A Guide to Christian Theology - Lesson 40

Well, now I want to talk about this thing we call sanctification, the approach to the Christian life, the whole area of discipleship. And part of why I want to spend the time on this is, from a theological perspective this has become very abstract, but this is the reality of pastoral life and discipleship life, is what do I have to work with with people? I think having a theological understanding of what we call sanctification is important, because there are really different models out there. But anytime I do these kinds of things, think back to the theological method I talked about. Gosh, that was a long time ago, wasn't it? Where, when I'm answering questions in what I call a retroductive method, what I want to do is go to various people from different theological tribes, different cultural backgrounds, and say, "How do you deal with this thing of the Christian life? What passage do you appeal to? How do you interpret key passages and differences to look for issues and possibilities?" And then say what view accounts for the most biblical data with the fewest difficulties?

But anytime I do this, I always want to begin by what are the points of agreement? Because we're going to disagree on some stuff, but there's a lot that we agree on as well. So when I think about the whole area of sanctification, we're all going to agree, and this is on your handout here, we all agree that we're justified and regenerated by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. Really, that's a point of agreement, so those are already true. We all agree that there's a difference between standing or position as accepted in Christ, and state or condition, at least at conversion. So I don't begin sinless, I begin with sinful desires. And every [inaudible] agrees that the difference between fully accepted as a child of God and the brattiness, as I term it, as a child of God, we all agree on this. Our standing is we're not guilty. We're accepted in Christ. Our sin is forgiven for coming into the family.

We all believe there's an imparted righteousness, the new heart, these are points of agreement. We all believe that there's a lot of work that needs yet to be done. So a phrase I've copied, "I am perfectly a child of God, but not a perfect child of God." And that's where we're at. We all believe that holiness, Christlike life, is a number one priority for all Christians. And I say that and I say but. When I look at the state of the church today, there's so much of the church today that is, it's okay to sin, God understands. And God is a forgiving God. God's the one who pursues. He's the one who jumps every wall and tears down every barrier. And so much emphasis on the love of God, the unconditional love of God, that I don't see in the contemporary church, at least as I'm recording this, but I don't think it's going to disappear anytime in the near future, is this idea for a call to holiness.

A call to transformation is not a part of our current world in the church today, at least not a primary thing. And I think this is a terrible mistake. I do want to say that justification apart from all works, but as I said, God is here to redeem a pure people. He will help us do that, but we have to make the effort. And I think there should be a renewed call to holiness in our church today. And frankly, I don't see it. We agree with that theologically, but ministerially, we're real hesitant to do that lest we be seen as moralistic and legalistic and religionist. And I think we need do that. Everybody believes, in the evangelical church, that all believers involved by the Holy Spirit had conversion. Now, if you're a Charismatic or Pentecostal and believe in the Spirit baptism of the second work of grace we talked about, there's more of the Holy Spirit, more of the release of the Spirit. But everybody agrees the Holy Spirit indwells the believer at conversion.

We all agree, including the holiness people, that absolute perfection is not possible in this world. Nobody's going to become perfectly wise, perfectly gracious, perfectly Christlike. Now, some will say, as I'll talk about, somebody can become sinless, but nobody says we can become perfect. And that's a misunderstanding. And I hear a lot of people saying about people from the Holiness tradition, "Well, you believe in absolute perfection." They actually don't. There may be some exception, but on the whole they say we're sinless but not perfect.

We all believe that the Holy Spirit gives us power for transformation and it's for all believers. The Holy Spirit empowers us to clean up the junk in our life and become Christlike. The power is there. We all agree that there's a distinction between willful sin, that rebelliousness, and depravity or bent character and evil desires. So again, to summarize it, we all believe there's a difference between a desire and then indulging that desire. Most of us are not going to say that the desire itself is sinful, it's when we start fantasizing or acting on the desire. But there is a part of the church that does believe that the desire itself deserves the title sin. But still there's a difference between a willful sin and just that depraved or sinful desire. And again, we all agree that they're empowering experiences of the Holy Spirit that happen after conversion. Whether you're Pentecostal, Charismatic or not, we believe the Holy Spirit continues to work in our life.

So these are some points of agreement in the church, and I think we need to really deal with those agreements really, really deeply before we get into some of the differences. So well, what are some of the differences? Good you asked. Again, I'm going through this really quickly, and I could do a whole class in sanctification. But one of the views is the Wesleyan view. John Wesley, his heart strangely warmed there at Aldersgate. And the Wesleyan tradition believes that there is justification by grace alone, through faith alone. Then the Romans 7 experience of struggle, struggle, struggle, struggle. And then there's a second work, again, sanctification, by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, apart from all works, where the Holy Spirit does His work and the bent to sinning, the sinful desires of the flesh is eradicated. So I no longer have those sinful desires in me, but the world and the devil are still active out there.

