My fascination with this word consists mainly in the implications of seeing life as one big thlipsis. If we pray that Christ would increase, and we would decrease, it naturally follows that in answering this prayer God would put us through tight spots to help the process. He reduces us so that Christ can increase.

Some of us God might even have to put through a big, final thlipsis at the judgment if he finds us still too full of ourselves to wedge through the pearly gates. I think I’d prefer the narrow road beforehand to that eternal embarrassment.

Dennis Kinlaw says it best: “When you come across an opportunity to sacrifice yourself, to lay down your own life,  you ought not run.” What most resembles death and pain to us just may be the birth pangs of new life, the Life.

One “David h” commented on last week’s post by pointing out that Christians still have growing to do, even after being perfected. Wesley concurrently notes the error in the myth of “perfection of degrees,” or no longer needing any further maturation. Sermon 13: On Sin in Believers gives an explanation of the ongoing struggle between nature and grace, Spirit and flesh, in the heart of even sanctified believers. Before getting too hot and heavy, Wesley defines his terms and boundaries like a good theologian:

“By sin, I here understand inward sin; any sinful temper, passion, or affection; such as pride, self-will, love of the world, in any kind or degree; such as lust, anger, peevishness; any disposition contrary to the mind which was in Christ. The question is not concerning outward sin; whether a child of God commits sin or no. We all agree and earnestly maintain, ‘He that committeth sin is of the devil.’ We agree, ‘Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin.’ Neither do we now inquire whether inward sin will always remain in the children of God; whether sin will continue in the soul as long as it continues in the body: Nor yet do we inquire whether a justified person may relapse either into inward or outward sin…”

Oddly enough, the main objection Wesley goes on to address is not the commonly held position that Christians still commit outward sin. He argues against the Moravian view of absolute imputed holiness, that is, from the moment you are saved, you are never more nor less holy. He gives a very brief dismissal of the former position, and instead spends the bulk of his time on the latter, arguing from scripture, tradition, and experience for an ongoing renewal of the believer.

This sermon pretty much writes itself from the definitions. I’m sorry to everyone who thought this was going to be more complicated, but “outward sins” are not heavily treated beyond the section above. What Wesley would call inward sin, others may call “sins of omission” or “points of growth.” Even these, he says, have no power over us after we are justified. They remain, but they do not reign. We are told to fight against them and prayerfully watch out for them, lest we fall into temptation.

So, to sum up Wesley’s view of inward sin in believers: 1) There exist in every believer two natures, the Spirit and the flesh, 2) sanctification is a process of putting to death by the Spirit what is fleshly in us, and 3) the flesh does not reign in a heart occupied by the Spirit.

To sum up his view of outward sin in believers: 1) Maybe next time.

And now, blogger world, bring the rain. You scare me to death.

So often I hear people say, “Nobody’s perfect. I’m human. I still make mistakes.” What they really mean, though, is that they are in sin, and do not believe in the power of Jesus Christ to free them from sin. I believe wholeheartedly, both from scripture and experience, in freedom from the bondage of sin. I also agree that, yes, we are all in fact human. But Wesley, and also the Bible, leaves sin noticeably off the list of things that are inescapably human. If you are a Bible-believing Christian, you must come to terms with verses like Matthew 5:48: “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” You must face the fact that sin has no place in the call of Jesus, and that his call is not an impossible standard, but an expected response.

No doubt this topic is extremely polarizing in the Church today, as it was in Wesley’s time. But a close look at what perfection does and does not mean should clear up a few misconceptions, and you may even agree with Wesley more than you would ever care to admit in public, or at least in church.

Wesley begins by admitting the stigma attached to the mention of Christian perfection. Apparently in his day, strikingly similar to our own, people were urging him to hold off preaching explicitly on the topic. To this Wesley replies, “But are [expressions of perfection] not found in the oracles of God? If so, by what authority can any messenger of God lay them aside, even though all men should be offended?” To this I sound a hearty “Amen” into the echoing hollow of seeker sensitivity. Honestly, what authority do we have to not preach perfection when it is so obviously treated by both the apostles and Jesus himself? So now that we are unashamedly preaching perfection, what the heck does it mean to be perfect?

Perfection Is Not…

Christians are not perfect in knowledge, or as Wesley puts it, “innumerable are the things that they know not.” This is obvious from a quick recollection of the fact that God is God, and we are not.

Neither are Christians free from ignorance or mistakes. Now, Wesley qualifies this by adding that mistakes here do not include things essential to salvation. A perfect Christian never puts darkness for light, or light for darkness, “But in things unessential to salvation they do err, and that frequently.” They are not infallible, in other words, and “It is a proof that we are not more to expect any living man to be infallible, than to be omniscient.”

Christians are not free from infirmities. And not only bodily infirmities, but also the outward imperfections which, again, are not of a moral nature essential to salvation. This includes confusion, slowness of understanding, incoherency of thought, ungracefulness of pronunciation (whew!), and so on.

Christians are not free from temptations. Jesus himself was tempted in every way that we are yet without sin. It may set you free to recognize the difference between sin and temptation, but that’s another sermon, perhaps for next week.

Finally, Christians are always growing in perfection and will never stop growing until they die. Everyone is at a different stage in their walk with Christ and needs mature to the stature of the fullness of Christ.

