13 - CHAPTER 11: NOT SINLESS PERFECTION
HOW THE DEVIL USES THE BOGEY OF "SINLESS PERFECTION" TO SCARE AWAY MANY SINCERE SOULS FROM SEEKING A LIFE OF HOLINESS Have we really grasped the fact that the Victorious Life is a gift from God? We may think of it as "the fullness of the Holy Spirit," or we may think of it as Jesus Christ dwelling in the heart. Personally, the writer finds the greatest help from the fact of the indwelling Christ, and the consciousness of this indwelling.
After all, the Holy Spirit’s chief work is to take of the things of Christ, and show them to us.
HOW TO GET A GIFT But however we may regard it, the Victorious Life is a gift. "If ye being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask Him?"
"If thou knewest the gift of God," said our Lord to a sinful woman, "and Who it is that saith to thee, ’Give Me to drink,’ thou wouldest have asked of Him and He would have given thee living water" (John 4:10).
Now what must I do to secure a gift? Just take it. If a gift is offered me for the asking, will it please the giver if, instead of taking the gift, I spend long weeks, or months, or years begging and praying and agonising for it? Would it give pleasure to a father and mother if their children sat up all night agonising in prayer for the Christmas gift they had promised to give them?
If they did such a thing, their "agonising" would have absolutely nothing to do with their receiving the gifts. One could well imagine the distressed father telling his children that if they didn’t cease their petitions and get to bed and trust him, they should get no gifts at all!
Jesus Christ is the great Christmas Day Gift. "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift" (2 Corinthians 9:15). That gift is ours. Someone has said, "Our Lord wants our lives on earth to be one long Christmas Day of receiving His gift of Himself as our victory."
We do not need to "agonise" about it; we do not need to work for it. Provided we are wholly surrendered to God, we have simply to "receive," "take" the Gift of Christ Himself. But did not Jesus Christ tell His disciples "to tarry in Jerusalem until [they were] endued with power from on high"? Yes, He did. "Wait," said He, "for the promise of the Father." But that was before Pentecost.
READY FOR OUR ACCEPTANCE
We never hear of the disciples after Pentecost telling believers to "wait" for this gift. In fact, we read in the 10th chapter of the Acts that the gift of the Holy Spirit fell upon "all them that heard the word," while St. Peter was yet speaking to the household of Cornelius, although none of them was yet baptised. The Holy Spirit was given to Gentiles without delay, on simple faith in Jesus Christ. There is no need today to wait at all. If we fulfil the conditions, we can claim the gift. The earliest disciples did not at first appreciate the value and necessity of this gift. Our Lord seems to have told "more than 500 brethren" to "tarry ye in the city, until ye be clothed with power from on high." Yet only 120 obeyed the command, and consequently only 120 received the gifts on the day of Pentecost-the gift meant for all.
Let us today make no mistake about this. Our Lord is longing to fill every believer with His Holy Spirit. Christ is desirous of dwelling in our entire hearts by faith. Not until we have surrendered our wills to Him and have yielded our bodies to Him as well as our souls can He fill us with Himself. This is what Paul means when he prays "that He would grant you to be strengthened by His Spirit with power penetrating to your inmost being" (Ephesians 3:16, Weymouth). "That ye may be filled unto all the fulness of God" (Ephesians 3:19), "till we all attain unto the measure... of the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13), "the fullness of Him that filleth all in all" (Ephesians 1:23).
CHRIST IN HIS FULLNESS
It is very wonderful that He should be willing to come. But it is a glorious thing that He should be willing to take absolute responsibility in our lives, because He cannot make a mistake, and He cannot fail.
It seems incredible that any believer should refuse such a gift. Again we urge you-receive Him in His fullness by faith. Do not wait for or expect any "thrill," any "ecstasy." You may feel one, and you may not. But take Christ at His word, and believe that He has come into your heart to be your life. Then rely upon Him to supply all your need.
"Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear My voice and open the door, I will come in to him" (Revelation 3:20). Bear in mind that Christ is already in the heart of every believer-even in the heart of one who is only following afar off. But in so many cases He is not filling the WHOLE heart. He has only partial possession; He has not complete control. There are often chambers of the heart which are shut against Him. And not only closed, but with a lodger within, and that lodger a burglar waiting his time to gain entrance to other rooms within. "If any man... open the door."
