Post by josefurban on Jun 17, 2007 12:01:43 GMT -5
The Fatal Trap of Holiness Preaching
A solemn warning to guard against the error of extremes
By Josef Urban
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THE FATAL TRAP IS HIDDEN DEEP WITHIN THE DOCTRINE
Oh, the horror of it! There is a terrifying trap; a sinister snare; a wicked wile; a deadly delusion that a great too many saints of the Lord have fallen into to the peril, and sometimes even destruction, of their souls. This is an issue that must be addressed. If you would consider yourself to be a true saint of the Living God, and you adhere to the doctrines of holiness, then don’t let anything divert your attention from understanding, recognizing, and identifying this fatal trap. This trap is often laid hidden deep within the doctrines of holiness. We know that holiness preaching is Gospel preaching, and there is no other true Gospel other than that Gospel which promotes holiness through Christ, but dear saints, there is an error of extremes that we must stand guard against! There is a fatal trap in over-emphasizing a hyped up view of holiness, and we must take heed to beware of it, because many, failing to recognize this trap, have fallen into this error.
THE ABSOLUTE NECCESITY OF HOLINESS
Before we begin, let us understand that God is a holy God. The essence, substance and nature of His very Being is holiness. He dwells in a holy place, sitting on a holy Throne, surrounded by the holy angels and holy saints who worship Him in the beauty of holiness. Four living creatures, terrifying angelic beings who are sinless and absolutely holy themselves, surround His glorious Throne and say unceasingly, day and night, nonstop, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty”. Not only is God holy – He is thrice holy, completely holy, utterly and totally holy without the least imperfection, blemish or inconsistency in His holiness.
It is an undisputable fact that no sin can truly stand in His presence. Nothing but that which is holy may enter in to this majestic dwelling place of such a holy Being and remain in such a terrifying place without penalty. Only those who are holy will inherit this holy Kingdom. Since He is holy, His people are commanded – not suggested, but commanded – to be holy as well. Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. Only those who purify themselves even as He is pure in their lives on this earth will ever attain to inheriting the pure holiness of Heaven in their lives hereafter. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God, and woe to those who are not pure in heart, but who live in uncleanness, for they shall not see this holy God in the splendor of His holy perfection.
Holiness of heart, in our lives here and now on this earth, is essential to salvation. Christ came to purchase for Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but one that would be holy and without blemish before Him. Therefore, if any individual is not holy, but is polluted with the spots, wrinkles, and blemishes of known sins, then they are not a part of the true church of God, consisting of His blood-bought saints, whose names are written in Heaven. Christ shed the Holy Ghost forth upon His church to enable and empower His people to be holy and to walk in holiness, so having these great and precious promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
The holiness of God and the fact of the essentiality of holiness in the life of any true Christian is a blessed and undeniable fact of the pure, unadulterated gospel truth. Let us preach this truth with a holy unction, proclaim it with a holy zeal, shout it abroad with a holy urgency, and march forth into the frontlines of the enemy’s territory with a holy determination, the blood-stained banner of the Lamb of God being raised on high, chanting, “Holiness to the Lord” as our battle-cry, and if we have to die in the midst of the battle, may we die with the truth of holiness upon our lips!
THE ERROR OF OVER-STRESSING HOLINESS
Knowing these blessed truths, however, let us take heed to ourselves, lest we fall into a disastrous soul-dooming snare. We must not be ignorant of the wiles and clever schemes of the wicked one. Oh, how the devil loves it when such an emphasis is placed on holiness that it leads to setting up a standard in the minds of the saints of God such an impossibility of perfection that they can never attain to it. If we must preach, Satan would much prefer that we preach an impossibly high standard of perfection and holiness than to preach no holiness at all, because it is by this that he can get a foothold in the lives of God’s true children through the weakness of their own conscience – their consciences being weakened by their failure to measure up to the standards of perfection – and through this foothold he can begin his dastardly work of tearing down the walls of their blessed assurance and thereby strip them of the faith by which they were justified.
The sad fact is; there is such an extreme heresy that is propagated abroad across our land today that proclaims a Savior from hell but not from sin. It preaches a salvation of forgiveness but not redemption. It teaches a form of justification by faith but not sanctification by faith. It preaches, “Ye must be born again” but doesn’t teach the marks of true regeneration. It teaches that a man becomes a new creature in Christ while he remains just the same. As a result, we have a gospel being spread abroad, which is another gospel (and no gospel at all), that says, “You can live in willful sin and still go to Heaven when you die”; containing a form of godliness that somehow forgives sins but contains no power to redeem from the current presence and dominion of sin in the life of a believer. This is heresy, damnable heresy, and is something the true saints of God don’t want to be found touching with a ten-foot stick, unless they are using such a stick to bash it down with a holy violence like that of Jehu when he went on an idol-smashing rampage in tearing down the image of Baal (see 2 Kings 10:24-28).
