THE PROBLEM OF PERFECTION

THE ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM (continue).
1. THE HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE PROBLEM (continue).
  1. JOHN WESLEY
    John Wesley (1703-1791), the founder of Methodism, was born in Epworth, England, to Samuel and Susana Wesley; he was the fifteenth of nineteen children. Although John's grandparents were Puritan Nonconformist, his parents returned to the Established Church of England, where his father for most of his ministry held the livings of Epworth (1697-1735) and Wroot (1725-1735). He was a staunch High Churchman. Wesley in his early years was instructed by his remarkable mother, who sought to instill in him a sense of piety leading to a wholehearted devotion to God.
    John was educated at Charterhouse, a school for boys in London, and then at Christ Church, Oxford University, where he received the B.A. degreein 1724 and the M.A. degree in 1727. He was a serious student of logic and religion, but he did not experience his "religious" conversion until 1725, when he was confronted with the decision of what he was to do for life. Through the influence of his mother and a friend, and the reading of Jeremy Taylor and Thomas a Kempis, he decided to make religion "the business of his life". In 1725 he was ordained a deacon, elected to a fellowship at Lincoln College at the same university (1726), and served as his father's curate at Wroot (1727-1729). He preached his first sermon in South Leigh. And in 1728 he was ordained a priest by John Potter. He returned to Oxford and became the leader of a small band of undergraduate students, including George Whitefield, that was organized earlier by his younger brother, Charles, for spiritual improvement. This band, called the "Holy Club", were later called "Methodist" because of their strict method of studying the Bible and their rigid rules of self-denial and works of charity. During this period (1729-1735) both he and his brother came under the influence of the nonjuror and mystic, William Law. It was during this period that he formed his views on Christian perfection, that was to become the hallmark of Methodism, even though he did not understand justification by faith yet, and, as he confessed later, he was seeking to be justified by his own works-righteousness.
    In 1735, when Wesley began his Journal and he continued it until his death, Wesley went to Georgia in the New World as a missionary, accepting the invitation from the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel to undertake a mission to the Indians and colonists there. Although the Indians alluded him, he served as a priest to settlers there under General James Oglethorpe. During a storm on the crossing over to Georgia, Wesley was deeply impressed by a group of twenty-six German Moravian missionaries on board the ship. Their simple faith in the face of death (the fear of dying had been constantly with Wesley since his youth) opened him to the Moravian evangelical faith. The cheerful courage of this company in a storm convinced Wesley that the Moravian had a trust in God that was not yet his. Soon after reaching Savannah he met Spangenberg, who asked him the question: "Do you know Jesus Christ?" Welsey answered, "I know He is the Saviour of the world." Spangenberg replied, "True, but do you know He has saved you?" When Wesley returned to England in 1738, after his disastrous experience in Georgia, he met the Moravian, Peter Boehler, who exhorted him to trust Christ alone for salvation. As the result of his conversations with Boehler, Wesley was "clearly convinced of unbelief, of the want of that faith whereby alone we are saved." At a Moravian band meeting, an Anglian "society", in Aldersgate Street, London, (Wednesday, May 24, 1738), as he listened to the reading of Luther's preface to the Commentary on Romans, Wesley felt his "heart strangely warmed". As he recorded later,
    "About a quarter before nine, while he [Luther] was describing the change which God works in the heart through faith in Christ, I felt my heart strangely warmed. I felt I did trust Christ, Christ alone, for salvation; and a assurance was given me, that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death."
    This experience determined Welsey's understanding of the normal mode of entrance into the Chirstian life. And it also made him an evangelist. He declared later, "Then it pleased God to kindle a fire which I trust will never be extinguished."
    Shortly after this conversion experience, Wesley went to Germany and visited the Moravaian settlement at Herrnhut and met Count Zinzendorf. When he returned England, with a former member of the Holy Club, George Whitefield, he began to preach salvation by faith. This "new doctrine" was considered redundant by the sacramentalists in the Established Church, who believed that people were saved by virtue of their infant baptism. The established churches began to close their doors to their preaching. This did not deter the Methodist (the name carried over from their Oxford days). Wesley believed that he was called "to reform the nation, particularly the Church, and spread Scriptural holiness over the land." So he and Whitefield began preaching in the open air. In April, 1739, Wesley followed Whitefield to Bristol, where a revival broke out among the miners of Kingswood. In order to conserve the gains of their evangelism, Wesley organized the new converts into Methodist "societies" and "bands", which sustained both them and the revival. The revival continued under his direct leadership for fifty years. He traveled some 250,000 miles throughout England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, preaching some 40,000 sermons. Although Wesley never visited North America again, he sent preachers there and 1784 he ordained Thomas Coke to superintend the work there. Wesley literally considered the "world as his parish" to which he spread "scriptural holiness throughout the land". He remained loyal to the Established Church all his life. Methodism did not become a separate denomination until after his death.
  2. 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 their conception and their 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 of 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 their conversion and their 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 the instantaneous experience that he called "entire sanctification" subsequent to justification, his major emphasis was upon the continuous process of going on to perfection.
  3. 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 toward 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.
