ever hereafter. If the Holy Spirit cannot eradicate original sin now, through our faith in the blood of Jesus, what assurance have we that He can ever entirely sanctify our souls?

But if by repression is meant the right poising of the innocent passions of sanctified human nature after the extinction of ingratitude, unbelief, malice, self-will, and every other characteristic of depraved human nature which is sinful, per se, we accept it as Wesleyan and Scriptural.

— edited from Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1, Chapter 13.

Is a Sunday School Picnic a Means of Grace?

QUESTION: Is a Sunday school excursion and picnic a means of grace?

ANSWER: Yes, to the teachers and officers it is a means of the grace of patience and watchfulness against physical and moral harm to the children entrusted to their care. To the children themselves, especially to those shut up in cities, the picnic is a healthful change, affording a glimpse of nature in the grove, on the mountain top, or by the seaside. It is not exactly a religions institution, but is a proper device for holding the children and youths to a religious institution, just as the tailor's basting thread is necessary to hold the parts of his work together till he can put in the permanent stitches. When D. L. Moody began his Sunday school in the slums of Chicago, he used cakes and maple sugar with which to attach his scholars to his school, while he was endeavoring to attach them to Christ with an everlasting tie.

— Steele's Answers p. 103.

Should a Preacher Become a Lecturer?

QUESTION: What do you think of a Gospel preacher's entering the lecture field?

ANSWER: When Henry Ward Beecher visited Boston for the last time, the students of the School of Theology of Boston University invited him to address them. He gave them a rousing offhand speech and then invited the students to ask any questions. One asked if he would advise the preacher to prepare a few lectures. As quick as a flash of lightning, Beecher replied: "What do you want two nozzles to your hydrant for, when you have water enough for only one?"

— Steele's Answers p. 102.

Drink a Little Wine?

QUESTION: Explain I Tim. 5:23: "Be no longer a drinker of water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities."

ANSWER: Here are three facts: a total abstainer from intoxicants, a weak stomach needing a tonic, and a medical prescription of wine in homeopathic doses. There seems to be no moral peril in this advice by an apostle of the Gospel of Christ to a man who was not a reformed drunkard. It puts wine into the medicine chest where it belongs, and not on the sideboard, where it steals away the brains.

— Steele's Answers pp. 101, 102.

Once Saved Always Saved?

QUESTION: A class of people here teach that a person once saved cannot be lost. Their chief proof text is John 10:28, "I give unto them eternal life and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand." Please explain.

ANSWER: All of God's promises of spiritual blessings are conditioned expressly or by implication. The implied condition here is strongly hinted to the Greek reader in the context by the use of the present tense, denoting continuance: "My sheep are hearing my voice and they are following me." Such persevering believers have eternal life. Says Bishop Westcott: 

"If any man falls in his spiritual life, it is not from want of divine grace, nor from the overwhelming power of adversaries, but from his neglect to use that which he may or may not use. We cannot be protected against ourselves in spite of ourselves. The difficulty in this case is only one form of the difficulty involved in the relation of an infinite to a finite being. The sense of the divine protection is at any moment sufficient to inspire confidence, but not to render effort unnecessary." 

So long as obedient faith continues, the spiritual life continues, but when faith lapses, the life, which might have been everlasting, also lapses. This is impressively taught in the parable of the vine in John 15:1-7. Fruitless branches of the true vine are burned. There is no other rational exegesis.

— Steele's Answers pp. 100, 101.

Will Christians be Included in the Last Judgement?

QUESTION: We are told by a class of teachers that true believers in Christ will not be judged in that last day; that only their works will be examined preparatory to giving their reward in the millennial dispensation. Is this so?

ANSWER: The distinction between the judgment of the person and the judgment of his works is a sophism invented to bolster up an unscriptural doctrine denying the General Judgment. Personality includes conduct. They cannot be separated and differently judged. The favorite proof text, John 5:24, "He that believeth . . . hath eternal life and cometh not into judgment," evidently meaning the condemnatory part of the judgment, as in verse 29, "they that have done evil (come) unto the resurrection of judgment." i.e., condemnation. The Greek word often means condemnation instead of judgement, as in Heb. 10:27, II Pet, 2:4, Jude 15. The saints are certainly included in the "all" who must appear before the judgment seat in Rom. 14:10, II Cor. 5:10, and in the "world" in Acs 17:31, "he will judge the world in righteousness."

— Steele's Answers p. 100.