However, such an intense zeal to combat this error is precisely what leads to the problem. Zeal without the proper knowledge to direct it is potentially more disastrous than the proper knowledge without the zeal to ignite it. In combating the error of “sin-your-way-to-heaven” Antinomianism, many have fallen into the fatal trap of swinging the pendulum too far to the opposite extreme, preaching an impossibly high standard of holiness. Then, since nobody can meet these incredibly high standards, those who are truly born of God begin to condemn themselves and question their salvation because they cannot meet such standards. Thus, their assurance before God is shaken, their faith is destroyed, and they fall into the pit of self-condemnation.
Some, in attempting to combat the error of cheap grace, even go so far as to preach sinless perfection. This is error, serious error, and must be avoided as a deadly plague, lest we fall into the snare of the wicked one and cause the faith of God’s people to be shipwrecked. What is “sinless perfection”? It is a doctrine that teaches that true Christians live in a state of sinless-ness, having no sin. It teaches that from the moment one is truly born again, they will never sin again, and that anyone who does not live and walk in such a state is not saved. It teaches a standard of absolute perfection, and that if a Christian is not perfect and without sin, then such a person is no Christian at all. It teaches that if somebody gets born again, but then stumbles into any form of sin, no matter how small, then they are immediately thrust back under the wrath of God until they repent again (and there are greater and lesser sins; see Matthew 23:14, Luke 17:1-2, John 19:11, 1 John 5:16). Thus, there is no assurance for the believer in the finished work of Christ on the Cross, or in the one and perfect offering for sin by the precious blood of the eternal Covenant. Instead the life of the Christian becomes a fearful and vicious cycle containing bouts of assurance and happiness when they think they are being holy enough, and condemnation and depression when they fail to meet the standards of perfect holiness.
It is not necessary to take our stand on an extreme in order to combat the opposite extreme. Many, trying to refute the heresy of modern teachings that teach the grace of God as a license to sin, going too far to the opposite extreme, preach an incredibly and impossibly high standard of holiness. They have attempted to root out all the tares growing among the wheat. In doing so, however, they have sadly plucked out a few good grains of wheat. This is precisely what Jesus was warning about in Matthew 13:24-30, and this is what holiness preachers need to guard against.
The reason we need to guard against this fatal trap of extreme holiness preaching is because faith is directly related to conscience. When an individual gets born again, the blood of Christ is applied to the heart and the conscience is cleansed. They experience the peace of God that passes all understanding, the weight and burden of sin is removed, and their heart is cleansed by the living faith that the Holy Ghost imparts to their soul. As a result, they obtain the blessed assurance of sins forgiven. Since a man is initially justified by faith in Christ, and faith alone apart from works, and since the assurance of this faith is directly dependant on the state of the conscience, it is imperative that he keeps a clean conscience before God in order to maintain the faith necessary to believe unto salvation, because having true faith is directly related to having a clean conscience.
If the conscience gets spotted or defiled with any known or even perceived wrongdoing, then assurance before God is stripped away. If assurance before God is stripped away, then one begins to feel as if God has cut them off. In thinking this, faith itself in God as the Justifier of the ungodly is stripped away, and the individual is brought into a sad state of self-condemnation. Their faith then becomes utterly destroyed and justification before God becomes an impossibility, because without faith it is impossible to please God.
Over-emphasizing a high degree of holiness causes those who sit under such teaching, if they believe it, to examine themselves vigorously, over and over, to see if there is the smallest or tiniest degree of anything unholy in them. As extreme holiness is continually emphasized, they continue to examine themselves, and as soon as they find something unholy, they condemn themselves for it and fall into the trap of self-condemnation. They then continue to examine themselves almost endlessly, and their focus gets removed from Christ and His love, grace, and mercy, and their focus gets put on themselves and their works. Their righteousness becomes based on their deeds, works, and performance before God, rather than in the finished work of the Cross through the faith of Christ. Perfection becomes an obsession, and the sight of the Cross is at a loss.
Rather than preaching in such a way as to convict sinners and strengthen the faith of the saints, many go to the error of extreme holiness and preach in such a way as to condemn both sinners and saints alike. Now, this is not to say that a true saint will never need to be convicted about anything, or that we should never preach hard messages. Our preaching needs to be designed in such a way that it convicts instead of condemns, and that it is useful for spiritual growth and not spiritual destruction. If our preaching doesn’t pierce through and cut asunder the hearts of men like a sharp, two-edged sword, then what we’re preaching isn’t the true Word of God! But, at the same time, if it doesn’t apply the healing properties of that blessed Balm of Gilead after it wounds, and bind up the broken hearts with the bandages of Christ’s love, then it is potentially destructive to the souls of men. There is a fine line, and that line is determined by the perfect orderly balance of God’s wisdom according to the leading of the Spirit.
