The Christian and the Law

Author: Ray Shelton

The Christian and the Law

In chapter 7 of his letter to the Romans, the Apostle Paul discusses the Christian's relationship to the law. This discussion actually began with the statement in Rom. 6:14
("you are not under law, but under grace.")
which raised the question in 6:15
("What then? Shall we sin because we are not under law but under grace?")
and its answer in 6:16 through 6:23.
Then Paul says that the Christian is not under law because he has died with Christ to the law.

"⁴ Likewise, my brethren, you have died to the law
through the body of Christ,
so that you may belong to another,
to him who has been raised from the dead
in order that we may bear fruit to God....
⁶ But now we are discharged from the law,
dead to that which held us captive,
so that we serve not under the old written code
but in the new life of the Spirit." (Rom. 7:4, 6).

For the Christian to be under law is for him to be under the dominion or lordship of the law ( Rom. 6:14) and to be a slave of the law ( Rom. 7:25b); this slavery to the law would be equivalent to an idolatry of the law which is basically what legalism is. The Christian becomes entrapped in this legalism when he believes the legalistic teaching that a Christian's relationship to God depends upon his submission to the law and he has accepted the legalistic claim that the law is the way to be delivered from the dominion of sin. But the law does not deliver from the dominion and the slavery of sin, but rather the passions of sin are aroused or energized by the law (Rom. 7:5). The law is not thereby sin (Rom. 7:6), but sin finding opportunity in the commandment "Thou shalt not covet" works all kinds of covetousness (Rom. 7:7-8). The law, instead of delivering from the dominion of sin, leads instead to the enslavement to sin (7:14, 25b). Instead of leading to life as legalism promises, the commandment leads to death (7:10). Sin uses the commandment as an opportunity to come alive or active (7:9, 11). The man under law wants to do what is right, but he cannot do it (7:18). Thus legalism leads to the moral dilemma: the contradiction between what man is and what he ought to be (7:19). The end is defeat and despair.

In verses 21 to 23, Paul gives the conclusion of his analysis of this dilemma.

"²¹ So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil is present with me.
²² For I delight in the law of God according the inner man,
²³ but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind
and taking me captive to the law of sin which is in my members."
(Rom. 7:21-23)

1. The first law is the law of sin (verse 21).
   Since sin is not what man under law wants to do,
   he concludes that sin must dwell in the members of his body
   rather than in his real inner self (7:17-20).
2. The second law is the law of God (verse 22),
   which the man under law delights in,
   which he agrees with his mind is right, good and holy (7:12, 16);
   this law is "the law of the mind" referred to in the next verse.
3. The third law is "another law" in verse 23. The Greek word heteros, translated "another", means "another of a different kind"; not allos, "another of the same kind". This is a law different from the first two laws; it wars against the law of the mind, which is the law of God, and brings the man who is under law into captivity to the law of sin. What is this third law? In the next verse, we find a clue.
   "Wretched man that I am!
   Who will deliver me from the body of this death?" (7:24)
   The law of death is this third law, this other law. And this is confirmed in Romans 8:2, which says,
   "For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
   has set me free from the law of sin and of death." (NAS)
   The law of death brings the man under law into captivity to the law of sin. Death leads to sin; that is, because of death all sinned.

But how is this possible? How can men sin because of death?
Let me explain how this is possible by referring to another passage in the writings of the Apostle Paul, Galatians 4:8.

"Formerly, when you did not know God,
you were in bondage to beings that by nature are no gods."

Let me put it another way. Every man must have a god. Man, by the very structure of his freedom, must choose something to be the ultimate criterion of all his decisions. This is because every choice a man makes is made with reference to some criterion. That is, behind every decision as to what a man will do or think there is a reason, a criterion of decision. And the ultimate reason for any decision -- practical or theoretical -- must be given in terms of some particular criterion, an ultimate reference or orientation point in or beyond the self or person making the decision. This ultimate criterion is that person's god. In this sense, every man must have a god. Every man, if he hasn't already, must choose something as his god. Now if he doesn't know the true God personally as a living reality, that is, if he is spiritually dead, and since he must have a god, he will choose a false god. He will choose some part or aspect of reality as his god, deifying it.

"They exchanged the truth about God for a lie
and worshipped and served the creature rather than the creator"
(Rom. 1:25).

