BLJ: Today we look at the distinction between initial salvation and holiness. In initial salvation, one has been saved from acts of sin while in entire sanctification, the sin principle in the heart has been removed. Again, we will read statements from various church leaders as they shed light on the subject.
It is that of partial, and of complete purity. The Christian who is but regenerated, is not cleansed from all dwelling sin, while the Christian who is entirely sanctified is entirely purified. Though regeneration and entire sanctification are of one nature, there is a distinction. There is both a doctrinal and an experimental difference; the first preceding and falling below the other, and there is a transition from one to the other.
The first includes, in addition to imparted spiritual life, the commencement of purification; the other is the possession of the same spiritual life with complete purification.
The regenerate state and the fully sanctified state differ in moral quality; grace and life in one case have antagonisms in the heart, -- in the other they have none. The "new life," or "new man," exists in an uncleansed soul in the former case, and in a purified soul in the latter. In the regenerate there is the new life unto righteousness, but not the complete death unto sin. In the entirely sanctified, the new life with all the graces of the Spirit exist in a pure heart.
1. Mr. Wesley says: "That believers are delivered from the guilt and power of sin we allow; that they are delivered from the being of it we deny. . . Christ, indeed, can no reign where sin reigns; neither will he dwell where sin is allowed. But he is and dwells in the heart of every believer who is fighting against all sin, although it be not yet purified. ... Indeed this grand point, that there are two contrary principles in unsanctified believers -- nature and grace, the flesh and the spirit, -- runs through all the Epistles of St. Paul, yea, through all the Holy Scriptures almost all the directions and exhortations therein are founded on this supposition, pointing at wrong tempers or practices in those who are notwithstanding acknowledged by the inspired writers to be believers." -- Sermon on Sin in Believers.
2. Bishop Hedding says: "The difference between a justified soul who is not fully sanctified and one fully sanctified, I understand to be this: the first (if he does not backslide) is kept from voluntarily committing known sin, which is what is commonly meant in the New Testament by committing sin. But he yet finds in himself the remains of inbred corruption, or original sin, such as pride, anger, envy, a feeling of hatred to an enemy, a rejoicing at a calamity which has fallen upon an enemy, &c. The second, or the person fully sanctified, is cleansed from all these inward involuntary sins." -- Sermon before N.J. Con.
3. Dr. Dempster says: "Do you, then, demand an exact expression of the difference? It is this the one admits of controlled tendencies to sin, the other extirpates those tendencies. That is, the merely regenerate has remaining Impurity; the fully sanctified has None." -- Sermon at Bible Institute.
4. Rev. Richard Watson says: "In this regenerate state, the former corruptions of the heart may remain and strive for the mastery, but that which characterizes and distinguishes it from the state of a penitent before justification, before he is in Christ, is, that they are not even his inward habit, and that they have no dominion." -- Institutes , vol. ii. p. 450.
5. Rev. Luther Lee says: The power of sin is broken, the tyrant is dethroned, and his reign ceases in the soul at the moment of regeneration; yet sin is not so destroyed as not to leave is mark upon the soul, and even yet struggle for the mastery."
There is still a warfare within; -- there will be found an opposing element in the sensibility of the soul, which, though it no longer controls the will, often rebels against it and refuses to obey it." -- "The will can and does resist them in a regenerate state; but it cannot silence them, renew, or change their direction by an act of volition." ... "These [propensities, passions, appetites] belong to the soul, and must be brought into harmony with right and the sanctified will before the whole soul can be said to be sanctified or to be entirely consecrated to God. When this work is wrought, then the war within will cease." -- Theology, pp. 212, 213.
6. Rev. William McDonald says:
1. "In regeneration, sin does not reign; in sanctification it does not exist.
2. "In regeneration, sin is suspended; in sanctification it is destroyed.
3. "In regeneration, irregular desires -- anger, pride, unbelief, envy, &c. -- are subdued; in sanctification they are removed.
4. "Regeneration is salvation from the voluntary commission of sin; sanctification is salvation from the being of sin.
5. "Regeneration is the old man bound; sanctification is the old man cast out and spoiled of his goods.
6. "Regeneration is sanctification begun; entire sanctification is the work completed." -- N. Testament Standard, p. 123
21. Is there a difference between sin and depravity?
There is, a very important difference.
1. Sin is "the transgression of the law," and involves moral action, either by voluntary omission, or willful commission, and it always incurs guilt.
2. Depravity is a state or condition, a defilement or perversity of spirit. It is developed in the soul, in inclinations to sin, or in sinward tendencies.
3. Sin, strictly speaking, is voluntary, and involves responsible action, and is a thing to be pardoned.
4. Depravity is inborn, inherited, and inbred. It is derived from fallen Adam, and is augmented by actual sin.
5. All sin involves guilt, depravity does not, unless it be assented to, yielded to, cherished, or its cure willfully neglected.
6. Depravity is one of the results of sin, and it may have somewhat of the nature of sin, in the sense of being a disconformity or unlikeness to God; and it is in this sense that "all unrighteousness is sin." Depravity lacks the voluntary element of sin, hence it is not a thing to be pardoned, like sin proper, but is to be removed from the soul by cleansing or purgation.
Regarding sin and depravity as the same, occasions much confusion on the subject of entire sanctification. Let it be borne in mind, the terms "inbred sin," "indwelling sin," and all others significant of inward pollution, are not used by us as significant of sin in its proper sense, but as an inward corruption or defilement.
"These [sin and depravity] are coupled together as though they were the same; but they are not the same thing. The guilt is one thing, the power another, and the being yet another. That believers are delivered from the guilt and power of sin we allow; that they are delivered from the being of it we deny." -- Wesley's Sermons, vol. i. p. 113.
Bishop Foster says, sin and depravity "are distinct the one from the other: since the depravity may exist without the act, and may be increased by the act, and the carnality may exist without the separate transgression to which it prompts, and is alleged to exist prior to the transgression." -- "Sin committed, and depravity felt, are very different; the one is an action, the other a state of the affections. The regenerate believer is saved from the one, and he has grace to enable him to have the victory over the other; but the disposition itself, to some extent, remains, under the control of a stronger, gracious power implanted, but still making resistance, and indicating actual presence, and needing to be entirely sanctified." -- Christian Purity, pp. 111, 121.
"Moral depravity," says Bishop Hamline, "is not in action or deed, but lies FARTHER BACK and DEEPER DOWN in our nature, at the fountainhead of all activity and character. It is enmity to God, and like the fatal worm at the root of the vine, withers every green leaf." -- Sermon on Depravity.
Rev. Dr. Steele, in "Love Enthroned," says: "The spirit of sin, or inbred sin, technically called original sin, because it is inherited from Adam, is the state of heart out of which acts of sin either actually flow or tend to flow. Until this state is changed, the conquest of love over the soul is incomplete. Regeneration introduces a power which checks the outbreaking of original into actual sin, except occasional and almost involuntary "allies in moments of weakness or unwatchfulness." -- p. 37.
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