Oh, the trickery of it all! The masterfully orchestrated wiles of the devil! God forbid that we lay anything to the charge of God’s elect when it is God that justified them and they are following the Lord their God with all their heart! God forbid we join sides with the Accuser of the Brethren and condemn the consciences of God’s saints and destroy their faith! God forbid that we, through the good intentions of combating heresy, preach heresy ourselves! But on the other end, God forbid that we fail to preach holiness! God forbid we tolerate any known form of sin in the least! God forbid we fail to stand on the uncompromising truth of the word of God and declare the severity, justice, holiness and wrath of God!
We holiness preachers are walking a tightrope of truth, and erring on either side can be fatal! As it was in the days of Nehemiah, when the men who were building the walls of Jerusalem had to build with one hand and yield a weapon in the other, in the same way, we need to build the Church with one hand to edify the saints with revelations of the true grace of God, and hold our sword in the other to uncompromisingly fight against every sin which so easily besets us (see Nehemiah 4:17)! The enemy is surrounding us on all sides, and when he’s attacking the gates on the city walls, we’re still busy dealing with internal problems and uprisings – danger from within and danger from without!
The fact is: preaching and overemphasizing an extreme degree of holiness destroys the assurance and faith of the saints. No one is perfectly sinless. Ask any saint, any true born again child of God that has been walking with the Lord for a number of years; ask them if they have sinned even once since their conversion. Ask them if they’ve ever committed a single sin against God since they got born again. If they are not blind and stupid to the laws of God, they will most certainly and ashamedly tell you they have. Does this mean they weren’t born again? Does this mean that as soon as they sinned, God cut them off and declared them children of the devil and bound them fit for destruction in Hell?
IF WE SAY WE HAVE NO SIN, WE DECEIVE OURSELVES
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8).
The beloved Apostle John, in inscribing these words on the sacred parchment of his first epistle, being a holy man moved upon by the Holy Ghost to record these holy words, has clearly said in the most plainest and straightforward language, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us”. This epistle is addressed to saints, warning against various dangers, extremes, and heresies that were attempting to creep their way into the Church in John’s old age, and as a guideline to the faith of Christ and the nature of true conversion.
Let us observe some facts concerning this statement of Scripture:
First, as we have already observed, it is written to Christians. John was not writing to heathen, nor was he writing to unconverted sinners. We know that this first epistle was directed toward Christians, “that [their] joy may be full” (1:4). Certainly, he is not writing that the joy of sinners may be full, but that the joy of the saints may be full, which proves that this epistle is directed toward those who already have a degree and measure of the joy of Christ. Only the saints have the joy of Christ.
Second, the great, holy and beloved Apostle includes himself by saying, “we”. He didn’t say, “If YOU say that you have no sin”, but he said, “If WE say that we have no sin…” This is a very remarkable and undeniably true observation. As holy as we know this great Apostle must have been, especially in the old age he was in when he wrote this epistle, he was still walking in such a degree of self-abasement and humility as to recognize his true condition before God, a condition that still had a measure of sin dwelling within the flesh and that didn’t yet have full and final redemption from the presence of sin (which would take place at final glorification – see 1 John 3:2). John knew that even he was not without sin, and he certainly knew he wasn’t “sinlessly perfect”, as some would say, which is why he includes himself in this statement.
Even the Apostle Paul agreed and admitted to the personal imperfections of his righteousness before God: “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12-14). This was written at about 61 AD, which was after his third missionary journey. If sinless perfection could be obtained, then without a doubt it should have been obtained by the Apostle Paul after enduring so much hardship, living in such devotion, and following hard after God for so many years, being “not a whit behind the chiefest Apostles”. In context of the perfection of which Paul is speaking, he is speaking of “attaining unto the resurrection of the dead” (verse 10) by being found in the righteousness of Christ by faith (verse 9). So, namely, he is talking about righteousness, and admitting that even he didn’t have a perfect righteousness on this earth, looking forward to full and final redemption, which would take place in the final work of redemption at the time of glorification.
The third thing we must observe is that it is in the present tense. It is not talking in the past tense. In other words, he is not talking about one saying that they have no sin prior to conversion, but one saying they have no sin after conversion. He is talking about sin dwelling in some measure in born again believers, and that if anyone denies this, they deceive themselves, being blind to their own unworthiness in the sight of God.