Perfection Is…

A Christian, even in his primal stage of infancy, has ceased from sin. This immediately throws out the “sin=human” pseudo-equation. Even those who are babes in Christ, according to I John 3:6-10, have been given this privilege, that they should no longer continue or live in sin.

Wesley answers at length many contemporary objections which, again, are similar to some I encounter today. For example, many would point out that David sinned with Bathsheba and Uriah. Wesley responds by pointing out (Matthew 11:11) that even the least in the Kingdom of God, having been born of the Spirit, is greater than the greatest man ever born of a woman, not David, but John the Baptist. Much more, then, do those belonging to the Kingdom cease from sin in the plain sense of the term. As Jesus Christ was manifested in the flesh to take away our sins, died having become the curse, rose in the power of God, and ascended shedding his Spirit on all flesh, he successfully provided the means and the end of Christian perfection. We are now made more than conquerers over sin by the Spirit of the one who has ascended, leading captivity captive, and giving the gift of His Spirit to men (Ephesians 4:8). The power of the Spirit has now come to us as it had not until Jesus ascended and was glorified. Christians are not to be measures by the same standards as those in the Old Testament, having received a far superior ministry. Wesley invites anyone to prove that not sinning is to be understood in any other sense than the plain, obvious one, they should do it from the words of the New Testament. He then takes on those commonly used passages from the NT which seem to indicate a Christian, even an Apostle such as Paul, not having ceased from sin. Time is failing me now to summarize these arguments, but they include Paul’s “thorn in the flesh,” and others of note.

After sufficiently covering the fact that Christians live free from sin, he clarifies the ramifications of this fact. Christians are freed from evil thoughts, and cease from inward as well as outward sin. They also are freed from evil tempers, as the Master was free from these, and we are perfect if we are like the Master (I John 3:3; 4:17).

As he comes to a close, and this is what really drives this sermon home for me, Wesley emphasizes not the burden of having to be perfect in order to be saved. Rather, he emphasizes the promises of God to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. Perfection is the expected response because God Himself brings it about. If we believe God is able to do all he has said, we believe he is able to perfect us. He saves us from our sins when we repent to live the life of Jesus by the Spirit. Sin has never been a part of the package, and never should be.

I hope I was clear in communicating this. Let me know if you have questions or concerns.

Having said that, I will direct your attention to the first of hopefully many weekly reviews (playfully labeled “Tuesdays with Wesley”) of selected John Wesley sermons. Today’s Wesley tidbit comes from Sermon II, entitled “The Almost Christian.” In this sermon, Wesley lays out what is implied in being an almost Christian and contrasts this with what he sees as an altogether Christian.

Wesley puts forth three defining characteristics of the almost Christian. First, he sees in him a “heathen honesty.” By this he means that he does what common men expect of each other. He expects and administers true justice, abstains from slander, and “holds him in abomination…who called God to be the witness of a lie.”  Second, an almost Christian follows a form of godliness, “having the outside of a real Christian.”  So in addition to heathen honesty, the almost Christian actually professes the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. He abstains from all worldly vice, and follows the golden rule: “Whatsoever thou wouldest not he should do unto thee, that do not thou to another.”  He goes to church, receives the sacraments, and worships the Lord, all in humility and fervor; he even goes so far as to lead his family in devotions and spiritual direction. Thirdly, he does all of this from a sincere heart and good intentions. Wesley points out that the almost Christian even surpasses both the heathen and religious standards in a non-hypocritical way. He is genuine, he keeps it real. Wesley then states that he himself had achieved almost Christianity, “Yet my own conscience beareth me witness in the Holy Ghost, that all this time I was but almost a Christian.”

Wesley then turns to defining an altogether Christian. An altogether Christian, first of all, loves God with all his heart, soul, mind and strength.  “Such a love is this,” he adds, “as engrosses the whole heart, as takes up all the affections, as fills the entire capacity of the soul, and employs the utmost extent of all its faculties.”  Second, the altogether Christian loves his neighbor as himself.  “Who is my neighbor?” you ask? Wesley replies, “Every man in the world; every child of His who is the Father of the spirits of all flesh.”  He then points to I Corinthians 13 for a detailed description. Finally, the altogether Christian possesses “the ground of it all, even faith.”  Wesley reminds us from I John 5:4, that “this is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith.”  And not only faith that God exists and belief in the information available about God through the Bible. Even the demons, Wesley says, believe every word of both the Old and New Testaments, “And yet for all this faith, they be but devils.”  He adds, “It is diligently to be noted, the faith which bringeth not forth repentance, and love, and all good works, is not that right living faith, but a dead a devilish one.”

To sum up, I point out Wesley’s concluding challenge to his audience (I can only imagine being in earshot of Wesley when he originally delivered this sermon). He asks, “Are not many of you conscious that you never came thus far; that you have not been even almost a Christian; that you have not come up to the form of Christian godliness? Much less hath God seen sincerity in you, a real design of pleasing him in all things. You never so much as intended to devote all your words and works, your business, studies, diversions, to his glory. You never even designed or desired that whatsoever you did should be done ‘in the name of the Lord Jesus,’ and as such should be ‘a spiritual sacrifice, acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.’” How many of you (and I ask myself as well) are not even almost Christians? How many of you are almost Christians?

May we all together cry out, “My God and my All,” and thus be transformed by the grace of God into altogether Christians.