Edward Heppenstall
To be right with God is the most vital thing in life. Apart from all we
do, all we have, what about us as creatures standing before our Creator?
How do we stand with God? Paul declares that the only way to be right
with God is to be clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ.
I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ
Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and
do count them but dung, that I may win Christ, and be found in him,
not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which
is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by
faith. (Phil 3:8, 9)
The Sinner's
Only Hope
The perfect righteousness of Christ is the only answer to the sin problem
in any man's life, the only possibility of living like Christ here and
now. "Our righteousness"-the best we can do and are in ourselves-are
"as filthy rags" (Isa 64:6). Rags because they do not cover us, and filthy
because they leave us in our defilements and our sins.
Many sincere Christians express dissatisfaction over
the fact that they continually fall short of perfection. Many admit of
continual failure in the spiritual life, of repeating sins again and again,
of giving way to habit patterns contrary to the life of Christ. When they
read the command of Christ: "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father
which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt 5:48), the effect is both condemnation
and discouragement.
In almost all the great revivals believers have sought
in one way or another to attain to perfection of living. They have longed
for it, prayed for it, and worked for it. But the testimony of all great
Christians is that they have never attained to it; that the more they
strived and the closer they came to Christ, the deeper was their sense
of inadequacy and inherent sinfulness. While their lives bore testimony
to victory over sin, at the same time they felt a deeper sense of their
own need and unworthiness. Ask Peter, James and John. Ask Martin Luther
and John Wesley. Ask the noblest souls that the Christian church has ever
seen, the most zealous spirits that mankind has ever produced. With one
mighty chorus and with one accord they exclaim with Paul:
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. (Phil 3:12-14)
If
there is one central truth borne out in Scripture in the experience of all
true believers who have come to know the saving power of God, it is this:
that the only perfection, the only sinlessness they have ever seen or known
has been that of Jesus Christ, the only perfect and sinless man; that because
of this Jesus is the whole of their salvation, the whole of their righteousness
and perfection. To be a genuine Christian means faith in Christ, fellowship
with Christ, faithfulness to Christ, and fruitfulness for Christ. Faith
means that man has no perfection and no righteousness of and in himself;
that man trusts wholly and solely in Christ.
Biblical
Perfection
One
of the hindrances to living the Christian life successfully is failure to
understand what the Bible teaches on the nature of sin and perfection. A
grave misapprehension lies at the root of much of the false teaching on
this subject. The Bible, in applying the term "perfection" to believers,
never means "sinlessness." There are at least nine different Hebrew words
and six Greek words translated "perfection." Noah is said to be "perfect
in his generations" (Gen 6:9). Of Asa, the King of Judah, we read: "But
the high places were not removed: nevertheless Asa's heart was perfect with
the Lord all his days" (1 Kings 15:14). "If any man offend not in word,
the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body" (James
3:2). "We speak wisdom among them that are the perfect" (1 Cor 2:6).
The Bible writers are not saying that these men are sinless.
The meaning is that of spiritual maturity, full grown spiritually, ripe
in spiritual understanding, whole in response to god, keeping nothing back.
A "perfect" Christian is one whose heart and mind are permanently committed
to Christ, cannot be moved. Noah, Abraham, and Job were all declared to
be "perfect" men. Yet the history of their lives shows that they were far
from being sinless.
If one's view of sin is shallow enough, sinless perfection
would not be an impossible achievement. It is a defective view of sin that
leads to a wrong understanding of perfection. If sin simply means a deliberate,
willful doing of what is known to be wrong, then no Christian should commit
this kind of sin. But if sin includes also a man's state of mind and heart,
man's bias toward sin, sin as an indwelling tendency, then perfection presents
a totally different picture.
What God
Expects of His People
There are some Christians who believe that it is possible in this life
to reach a point in spiritual development, where the sinful nature is
completely eradicated and therefore, no longer operative. The Bible does
teach that the genuine Christian life is one of uniform and sustained
victory over all known sin. The normal Christian experience should be
one of victory and not constant defeat.
Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive
unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord. Let not sin therefore reign
in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof. Neither
yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin: but
yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and
your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall
not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under
grace. What then? shall we sin, because we are not under the law, but
under grace? God forbid. (Rom 6:11-15)
There is one truth that every believer needs to learn who would fully
enjoy complete salvation in Christ. It is the need to abide in Christ,
to look continually to Christ, to depend wholly on Christ and His righteousness.
God's method of salvation is not eradication of a sinful nature, but the
counteraction of divine power through the Holy Spirit. Only by the continual
counteracting presence of the Holy Spirit is it possible to be victorious
over sin and the sinful nature within us.
It is fatal to believe that if only we become totally
surrendered to Christ, that the sinful nature is eradicated. The law of
sin and death is still operating within us. It is something that remains
in us as long as we live. Victory over all known sin does not mean sinlessness.
It does mean the glorious opportunity in Christ to strive successfully
against all sin and overcome it. But this is an experience that must be
maintained day by day through fellowship with and surrender to Christ.
The Christian life is a lifelong battle. So long as the believer abides
in Christ, real holiness and victory are possible. What we have in the
every-day life is the counteracting power of God against our sinful tendencies
and our sinful natures.