  4. PENTECOSTALISM.
    The Pentecostal movement began as an offshoot of the Holiness Movement. It began at a small school, Bethel Bible School, in Topeka, Kansas, which was founded by a Holiness evangelist, Charles Fox Parham. Parham had concluded that speaking in tongues was the sign of the second work of grace, after a student, Agnes Ozman, experienced speaking in tongues, or glossolalia, in January, 1901. The teaching and practice spread rapidly among Holiness groups. They became known as Pentecostals because they identified their experience with the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the 120 gathered in the upper room on the day of Pentecost recorded in Acts 2. They called their experience the "baptism of the Holy Spirit" on the basis of the promise of the risen Jesus recorded in Acts 1:5, "John baptized with water, but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit." The movement came to Southern California in 1906 when a student of Parham, William J. Seymour, a black Holiness evangelist from Houston, Texas, came to Los Angeles, Calif., and began to hold revival meetings at an abandoned African Methodist Episcopal Church on Azuza Street in downtown Los Angeles. The Azuza Street Revival from 1906 to 1909 became the center from which Pentecostalism became a world movement. Other Holiness groups were pentecostalized rapidly as leaders of Holiness Movement came to Azuza Street to investigate what was happening there. Among the Azuza Street "pilgrims" were G. B. Cashwell (North Carolina), C H. Mason (Tennessee), Glen Cook (California), A. G. Argue (Canada), and W. H. Durham (Chicago). Within a year from the opening of the Azuza Street meetings (April, 1906), these and others spread the Pentecostal message across the nation. But many of the Holiness groups were not willing to believe that speaking in tongues was sign of the second work of grace. Sharp controversies and divisions developed in several Holiness denominations. The Pentecostals left or were forced to leave their Holiness denominations and they formed the first Pentecostal denominations, among which were the Pentecostal Holiness Church, the Church of God in Christ, the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), the Apostolic Faith (Portland, Oregon), the United Holy Church, and the Pentecostal Free-Will Baptist Church. Most of these churches were located in the southern states and experienced rapid growth after the Pentecostal Revival. Two of these, the Church of God in Christ, and the United Holy Church were predominantly black. A controversy developed among these churches about sanctification. Some like Parham and Seymour taught that speaking with tongues was the sign of the "second work of grace", but others held that the baptism of the Holy Spirit with speaking in tongues was a "third work of grace". Then there were those like William H. Durham who in 1910 began to teach his "finished work" theology, which taught that sanctification is progressive work of the Holy Spirit based on the finished work of Christ on Calvary. The baptism of the Holy Spirit was the first filling of the Holy Spirit by which one is enabled by the Holy Spirit to live and minister. The Assemblies of God was formed in 1914 based on Durham's teaching and soon became the largest Pentecostal denomination in the world. Most of the Pentecostal Churches after 1914 were formed on the model of Assemblies of God. They include the Pentecostal Church of God, the International Church of the Four Square Gospel (founded in 1927 by Aimee Semple McPherson), and Open Bible Standard Church.
  5. REVIVALISM.
    1. THE FIRST GREAT AWAKENING.
      In the early eighteenth century, there took place a spontaneous spiritual awakening among professing Christians in America called the Great Awakening. Initial signs of the First Great Awakening occurred after 1720 when T. J. Frelinghuysen came in 1725 from European centers of Pietism to pastor four northern New Jersey Dutch Reformed Churches. Under his ministry, revival meetings were held by the Presbyterian, Gilbert Tennent, whose father, William Tennent, founded in 1726 the "log college" to train revivalist preachers.
      Revivalism as movement developed in reaction to the unemotional intellectualism of the Calvinism of the sixteenth century. It emphasized the appeal to the emotions as well as to the intellect. It believed that one's Christian life begins with one's response to gospel's call for repentance and spiritual rebirth by faith in Jesus Christ. It was characterized by a personal, public response to the preaching of the gospel in revival meetings. It emphasized personal commitment and obedience to Christ and a life regenerated by the indwelling Holy Spirit. The movement placed an emphasize on witnessing and missions as the primary responsibility of the individual Christian and the church.
      In 1734 the revival broke out in New England under the preaching of Jonathan Edwards in his Congregational Church in Northhampton, Massachusetts. Edwards became the theologian of the colonial awakening, accepting the validity of much of the emotions accompanying the conversions among his parishers, he wrote in defense of the proper role of emotion in true religion. The Revival moved south until it reached all of the colonies.
      In England the recognized leader of the "Evangelical Revival" was John Wesley, the founder of Methodism. When his friend George Whitefield came to America in 1738 with the message of Wesleyan Revival, the Awakening was already widespread in America. Many were swept into the churches, controversy raged over the revival and churches were split. But historian acknowledge that the revival was a unifying influence in uniting the disparate American colonies.
    2. THE SECOND GREAT AWAKENING.
      The Second Great Awakening occurred in England mainly among the middle- and upper-class Anglicans after 1790. In America it took place in the colleges. It began at Hampden-Sidney and Washington Colleges in Virginia in 1787. It continued at Yale under Timothy Dwight in 1802 and at Andover and Princeton Colleges. It spread to Western America with great emotional and physical manifestations in the frontier camp meetings. The camp meetings were first used by Presbyterians in Kentucky, and developed by the Baptist and especially the Methodist. The Cane Ridge, Kentucky, camp meeting in August, 1801, was the most famous of all the camp meetings.