The choice of a false god and consequent personal allegiance and devotion to it is what the Bible calls idolatry. An idol does not have to be an image of wood, stone or metal. It may be money, wealth, power, pleasure, education, the family, the state, democracy, reason, experience, science, the moral law, etc. An idol is a false god, and a false god may be anything that takes the place of the true God, anything a man chooses as his ultimate criterion of decision, exalting it as God in the place of the true God. It is any substitute or replacement for the true God in a man's life. Since a false god usurps the place of the true God in a man's life, idolatry is the basic sin. This sin is directly against God; it is a direct insult to the true God and an affront to His divine majesty. No more serious sin could be imagined than this one. Since it is the most serious sin, it is therefore the most basic. This is the main reason that idolatry is the first sin prohibited by the Ten Commandments.

"Thou shalt have no other gods besides me" (Exodus 20:3).

Now we can understand how death leads to sin. If a man is spiritually dead, separated from God, and since he must choose a god, he will usually choose a false god. If a man does not know the true God, the true God will not be a living reality to him. And lacking this personal knowledge of the true God as a living reality, man does not have the adequate reason for choosing the true God as his ultimate criterion of decision. God Himself is the only adequate reason for choosing Him. He cannot be chosen for any other reason than Himself. For then He would not be God but rather that reason for which He is chosen would be god. Only a living encounter with the true and living God can produce the situation in which God Himself may be chosen. If God Himself is the only adequate condition for the choice of Himself, then apart from a personal revelation of God Himself, man will usually choose as his god that which seems like god to him from among the creation around him or from the creations of his own hands or mind. Man does not necessarily have to sin, but he usually will. Spiritual death is not the necessary cause but the basis or condition for his choice of a false god. (The Greek word translated "because" in the last clause of Romans 5:12 means "on the basis of" or "on the condition of".)

Man is not responsible for becoming spiritually dead because he did not choose this state. He inherited spiritual death from Adam just as he inherited physical death.

"Therefore, as sin came into the world through one man
and death through sin,
and so death spread to all men,
because of which [death] all sinned,..." (Rom. 5:12 ERS).

"For the wages of sin is death,
but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 6:23).

The law separates the man under law from God; this is practically the same as spiritual death. And the man under law sins because he is practically spiritually dead. For the Christian to place himself under law is like placing himself in spiritual death; the law has taken the place of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus and it has the same results as spiritual death -- sin. Romans 7 is not the normal Christian life but the abnormal or subnormal experience of the believer who is under law. But if the Christian falls into this legalism, there is deliverance.
"Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ" (7:25a).

The Deliverance from Legalism

There are three steps that may be found in Romans 7:25b through 8:4 for deliverance from legalism:

"^7:25b So then, I myself am a slave to the law of God with my mind,
but with my flesh I am a slave to the law of sin."
^8:1 There is therefore now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus.
^8:2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
has set you free from the law of sin and of death.
^8:3 For what the law could not do,
in that it is weakened through the flesh,
God Himself, sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh
and concerning sin, condemned sin in the flesh,
^8:4 in order that the righteous acts of law might be fulfilled in us,
who walk not according to the flesh but according to the Spirit."
(Rom. 7:25b-8:4 ERS)

Step 1 - The recognition that legalism is the problem (Rom. 7:25b):

"So then, on the one hand, I myself with my mind am a slave to the law of God,
but on the other hand, with my flesh to the law of sin." ERS
To be delivered from legalism one must recognize that he himself is a slave to the law and a slave to sin, that is, that he is under the law and sin has dominion over him ( Rom. 6:14).

Step 2 - Deliverance from condemnation (Rom. 8:1):

"There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." NAS
God delivers from legalism through His word of unconditional love which says that there is no condemnation to those in Christ. This is a word of grace and it places the Christian back under grace. Legalism conditions God's love by our sins. God says that His love is unconditioned by our sins. Therefore God does not condemn us for our failure under the law but delivers us from under law and places us back under grace. For in His love, God delivers us from sin and from death (Rom. 8:2 NAS) and thus from wrath which is condemnation.

Step 3 - Deliverance from sin and death (Rom. 8:2):

"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and of death." NAS
Paul here says that "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" has set his readers free from "the law of sin and [the law] of death." Paul, like other New Testament writers, uses the Greek word nomos (usually translated "law") in several different ways. The following are some of them.