But there's no internal wanting to sin, there's no rebellious spirit in me. That's the Wesleyan view and that's the Holiness view. Almost nobody holds it today, of pure holiness, but I think it'll be back. But that idea, it's not something that I do, it's something that I receive, and it's a work of the Holy Spirit that eradicates the sin nature, the sinful desires. And now I can live a sinless life, simply by living in the freedom that I have from sinful desire and the power of the Holy Spirit not to yield to external temptation. That's the Wesleyan view. So you receive entirely by faith, a cleansed human nature, eradicating the sin nature, that happens subsequent to regeneration, and I just don't have those sinful desires anymore. Another view is the Keswick, K-E-S-W-I-C-K. Not Keswick, Brits don't know how to pronounce words.

The Keswick view, and this is still popular though not as much as it was a few years ago, the Keswick view, you could call the exchange life. So the normal Christian life is a sustained victory based on the finished work of Christ and the living presence of Christ. So it's let go, and let God. And this was the tradition that I tied into back after I came back to Christ and the Hudson Taylor Spiritual Secret. It's in a lot of things. And the idea is I am irredeemably sinful. Completely contrary to the Wesleyan view, the sin nature is not eradicated, nothing is eradicated in me. I remain completely sinful. My body, my spirit are just full of sin. But what happens is when I give up my willing and let the Holy Spirit control my life, then I can live a perfect life.

So these are both victorious life ideas. Wesleyan by eradication of the sin nature, I no longer sin. Keswick by giving up control of my life to the control of the Holy Spirit, I can live a sinless life. But the theology behind it could not be more different. So I do quite a bit of preaching around in different churches and I regularly, when in the prayer circle prior to the beginning I will hear somebody say, "Lord, just get me out of the way so that I see nothing but you." See, that's Keswick.

If I do it, it's going to be sinful, so get me out of the way. It's just you, Jesus, let you control everything. So not my desire, break my will, break my desires, break my thinking, only you. And that's that reservoir of Keswick thinking. I'm irredeemably sinful. If I do it, it's going to be bad. You can probably figure out already I don't agree with that, and I don't. But that picture that I can yield to the Holy Spirit's control, let go, let God. So the analogy that worked for me, back when I was strongly adhered to this view, I worked on a ranch when I was in high school, three summers I worked on Los Poblanos ranch there in Albuquerque.

And I begin the summer as a high school student, working on the hay crew primarily. And being a cheapskate, I'd buy a really good set of gloves, because you got to have gloves because it's really hard on your hands to be a farm worker. But by the end of the summer, there'd been so much sweat and such, my gloves became pretty resistant. So every morning I would go in early in the morning and I'd get my gloves out of the locker and I'd go out to the water trough and I'd slosh them around the water trough and I'd take my hay hook and I'd beat them up.

So break me, mold me, meld me, use me. And what I have to do is become a glove with the potter's hands. And my whole job is to have no will, nothing at all, because my will is always sinful, to [inaudible] pliable in the hands of the master. Let go, let God. If you know the original Campus Crusade, Four Spiritual Laws, the Four Spiritual Laws book got you saved. And then the second book, what we call the bird book. Have you discovered the wonderful secret of the spirit-controlled life? Which is get me off the throne, get Christ on the throne, that's Keswick. Because I am irredeemably sinful. Still quite a bit around of that today. Another basic view, I'm going to call it Reformed, but a lot of Reformed people don't hold this view. And that is the idea that I am justified. I'm completely the imputed righteous Jesus Christ.

But that doesn't change me, it's just a change of status. Nonetheless, I live under the demands of God and I just do my absolute very best, which is mixed at best, but I just gut it out for Jesus. So, just do it. And I think this is some of the Puritans, sitting in long, boring sermons. I mean, it's probably... Well, it may be true, I don't know. And when you start nodding off somebody bops you on the head, kind of thing, to keep you awake. There's certainly a part of that. And you just, every possible effort to keep the law of God. And actually Keswick and Wesleyan both were a response to that rugged moralism, just gut it out for Jesus. And you go from being... Well, the phrase with that is a miserable sinner, built on the idea of the Latin word [foreign language]. So I'm always aware of my own sinfulness, but rejoicing in the imputed righteous Jesus Christ.

So I have no righteous of my own at all, but I have the pure righteous of Jesus Christ. So I do everything I can, but I'm not really expecting much of a change. And there's still a lot of that around me today too, that rugged moralism. There's a rising contemplative view that says, if I just do the right kind of spiritual practices, if I do fasting and solitude and silence and journaling and those kinds of things, that I'll automatically be renewed by the refiner's fire. Sometimes that's paired with some sort of a mountaintop experience. The refiner's fire cleanses me. And that's a growing thing. Now, I'm a huge fan of spiritual practices, but those just opening myself up to the intimacy with God. But there's a group that makes that almost automatic. It's kind of a monastic movement that if I just live the monastic life and follow rhythms of the day and that kind of stuff, then I'll automatically become Christlike.

I'll think of different approaches. Another one, I don't know what to call it, exactly. I've got a picture, somebody actually sent it to me. There's a picture of an old man on an escalator, and as he steps onto the escalator, he falls backward on the escalator. And it's ironic to me how many people laugh when that happens. Because my pretty wife is unsteady on her feet because her arthritis, and an escalator is a scary thing for her. There is nothing funny whatsoever about somebody falling on an escalator. But everybody laughs at this thing when the old guy starts falling backwards. But that's the picture of sanctification for some, is the only thing I contribute to my holiness is my falling down, my sinfulness. It's the grace of God that automatically makes me Christlike.