We Christians sometimes sing:
"O Jesu, Thou art standing Outside the fast closed door, In lowly patience waiting To pass the threshold o’er:
Shame on us, CHRISTIAN brothers, His name and sign who bear:
Oh, shame-thrice shame upon us, To keep Him standing there." And with the great majority of believers this is true of some part of the heart. But it isn’t so much the "shame" as the utter folly of it. For we know that He wishes to gain access to the whole of our hearts simply to bring richest blessing.
Paul implores the Roman Christians, "Yield yourselves unto God." He himself did so, and "heard His voice," with no closed door between-words unutterable; he felt joy unspeakable and full of glory, and in the fullness of his heart he cries, "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift."
TEMPTATION AND FAILURE
"Is it possible to lose the Victorious Life?" is a question often asked. Indeed, it is possible. Temptation will certainly come, and failure may occur. A great Christian leader of men told the writer, a few days ago, how he had sometimes temporarily lost the victory. "But," said he, "whenever I’ve failed, it has always been through the sin of worrying." Yet there NEED be no failure. We have a perfect Saviour. When we look back upon a break in this wonderful communion with Christ, we shall always have to confess that the failure need not have occurred.
SINLESS PERFECTION?
There are many saintly souls who openly declare that they never sin. They claim sinless perfection. They also claim that St. John teaches such a thing.
"We know that whosoever is begotten of God sinneth not, but He that was begotten of God (i.e., Jesus Christ) keepeth him, and the evil one toucheth him not" (1 John 5:18). "Whosoever is begotten of God doeth no sin, because His seed (Jesus Christ ) abideth in Him, and he cannot sin, because he is begotten of God" (1 John 3:9).
These statements refer not to single acts of sin, but to habitual sin. The tense used in the Greek does not imply that he cannot commit one definite act of sin, but that he cannot continue sinning; he cannot make a practice of sinning, or frequently repeat acts of sin; it is not his habit to sin. John is here speaking of known and voluntary sins, not of sins of infirmity or the falling short of the glory of God.
TENDENCY OR POSSIBILITY
Any man can sin. Any man can tell a lie. But we know what we mean when we say "An honest man cannot lie." We do not accuse George Washington of untruth when he declared "I cannot tell a lie!"
Every sin is against a good man’s nature. We say the "wood cannot sink." this is true. The tendency of wood is always to float. Yet there is always the possibility of its sinking. The hand of a child may submerge it; when sodden with water it will lie on the bottom. When the child releases it, it floats again. When a man is living the victorious life-a life maintained and actually lived for him by the indwelling Christ-there is no tendency to sin. He desires always to do those things which are pleasing to God. But there is always the awful possibility of his sinning. He may become absorbed in the "world;" he may allow temptation to gain entrance and the hand of Satan upon him may drag him down. So long, however, as a man is fully surrendered to Christ and in full communion with Him, he cannot sin. But such a life is a moment by moment victory through a moment by moment faith. At any time he can partially withdraw his surrender or break his communion. IN THE FATHER’S HANDS A railway coach attached to a moving locomotive cannot stop. But at any moment the coupling may break and a stoppage ensue. Let us, however, repeat the statement that no man need commit any known and voluntary sin. "He is able to keep (guard) that which I have committed unto Him." The marginal reading is, "He is able to guard that which He hath committed unto me" (2 Timothy 1:12).
Both statements are true-praise be to God. "He is able to keep you from stumbling" (Jude 1:24).