      Timothy Dwight (1752-1817), grandson of Jonathan Edwards and president of Yale College from 1795 to 1817, developed the theology of revival of his grandfather. He placed more emphasis on the natural powers of individuals to respond to gospel than did Edwards. A religious revival broke out under his preaching, which by 1802 converted a third of the students. His sermons, based on the moderately Calvinistic or Edwardian theology, was published after his death as Theology, Explained and Defended (five volumes, 1818-1819).
      Dwight's best student was Nathaniel William Taylor (1786-1858). He carried the revivalist theology to its maturity. He graduated from Yale in 1807 where he studied the theology of Timothy Dwight, and after ordination and successfully pastoring the Congregational First Church of New Haven (1812-1822), he was appointed as first professor of theology at the new Yale Divinity School. Taylor's main concern was the problem of human depravity. He departed from Edwards' views that man unable to make any move toward God, and argued that people always have a "power to contrary", when faced with the choice for God. He also contended, as suggested by Edwards' son, Jonathan Edwards, Jr., that human sinfulness arose from sinful acts, not from a sinful nature inherited from Adam. Taylor held that everyone did in fact sin, but this was not the result of God act of predetermining man's nature. He contended that each person is responsible for his own moral choices -- a position consistent with revivalistic preaching. His views created a controversy among the Congregationalist so that the more orthodox and Calvinists formed their own seminary at Hartford in 1834. The Old School opponents, such as Charles Hodge at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey, who defended traditional Calvinism, accused Taylor of Pelagianism and Arminianism.
      Calvin had taught that while the goal toward which the believers are to strive was to appear before God without spot or blemish, the believer will never reach that goal until the sinful physical body is laid aside in death. Calvin's view of man as having a sinful nature meant that man cannot obtain perfection in this life. This original sin remains within man until death, even in those who are declared righteous by the imputation of Christ's merits through faith. These believers are regenerated, receiving a new nature, but the old nature is still there in the believer. The experience of chapter 7 of Romans is interpreted as the conflict between these two natures. The Christian life is characterized as struggle with the sinful nature to keep it under control, subject to God's law. Because of this sinful nature, spiritual perfection is impossible in this life.
    3. CHARLES GRANDISON FINNEY.
      Among the Calvinist leaders during the early nineteenth century that became dissatisfied with this teaching concerning the Christian life, and began to modify their Calvinism, was Charles Grandison Finney (1792-1875). Raised and educated in upstate New York, he became a lawyer in Adams, New York, in 1820. He began to attend a Presbyterian Church in Adams and, after studying the Bible for himself, he was converted in 1821. As a result he began to study for ministry in the church under his pastor, George W. Gale. He turn from the law, saying, "I have received a retainer from the Lord to plead his cause." He received ordination in the Oneida Presbytery in 1824. For the next eight years he held revival meeting in upper New York state and in major cities from Wilmington to Boston, including New York City, with unusual results. In 1832 he became pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church in New York City. He became dissatisfied with the disciplinary system of the Presbyterian Church and soon withdrew from the presbytery in 1836. He delivered a series of lawyer-like lectures on revival subjects. These were published in 1835 as Lectures on Revival and were widely read. In 1836 he became professor of theology at a new Congregational college in Oberlin, Ohio, during which he developed his belief in "Christian Perfection", and became a Congregational minister. He remained at Oberlin College the rest of his life, serving as its second president (1851-1866). He also conducted a few revival meetings in the 1840s and 1850s, including a tour of Great Britain in 1859/1860.
      Finney's theological position has been called the New School Calvinism, in contrast to the Old School Calvinism of the Princeton Seminary in New Jersey. He stressed that men are able to repent but could only turn to God by God's grace. He attempted to hold together God's Sovereignty and man's free will and responsibility. He particularly stressed the means that God had established to promote revival among both "backslidden Christians" and "unconverted sinners". In his Lectures on Revival in 1835, he expresses his expectation that soon a revival will sweep America, bringing progress and social reforms, such as democracy, abolition of slavery, temperance, education, eschewing of luxury and fashionable display. Later in his Letters on Revival (1845) he confessed that he had been too optimistic. Nevertheless, he wanted Oberlin to prepare "a race of revival ministers" who would awaken Christian to their duty. He developed a "Christian Perfectionism" in which Christians need to "grow in grace" and have "a burning love for souls" to ask sinners to "give their hearts to God". In his Lectures to Professing Christians (1837) and later writings, Finney attempted to awaken Christian people to their duty to practice Christian Perfection according to Matt. 5:48. The first president of Oberlin College, Asa Mahan (1799-1889), in his Scripture Doctrine of Perfection (1839) wrote that the Christian might eventually obtain a state of unbroken peace and not come under condemnation. Finney states in his Lectures on Systematic Theology (1846) that he had gone far beyond N. W. Taylor (1786-1858) and had brought liberal Calvinism close to the Methodist perfectionism. To him God was benevolent and man was capable of growing toward perfection, although not absolute perfection, and thus society is perfectible.