And I just think this is nuts. But the idea is that if we just rely on Christ, He will automatically make us holy. Very briefly here and then I will unpack a little bit, I take a view, it's called New Covenant sanctification. This is Dallas Willard, John Piper, Wayne Grudem. I mean, a lot of us hold that same kind of thing. Craig Keener holds this view as a Pentecostal. The idea here is that, as I've said before, at conversion, that conversion package gives me some truths. I am completely forgiven as coming into the family. So I've got a new identity, child of God. I've got a new heart. My base desires are godly desires. I've got a new power, the indwelling Holy Spirit. I've got a new resource, the community of Christ. And when you put those together, those are all true of every single believer.

But then I've got a call on my life to keep in step with the Spirit, to put off the sinful things and put on the godly things. So what I'm going to outline for you is a synergistic work, a partnership work, where it's me and the Holy Spirit, me and the community of the Spirit working together to grow a righteous, godly life. And that New Covenant view says that the deepest desires in my life are godly, but not necessarily the strongest desires in my life. Because I've got sinful desires and habituated practices that are really, really powerful. My deepest desire is I want to be like Jesus, and I hate this other piece of me because it leads me in places I don't want to go, but I do want to go. And that's the warfare, the ongoing reality of the believer's life as I see it.

So New Covenant model of sanctification, I get a new identity, child of God. I get new desires, that new heart, I get new power in dwelling in the Holy Spirit. A new community, community of the spirit. Those are all conversion realities that are true for everybody. And then I live out that reality, making every effort to add to my Christlike life with more Christlike life. Put off the old, put on the new. And I progressively mature. But in my view, I never attain that spot where I'm completely rid of sin in this life. And I think there are besetting sins. I'm an old man and I've still got some besetting sins that just... "There I go again." And I hate it, I react against it. People help me. But for me, it's... You ever hear of a stupid button?

Mm-hmm.

That's my besetting sin. "Let me show you how stupid you are." I'm supposed to bless people and I want to put stupid buttons on them. And I just find myself doing that. May not come out my mouth, but it's sure in my head. And that's a besetting sin. Now there's a place where I can point out, "You've got some areas of growth and let me help." That's not a sin, but stupid buttons, sin. That's what's sanctification about. What do you do about the stupid button desires in your life? Well, that's what we'll work on.

Dr. Beshears, you made a distinction between being sinless and being perfect. Can you clarify that?

Well, I'll try. We'll see how it goes. The key is -- this is from a Wesleyan holiness view -- sin in that view is a willful rebellion against the known law of God. It's when I say, "No," to God. And I may not say it in that way, but I'm just not going to do that. That's sin, from that view. A sin from a more reform perspective, anything, an act, thought or character. So a sinful desire, for a fair number of Reformed person, is sin. So I'm going to talk from the Wesleyan perspective. Sin is that rebellious no. Or for me, there's just the stupid thing, when I act on that desire to let people know how stupid they are.

So the idea from a Wesleyan perspective is because the internal sin nature is eradicated, I don't sin. Everything I do is motivated by love, so I don't sin. But perfection means I have all wisdom. So as a husband, there are things where in relation with Sherry, I could be sinless, I could desire to help her. But I'm not wise enough to know how to help her. She deals with, in her case, issues of arthritis and things around that. So I'm not sinning against her when I offer her advice or something like that. I'm just not being wise in knowing how the best way to do it. So I need to grow in wisdom, but I'm not sinning when I do that. So the distinction is I can be unwise and not sin.

Okay. Let me ask another question. You didn't raise the verse, but the verse said, "There's no sin that's not common to us but in that God will always give you a way out." And it sounds like-

Actually he didn't say that. Okay, we got to get the Bible.

Correct my quote and tell me how that can be true, and yet we still sin despite our best motives.

Yeah. That particular phrase is in 1 Corinthians 10:13. And it's commonly misstated, as you did, "There's no sin." But in fact, it says, "There's no temptation that is overtaken except what is common in mankind is God is faithful, not going to let you be tempted," tempted, "beyond you can bear." So temptation, I think there's always a way out of temptation. God has given us the power of the Holy Spirit and the community to overcome temptation to sin. But there are, in those spots, I am not godly enough or wise enough to be able to carry that out, from my view. So the power is available to me, but I don't have the wisdom to use the power. So I don't have the confidence or competence in that power to actually do it. I end up sinning, even as a mature person. Now earlier on, that sinful desire is still there, and that can be a very powerful, sinful desire.

So temptation, God always provides a way out, but doesn't mean that I end up doing it. I think we can have a much, much higher view of holiness than many believe today. And I think this verse is true, I think God has given us a way out. But I'll say on the other side that there are situations when I get into it, there is no sinless way out. I think there And that's where I choose the least evil thing, the least sinful thing of the various options that are actually available to me. So I think there are spots, when we get into it, there's no sinless way out.