This is what Jesus meant when He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit”. Being poor in spirit is not something that happens one time before conversion and then no longer applies to a saint, but it is an ever-present admission of our personal wretchedness before God and of our utter and total dependency on Him. Being poor in spirit is a work of God’s grace, and if this grace ever fails to be applied to the heart of a believer, they quickly stumble around in their own delusions, thinking of themselves more highly than they ought, and soon find themselves deceived and in bondage to a despicable self-righteousness.
The Greek word translated, “we have” in the phrase, “If we say we have no sin”, is the word, “echo”. Thayer’s Greek Definitions describes it as having, holding or possessing in present tense, or to have oneself in a certain condition, and as a primary, present tense verb. Both Vincent’s Word Studies and Robertson’s Word Pictures, two scholarly and accurate works on the Greek language in which the New Testament was written, agree upon the fact that this scripture is written in the present tense. It is also agreed upon and translated in the present tense by every single English translation of the Bible, proving that the teams of hundreds upon hundreds of Greek scholars who have translated this passage universally agree that this is referring to the present tense. There is not a single well-known English translation that translates this scripture in the past tense, as referring to the past life of a believer prior to conversion, as some people falsely say.
If anybody professes to be a child of God, but has absolutely no admitted unworthiness and admits no present form of indwelling sin in some measure, then they deceive themselves and the truth is not in them. This is precisely what the Apostle John is saying.
The word “sin” literally means, “to miss the mark”. Which one of us, even among those of us who are the most holy and devout, can say that we have no emotions, feelings, tempers, thoughts, words or actions which fall short of the standards of God’s perfection? “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23-24). To sin means to come short of the glory of God, and this is something that sinners and saints do alike (though there is a huge difference between the two). Thank God that the saints are “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus”, and not by the performance and perfections that proceed after their initial profession of faith, or else we would all be doomed!
In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught His disciples to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” This is how the Lord Jesus taught His holy Apostles to pray! Just prior to Him teaching them to pray for forgiveness for their sins, He said, “give us this day our daily bread”, clearly implying that this is a daily prayer that should be prayed. In other words, we need to constantly, in humility, recognize our shortcomings in the sight of God and humble ourselves under His mighty hand to ask for His mercy and grace to cover our offenses before Him. If we say we have no offenses before the all-seeing eyes of His holiness, we only deceive ourselves.
Granted, the saints of God do not live in sin. They do not willfully continue in any known form of sin like the unconverted do (Hebrews 10:26). To the saints, as soon as their own unworthiness, shortcomings, stumbles, or sins get brought to light, they are immediately abased and humbled. They utterly despise themselves for it. They hate it! And they confess it, repent and continue no more in it. They don’t practice any known form of sin. Once any form of inner or outer sin is brought to light by the searchlight of God’s Spirit, they are humbled at the feet of Christ, and they “go and sin no more”.
To the saints, sin is their bed of thorns, but to the unconverted, it is their hypocrite’s couch. Saints hate sin and do not continue in any known form of sin, but the unconverted lounge upon sin, and make excuses to justify it. A true saint will continually “walk in the light as he is in the light”, purging himself from every thing of darkness and uncleanness as soon as it is brought to the light, despising himself for it, and yield it to God to save him from it in a willing and earnest surrender, and he will continually walk in victory over all known sin; but an unconverted sinner will hold on to his sins because he loves them, and even if he may claim to love God with his mouth, he will continue to commit the same sins over and over and deny God by his actions. That’s the difference. Saints aren’t perfect, but they are striving for perfection, and while they are on the journey toward this perfection, they despise and even abhor themselves for their own imperfections.
This own self-abhorrence for inward corruption is not a self-condemnation or self-pity. These things come from the evil one. It is a self-abhorrence that produces “godly sorrow (which) worketh repentance”, and not “the sorrow of the world (which) worketh death” (2 Corinthians 7:10). This godly sorrow is completely different and distinct from depression. It is what Jesus meant by saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit”, and “Blessed are those that mourn”, speaking of recognizing our own spiritual state before God, our personal guilt, helplessness, and of the utter emptiness of our own nature of everything good, and a conviction and realizing sense of being shut up to the grace of God alone for help. According to Jesus, this is a characteristic of the “blessed”, or in other words, a characteristic of true saints. There is a huge and fundamental difference between such godly sorrow and the sorrow of the world.
The error of many of those in the holiness crowd is that they fail to ever mention these truths. They preach holiness and sanctification until such a standard of perfection is implied that it is utterly impossible for anyone to meet these standards. Then, those who are actually true saints, but who have an awareness of their own unworthiness and poorness of spirit in the sight of God, begin to condemn themselves for their shortcomings and imperfections, until they begin to question their very salvation to begin with. Dear Lord, save us from this error!
