We continue our study.
If none are saved without entire sanctification, what becomes of those who deny this doctrine?
1. God will permit nothing unholy to enter heaven. "Without which (holiness) no man shall see the Lord." This declares that purity (a certain moral quality) is requisite to admission into heaven. The "pure in heart" alone "shall see God." Before men leave this world they must be purified and made perfectly holy, or they can have no place in the kingdom of God. God has no two sets of conditions for believers; all are to be cleansed from all sin by the blood of Christ, either before or at death.
2. Justification and regeneration do not supersede entire sanctification, which is a full preparation and the only preparation for heaven. A state of continued justification, in the gracious order of God, includes the assurance of entire sanctification. All justified souls are God's children, are heirs of eternal life, and have a title heaven, and cannot fail of their inheritance if they do not forfeit their justification by apostasy. All men will be saved who die in a justified state before God, as all such are children of God by adoption, are absolved from the guilt of actual sin by pardon, and are free from any voluntary antagonism to holiness. Sudden death to such finds them covered with the covenant of grace, similar to the dying infant, which entitles them to the merits of Christ and heaven. Justified believers, in the event of their sudden death, stand in the same relation to God that infants do, and He (not death) perfects that which is lacking in them. Infants are justified, but they are not entirely sanctified. Dying infants go to heaven, but not without first being entirely sanctified, not by death, but by the blood of Christ.
3. A justified state implies an obedient spirit, and every one who maintains his justification is following after holiness, and his holiness or entire sanctification has begun. Every justified believer is partially sanctified, and has only to fully trust Jesus to be entirely sanctified; and all persevering believers will obtain this grace before death, inasmuch as the promise of eternal life carries with it the pledge on God's part to bestow all needed grace. (Eph. v. 27; Phil. i. 6 Jude, 24. )
4. Although many Christians seem to deny this doctrine, they do, in fact, admit it virtually, if devoted to God. All true Christians have longings after it, and in different phraseology allow in substance what we claim for the entirely sanctified. Some, we believe, in all the several denominations have obtained what we claim as holiness, and, as already stated, all believers who are faithful unto death, so trust in Christ and renounce self that he makes them perfect in love and takes them home to heaven. They might have experienced it many years before, and lived as well as died in its possession, had they been properly instructed.
Thousands of believers would obtain perfect love if ministers more generally understood the doctrine, enjoyed the experience, and faithfully preached and lived it themselves. It is not essentially necessary that all persons use our phraseology, or that they have a very minute theoretical knowledge of the doctrine, in order to its experimental knowledge. But whatever our views or expressions on the theory of holiness, only those who die in possession of purity can enter the heavenly city.
"It is most absurd to suppose," says Dr. George Peck, "that a justified soul can be lost, without having forfeited his justification by backsliding." Christian Perfection, p. 28.
Dr. John Dempster says: "While it is true that no believer is lost, and that none with impurity is saved, it is equally true that no one retains his justification and dies without sanctification. Apostasy or purity is the only possible alternative after regeneration." -- Sermon at Biblical Institute.
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