O wretched man that I am. Who shall deliver me from the body of this
death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind
I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin. There
is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus,
who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. For the law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin
and death. (Rom 7:24-8:2)
Salvation in Christ alone means that the bias to sin in human nature is
too strong and overwhelming to be dealt with apart from moment by moment
trusting in Christ and in His power to save. The law of sin and death
is operating all the time. Deliverance comes by means of a higher law,
a higher power-the law of the Spirit, the mightiest power of
God which counteracts the law of sin in our members. Peter sank in the
waves the moment he took his eyes off Christ. He sank because he had the
tendency to sink in water. The only thing that kept him walking on top
of the sea was the power of Christ momentarily exercised counteracting
the gravitational power to pull him down. So it is in the Christian life.
There is always a conflict in this earthly life between
the flesh and the Spirit:
This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust
of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit
against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that
ye cannot do the things that ye would. But if ye be led of the Spirit,
ye are not under the law. (Gal 5:16-18)
The Christian must walk continually in the Spirit. Never in this life
will the Christian arrive at the place where he can dispense with the
counteracting power of Christ against the sinful tendency in his life.
Only through the continual, day by day operation of the Holy Spirit is
our sinful nature counteracted. The sinful nature is not eradicated until
the day of the resurrection, until this "mortal shall have put on immortality."
The Christian learns to live in the sphere of the Spirit, not in the sphere
of the flesh. The believer is never beyond the reach of temptation or
the possibility of sinning. But in Christ he is brought into a position
of victory over all known sin. Sin no longer has dominion over him.
Sinful Nature:
Controlled But Not Eradicated
The greatest men in the Bible never claimed sinless perfection. They were
all painfully aware of the fact that they were sinners and remained so
throughout their lives. So long as a man is in a state of sin with a sinful
nature still present in him, he will confess himself to be a sinner. The
Christian always recognizes himself to be a sinner in need of divine grace.
If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves,
and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is
not in us. (1 John 1:8-10)
We find here the most solemn warning against the doctrine
of sinless perfection in this life. The incontrovertible meaning of this
passage is that the man is a self-deceiver who claims for himself what
the apostle John dared not claim. The truth is not in him. The doctrine
of sinless perfection leads to the conclusion that both Christ and the
Holy Spirit are unnecessary once this state of eradication of the sinful
nature is reached. Wherever the professed Christian claims to have the
sinful nature eradicated in his life, there is a corresponding loss of
true dependence upon Christ. There is a break in the only saving relationship
that man needs for victory. This allows people to sin and call evil good.
It discourages those who strive to be like Christ, but fall short of this
false idea of perfection.
It is God's will that, having surrendered to Christ
at conversion as best he knows, the believer will maintain that attitude
that as fast as anything further is revealed to him contrary to the will
of God, he will promptly give that up also. God will see to it that throughout
the Christian life here on earth, there will be deeper insights into the
sinfulness and selfishness of our own natures. There will be increased
dependence, increased repentance, and prayer for forgiveness. The believer
will never come to the place where he will not pray the Lord's prayer:
"Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."
By this increased insight, we shall continually need an increased "looking
unto Jesus the author and the finisher of our faith." There are no limits
to God's power. He is always willing and able to give us the victory.
But man limits God by virtue of his lack of insight and lack of surrender.
In proportion to the maturity and completeness of his knowledge will be
the completeness of his surrender and victory.
By Grace
Alone: True Meaning
The
basic doctrine of the Christian faith is salvation by grace alone. This
doctrine represents the final renunciation of either human effort or the
human claim to perfection. Christ is our sole perfection, our sole righteousness.
In ourselves we are never sinless. But so long as we look to Christ, sin
and self cannot prevail.
The pretension to sinless perfection at any time in this
earthly life is the root of spiritual pride and self righteousness. The
Christian does not deny that the new life in Christ is capable of a new
righteousness, of victory over sin. He only insists that it is not his righteousness,
not his victory, but Christ's.
There will be no point in spiritual achievement in this
life where one may rest with the certainty that he will sin no more, or
that he does not stand before God as a sinner in need of divine grace and
power. The Christian knows that there still remains in him a fountain of
evil, a depraved nature.
Salvation by grace alone means that absolute perfection
and sinlessness cannot be realized here and now. Righteousness by faith
means that we look continually and exclusively to Christ; that we look away
from ourselves and any hope in ourselves altogether in order to live out
of Him alone. Genuine salvation directs us at once to Christ, to the only
perfect life lived here on the earth, and to His redemption through the
Cross. What is absolutely central is Jesus Christ. Man's victory over sin
is exclusively the work of God in Christ, the continual control of the life
by the Holy Spirit; that through daily union with Christ we actually participate
in Christ's holy life.
The righteousness of Christ that saves is not the beginning
of a new self-righteousness, but the perpetual end of it. It is a perpetual
living in Christ from a center and source beyond us and our wisdom and power.
We live continually out of a risen Christ and never out of ourselves. Victory
is through the continual operation of the Holy Spirit, because the Christian
life consists in the fruits of the Spirit and the power of God.