1. The first 5 books of the Old Testament, the Pentateuch (Matt. 12:5; Luke 2:23-24; 16:16; 24:44; Rom. 3:21b).
2. The whole Old Testament (Rom. 3:19 referring to the passages quoted in Rom.3:10-18 which are not just from the Pentateuch; John 10:34, quoting Psa. 82:6; I Cor. 14:21, quoting Isa. 28:11)
3. The Mosaic covenant that God made with the children of Israel (Exodus 24:1-12; Rom. 2:12; 3:19; 4:13-14; Gal. 3:17-18).
4. The Ten Commandments, the Decalogue (Exodus 20:1-17; Deut. 5:6-21; Matt. 5:18), sometimes improperly called the moral law.
5. All the commandments of God, ceremonial as well as the Ten Commandments; all statutes and ordinances of the law of Moses (Luke 2:22; John 7:23).
6. Teaching, instruction, guidance (Rom. 2:17, 18, 20, 23, 26); compare this with the meaning of the Hebrew word Torah which has the same meaning. As such it is that content of God's revelation (the Word of the Lord, Deut. 5:5; Psa. 119:43, 160) which makes clear man's relationship to God and to his fellow man. It provides guidance for man's actions in relationship to God and to his fellow man.
7. Any commandment regulating conduct (Rom. 7:7, 8-9).
8. A principle or power of action (Rom. 3:27; 7:21, 23, 25; 8:2).

This last use is the way Paul uses it here in this verse (Rom. 8:2 NAS). The Greeks and the Romans believed that the law had the power to force compliance with the law (Cicero, Laws, II, 8-10). In their view, the law was a principle or power of action which could by its action bring about what the law prescribed; it was not merely a description of or prescription for some action; the law made the action occur. This is the sense in which Paul speaks of "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus" and of "the law of sin" and of "the law of death." These are not merely descriptions of how the Spirit or death or sin acted; they are powers that act and bring about certain actions. Thus the law of the Spirit of life is the power of the Spirit of God acting to make one alive, and thus freeing from the law or power of action of death and of sin. The law of death is the power of death acting to make one dead. The law of sin is the power of sin acting to make one sin. The law of death is the power of death acting to make one dead. The law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus is the power of Spirit acting to make one alive in Christ Jesus. The law or the power of action of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus frees us from the law or the power of action of sin and of death. Since death leads to sin, the Spirit delivers from sin by giving us life in Christ; that is, by deliverance from death to life.

God did this through the "sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh." (Rom. 8:3). In this phrase, Paul is referring to the incarnation, that is the Son of God becoming a man. In contrast to the Apostle John's statement in his gospel ("The word became flesh and dwelt among us," John 1:14), Paul here says that God sent His Son "in the likeness of sinful flesh." Because Paul uses the phrase "sinful flesh," rather than just the word "flesh", he uses the word "likeness" to describe how the Son of God became man. Paul's use of this word "likeness" here does not mean that Paul believed that Son of God did not become a true man, but that when the Son of God became flesh, He was without sin, that is he was not under the slavery of sin like the rest of mankind. The phrase "sinful flesh," or literally, "the flesh of sin," means the flesh under control and slavery of sin as a slave master. It does not mean that man has a sinful nature, that is, that man is inherently sinful so that he sins because his nature is sinful, but rather that man is "under sin" as slave master (Rom. 3:10). The word "flesh" (=human nature) here is qualified by the word sin because human nature is not inherently sinful.

But God sent His Son, not only "in the likeness of sinful flesh," but also "for sin." By this phrase, Paul is referring to the death of Jesus on the cross. This phrase might simply mean that Jesus' death was concerned with or about sin (peri hamartia), but because this Greek phrase is used in LXX to translate the Hebrew word which means "a sin offering" (Lev. 6:25, 30; Heb. 10:6, 8), this phrase may also refer to the sacrificial character of Jesus' death; it was "for a sin offering". God by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and through his death "for a sin offering" "condemned sin in the flesh," that is, put an end to the dominion of sin as a slave master over the believer. This is the only place in his letters that Paul uses this phrase "condemned sin in the flesh" to describe the death of Christ. The closest that Paul comes to this phrase is in Rom. 6:6: "in order that the body of sin might be annulled, that we might no longer be enslaved to sin." The phrase "the body of sin" is equivalent to the phrase "sin in the flesh." The flesh is the body; and "sin in the flesh" is the body under the slavery and control of sin as a slave master. The flesh is not the sinful nature, not the nature that makes man sin, nor the tendency to sin. The body and its desires are not sin nor sinful. Sin as a slave master may enslave the body and use its desires to do sins; but that does not make or mean that the body or its desires are sin or sinful in themselves (God created them).

This condemnation is not the condemnation of the sinner, but of sin as a slave master; sin as slave master is stopped from exercising its dominion in the flesh, over the body. The Greek word, katakrino, translated "condemned," literally means "to judge down, to judge against." This is the first function of a Biblical judge (Psa. 75:7): to put down the oppressor, who in this verse is sin, the slavemaster. God exercises the second function of a Biblical judge: to lift up the oppressed, by setting him free from the law of sin through the power of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. By the Spirit, God makes alive. The law is not able to do this - it cannot make alive; it is through the death of Christ (Rom. 8:3) who put an end to sin's reign over us ("condemn sin in the flesh") by his death for us.