    4. LATER REVIVALISM.
      In 1858 a lay interdominational revival began with a noon-day prayer meetings on Fulton Street in New York City which brought more than a half of a million converts into the churches. In 1863-1864 a revival in the Confederate Army brought 150,000 soldiers into a vital Christian faith. After the Civil War, revival meetings were held by Dwight L. Moody and others. Moody dominated the revival movement from 1875 until his death in 1899. With his musical director, Ira Sankey, he held meetings in United States and Britain. He expanded these revival meetings into professionally planned city-wide mass evangelistic campaigns that replaced the earlier spontaneous, rural and local congregational awakenings, except for the 1904 Welsh revival. Moody also sponsored educational institutions which furthered his evangelistic aims: the Northfield Institution in Massachusetts and Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, Illinois. These institutions are representative of the many organizations and movements that sprang out of the revival movement. In the twentieth century these evangelistic campaigns were held by R. A. Torrey, William "Billy" Sunday and Billy Graham.
  6. DEEPER LIFE MOVEMENT.
    Outside the Wesleyan Tradition and within Calvinism, there developed a Deeper Life Movement. This movement became dissatisfied with the teaching of Calvinism about the Christian life. This movement originated in the England in 1875 at the Keswick and Lake District of northern England. It had its origin in the Moody-Sankey evangelistic campaign of 1873-1874 and the writings of the American religious leaders Asa Mahan, W.E. Boardman, and especially Mr. and Mrs. Robert P. Smith. The Anglican vicar of Keswick, The Rev. T. D. Harford-Batterby, held the first conference on his own church grounds in 1875, lasting one week, and has been held every year since. Most of the speakers come naturally from England, but many have come from America and other parts of the world. Among the better known are Donald G. Barnhouse, F. B. Meyer, H. C. G. Moule, Andrew Murray, John R. W. Stott, Hudson Taylor, and R. A. Torrey. Most of the supporters came from Christians of the Reformed Calvinistic tradition, and especially from the evangelical Anglicans. Unlike the Wesleyan-Arminian teaching concerning holiness, the Keswick teaching maintains that in the Christian the tendency of sin is not extinguished but merely counteracted and controlled by the victorious living by the Spirit of God. The Christian life is Spirit-empowered-law-keeping, where the Spirit of God enables the believer to live up to the standard of holiness in the law. The movement aims to promote "practical holiness", and its motto is "All one in Christ Jesus".
    The week-long conference follows a definite, set schedule each year.
    1. On the first day the addresses are devoted to the disabling effect of sin on the believer's life.
    2. On the second day the addresses deal with the provision that God has provided through the cross to deal with sin in the believer's life, not only with the guilt of sin but with its power. Much attention is focused on Romans chapters 6-8, where Paul presents the believer's death with Christ to sin that sets free from the slavery of sin. Keswick does not teach the possibility of eradication of the sinful nature, or the possibility of sinless life. That is, there is no second work of grace that eradicates the believer's sinful nature. The Christian life is Spirit-empowered-law-keeping, where the Spirit of God controls the sinful nature to enable the believer's new nature to live up to the standard of the law.
    3. The third day is devoted to teaching on consecration, which is man's complete surrender to the Lordship of Christ, involving both a crisis and a process.
    4. On the fourth day the teaching centers on the Spirit-filled life. It is taught that all Christians have received the Holy Spirit at regeneration, but not all are controlled by Him. The fullness of the Spirit is experienced by complete surrender to Christ, and by abiding in this state of surrender.
    5. On Friday the theme is Christian Service, which is the natural result of Spirit-filled life. Keswick has always stressed the importance of missions and deeply influenced the missionary movement.
    A quantity of literature is produced each year, among which is the yearly report The Keswick Week, The Keswick Convention, the journal The Life of Faith (since 1879), and the volumes of the Keswick Library (since 1894). Local "Keswick" conferences are held in various cities throughout the world.
THE CLUE TO THE SOLUTION.
Jesus was not referring to the ontological perfection of God when he commanded: "You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect." (Matt. 5:48). As the context makes clear (Matt. 5:43-47), Jesus is talking about love.
"⁴³ You have heard that it was said,
'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'
⁴⁴ But I say to you,
love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you,
⁴⁵ in order that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven;
for He causes His sun rise on the evil and the good,
and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.
⁴⁶ For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?
Do not even the tax-gatherers do the same?
⁴⁷ And if you greet your brethern only,
what do you do more than others?
Do not even the Gentiles do the same?
⁴⁸ Therefore you are to be perfect,
as your heavenly Father is perfect."
(Matt. 5:43-48, NAS)
THE SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM.
The love that Jesus is talking about is not human love, but is the divine love that loves the sinner. This is perfect love, and Jesus commands us to love with this perfect love. And this love fulfills the law. As the Apostle Paul says,
"⁸ Owe no one anything, except to love one another;
for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
⁹ The commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery,
You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet',
and any other commandment, it is summed up in this word,
'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'.
¹⁰ Love does no evil to one's neighbor;
therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."
(Rom. 13:8-10 ERS).
Paul's summary statement that "love does no evil to one's neighbor" may be stated positively, "love does good to one's neighbor". Love is a relationship between persons, the person that loves and the person that is loved, and in this relationship the person who loves does good to the person loved. This love is not a feeling but a choice, the choice to do good to the person loved. The commandment to love is addressed to the will and one must choose to obey the commandment. It may be accompanied by feelings of compassion and caring, but Agape-love is the choice of the will to do good to the person that may be unloveable and evil. Thus God loves the sinner, not because the sinner is inherently loveable, but God chooses to do good to him and save him. Because love is a choice, it can be commanded and it can be obeyed. There are other kinds of love, but the kind of love that God commands is Agape-love. This love is not acquisitive love, that wants to acquire its object; neither is it caused by its object because of the value or the goodness of its object. Agape-love creates value where there is no value; it does good to the person loved. Agape-love gives what the person loved needs, what is good for him or her. This love is perfect love.