Christians Have One Nature, Not Two

QUESTION: How would you answer the assertion that every Christian has two natures, that of the old Adam, which until physical death lives and sins day by day without ceasing, and that of the second Adam, the Lord Jesus, which nature cannot sin?

ANSWER: The Christian has only one nature called human. This nature is a fallen nature redeemed and reconstructed more or less perfectly, according to one's faith. But it has from the moment of the new birth the gracious ability to be victorious over every temptation and to verify John's description, "Whosoever has been born of God (perfect tense implying the continued similarity to God) is not sinning, because his seed (love divine) continues in him and he cannot be sinning because he has been begotten of God" (perfect tense including the present). That our annotated American version gives the exact meaning of the original is confirmed by the Twentieth Century Version, "No one who has derived his life from God acts sinfully, because God's very nature is always within him and he cannot live in sin, because he has derived his life from God." This precludes a career of sinning by a child of God, but it does not preclude the possibility of a single wrong act under the stress of sudden temptation, as in I John 2:1, "If any man sin (the tense denoting a single act) we have an Advocate," etc.

— Steele's Answers pp. 99, 100.

God's Justice and Our Ideas of Justice

Well does Professor Shedd say:

How can a man even know what is meant by justice in the Deity, if there is absolutely nothing of the same species in his own rational constitution, which, if realized in his own character as it is in that of God, would make him just as God is just? If there is no part of man's complex being upon which he may fall back with the certainty of not being mistaken in his judgments of ethics and religion, then are both anchor and anchorage gone, and he is afloat upon the boundless, starless ocean of ignorance and scepticism. Even if revelations are made, they cannot enter his mind.

Who can confidently adore and sincerely love a being who may, in the inmost essence of his being, be pure malignity in the outward guise of benevolence?

— Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1, Chapter 13.

Repression or Purification?

It is a remarkable fact that while the Greek language richly abounds in words signifying repression, a half score of which occur in the New Testament, and are translated by to bind, bruise, cast down, conquer, bring into bondage, let, repress, hold fast, hinder, restrain, subdue, put down, and take by the throat, yet not one of these, συνέχω, κατέχω, κωλύω, συγκλείω, καταπαύω, is used of inbred sin; but such verbs as signify to cleanse, to purify, to mortify or kill, to crucify, and to destroy. When St. Paul says that he keeps under his body and brings it into subjection, he makes no allusion to the σάρξ, the flesh, the carnal mind, but to his innocent bodily appetites. In Pauline usage body is different from flesh. 

We have diligently sought in both the Old Testament and the New for exhortations to seek the repression of sin. The uniform command is to put away sin, to purify the heart, to purge out the old leaven, and to seek to be sanctified throughout spirit, soul, and body. Repressive power is nowhere ascribed to the blood of Christ, but rather purifying efficacy. Now, if these verbs, which signify to cleanse, wash, crucify, mortify, or make dead, and to destroy, are all used in a tropical or metaphorical sense, it is very evident that the literal truth signified is something far stronger than repression. It is eradication, extinction of being, destruction.

— Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1, Chapter 13.

"To Have Sin" (1 John 1:8)

QUESTION: In I John 1:8, "If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us," is John speaking of Christians or of the unregenerate?

ANSWER: Of persons called Gnostics, who believed that their bodies only were defiled by sin, and that their souls were perfectly pure, having no need of the blood of Christ and of the new birth. The phrase "to have sin" is John's strongest expression of such a transgression of the law as entails guilt. If all Christians are guilty, the profession of justification by anybody on the earth is a sad mistake, and Paul's declaration, "There is therefore now no condemnation to them that are to Christ Jesus" is a stupendous falsehood.

— Steele's Answers, pp. 98, 99.

Penal Satisfaction Implies Limited Atonement

In Dr. Steele's discussion of the theology of Dispensationalism, he remarks:

[A Limited Atonement] the inevitable outcome of the doctrine that sin was punished on the cross.

Whose sin? If it be answered, that of the whole human race, then universalism emerges, for God cannot in justice punish sin twice. It must be, then, that the sins of the elect only were punished. Hence at the bottom, this system of doctrine rests upon the tenet of a particular, in distinction from a universal atonement.

The fact that [in Dispensationalism] this basis is not avowed, and that the terminology of hyper-predestinarianism, such as "the elect," "the reprobates," "special call," "irresistible grace," "perseverance of the saints," and salvation by "Divine Sovereignty," is studiously avoided, makes this system of doctrine still more dangerous, because these offensive features are concealed with Jesuitical cunning.