THE REVIVALISTS AND GIANTS OF THE PAST AGREE TO THIS DOCTRINE
***NOT THE END***
This is not the entire article. To view the rest, click here: www.obeyjesus.net/content/view/183/49/
A solemn warning to guard against the error of extremes
By Josef Urban
-
THE FATAL TRAP IS HIDDEN DEEP WITHIN THE DOCTRINE
Oh, the horror of it! There is a terrifying trap; a sinister snare; a wicked wile; a deadly delusion that a great too many saints of the Lord have fallen into to the peril, and sometimes even destruction, of their souls. This is an issue that must be addressed. If you would consider yourself to be a true saint of the Living God, and you adhere to the doctrines of holiness, then don’t let anything divert your attention from understanding, recognizing, and identifying this fatal trap. This trap is often laid hidden deep within the doctrines of holiness. We know that holiness preaching is Gospel preaching, and there is no other true Gospel other than that Gospel which promotes holiness through Christ, but dear saints, there is an error of extremes that we must stand guard against! There is a fatal trap in over-emphasizing a hyped up view of holiness, and we must take heed to beware of it, because many, failing to recognize this trap, have fallen into this error.
THE ABSOLUTE NECCESITY OF HOLINESS
Before we begin, let us understand that God is a holy God. The essence, substance and nature of His very Being is holiness. He dwells in a holy place, sitting on a holy Throne, surrounded by the holy angels and holy saints who worship Him in the beauty of holiness. Four living creatures, terrifying angelic beings who are sinless and absolutely holy themselves, surround His glorious Throne and say unceasingly, day and night, nonstop, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty”. Not only is God holy – He is thrice holy, completely holy, utterly and totally holy without the least imperfection, blemish or inconsistency in His holiness.
It is an undisputable fact that no sin can truly stand in His presence. Nothing but that which is holy may enter in to this majestic dwelling place of such a holy Being and remain in such a terrifying place without penalty. Only those who are holy will inherit this holy Kingdom. Since He is holy, His people are commanded – not suggested, but commanded – to be holy as well. Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord. Only those who purify themselves even as He is pure in their lives on this earth will ever attain to inheriting the pure holiness of Heaven in their lives hereafter. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God, and woe to those who are not pure in heart, but who live in uncleanness, for they shall not see this holy God in the splendor of His holy perfection.
Holiness of heart, in our lives here and now on this earth, is essential to salvation. Christ came to purchase for Himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but one that would be holy and without blemish before Him. Therefore, if any individual is not holy, but is polluted with the spots, wrinkles, and blemishes of known sins, then they are not a part of the true church of God, consisting of His blood-bought saints, whose names are written in Heaven. Christ shed the Holy Ghost forth upon His church to enable and empower His people to be holy and to walk in holiness, so having these great and precious promises, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
The holiness of God and the fact of the essentiality of holiness in the life of any true Christian is a blessed and undeniable fact of the pure, unadulterated gospel truth. Let us preach this truth with a holy unction, proclaim it with a holy zeal, shout it abroad with a holy urgency, and march forth into the frontlines of the enemy’s territory with a holy determination, the blood-stained banner of the Lamb of God being raised on high, chanting, “Holiness to the Lord” as our battle-cry, and if we have to die in the midst of the battle, may we die with the truth of holiness upon our lips!
THE ERROR OF OVER-STRESSING HOLINESS
Knowing these blessed truths, however, let us take heed to ourselves, lest we fall into a disastrous soul-dooming snare. We must not be ignorant of the wiles and clever schemes of the wicked one. Oh, how the devil loves it when such an emphasis is placed on holiness that it leads to setting up a standard in the minds of the saints of God such an impossibility of perfection that they can never attain to it. If we must preach, Satan would much prefer that we preach an impossibly high standard of perfection and holiness than to preach no holiness at all, because it is by this that he can get a foothold in the lives of God’s true children through the weakness of their own conscience – their consciences being weakened by their failure to measure up to the standards of perfection – and through this foothold he can begin his dastardly work of tearing down the walls of their blessed assurance and thereby strip them of the faith by which they were justified.
The sad fact is; there is such an extreme heresy that is propagated abroad across our land today that proclaims a Savior from hell but not from sin. It preaches a salvation of forgiveness but not redemption. It teaches a form of justification by faith but not sanctification by faith. It preaches, “Ye must be born again” but doesn’t teach the marks of true regeneration. It teaches that a man becomes a new creature in Christ while he remains just the same. As a result, we have a gospel being spread abroad, which is another gospel (and no gospel at all), that says, “You can live in willful sin and still go to Heaven when you die”; containing a form of godliness that somehow forgives sins but contains no power to redeem from the current presence and dominion of sin in the life of a believer. This is heresy, damnable heresy, and is something the true saints of God don’t want to be found touching with a ten-foot stick, unless they are using such a stick to bash it down with a holy violence like that of Jehu when he went on an idol-smashing rampage in tearing down the image of Baal (see 2 Kings 10:24-28).