"⁷ Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God;
and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.
⁸ The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.
⁹ In this the love of God was manifest among us,
that God sent His only Son into the world,
so that we might live through Him.
¹⁰ In this is love, not that we loved God but that He loved us
and sent his Son to be a propitiation for our sins.
¹¹ Beloved, if God so loved us,
we also ought to love one another.
¹² No man has ever seen God; if we love one another,
God abides in us and His love is perfected in us."
(I John 4:7-12 ERS).
"¹⁶ And we have come know and have believed the love
which God has for us.
God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God,
and God abides in him.
¹⁷ By this, love is perfected in us,
that we may have confidence in the day of judgment;
because as He is, so also are we in this world.
¹⁸ There is no fear in love;
but perfect love casts out fear,
because fear involves punishment,
and the one who fears is not perfected in love.
¹⁹ We love, because He first loved us.
²⁰ If someone says, "I love God," and hates his brother,
he is a liar, for the one who does not love his brother
whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
²¹ And this commandment we have from Him,
that the one who loves God should love his brother also."
(I John 4:16-21 NAS).
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THE SOLUTION.
1. HOLINESS.
  By equating perfection to sinlessness, Augustine distorted this Biblical concept of perfection legalistically and he set the Christian understanding of perfection since his time as this legalistic sinless-perfection. And this misunderstanding of perfection was supported by the misunderstanding of holiness as sinlessness. But the root meaning of the Hebrew word, as well as the Greek word translated "holy" in the Scriptures, is "separation". Something is holy when it is separated from common or human use and is separated to God. Hence with respect to persons and things it means "dedicated or consecrated to God". This is clear from the phrase "holy unto the Lord" (Lev. 27:9, 14, 21, 23, 30, 32; see also Lev. 20:24-26). It does not mean "sinless" or "morally perfect". This may be seen from the use of the term to describe things as well as persons. In the Old Testament some things that are described as holy are "the ground" (Ex. 3:5; Josh. 5:15), "the ark of the covenant" (II Chron. 35:30), "the vessels of the tabernacle" (I Kings 8:4) and the place where they rested (I Kings 3:6, 8, 10). Since things cannot sin, they cannot be sinless. But they are holy; they are separated unto the Lord. Things and people are holy in virtue of their relationship to God Himself; whatever is separated unto and consecrated or dedicated to a deity or deities is holy apart from its ethical or moral purity. This nonethical meaning is clear from the use of the term to describe male and female temple prostitutes of some pagan gods (Deut. 23:17-18; II Kings 23:7). As these titles indicate they were sacred ministrants attached to the Canaanite cults of the deity of fertility. They were holy in virtue of their relationship to the deity. It does not refer to their moral character. Of course there are moral and ethical implications of the worship of the true God. But this is secondary and subordinate in the concept of holiness. What is primary and foremost is the separation from false gods unto the true God.
  "You shall be holy to me; for I the Lord am Holy,
  and have separated you from the peoples,
  that you should be mine." (Lev. 20:26;
  see also Lev. 11:44-45 and I Pet. 1:18)
2. THE HOLINESS OF GOD.
  According to the legalistic misunderstanding of God's being, the holiness of God like His righteousness is misunderstood in terms of the law. Holiness is understood legalistically as conformity to the law, moral perfection and sinlessness. The holiness of God is therefore the eternal conformity of God's will and mind to His being which is law. He always thinks and acts in conformity to His holy being. It is impossible in the very nature of God for Him to do otherwise. According to these theologies the absolute holiness of God is the purity and moral perfection of His being. It is accordingly the fundamental and essential attribute of God or, more exactly, the consummate and infinite moral perfection of all the attributes taken together. Each attribute has its perfection; holiness is the infinite moral perfection of the whole together. According to this theology, holiness is not one attribute among others but the total moral perfection of the Godhead that sets Him transcendently apart from and above all the creatures. As such holiness is the regulative principle, norm and standard of all of them. Accordingly God's love is holy love; His power is holy power; His will is a holy will. They are holy because He always acts consistent with His essential being which is law. Thus in this legalistic theology the holiness of God is understood legalistically.
  According to the Scriptures God is holy (Lev. 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:26; 21:8: Josh. 24:19; I Sam. 2:2; 6:2; Psa. 22:3; 99:3,5,9; Isa. 5:16; 6:3). He is the Holy One of Israel (I Kings 19:22; Psa. 71:22; 78:41; 89:18; Isa. 1:4; 5:24; 10:20; 16:6, etc.). But the Scriptures do not understand holiness legalistically as sinlessness. God is holy, not because of His sinlessness, but because He is separated from His creation and from all false gods, which are a deification of His creation.
  In the Old Testament, there are three senses in which God is holy.
  These define the holiness of God.
  1. God is holy in the sense that He is separated from His creation.
    (Isa. 45:11-12; 57:15; 6:1-5; 17:7; 41:20; 54:5; Psa. 99:1-3, 5, 9).
    God is holy in the sense that He is separated from all Hehas created.