We cannot resist the suspicion that this is designed, so as to make it palatable to those educated in the Arminian faith, in order to catch them with guile. Some unreflective Arminians are thus unawares entrapped into the reception of that unmitigated scheme of doctrine which Christendom is almost universally shaking off.

— A Substitute for Holiness or Antinomianism Revived, Chapter 6.

Did Christ Suffer the Punishment for Sin?

Hence we repudiate in the interest of sound ethical philosophy and clearness of thought, the following proposition of Dr. Bishop: —

"If the sin of the believing sinner is taken from his shoulders and laid upon the Son of God, then justice, still following after sin, must strike through sin and the person of the Son of God beneath it."

It is a moral axiom that only the guilty can be rightfully punished. If Christ was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners, to punish Him would be, not only contrary to all human law, but it would outrage all those God-given moral sentiments on which human law rests. It is in vain that Dr. Bishop seeks for analogies to sustain the monstrous injustice of punishing innocence. He says, "When a father commits a crime, his whole family sink in the social scale, though innocent." Here he confounds the natural consequences of sin with the punishment of sin. Dr. Bishop should show that society universally hangs the innocent family on the same gibbet with the guilty husband and father. Then the case would be analogous.

Many persons use the expression "Christ in the stead of the sinner suffered the punishment of his sin," without subjecting this proposition to that rigid analysis which theological accuracy requires. While it is true that Jesus is our substitute, He is our substitute truly and strictly only in suffering, not in punishment. Sin cannot be punished and pardoned also. This would be a moral contradiction. Sin is conditionally pardoned because Jesus has suffered and died. There is no punishment of sin except in the person of the sinner who neglects so great a Saviour. Sin was not punished on the Cross. Calvary was the scene of wondrous mercy and love, not of wrath and penalty.

Says Dr. Whedon, "Punishment in the strict sense implies the guilt of the sufferer as its correlative. Whenever the sinner and the sufferer are not the same, it is only by an allowable inaccuracy that the suffering can be called punishment. It follows that it is not strictly accurate to say that Christ was punished, or that he truly suffered the punishment of sin."

— A Substitute for Holiness or Antinomianism Revived, Chapter 6.

Was Christ on the Cross a Sinner?

We once heard a layman, an ex-president of the Boston Y.M.C.A., assert in a public evangelistic service that "Jesus Christ on the cross was the greatest sinner in the universe!" Such statements are usually attended by the portrayal with terrific distinctness, of the Almighty Father in the act of hurling His thunderbolts, in blasting shocks, down upon the defenseless head of His shrinking and suffering Son.

We indignantly repudiate the monstrous idea that Jesus on the cross was a sinner overwhelmed with the bolts of the Father's personal wrath. What we do affirm is that his sufferings and death were in no sense a punishment, but a substitute for punishment, answering the same end, the conservation of God's moral government and the vindication of His holy character while He pardons penitent believers.

Sanctification of the Body

The candid student of the New Testament, especially of the Epistles, which unfold the uttermost extent of salvation under the dispensation of the Paraclete, will not fail to discover the prominence given to the purification of the material element of human nature through faith in Christ. In Romans xii. 1, the body, in distinction from the mind (ver. 2), its spiritual tenant, is to be holy, not after death, but while "living." In chapter vi, 6, we read that the purpose of the crucifixion of the old man is, that the body "in so far as it is a sin-body" (Meyer) might be destroyed, "annihilated" (Cremer), "done away" (R.V.). In Colossians ii. 11, we are assured that "the circumcision of Christ," that entire sanctification of the heart (Jer. iv 4) which Christ provides for in the gift of the Holy Spirit, consists in ''putting off the body of the flesh" (R.V.), not merely the outward "sins of the flesh". The significant and weighty double compound Greek noun, "putting off," found nowhere else in Greek literature, is invented by Paul to express the thoroughness of this purging of the whole body from all sinful tendencies. Hence the meaning is, "a complete 'putting off' and doing away with this body 'of the flesh,' in so far as God, by means of this ethical circumcision, has taken off and removed the sinful body from man (the two acts are expressed by the double compound), like a garment which is drawn off and laid aside" (Meyer).