However, such an intense zeal to combat this error is precisely what leads to the problem. Zeal without the proper knowledge to direct it is potentially more disastrous than the proper knowledge without the zeal to ignite it. In combating the error of “sin-your-way-to-heaven” Antinomianism, many have fallen into the fatal trap of swinging the pendulum too far to the opposite extreme, preaching an impossibly high standard of holiness. Then, since nobody can meet these incredibly high standards, those who are truly born of God begin to condemn themselves and question their salvation because they cannot meet such standards. Thus, their assurance before God is shaken, their faith is destroyed, and they fall into the pit of self-condemnation.
Some, in attempting to combat the error of cheap grace, even go so far as to preach sinless perfection. This is error, serious error, and must be avoided as a deadly plague, lest we fall into the snare of the wicked one and cause the faith of God’s people to be shipwrecked. What is “sinless perfection”? It is a doctrine that teaches that true Christians live in a state of sinless-ness, having no sin. It teaches that from the moment one is truly born again, they will never sin again, and that anyone who does not live and walk in such a state is not saved. It teaches a standard of absolute perfection, and that if a Christian is not perfect and without sin, then such a person is no Christian at all. It teaches that if somebody gets born again, but then stumbles into any form of sin, no matter how small, then they are immediately thrust back under the wrath of God until they repent again (and there are greater and lesser sins; see Matthew 23:14, Luke 17:1-2, John 19:11, 1 John 5:16). Thus, there is no assurance for the believer in the finished work of Christ on the Cross, or in the one and perfect offering for sin by the precious blood of the eternal Covenant. Instead the life of the Christian becomes a fearful and vicious cycle containing bouts of assurance and happiness when they think they are being holy enough, and condemnation and depression when they fail to meet the standards of perfect holiness.
It is not necessary to take our stand on an extreme in order to combat the opposite extreme. Many, trying to refute the heresy of modern teachings that teach the grace of God as a license to sin, going too far to the opposite extreme, preach an incredibly and impossibly high standard of holiness. They have attempted to root out all the tares growing among the wheat. In doing so, however, they have sadly plucked out a few good grains of wheat. This is precisely what Jesus was warning about in Matthew 13:24-30, and this is what holiness preachers need to guard against.
The reason we need to guard against this fatal trap of extreme holiness preaching is because faith is directly related to conscience. When an individual gets born again, the blood of Christ is applied to the heart and the conscience is cleansed. They experience the peace of God that passes all understanding, the weight and burden of sin is removed, and their heart is cleansed by the living faith that the Holy Ghost imparts to their soul. As a result, they obtain the blessed assurance of sins forgiven. Since a man is initially justified by faith in Christ, and faith alone apart from works, and since the assurance of this faith is directly dependant on the state of the conscience, it is imperative that he keeps a clean conscience before God in order to maintain the faith necessary to believe unto salvation, because having true faith is directly related to having a clean conscience.
If the conscience gets spotted or defiled with any known or even perceived wrongdoing, then assurance before God is stripped away. If assurance before God is stripped away, then one begins to feel as if God has cut them off. In thinking this, faith itself in God as the Justifier of the ungodly is stripped away, and the individual is brought into a sad state of self-condemnation. Their faith then becomes utterly destroyed and justification before God becomes an impossibility, because without faith it is impossible to please God.
Over-emphasizing a high degree of holiness causes those who sit under such teaching, if they believe it, to examine themselves vigorously, over and over, to see if there is the smallest or tiniest degree of anything unholy in them. As extreme holiness is continually emphasized, they continue to examine themselves, and as soon as they find something unholy, they condemn themselves for it and fall into the trap of self-condemnation. They then continue to examine themselves almost endlessly, and their focus gets removed from Christ and His love, grace, and mercy, and their focus gets put on themselves and their works. Their righteousness becomes based on their deeds, works, and performance before God, rather than in the finished work of the Cross through the faith of Christ. Perfection becomes an obsession, and the sight of the Cross is at a loss.
Rather than preaching in such a way as to convict sinners and strengthen the faith of the saints, many go to the error of extreme holiness and preach in such a way as to condemn both sinners and saints alike. Now, this is not to say that a true saint will never need to be convicted about anything, or that we should never preach hard messages. Our preaching needs to be designed in such a way that it convicts instead of condemns, and that it is useful for spiritual growth and not spiritual destruction. If our preaching doesn’t pierce through and cut asunder the hearts of men like a sharp, two-edged sword, then what we’re preaching isn’t the true Word of God! But, at the same time, if it doesn’t apply the healing properties of that blessed Balm of Gilead after it wounds, and bind up the broken hearts with the bandages of Christ’s love, then it is potentially destructive to the souls of men. There is a fine line, and that line is determined by the perfect orderly balance of God’s wisdom according to the leading of the Spirit.