    He is not to be confused or identified with His creation. Even though He is near the humble and contrite, He is not to be pantheistically identified with Nature. He is not Nature but Nature's God, the Creator.
  2. God is holy in the sense that He is separated from all false gods
    (Isa. 40:18-20, 25-26, 28; 17:7-8).
    "⁷ In this day men will regard their Maker,
    and their eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel;
    ⁸ they will not have regard for their altars,
    the work of their hands,
    and they will not look to what their own fingers have made,
    either the Asherim or the altars of incense." (Isa. 17:7-8)
    It was in this sense that Isaiah was overwhelmed with the holiness of God during the vision in the temple (Isa. 6:1-5). Isaiah feels the contrast between the true God and all the false gods that his people are worshipping. The worship of the true God by the seraphim brings conviction to Isaiah of the uncleanness of his lips and of the people's in the midst of which he dwelt. With their lips they worshipped and praised false gods, not the King, the Lord of hosts. Seeing the Lord, Isaiah recognizes the awful character of their idolatry. "Woe is me! For I am lost!" God is holy because He is the Creator of all things; He is not to be confused with any of them; this distinguishes Him from all false gods.
  3. But God is also holy because He is the Savior, the Redeemer. God is holy in the sense that He is different from all other gods, because He is a Savior and Redeemer. (Isa. 41;14; 43:3, 10-11, 14; 44:6-8; 45:5-6, 14, 16-19, 20-22; 46:9).
    "Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel!
    I will help you, says the Lord;
    your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel." (Isa. 41:14)
    "For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior."
    (Isa. 43:3)
    In many places in the Old Testament the Holy One of Israel is called your (our) Redeemer (Isa. 43:14; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7; 54:5). This also distinguishes the true God from all false gods.
    ¹⁰ "You are my witnesses," says the Lord,
    "and my servant whom I have chosen,
    that you may know and believe me and understand that I am He.
    Before me no god was formed,
    nor shall there be any after me."
    ¹¹ "I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no Savior."
    (Isa. 43:10-11)
    ⁶ Thus says the Lord,
    the King of Israel and his Redeemer,
    the Lord of Hosts:
    "I am the first and the last;
    besides me there is no god."
    ⁷ "Who is like me? Let him proclaim it,
    let him declare and set it forth before me.
    Who has announced from of old the things to come?
    Let them tell us what is yet to be."
    ⁸ "Fear not, nor be afraid;
    have I not told you from of old and declared it?
    And you are my witnesses!
    Is there a God besides me?
    There is no Rock; I know not any." (Isa. 44:6-8)
    (See also Isa. 45:5-6,14,18-19,21-22; 46:9.)
    Of those who worship false gods Isaiah says,
    "¹⁶ All of them are put shame and confounded,
    the makers of idols go in confusion together.
    ¹⁷ But Israel is saved by the Lord with everlasting salvation;
    you shall not be put to shame or confounded to all eternity."
    (Isa. 45:16-17)
    ²⁰ "Assemble yourselves and come, draw near together,
    you survivors of the nation!
    They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols,
    and keep on praying to a god that cannot save.
    ²¹ Declare and present your case;
    let them take counsel together!
    Who told this long ago?
    Who declared it of old?
    Was it not I, the Lord?
    And there is no other god besides me,
    a righteous God and a Savior,
    there is none besides me."
    (Isa. 45:20-21; see also Hos. 13:4)
    The true God is holy because He alone can save and deliver. He alone has the power. He alone has unlimited freedom; He alone can and will save because He alone is love.
    God is holy because He is love. This truly sets Him apart from all false gods. The true God is holy because He is love. That which sets God apart from all other gods and also from all creatures is that feature which is most characteristic of God Himself, His love. God has freely and sovereignly chosen to be love. His choice determines the good. The good is what God wills. And it is not whimsical nor arbitrary because it is God who has willed it.
    "Thy will be done on earth as in heaven." (Matt. 6:10, etc.)
    God's will is not determined by His nature; His nature is His will; He is what he chooses to be (Deut. 32:39; Isa. 45:7; 46:8-11).
    And God has chosen to be love and He has revealed that choice in the history of the children of Israel and supremely in Jesus Christ, His Son (John 3:16; I John 4:9-10). The true God is a God of sovereign love, not of sovereign justice nor of sinless perfection.
  And His people are holy when they love like God Himself does.