St. Paul declares (I Cor. vi 13) that "the body is for the Lord" (Jesus), inasmuch as it is a member of Christ, and "the Lord is for the body;" that is, He purposes to rule and use it as His member, and an instrument for His use, and a mirror for reflecting His glory. "The body is His due, for He assumed the body, and hath therein sanctified us; and we are joined to Him by the resurrection of the body." Thus says Bengel, who adds, "Quanta dignatio!" — "How great an honour!" This honour culminates in the nineteenth verse: "What! know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost," His peculiar and perpetual habitation, the last place which He hath chosen for the erection of His altar (Deut. xii. 14). How impressive the injunction which follows, when cleared, as it is in the Revision, of the gloss which diverts the emphasis from the body, the subject under discussion. "Therefore, glorify God in your BODY."

The strongest proof text (1 Thess. v. 23) for the entire sanctification of the body in the present life is found in that prayer of the Apostle Paul in which he makes an exhaustive analysis of man's compound nature, and prays that each specific part may be preserved blameless, after supplicating the very God of peace to sanctify the undivided whole. In his enumeration of parts, Paul descends from the highest and distinctive part, the spirit, the dome of man's being, wherein he is receptive of the Holy Spirit, to the animal soul, containing the passions and appetites in common with the brutes, the second part in the detail which needs the purifying power: thence he goes down to the material foundations of this divine temple and prays for the keeping pure of the sanctified body.

(We have not discussed "the flesh" in the Pauline sense of that term. We have attempted to prove that the body is to be sanctified and the flesh is to be crucified.)

— Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1 Chapter 12.

No Spiritual Purgation by Death

We find not, in all the Book of God, a vestige of Scripture favouring either a post-mortem sanctification or a spiritual purgation by death itself. Still, we do not deny that many souls aspiring after holiness, but through all their lives bewildered by erroneous theological teachings and misapplied Scriptures, as they approach eternity, rising above the mists, aided by the special illumination of the Holy Spirit, do lay hold of Christ as a complete Saviour, and experience perfect cleansing through faith in His blood. Many of these have very gladly testified to a strong regret that this grace of perfect love, casting out all fear, and excluding all sin, was not received and enjoyed by them many years before, while in the full enjoyment of health. They now see that this was their privilege, and that death is by no means a factor, or a condition of entire sanctification. They plainly declare that they missed this great grace through some groundless prejudice against its experience and expression, or through too great reliance on fallible human teachers, to the neglect of the great Teacher Jesus Christ, and a reluctance to follow perfectly the unerring Guide, the Holy Spirit.

— Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1, Chapter 12.

The "Seven Feet of Gravel" Cure

A person suffering from an annual attack of hay fever, having been told that Oliver Wendell Holmes, the poet physician, had effected a cure of that malady in his own case, wrote to that renowned littérateur, inquiring for the antidote. In accordance with his concise and vigorous style, the great humorist replied, "Seven feet of gravel." By this laconic answer he corrected the report of his own cure, and strongly intimated his belief that death is the only specific for that disease. This despair of healing, when once in full possession of its subject, would shut out a further trial of remedies. Unbelief paralyzes the will and destroys the motives to action.

It was an evil day when Christianity was blighted by that admixture of pagan philosophy which teaches the eternity of matter and its inherent, essential, and ineradicable sinfulness; and that the human spirit, so long as it is encased therein, must bear the taint of its polluted envelope. Down through the Christian ages this pagan element has wrought its baneful work, responding to every cry for the complete cure of sin, "Seven feet of gravel." This dreadful answer belittles the glorious Gospel, discrowns its Author, and dishonours His successor, the Holy Comforter and Sanctifier. It dwarfs and degrades the Gospel because it makes it, in respect to entire sanctification, as great a failure as the Law (Heb. x. 1-3). Especially note the contrast between Heb. vii. 19, and vii. 25. It discrowns Christ, because it ascribes a greater power to death, making it exterminate that inbred sin which had successfully defied His grace; and absurdly making an effect annihilate its cause. It dishonours the Holy Spirit, called Holy because it is His office to make believers perfectly holy — by making death usurp His office, and accomplish a work which had baffled His power.

— Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1, Chapter 12.

St. John Versus the Gnostics

"If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." (1 John 1:8 KJV)

I wish you to notice the connection in which these words stand. The connection is this: "If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, . . . the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

Now if the "we" here means the persons cleansed, just spoken of when it says, "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin," we must convict this inspired writer of a manifest contradiction in affirming that the same persons are cleansed from all sin and yet are still living in sin. It is very much like saying that vaccination is a prophylactic against small-pox, but if any one tries it, and proves it is so, he is a liar. Or quinine is a specific against fevers, especially malarial fevers, but if any one tries it, and is cured, and makes declaration of the fact, it is false. That is the absurdity to which John is reduced by that kind of exposition.