Oh, the trickery of it all! The masterfully orchestrated wiles of the devil! God forbid that we lay anything to the charge of God’s elect when it is God that justified them and they are following the Lord their God with all their heart! God forbid we join sides with the Accuser of the Brethren and condemn the consciences of God’s saints and destroy their faith! God forbid that we, through the good intentions of combating heresy, preach heresy ourselves! But on the other end, God forbid that we fail to preach holiness! God forbid we tolerate any known form of sin in the least! God forbid we fail to stand on the uncompromising truth of the word of God and declare the severity, justice, holiness and wrath of God!
We holiness preachers are walking a tightrope of truth, and erring on either side can be fatal! As it was in the days of Nehemiah, when the men who were building the walls of Jerusalem had to build with one hand and yield a weapon in the other, in the same way, we need to build the Church with one hand to edify the saints with revelations of the true grace of God, and hold our sword in the other to uncompromisingly fight against every sin which so easily besets us (see Nehemiah 4:17)! The enemy is surrounding us on all sides, and when he’s attacking the gates on the city walls, we’re still busy dealing with internal problems and uprisings – danger from within and danger from without!
The fact is: preaching and overemphasizing an extreme degree of holiness destroys the assurance and faith of the saints. No one is perfectly sinless. Ask any saint, any true born again child of God that has been walking with the Lord for a number of years; ask them if they have sinned even once since their conversion. Ask them if they’ve ever committed a single sin against God since they got born again. If they are not blind and stupid to the laws of God, they will most certainly and ashamedly tell you they have. Does this mean they weren’t born again? Does this mean that as soon as they sinned, God cut them off and declared them children of the devil and bound them fit for destruction in Hell?
IF WE SAY WE HAVE NO SIN, WE DECEIVE OURSELVES
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” (1 John 1:8).
The beloved Apostle John, in inscribing these words on the sacred parchment of his first epistle, being a holy man moved upon by the Holy Ghost to record these holy words, has clearly said in the most plainest and straightforward language, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us”. This epistle is addressed to saints, warning against various dangers, extremes, and heresies that were attempting to creep their way into the Church in John’s old age, and as a guideline to the faith of Christ and the nature of true conversion.
Let us observe some facts concerning this statement of Scripture:
First, as we have already observed, it is written to Christians. John was not writing to heathen, nor was he writing to unconverted sinners. We know that this first epistle was directed toward Christians, “that [their] joy may be full” (1:4). Certainly, he is not writing that the joy of sinners may be full, but that the joy of the saints may be full, which proves that this epistle is directed toward those who already have a degree and measure of the joy of Christ. Only the saints have the joy of Christ.
Second, the great, holy and beloved Apostle includes himself by saying, “we”. He didn’t say, “If YOU say that you have no sin”, but he said, “If WE say that we have no sin…” This is a very remarkable and undeniably true observation. As holy as we know this great Apostle must have been, especially in the old age he was in when he wrote this epistle, he was still walking in such a degree of self-abasement and humility as to recognize his true condition before God, a condition that still had a measure of sin dwelling within the flesh and that didn’t yet have full and final redemption from the presence of sin (which would take place at final glorification – see 1 John 3:2). John knew that even he was not without sin, and he certainly knew he wasn’t “sinlessly perfect”, as some would say, which is why he includes himself in this statement.
Even the Apostle Paul agreed and admitted to the personal imperfections of his righteousness before God: “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 3:12-14). This was written at about 61 AD, which was after his third missionary journey. If sinless perfection could be obtained, then without a doubt it should have been obtained by the Apostle Paul after enduring so much hardship, living in such devotion, and following hard after God for so many years, being “not a whit behind the chiefest Apostles”. In context of the perfection of which Paul is speaking, he is speaking of “attaining unto the resurrection of the dead” (verse 10) by being found in the righteousness of Christ by faith (verse 9). So, namely, he is talking about righteousness, and admitting that even he didn’t have a perfect righteousness on this earth, looking forward to full and final redemption, which would take place in the final work of redemption at the time of glorification.
The third thing we must observe is that it is in the present tense. It is not talking in the past tense. In other words, he is not talking about one saying that they have no sin prior to conversion, but one saying they have no sin after conversion. He is talking about sin dwelling in some measure in born again believers, and that if anyone denies this, they deceive themselves, being blind to their own unworthiness in the sight of God.