3. SANCTIFICATION.
  The word translated "sanctification" has the same root in the Greek and Hebrew as the word translated "holiness" and means "making holy". Sanctification is the act of God by which man is separated from the worship of a false god and is dedicated to the true God. The term is not basically a moral or ethical concept. The idea of sanctification is soteriological concept before it is a moral concept. It is first of all a religious term and secondarily a moral term. Basically, it does not mean to make sinless or morally perfect but to separate from common or human use to God's use, to belong to God. It means to dedicate and consecrate to God. To be sanctified is to be dedicated to God. The RSV correctly translates the verb as "consecrated" in I Tim. 2:21. Sanctification denotes first of all the soteriological truth that the Christian being saved now belongs to God. Paul uses the term to denote another way of looking at salvation (I Cor. 1:30). Justification emphasizes the right personal relationship to God, whereas sanctification emphasizes belonging to the true God rather than to a false god. The view that justification designates the beginning of the Christian life while sanctification designates the development of that life through the internal work of the Spirit is an oversimplification of the New Testament teaching and obscures this important truth that justification is also santification. The legalistic misinterpretation of justification as the imputation of the righteousness or merits of Christ to our account when we first believed leads to this misunderstanding of the relationship between it and sanctification. The distinction between positional sanctification and progressive sanctification reflects this legalistic misinterpretation of justification and sanctification; justification is misunderstood as one's legal standing before God's justice and positional sanctification is one's standing before God's holiness as sinless perfection; God does not see us sinners directly but as hidden "in Christ" who is sinless and perfect (He is the Son of God). This is a legalistic misunderstanding of sanctification. Progressive sanctification is thus understood as the practical progress to this sinless perfection, holiness. Paul never makes this distinction between positional and progressive sanctification. The word "sanctification" occurs only once in Romans (6:22) and is significantly omitted from the steps leading to glorification in Romans 8:30. This is because sanctification is just the other side of justification, and need not also be mentioned when the other is. When one is justified by faith, he is also sanctified, separated from his false god and separated to the true God and to Jesus Christ, God's Son. Sanctification is not the act or process of making the Christian sinlessly perfect.
  Don't misunderstand me; I am not saying there is no present tense of santification. As there are three tenses of salvation: past tense, present tense, and future tense;
  (1) the past tense of salvation - "we were saved"
  (Rom. 8:24; Eph. 2:5, 8; II Tim. 1:8; Titus 3:5);
  (2) the present tense of salvation - "we are being saved"
  (I Cor. 1:18; 15:3; II Cor. 2:15);
  (3) the future tense of salvation - "we shall be saved"
  (Matt. 10:22; Rom. 5:9; compare Rom. 13:11; I Thess. 1:10; Heb. 9:28);
  corresponding, there are three tenses of sanctification. In I Cor. 1:30 Paul speaks of the past tense of sanctification and in Romans 6:22 and I Thess. 4:3 he speaks of the present tense of santification. I am objecting to the misunderstanding of sanctification as an act or progress toward sinless perfection and making sinlessly perfect.
4. THE CHRISTIAN AND SIN.
  What is the relationship of the Christian to sin?
  Because the Christian has died with Christ and has been raised with Him into new life to God, he is no longer a slave to sin but to God and to righteousness (Rom. 6:1-10). He is to reckon himself to be dead to sin with Christ and alive to God in Christ (Rom. 6:11). He is therefore to stop letting sin reign as a slave master in his mortal body to obey its desires (Rom. 6:12). Neither is he to present the member of his body as instruments of unrighteousness to sin as a slave master but he is to present himself to God as one who has been brought him from death to life and the members of his body to God as instruments of righteousness (Rom. 6:13). According to this passage, and others, the Christian does not have to sin and should not sin. Christ has saved him from sin as well as from death. Christ has set him free from the slavery of sin. He can sin but he does not have to sin. He does not have a sinful nature that makes him sin or because of which he will sin. He is free to sin or not. And if a Christian sins, it is because he chooses to sin, not because his sinful nature that makes him do it.
  But why do Christians choose to sin?
  The scriptural answer to this question is twofold:
  (1) because he yields to the desires of the flesh (James 1:13-14), or
  (2) because he is under law (Rom. 6:14); that is, he is trying to live or walk by the law. This is legalism and in Romans 7 Paul explains what happens when a Christian becomes entrapped in this legalism. He is under law and sin has dominion over him (Rom. 6:14). Legalism causes sin and when legalism tries to solve this problem of sin in the Christian life, it fails. Then it tries to explain its failure by blaming sin on the sinful nature. The real cause of this problem is not the sinful nature but legalism, that is, being under law. The Christian will sin when he is placed under law (Rom. 6:14 and Rom. 7:18-19). The doctrine of the sinful nature contributes to this problem. Christians who believe that they have a sinful nature, expect that they will sin; and of course they will do what they expect that they will do. Again, Christians do not have a sinful nature and they do not have to sin. Temptation to sin is not sin and the tendency to sin is not the sinful nature; the desires of the body are not inherently sinful. God created them and placed them in man's body. But man must not become a slave to them. God in Christ's death and resurrection has provided deliverance from the slavery to them. God has given us His Spirit to impliment this deliverance.
5. THE CHRISTIAN AND THE HOLY SPIRIT.
  True Christians (not nominal Christians, in name only) have the Holy Spirit. True Christians have accepted Christ and put their faith in Him and His death and resurrection. And as such they have received the Holy Spirit. He is the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus (Rom. 8:2). To be born again and to be alive to God is by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit does this by revealing Christ and convicting (convincing) the unsaved of their need for Christ (John 16:7-11); The Spirit presents Christ to the unbeliever in the preaching of the Gospel. To receive Christ is also to receive the Holy Spirit. Paul says in Romans 8:9 to the believers at Rome,
  "But you are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit,
  since the Spirit of God dwells in you.
  If anyone have not the Spirit of Christ, this one is not his."