"⁶ Knowing this, that our old man was crucified with Him
in order that the body of sin might be done away with,
that we should no longer be slaves of sin;
⁷ for he who has died is freed from sin.
⁸ But if we believe that we died with Christ,
we believe that we shall also live with Him,
⁹ knowing that Christ having been raised from the dead.
no more dies, death no more has dominion over Him.
¹⁰ For the death He died, He died to sin, once for all;
but the life that He lives, He lives to God.
¹¹ So also you should reckon yourselves indeed to be dead to sin,
but also alive to God in Christ Jesus."
(Rom. 6:6-11 ERS).

And walking according to the Spirit is not Spirit-empowered law-keeping, that is, being under the law and coming up to standard of the law by the power of the Spirit. For the believer is not under law ( Rom. 6:14) because he is dead to the law ( Rom. 7:4, 6). Thus the walk according the Spirit is not Spirit-empowered law-keeping but it is Spirit-filled law-fulfilling by love (Rom. 13:8-10; Gal. 5:14). It is to be led by the Spirit (Gal. 5:18), making all one's decisions with reference to the Holy Spirit as He personally guides and fills the believer with God's love. The walk after the Spirit is the moment by moment walk of faith and personal trust in the God who personally by His Holy Spirit reveals and communicates Himself and His love along each step of that walk. By walking after the Spirit, the believer will do the righteous acts of the law. He will love God with all his heart, soul, mind and his neighbor as himself (Matt. 22:37-40). Thus by love he will fulfill the righteous acts of the law. And it is by walking after the Spirit, that the believer will fulfill the righteous acts of the law. He will love God with his heart, soul, and mind, with his whole being, and he will love his neighbor as he loves himself. This fulfillment of the righteous acts of the law is not Spirit-empowered law-keeping. It is to walk by the Spirit and to walk by the Spirit is to be led by the Spirit, and if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law:

"But if you are led by the Spirit
you are not under the law." (Gal. 5:18).

The law or the power of action of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus frees us from the law or the power of action of sin and of death. Since death leads to sin, the Spirit delivers from sin by giving us life in Christ; that is, by deliverance from death. The law is not able to do this; it is through the death of Christ (Rom. 8:3) who put an end to sin's reign over us ("condemn sin in the flesh") by his death for us (Rom. 6:6-10). The result (Rom. 8:4) is that the righteous acts of the law are fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit. To walk after the flesh is to try to do the righteous acts of the law by human effort ("the flesh"). The believer must not do it that way. By walking after the Spirit, he will fulfill the righteous acts of the law. He will love God with his whole heart, soul, and mind, with his whole being, and he will love his neighbor as he loves himself.

The Flesh and the Sinful Nature

The interpretation of Romans 7 as the Christian struggle with the sinful nature is a legalistic misinterpretation. This misinterpretation considers the normal Christian life as under law and the sinful nature as the explanation why the Christian cannot keep the law and why he has this struggle. The flesh is considered to be the sinful nature.

The Apostle Paul, like the other New Testament writers, never use the Greek word "sarx" translated "flesh" to mean the sinful nature in the sense of that in man which makes him sin, that is, that man sins because he has a sinful nature. When the Apostle John wrote, "The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us" (John 1:14), he clearly was not saying that the Son of God became by nature a sinner and had a sinful nature. Clearly he means that the Son of God became a human being, a man. Paul uses the word translated "flesh" (sarx), like the rest of the New Testament writers (the word "sarx" occurs 151 times in the Greek New Testament), with the following different meanings.

1. The soft tissue of the body (Rom. 2:28; I Cor. 15:39; Col. 2:13),
2. The body itself (II Cor. 12:7; Gal. 4:13-14; Eph. 2:15; 5:29; Col. 1:24),
3. The physical union of man and woman
   ("one flesh", I Cor. 6:16; Eph. 5:31),
4. Human body contrasted with the human spirit (I Cor. 5:5; II Cor. 7:1;
   Col. 2:5; Rom. 7:18),
5. Man or human being (Rom. 3:20 and Gal. 2:16 quoting Psa. 143:2;
   I Cor. 1:29; John 1:14; "flesh and blood" Gal. 1:16 and Eph. 6:12),
6. Human life on earth (Gal. 2:20; II Cor. 10:3a; Phil. 1:22, 24; Col. 2:1),
7. Human nature (Rom. 6:19; 8:3; II Cor. 4:11; I Tim. 3:16),
8. Human ("according to the flesh" Eph. 6:5; Col. 3:22;
   "body of flesh" Col. 1:22; 2:11) or worldly (II Cor. 1:17; 10:2, 3b),
9. Human descent or relationship, kin (Rom. 9:3; 11:14),
10. Human point of view (I Cor. 1:26; II Cor. 5:16),
11. Human contrasted with divine (Rom. 1:3; 9:5; Philem. 16),
12. Unsaved ("in the flesh" Rom. 7:5; 8:8-9),
13. That which is not God or of God (Gal. 5:13-24),
14. Anything that is an object of trust instead of God
    (Isa. 31:1-3; Jer. 17:5; Rom. 8:4-7; Phil. 3:3, 4;
    Compare Phil. 3:19; Col. 3:2). [1]

END NOTES FOR "The Flesh and the Sinful Nature" SECTION

[2] Georg Bertram, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament,
Vol. IX, pp. 220-235.