We Need the Atonement Every Moment

I believe if any man says, however holy he may be at the present time, however the work of God by the divine Spirit may have purged him, soul and body, from all sin, if he says he can live half an hour without the atonement, he is a greatly mistaken man; if he says he can live one minute without the atonement, he is a mistaken man, That is where much of fanaticism comes in. If the devil cannot ride a truth down, he will raise up various clouds of fanaticism and misunderstanding about it.

I stand every day and every hour and every moment upon the atoning merit of the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that all so-called sins of ignorance, — read the fourth chapter of the book of Leviticus, — all infirmities, ignorances, failures, need continually the blood of sprinkling. Sometimes I am inclined to go as far as President Wayland, that justification by faith is a series of repeated acts every moment of a man's life, a series of acts on the part of God to a justified believer, pardoning him. Whether this is so or not I do not know, but I do believe with respect to our inmost spiritual condition, we stand only upon the ground of the atoning merit of Christ, and are saved only as we continually exercise real faith in the great atonement, or, as it is said sometimes, in a phrase I never exactly liked, "being kept under the blood."

"Every moment, Lord, I need
The merit of Thy death."

— Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1, Chapter 11.

The Justified State

"Whosoever is born of God, doth not commit sin." (1 John 3:9 KJV)

This is my idea of a justified state. I believe justification is a very great work; I do not believe in belittling justification, or regeneration, in order to make more of sanctification. "Whosoever is born of God, doth not commit sin for His seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin, because he is born of God." That is, to be born of God is to be like God, to take on His moral likeness; and whoever is possessed of that moral likeness to God, while retaining such a likeness will not sin against God. So from the very beginning the truly justified and regenerate soul is endued with grace to be victorious over acts of sin. But it costs a struggle; the remains of the old nature are within, "The flesh lusteth against the Spirit and the Spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary one to the other, in order that ye may not do the things that ye would." Thank God for the Revision upon that point, in that text which has been a pillow under the head of many a man to comfort him in a life of sin! The Revision teaches "in order that ye may not sin" (Gal. v. 17), in striking contrast to the conflict going on in the seventh chapter of the epistle to the Romans, where it is all on the level of nature, the upper story in conflict with the lower, the conscience in collision with the animal and sinful propensities. In the hopeless struggle delineated in Romans seventh, the Holy Spirit does not appear as one of the combatants in the strife going on in the breast of the unregenerate, yet thoughtful moralist. But in Gal. v. 17, He appears on the field of conflict in the regenerate soul before it has reached the moment where sin is instantaneously slain by the power of God, through faith in the all-atoning blood of His Son. Yet, as I understand it, there is grace available by which every regenerate soul from the moment of regeneration may go on in a career of victory, never falling into acts of sin. 

— Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1, Chapter 11.

The Crown of Life

QUESTION: What is the crown of life in Rev. 2:10, "Be thou faithful until death, and I will give thee the crown of life?"

ANSWER: Says Thayer's New Testament Greek Lexicon, used in all the theological seminaries in the English-speaking world, "The crown of life is the eternal blessedness which will be given as a prize to genuine servants of God and of Christ." The crown of life is eternal life as a crown, a wreath upon the brow of the racer who has finished his course. In grammar the crown and the life eternal are appositives, like the city of Boston.

— Steele's Answers, p. 98.

In God is No Darkness

"This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." (1 John 1:5 KJV)

The Greek is very emphatic here — not a fleck, not a spot. Here John strikes the great error which seemed to ascribe both good and evil to God. If good and evil were bound up in God, if sin and holiness were bound up in God, then man could consistently say. "I have participation and fellowship with God, even if I live in conscious, daily sin, for God is a being of mixed character, and I am like Him in that sense." Now, in inculcating holiness upon men, John must see that the conception of the model is right, and hence he aims to clear the character of God of all such false conceptions; and this is the way he starts out, this is the message — "that God is light," undimmed, unmixed light, in whom is no darkness at all, not a fleck of darkness nor of evil nor of sin in His nature. You see John does not prove this, he simply asserts it; that is the style of John, the nearest writer to the Lord Jesus in his form of expression. The Lord Jesus did not often reason, but spoke from authority, gave expression to His own intuitions of truth. And John, as an intuitive writer, simply announces his intuitions, St. Paul reasons — has long and involved chains of argument. Hence John makes the declaration, under the illumination of the divine Spirit, that God is unmixed in His character, a being of unmixed holiness, love, truth, and in Him is nothing to the contrary. Now, then, he can clinch his nail. "If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness," in an element that is directly contrary to His character, there is a great mistake somewhere, a falsehood somewhere; the truth is not in the utterance. "If we say that we have fellowship with Him," participation of His moral likeness, "and" still "walk in darkness," walk in sin, in untruth, "we lie," John is a very outspoken writer; he does not mince matters and say we are mistaken and do not the truth, do not exemplify the truth, do not live out the truth, but, "we lie, and do not the truth." He then goes on: "But if we walk in the light," abstain from sin, are victorious over sin, "if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin."

— Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1, Chapter 11.

The Word Made Flesh

"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; " (1 John 1:1 KJV.)

Word is spelled with a capital, meaning the Logos, or personal Word described in John's gospel: "And the Word was with God, and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory."

What is remarkable here is that John insists, that that Word revealed Himself to us in material form, addressing our senses, hearing, seeing and feeling, the three chief senses by which we recognize the material world. He wishes to demonstrate that the incarnation is a reality and not a shadow. "For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness and show unto you that eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us."

It is said that no man is a hero to his body servant, who sees all his failings and faults and infirmities. Do you know that the human being who was the most intimate with the Lord Jesus Christ, who leaned on His breast, was the very man who writes this? Instead of familiarity breeding contempt, the very familiarity which John had with Jesus brought this overwhelming sense of His Divinity, His Godhead, and hence he speaks of Him as the Life, the eternal Life which was with the Father, "and" which "was manifested unto us." "That which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with us." When men find anything that is especially excellent, they want to get a patent right on it and secure the advantages to themselves. But John did not want any patent right on his discovery of life eternal in the Lord Jesus; he wanted to mount the housetop, and, putting a speaking trumpet to his lips, shout to all the world to share his blessedness. "That ye also may have fellowship with us: and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ."

— Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1, Chapter 11.

Enduring to the End

QUESTION: What is the "end" spoken of in Matt. 24:13, "He that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved?"

ANSWER: It is said by those who believe that eternal life once given can never be lost, that the "end" in this text is not the end of life, but the end of God's judgment on the destruction of Jerusalem, and that it is not spoken of "in connection with the Gospel message," in reference to the end of life, but to the end of the world. This exegesis will not fit an earlier use of this form found in Matt. 10:22, "Ye shall be hated for my name's sake" (the normal condition of an aggressive Gospel); "but he that endureth to the end" (of life evidently) "the same shall be saved."

— Steele's Answers pp. 97, 98.

Nervous Impatience

QUESTION: Is there a distinction to be made between nervous impatience and sinful peevishness?

ANSWER: There is a borderland between sanity and insanity which puzzles the most skillful alienist. In this region nervous diseases exist frequently, causing an irritability for which the patient is not morally responsible. "He knoweth our frame."

— Steele's Answers p. 97

Wait for the Spirit's Witness

QUESTION: Is it wise to advise seekers to profess the blessing of entire sanctification when they have not the Spirit's witness of the same?

ANSWER: It is not wise. It is an assumption akin to a presumption whereby many have been sorely perplexed and have given up in despair of ever finding this blessing. Bishop William Taylor calls it the devil's switch just before entering the depot of full salvation.

— Steele's Answers p. 97.

An Unconditional Consecration

When the will gladly makes [an] unconditional consecration, it is easy to trust unwaveringly in Christ as the uttermost Saviour. In fact, when the self-life expires, the fulness of the Spirit comes in as naturally as the air rushes into a vacuum. Faith then becomes as natural as breathing. We create the vacuum by dethroning our idols.

The whole question relating to the faith that leads the believer into full salvation is simply whether he will sell all to buy this pearl of great price. Nearly all the delay, difficulty, and danger lies at this point, a reluctance to part with all things. Self can assert itself just as effectually in a little as in a great thing. If self has life and strength enough to cling to a straw, it has power to bar the gate to perfect soul-rest.

It is said that a traveller by night fell into a dry well. His cry for help attracted a neighbour, who let down a rope and attempted to draw him up, but did not succeed, because the rope kept slipping through his hands. At length the rescuer, suspecting that the man's grip was feeble because of his having something in his hands besides the rope, called out to him, "Have you not something in your hands?" "Yes," replied the man at the bottom, "I have a few precious parcels which I should like to save as well as myself." When at last he became willing to drop his parcels, there was muscular power enough in his hands to hold fast the rope till he was drawn up.

— Mile-Stone Papers, Part 1, Chapter 10.