Moreover our Lord Himself says of His followers, "No man shall snatch them out of My hand" ... "And no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand" (John 10:28-29). And it is evident that our Saviour has made every provision for guarding us lest we snatch ourselves out of His hand. The victory over sin which is secured from faith in Christ is, however, a moment by moment victory, and we must ever be "looking unto Jesus, the Beginner and Finisher of our faith" (Hebrews 12:2). But thanks be to God, it isn’t our "looking unto Jesus" that gives us the victory, but "His looking unto us." Peter could see the Lord despitefully used, and whilst looking at Him could curse and deny that he knew Him. But when our Saviour "turned and looked upon Peter", no further denial was possible. Not our faith, but His faithfulness, is our safeguard. The indwelling Christ is more than equal to all emergencies. So long as we trust Him fully and obey His smallest behest-so long shall we continue in victory. Why then should a man ever commit any voluntary sin? And why are we surprised when a fully sanctified Christian man tells us he never sins knowingly? THE CAUSE OF FAILURE The reason why even fully consecrated Christians are sometimes "overtaken in a fault" is because the majority of believers are not fully surrendered to the will of God. It would be safe to say that most Christians think very little of such sins as pride, anger, irritability, impatience, jealousy, self-seeking, un-love and suchlike. It is, therefore, such an easy thing for a man living the Victorious Life to fall into any of these sins; so many of his fellow-Christians do so unblushingly. And should he fall probably no one is in the least surprised at it! Moreover, no one but a wholly sanctified man can reprove such a one, or he will get the reply, "Physician, heal thyself," or even be referred to the "beam" and the "mote." In fact, only a "spiritual" man can help him. As St. Paul says, "If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such a one" (Galatians 6:1).
Yet how easy it is to live the life of victory when in the company of wholly sanctified men and women! Oh, that there were many more such!
Why are we surprised when a man says he has reached a state of "sinless perfection"? Well, as a rule it is perfectly obvious to anyone but himself that he has not reached such an ideal. Sooner or later he is "overtaken in a fault." A saintly Christian man was recently arguing this point at a big luncheon party, and he claimed "sinless perfection" for himself. A fellow guest quietly said, whether in sincerity or as a test I know not, "Forgive me for saying so, but I was thinking you were a little greedy over your food!" "I’ve never yet been accused of greed over anything," flashed out the reply, "nor will I allow YOU to accuse me!" The warmth with which the retort was made raised a smile on the faces of all who heard it; practice and profession so evidently disagreed. This little story proves both the statements made above. The "sinlessly perfect" man is sometimes irritable and angry, and when he is "overtaken in a fault" the average Christian is both amused and pleased!
SINS OR "INFIRMITIES" The writer has had the privilege of meeting believers who claim "sinless perfection." He sat at a table with one at every meal for a week. To be quite frank he must acknowledge that he saw no outward trace of any sin. But this dear child of God took the writer to task in a kindly way for not preaching sinless perfection. This led to a long chat on the subject. My critic declared that a violent temper had been completely eradicated by the Lord Jesus. But he confessed to occasional feelings of impatience, irritability, and un-love. "These, however, I regard as INFIRMITIES and not as sins," said he. My experience is that when men who profess sinless perfection are tackled about it, they always maintain that "little" things which WE call sins are only infirmities. Brothers, take your infirmities to Christ, and let the "strength of Christ rest upon you" (2 Corinthians 12:9).
Sometimes, alas! great harm is done to the cause of Christ by men professing "sinless perfection," and boasting about it, even while allowing things in their lives which give the lie to their profession.
One such came to a friend of the writer to consult him on a business question. It was such an obvious case of sharp practice, if not of downright dishonesty, that my friend said in surprise, "How does such an act fit in with your profession of sinless perfection?" "Oh, business is business," came the impatient reply. "And I will have nothing to do with this piece of business, then," answered my friend.
We have dealt at length on this point because the devil uses the bogey of "sinless perfection" to scare away many sincere souls from seeking a life of holiness. Our position is just this: So long as a fully surrendered believer simply trusts the Lord Jesus to keep him and to conquer his temptations for him, he need not commit wilful sin. It is, therefore, quite legitimate and right and fitting that we should pray every morning, "Grant that this day we fall into no sin." "Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin." And Christ is able to keep us even from stumbling (Jude 1:24, RV). And He does keep us just so long as we trust Him to do so. Yet at any moment we may fall into sin. It is a moment by moment victory.
Many who read this will gladly confess to have experienced this freedom from known sin for five minutes, for ten minutes, for an hour, and for a much longer time. But we shall all sadly confess that at times we wilfully harbour a sinful thought and sometimes even commit knowingly some sinful act, falling under some sudden temptation. As we look back upon it, we are confident that we need not have sinned. It was "our own most grievous fault." Moreover, we find that the majority of such slips are due to unchristian acts or words of other believers. They are more often due to the low level of spiritual life in fellow-Christians than to the opposition of the world. Do not condemn us, but claim victory for yourself and so raise the standard around us. Claim victory for yourself, and show us by practical demonstration what a glorious life can be lived by one who is wholly Christ’s.