The Doctrine of the Sinful Nature

This doctrine of the sinful nature is nowhere taught in Scriptures. None of the Scriptures usually cited in support of this doctrine (Psa. 51:5; Job 14:4; Eph. 2:3) says that man since the fall has a sinful nature, that is, that man sins because he is a sinner by nature. According to Rom. 5:12d ("because of which [death] all sinned." ERS), all men sin because they are spiritually dead. And they are sinners because they choose to sin.
Psa. 51:5, which says,

"Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
and in sin did my mother conceive me",

"The wicked go astray from the womb,
they err from their birth, speaking lies."
(See also Isa. 48:8)

"Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean?
There is none",

In Eph. 2:2-3, Paul says,

"² In which [sins] you formerly walked
according to the course of this world,
according to the prince of the power of the air,
of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
³ Among them we too all formerly lived in the lust of our flesh,
indulging the wishes of the flesh and of the mind,
and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest."

Why the Sinful Nature?

The doctrine of the sinful nature was introduced into Christian theology by Augustine in the early fifth century A.D. to explain why man can not save himself apart from the grace of God by his meritorious works. Instead of denying that salvation has anything to do with meritorious works, Augustine assumed that salvation is by meritorious works and thus taught that because of his inherited sinful nature, man, since the fall, cannot do meritorious works to earn salvation apart from the grace of God. But Augustine's assumption is wrong; according to the Scriptures (Rom. 4:4-5; Eph. 2:8-9), salvation is not by meritorious works, and the doctrine of the sinful nature is unnecessary to deny that man can save himself by his meritorious good works. Man cannot save himself by the law because the law cannot make alive, not because he cannot do meritorious works. The law cannot deliver one from death or from sin, neither can it produce life or righteousness ( Gal. 3:21). There is no salvation by the law.

The sinful nature is not needed to explain why man cannot save himself, because the law was not given by God for salvation. God gave the law, not for salvation from sin, but for the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20); that is, to show what should be man's right personal relationship to God and to his fellow men (Deut. 6:5; Lev. 19:18; Matt. 22:37-40). This knowledge does not save man but only shows man what he ought to be; it cannot make him to be that. Because the law cannot make man alive ( Gal. 3:21), salvation is not by the law, nor is the Christian to walk by human self effort (the flesh) to keep the law. Salvation is only through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit; Jesus Christ is the life (John 14:6) and the one who receives Him is made alive (regenerated) and is kept alive (renewing) by the Spirit (Titus 3:5). The Christian is to walk by the Spirit (Rom. 8:4; Gal. 5:16, 25).

Neither is the sinful nature needed to explain the struggle and defeat in Romans 7; the Christian cannot live by the law any more than he can be saved by the law. The law cannot produce righteousness because it cannot make alive.

"Is the law against the promises of God?
Certainly not;
for if a law had been given which can make alive,
then righteousness would indeed by the law." (Gal. 3:21).

The Misunderstanding of the Grace of God

Furthermore, in Augustine's teaching, grace is reduced to something that enables the human will to do good works so that it can earn salvation. These views of Augustine concerning salvation follow from his view of human nature as sinful or corrupt. The Calvinist Reformers denied this view of grace and sees grace as the unmerited favor of God in which God gives to the elect the righteousness or merits earned for them by Christ's active obedience. That is, God in Christ has earned for them the salvation that they themselves cannot earned because of their sinful nature. But the Calvinist is wrong; righteousness is not merit but right personal relationship to God through faith, faith being reckoned as righteousness.

"⁴Now to one who works,
his wages are not reckoned as a gift but as his due.
⁵To the one who does not work
but trusts him who justifies the ungodly,
his faith is reckoned as righteousness." (Rom. 4:4-5).

"⁴ But God, who is rich in mercy,
out of the great love with which he loved us,
⁵ even when we were dead in failures,
made us alive together with Christ
(by grace you have been saved),"
(Eph. 2:4-5 ERS).