  To be "in the Spirit" is to be saved, and to be "in the flesh" is to be unsaved (Romans 7:5). But not everyone who has the Spirit dwelling in him is filled with Spirit; some are not "walking according to the Spirit", but "according to the flesh" (Romans 8:4; Gal. 5:16, 25). And to walk according to the flesh is to attempt to live the Christian life by human effort alone apart from the Spirit of God; such ones attempt to live up to the divine standard in the law. Thus they are under law and thus experience only defeat and frustration (Rom. 6:14 and Rom. 7:18-19). They are trying to do what only the Holy Spirit can enable them to do. To be under law is to walk according the flesh (by human effort). To walk according to the Spirit and to be led by the Spirit is not to be under law (Gal. 5:18). Those who walk according the Spirit bring forth the fruit of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit cannot be had apart from the Spirit; no human effort can produce that fruit. These who walk according the Spirit fulfill the law without being under law.
  "For he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law" (Rom. 13:8-10).
  The goal is not moral or sinless perfection (conforming to the divine standard in the law) but is love: love of God and love of our neighbor. This goal can be reached only if one is filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18-20). The Christian life is not Spirit-empowered-law-keeping but Spirit-filled-law-fulfillment by love.
6. THE BAPTISM WITH THE SPIRIT.
  And a Christian is filled with the Spirit if he has been baptized with the Holy Spirit. The baptism with the Holy Spirit has been misunderstood as the second work of grace that eradicates the sinful nature. This is not what the phrase means in the New Testament. The phrase "to baptize with the Holy Spirit" was first used by John the Baptist (Matt. 3:11; Mark 1:8; Luke 3:16; John 1:33) of him who was to come after John, that is, the Christ or Messiah. Luke reports in Acts that the risen Jesus said,
  "John baptized with water,
  but before many days you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:5).
  This is obviously a reference to the coming of the Holy Spirit at the first Pentecost, of which Jesus also said,
  "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you;
  and you shall be my witnesses in Jerusalem
  and in all Judea and Samaria
  and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8).
  This baptism with the Holy Spirit was an empowerment for servicem, to be His witnesses. Later, Peter refers to Pentecost as the baptism with the Spirit when he explains what happened at the conversion of Cornelius, the centurion:
  "¹⁵ As I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell on them
  just as on us at the beginning.
  ¹⁶ And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he said,
  'John baptized with water,
  but you shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit.'
  ¹⁷ If then God gave the same gift to them
  as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ,
  who was I that I could withstand God?" (Acts 11:15-17).
  How did Peter recognize that Holy Spirit had fallen on them and the gift of the Spirit? Because the same thing happened to them that happened to Peter and the others at Pentecost, they spoke with other tongues or languages (Acts 2:4; 9:44-47). This sign of the baptism with the Spirit of Cornelius, and those with him, was also the sign to Peter, and those with him, that the Spirit was also given to the Gentiles. Luke also refers to the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost as being filled with the Spirit;
  "³ And there appeared to them tongues as of fire,
  distributed and resting on each one of them.
  ⁴ And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit
  and began to speak in other tongues,
  as the Spirit gave them utterance" (Acts 2:3-4).
  This coming of the Holy Spirit to them, which is the baptism with the Spirit, is the initial in-filling of the Spirit. Later they were again filled with Spirit (Acts 4:31). We believe that each believer, like these first believers, may be baptized with the Spirit as the initial in-filling of the Holy Spirit and may be refilled with the Spirit as the Spirit sees fit. Paul exhorted the Ephesian believers to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18). If anyone objects to the use of the phrase "baptized with the Spirit" to refer this initial filling of the Spirit, I will not quibble with him, as long as he recognizes that Christian believers should be filled with the Spirit and that there must be a first filling of the Spirit which may occur at conversion or later. Whether one speaks in tongues at this first filling of the Spirit, which one may do as the Spirit leads, is between him (or her) and the Spirit. But I will tell you that if anyone makes an issue with God of not speaking with tongues, he may not be filled the Spirit until he yields. This yielding to the Spirit is the necessary condition for being filled with Spirit. Paul makes it clear in his letter to Romans that presenting our bodies and its members to God is the logical implication of our acknowledgment of Jesus as Lord and Savior (Rom. 6:13; 12:1-2); and that includes presenting or yielding one's tongue. This does not mean that the Christian believer has become morally perfect or that he must clean up his life before he can be filled with the Spirit; the Holy Spirit will take care of cleaning up the believer's life after he is filled with the Spirit. If the Christian believer is placed under law, the Spirit will place him back under grace and set him free from the law of sin and of death (Rom. 8:1-2), by filling him with the Spirit.
  One more point; speaking in tongues at the initial filling of the Spirit is not the gift of tongues of which Paul speaks in I Cor. chapters 12 to 14. While all believers may speak in tongues at the initial filling of Spirit, not all will have the ministry of the gift of tongues and the accompanying gift of interpretation of tongues. The Spirit distributes the gifts of the Spirit as he wills (I Cor. 12:11). As Paul makes clear in I Cor. 12, the gifts of the Spirit are manifestations of the Spirit in the body of Christ for the common good (I Cor. 12:7). The empowering of the gifts and ministries of the Spirit are to be concrete expressions of love for one another in the body of Christ and those outside. The preaching of Gospel should be and is accompanied by signs and wonders:
  "^3b It [the so great salvation] was declared at first by the Lord,
  and it was attested to us by those who heard him,
  ⁴ while God also bore witness by signs and wonders
  and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit
  distributed according to his own will" (Heb. 2:3b-4).