This is what Jesus meant when He said, “Blessed are the poor in spirit”. Being poor in spirit is not something that happens one time before conversion and then no longer applies to a saint, but it is an ever-present admission of our personal wretchedness before God and of our utter and total dependency on Him. Being poor in spirit is a work of God’s grace, and if this grace ever fails to be applied to the heart of a believer, they quickly stumble around in their own delusions, thinking of themselves more highly than they ought, and soon find themselves deceived and in bondage to a despicable self-righteousness.
The Greek word translated, “we have” in the phrase, “If we say we have no sin”, is the word, “echo”. Thayer’s Greek Definitions describes it as having, holding or possessing in present tense, or to have oneself in a certain condition, and as a primary, present tense verb. Both Vincent’s Word Studies and Robertson’s Word Pictures, two scholarly and accurate works on the Greek language in which the New Testament was written, agree upon the fact that this scripture is written in the present tense. It is also agreed upon and translated in the present tense by every single English translation of the Bible, proving that the teams of hundreds upon hundreds of Greek scholars who have translated this passage universally agree that this is referring to the present tense. There is not a single well-known English translation that translates this scripture in the past tense, as referring to the past life of a believer prior to conversion, as some people falsely say.
If anybody professes to be a child of God, but has absolutely no admitted unworthiness and admits no present form of indwelling sin in some measure, then they deceive themselves and the truth is not in them. This is precisely what the Apostle John is saying.
The word “sin” literally means, “to miss the mark”. Which one of us, even among those of us who are the most holy and devout, can say that we have no emotions, feelings, tempers, thoughts, words or actions which fall short of the standards of God’s perfection? “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:23-24). To sin means to come short of the glory of God, and this is something that sinners and saints do alike (though there is a huge difference between the two). Thank God that the saints are “justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus”, and not by the performance and perfections that proceed after their initial profession of faith, or else we would all be doomed!
In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught His disciples to pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” This is how the Lord Jesus taught His holy Apostles to pray! Just prior to Him teaching them to pray for forgiveness for their sins, He said, “give us this day our daily bread”, clearly implying that this is a daily prayer that should be prayed. In other words, we need to constantly, in humility, recognize our shortcomings in the sight of God and humble ourselves under His mighty hand to ask for His mercy and grace to cover our offenses before Him. If we say we have no offenses before the all-seeing eyes of His holiness, we only deceive ourselves.
Granted, the saints of God do not live in sin. They do not willfully continue in any known form of sin like the unconverted do (Hebrews 10:26). To the saints, as soon as their own unworthiness, shortcomings, stumbles, or sins get brought to light, they are immediately abased and humbled. They utterly despise themselves for it. They hate it! And they confess it, repent and continue no more in it. They don’t practice any known form of sin. Once any form of inner or outer sin is brought to light by the searchlight of God’s Spirit, they are humbled at the feet of Christ, and they “go and sin no more”.
To the saints, sin is their bed of thorns, but to the unconverted, it is their hypocrite’s couch. Saints hate sin and do not continue in any known form of sin, but the unconverted lounge upon sin, and make excuses to justify it. A true saint will continually “walk in the light as he is in the light”, purging himself from every thing of darkness and uncleanness as soon as it is brought to the light, despising himself for it, and yield it to God to save him from it in a willing and earnest surrender, and he will continually walk in victory over all known sin; but an unconverted sinner will hold on to his sins because he loves them, and even if he may claim to love God with his mouth, he will continue to commit the same sins over and over and deny God by his actions. That’s the difference. Saints aren’t perfect, but they are striving for perfection, and while they are on the journey toward this perfection, they despise and even abhor themselves for their own imperfections.
This own self-abhorrence for inward corruption is not a self-condemnation or self-pity. These things come from the evil one. It is a self-abhorrence that produces “godly sorrow (which) worketh repentance”, and not “the sorrow of the world (which) worketh death” (2 Corinthians 7:10). This godly sorrow is completely different and distinct from depression. It is what Jesus meant by saying, “Blessed are the poor in spirit”, and “Blessed are those that mourn”, speaking of recognizing our own spiritual state before God, our personal guilt, helplessness, and of the utter emptiness of our own nature of everything good, and a conviction and realizing sense of being shut up to the grace of God alone for help. According to Jesus, this is a characteristic of the “blessed”, or in other words, a characteristic of true saints. There is a huge and fundamental difference between such godly sorrow and the sorrow of the world.
The error of many of those in the holiness crowd is that they fail to ever mention these truths. They preach holiness and sanctification until such a standard of perfection is implied that it is utterly impossible for anyone to meet these standards. Then, those who are actually true saints, but who have an awareness of their own unworthiness and poorness of spirit in the sight of God, begin to condemn themselves for their shortcomings and imperfections, until they begin to question their very salvation to begin with. Dear Lord, save us from this error!
THE REVIVALISTS AND GIANTS OF THE PAST AGREE TO THIS DOCTRINE
***NOT THE END***
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