The views of Augustine and Calvinism totally depersonalize salvation, grace and faith. According to Augustine's view, salvation is earned by man when he by the grace of God, which is an impersonal force that he receives in the sacraments, enables him to do the good works that earn eternal life, faith being a meritorious work. And according to Calvin's view, salvation is an impersonal legal transaction of the imputation of the merits of Christ to the believer's account and grace is an impersonal force that overcomes man's sinful nature so that he can believe by faith that Christ paid the penalty of his sins. The Biblical view, on the other hand, is totally personal and dynamic; the grace of God is God's love in action to bring man into a personal relationship with God Himself and faith is man choosing to enter into that personal relationship. Spiritual and eternal life is this personal relationship between God and man, where the grace of God is God's side of the relationship and faith is man's side of the personal relationship. God initiates this personal relationship and a man must choose to enter into that personal relationship by faith, receiving God's gift of salvation and trusting God and His love. Grace and faith are just the two sides of the personal relationship between God and man; grace is God's side initiating and sustaining the relationship and faith is man's side in response to God's grace.

The Christian life is the continuation of this personal relationship where the believer walks by faith and acts upon the basis of God's sustaining grace and the personal guidance and empowering of the Holy Spirit. Grace and faith are relational concepts and are not just properties of either God or man. The grace of God is God acting in His love toward man and faith is man choosing to trust God and His love. Because of their underlying legalism, the views of Augustine and the Protestant Reformers have obscured and distorted this Biblical view of salvation and of the Christian life.

The Christian and the Sinful Nature

One of the implications of Augustine's doctrine of the sinful or corrupt nature of man is that salvation is interpreted to be entirely the work of God (monergism), since man, because of his sinful nature, is totally unable to do any good works in order to earn salvation by them. According to this monergism, not only is the grace of God the work of God but so is faith, since salvation is "by grace through faith" (Eph. 2:8). Accordingly, this believing faith that receives the grace of God is also the work of God. This monergism totally eliminates the human will from any part or place in salvation. Augustine understood the human will, not as a choice between sin and righteousness, but choice according to one's nature: the choice of sin if one's nature is sinful, the choice of righteousness if one nature is good. So accordingly, all men's choices are sin because their natures are sinful. Augustine taught that the grace of God must enable the will of man to do good works, if he is going to do meritorious works to earn his salvation. This efficient grace is received through the sacraments.

Thus grace is reduced to something that overcome the sinful nature and that enables the human will to do good works so that it can earn salvation. These views of Augustine concerning salvation follow from his view of human nature as sinful or corrupt. They totally depersonalize salvation, grace and faith. On the contrary, the Biblical view is totally personal and dynamic; the grace of God is God's love in action to bring man into a personal relationship with God Himself and faith is man choosing to enter into that personal relationship. Spiritual and eternal life is this personal relationship between God and man, where the grace of God is God's side of the relationship and faith is man's side of the relationship. God initiates the relationship but a man must choose to enter into the relationship by faith, trusting God and His love.

Salvation is not a monergism where God alone acts, neither a synergism, where God's act of grace enables man to earn salvation by his meritorious works. But according to the Bible, salvation is by God's act of grace that initiates a personal relationship with man and man's act of faith is the response to God's act and by which he enters into the relationship. According to Eph. 2:8-9, salvation is a gift that is received through faith. The phrase in Eph. 2:8, "and this is not of you, it is a gift of God", refers to salvation and not to faith. On God's side, God gives ("by grace") salvation as a gift and on man's side ("through faith") man chooses to receive that gift. Grace and faith are relational concepts and not properties of either God or man. The grace of God is God acting in His love toward man and faith is man choosing to trust God and His love. The Christian life is the continuation of this personal relationship where the believer walks and acts by faith upon the basis of God's sustaining grace and the guidance and empowering of the Holy Spirit. Because of his underlying legalism, Augustine's views obscure and distort the Biblical view of the Christian life.

The Protestant Reformers rejected this teaching that grace is given by the sacraments to enable the will of man to earn his salvation by meritorious works and they taught that salvation is by grace through faith and that the grace of God regenerated the believer, giving him a new nature, by which he can do good works, but not to earn salvation and eternal life (Christ had earned this for them by His active obedience), but to show that they are saved and regenerated. According to their teaching, the believer has two natures, a sinful nature and a new nature, and the experience recorded in Romans 7 was interpreted as the struggle between these two natures. This legalistic explanation of salvation and of the Christian life leaves the believer under the law, and under the dominion of sin ( Rom. 6:14). And this legalistic explanation of Romans 7 also leaves the believer with no deliverance from this struggle, contrary to the clear teaching of the Scirptures that there is deliverance:

"²⁴ O wretched man that I am!
who shall deliver me from the body this death?
^25a I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord!"
(Rom. 7:24-25a KJV).

John Wesley

John Wesley (1703-1791) in the 18th century recognized that there was deliverance from the Roman 7 experience, and he put forth the teaching that there was a second work of grace (the first work of grace was conversion), which he called "entire santification", that would eradicate the sinful nature, cleansing from inbred sin and enabling those experiencing this work of grace to live without conscious or deliberate sin (Christian Perfection). But his explanation of this deliverance as the eradication of the sinful nature assumes that the struggle of Roman 7 is caused by the sinful nature. This assumption is wrong; the cause of the struggle is not the sinful nature, but being under law.
According Rom. 6:14, sin has dominion over the believer when he is under the law and the deliverance from the dominion of sin is to be under grace. The grace of God, God's love in action, delivers the believer from the dominion and the slavery of sin by placing the believer back under the grace of God. God does this by not condemning the believer who is in Christ Jesus.

"There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus."
(Rom. 8:1).

"For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus
has set you free from the law of sin and of death." (Rom. 8:2 NAS).

Wesley, while recognizing that there was deliverance from the Roman 7 experience, misunderstood that deliverance as an eradication of the sinful nature. He did not recognize that the cause of the Roman 7 experience was being under the law, not the sinful nature. And he did not recognize this cause because his explanation of the need for salvation was legalistic (all men are under the law and have sinned by transgressing that law) as was the explanation of Augustine and of the Prostestant Reformers. Also his explanation of salvation was legalistic; he believed that Christ's death paid the penalty of man's sin and the merits of Christ's active obedience was imputed to the believer's account as righteousness. Also his concept of Christian Perfection and Holiness was also a legalistic misinterpretation of the Christian Life as sinless perfection.

Calvinism's view of salvation is monergistic, that is, God alone is active in salvation, because it believes that since man's nature is sinful and man does what his nature is, then all the acts of man are sinful and he cannot do any righteous act to earn salvation. Therefore, God alone must earn it for him. Calvinism, denying the Augustinian view that God does these meritorious acts by the grace of God that man receives from God through the sacraments, asserts that God alone does these meritorious acts through the active obedience of Christ; Christ has earned salvation for us. According to Calvinism, God alone is active in man's salvation. Because of his sinful nature, man cannot believe, so God by His Irresistible Grace overcomes the resistance of the sinful nature so that the elected one can believe. Not only is salvation by the grace of God as the work of God but so is faith, since salvation is "by grace through faith; and this is not of you, it is the gift of God." (Eph. 2:8). According to Calvinism, the faith that receives the grace of God is also the work of God. But Calvinism is wrong; the phrase in Eph. 2:8, "and this is not of you, it is a gift of God", refers to salvation and not to faith. In the Greek, the demonstrative pronoun translated "this" agrees in gender (masculine) with the verbal participle translated "are saved", and not with the noun translated "faith" which is feminine. Salvation is the gift of God which is received by faith, not earned by meritorious works. Faith is man's choice to accept that gift of salvation. Salvation is not a monergism, where God does all that is needed to earn eternal life, nor is it a synergism, where God's act of grace enables the will of man to earn eternal life, but it is a deliverance where God's act of grace initiates the personal relationship and man's act of faith is his response to God's act. And this deliverance has nothing to do with earning something by meritorious works, either on God's or man's side. Neither is the grace of God an enabling of man to do meritorious works, nor is the faith of man a meritorious work by which he earns the salvation.

Wesley's Theology

Wesley's theology is essentially Arminianism, which is usually contrasted with Calvinism. But his Arminianism is not just a negation of the five points of Calvinism. Wesley affirms the sovereignty of God to overcome the "sinful, devilish nature" of man, by the work of the Holy Spirit. Wesley called this process prevenient grace, justifying grace, and sanctifying grace (grace being nearly synonymous with the work of the Holy Spirit).

Prevenient grace for Wesley is the universal work of the Holy Spirit in the hearts and lives of people between conception and conversion that prepares them for conversion. Original sin, according to Wesley, makes it necessary for the Holy Spirit to initiate salvation, because people are bound by sin and death. People experience the gentle wooing of the Holy Spirit, which prevents them from moving so far from "the way" that when they finally understand the claims of the gospel upon their lives, they have the freedom to say yes. The justifying grace is the work of the Holy Spirit at the moment of conversion when they say "yes" to the call of prevenient grace by placing their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. Wesley understood conversion to have two phases in a person's experience. The first phase is justification which includes the Spirit imputing to the believer the righteousness earned by Christ. The second phase is regeneration or the new birth. This lays the ground work for sanctification or the imparting of righteousness. These two phases mark the distinctiveness of Wesley's theology. Here he combines the "faith alone" emphasis of the Protestant Reformation with the passion for holiness so prevalent in the Catholic Counter-Reformation. Sanctifying grace describes the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the believers between conversion and death. Faith in Christ saves them from hell and sin for heaven and good works. Imputed righteousness, according to Wesley, entitles one to heaven, and imparted righteousness qualifies one for heaven. Here Wesley goes to great lengths to describe his view of Christian perfection. The process of sanctification or perfection culminates in the experience of "pure love" where one's love becomes devoid of self-interest. This second work of grace is the main work of the Holy Spirit in lives of believers. The first work of grace, justification, imputing of Christ's righteousness must be followed by the second work of grace, sanctification, the imparting of Christ's righteousness. According to Wesley, this second work of grace was not just a single experience but was also an on-going, continuous and dynamic process moving toward perfection, perfect love. This concept of continuous process was later clarified by the mystics such as Francois Fenelon, whose phrase "moi progressus ad infinitum" ["my progress is without end"] impressed Wesley and became the major teaching for the perpetuation of the Evangelical Revival. The watchword of the Revival was "Go on to perfection; otherwise you cannot keep what you have." According to Wesley, prevenient grace is a process and justifying grace is instantaneous, but sanctifying grace is both a process and instantaneous. Although Wesley spoke of instantaneous experience he called "entire sanctification" subsequent to justification, his major emphasis was upon the continuous process of going on to perfection.

Holiness Movement

But this understanding of sanctification as a process was lost by Wesley's followers. In the 1840s and 50s, there originated in the United States a movement that endeavored to preserve and propagate John Wesley's teaching on entire sanctification and Christian perfection. Sanctification was seen as instantaneous experience, a second work of grace, in which inbred sin is eradicated. This Holiness movement emphasized that salvation involved two experiences. The first was conversion or justification, in which one is freed from the guilt of sin, and in the second experience called entire sanctification or full salvation, in which one is liberated from the flaw in their moral nature that causes them to sin. This experience makes possible for them to fulfill the entire law of God. This doctrine of entire sanctification became the distinctive of the Holiness Movement. When contemporary writers and teachers within Methodist Church attempted to downplay this instantaneous experience and emphasize the continuous character of sanctification, the Holiness people withdrew from the Methodist Church and formed their own denominations: the Wesleyan Methodist in 1843 and the Free Methodist in 1860. These became the first two denominations with the Holiness teaching of entire sanctification. After the Civil War, a full-fledged Holiness revival broke out within the ranks of Methodist, and in 1867 the National Camp Meeting Association for the Promotion of Holiness was formed. From 1893, it was known as the National Holiness Association (NHA) and in 1971 it was renamed the Christian Holiness Association. Until the 1890s, the Methodist dominated the movement and channeled its work into their churches. By the 1880s as tensions between Methodism and the Holiness association increased, the first independent Holiness denominations began to appear, The gap between the two widened as Methodist practice drifted toward a sedate, middle-class American Protestantism, while the Holiness groups insisted that they were practicing primitive Wesleyanism and were the successors of Wesley in America. The small schismatic bodies gradually coalesced into formal denominations, the largest of which were the Church of God, Anderson, Indiana (1880), Church of the Nazarene (1908), and the Pilgrim Holiness Church (1897), which later merged with the Wesleyan Methodist in 1968. The polity of these churches was a modified Methodism moving toward a somewhat more congregational autonomy, and the "second blessing" of entire sanctification was the heart of their theologies. Most of them operated with a strict perfectionist code of personal morality and demanded that their adherents wear plain dress and abstinence from "worldly" pleasures and amusements. Almost all of them allowed women to be ordained into the ministry and occupy leadership positions.

The Holiness teaching quickly spread beyond Methodism. A Mennonite group, the United Missionary Church (formerly the Mennonite Brethren in Christ and since a merger in 1969 is known as Missionary Church), adopted a doctrine of entire sanctification and Holiness standard of personal conduct. Another group, the Brethren in Christ, founded in 1863, of mixed Pennsylvania pietists and Mennonites, also adopted Wesleyan perfectionism. Four Quaker yearly meetings that had been influenced by the Holiness teachings came together in 1947 to form the Evangelical Friends Alliance. The Salvation Army also adopted the Holiness teachings. The Christian and Missionary Alliance with its teaching on Christ as Savior, sanctifier, healer, and coming King, had affinities with the Holiness movement, but never accepted the doctrine of the second work of grace and the eradication of the sinful nature. Two of its teachers and ministers, A. B. Simpson and A. W. Tozer, were widely read in Holiness circles.

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