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Augustinian and Wesleyan Vows of Holiness By J.I. Packer

holiness is a weighty and evocative word and who can wonder holiness signifies first of all all that marks God out as separate set apart from men and second all that should mark out Christians as set apart for God holiness is both God's gift and his command we are to pray for it and practice it each day of our lives holiness was the goal of our election and redemption and holiness remains the goal of God's providential dealings with us look at these scriptures 1st Peter 1 verses 15 and 16 as he who called you is holy be holy yourselves in all your conduct since it is written you shall be holy for I am holy 1st Thessalonians 4 verses 3 & 7 and then 5 23 this is the will of God your sanctification God has not called us for uncleanness but for holiness sanctification of holiness there by the way of the same Greek word and then may the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly and may your spirit and soul and body be kept sound and blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ or take this from Ephesians God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and blameless before him that's chapter 1 verse 4 and then this is chapter 5 verses 25 through to 27 Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word that he might present the church to himself in splendor without
spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without blemish
and then to verse chapter 2 verse 10 we are God's workmanship created in Christ
Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand but we should walk in them
and then Romans 12 and verse 1 Paul writes I appeal to you therefore
brethren by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living
sacrifice holy and acceptable to God which is your spiritual worship finally
second Corinthians 7 verse 1 let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement
of body and spirit and make holiness perfect in the fear of God the thrust of
those texts taken together cannot be evaded let's remind ourselves then what
holiness is it's the distinctive quality of Christian living viewed both as the
expression of one's being set apart for God and as the outworking of one's inner
renewal by his grace with rumbling rhetoric the Puritan John Owen
explicates this by defining sanctification as the work of the
Christians God transforming him and see and and Owen defines holiness as the
lifestyle of the person being thus transformed in the following way I quote
Owen sanctification is an immediate work of the Spirit of God on the souls
of believers purifying and cleansing of their natures from the pollution and
uncleanness of sin renewing in them the image of God and thereby enabling them
from a spiritual and habitual principle of grace to yield obedience unto God
according to the tenor and terms of the New Covenant by virtue of the life and
death of Jesus Christ hence it follows that our holiness which is the fruit and
effect of this work the work as terminated in us as it as it comprises
the renewed principle or image of God brought in us so it consists in a holy
obedience unto God by Jesus Christ according to the terms of the Covenant of
Grace from the principle of a new nature lumpy yes weighty yes again true
I think so you don't usually consult Owen and find anything that isn't
exactly accurate so holiness is the fruit of the spirit displayed in one's
walk by the spirit it's obeying God it's living to God and for God it's
imitating God it's keeping his law it's doing righteousness that's performing
good works it's following Christ's teaching and example it's worshiping God
in the spirit it's loving and serving God and men out of reverence for Jesus
Christ in relation to God it takes the form of a single-minded passion to
please by love and loyalty by devotion and praise in relation to sin it takes
the form of a resistance movement a matter of not gratifying the desires of
the flesh but of putting to death the deeds of the body see Galatians 5 16 and
Romans 8 13 it is in a word God taught spirit wrought Christ likeness the sum
and substance of consecrated discipleship the demonstration of faith
working by love the responsive outflow of supernatural life from the hearts of
those who were born again such holiness is the theme of this lecture the pursuit
of holiness is very evidently a Christian priority the texts which I
cited at the beginning show that but it's a priority which the church I fear
commonly neglects this is all too easy to see in our own day look for instance
at the man-centeredness of our godliness modern Christians tend to make
satisfaction their religion we show much more concern for self-fulfillment
than for pleasing God typical of Christianity today at any rate in the
english-speaking world is its rash of how-to books for believers directing us
to more successful relationships more joy in sex becoming more of a person
realizing our possibilities getting more excitement every day reducing our weight
improving our diet licking our families into happier shape and whatnot else for
folk whose passion is to glorify God these are not improper concerns but the
how-to books regularly explore them in a self-absorbed way which treats our
enjoyment of life rather than the glory of God as the main interest granted the
books do spread a thin layer of Bible teaching over the mixture of popular
psychology and common sense which they offer but their overall approach clearly
reflects the narcissism the self ism as it's sometimes called which is so much
the way of the world in the modern West alas it's infected the church and self
absorption however religious in its cast of mind and you can be religious and
self-absorbed at the same moment that is the opposite of true holiness holiness
is rooted in God centered God centeredness and those who think of God as
existing for their benefit rather than of themselves as existing for his praise
do not qualify as holy men and women their mindset has to be described in very
different terms from holy or again look at the activism of our activity modern
Christians tend to make busy nests their religion we admire and imitate Christian
workaholics supposing that the busiest believers are always the best those who
love the Lord will indeed be busy for him no doubt about that but the spirit
of our business is regularly wrong for we run around doing things for God and
leave ourselves no time for prayer and yet that doesn't bother us because we
forgotten the old adage that if you're too busy to pray you really are too busy
we don't feel the need to pray for we've grown self-confident and self-reliant in
our work we take for granted that our skills and resources and the fine quality
of our programs will of themselves bring forth fruit we've forgotten that apart
from Christ Christ trusted obeyed and looked to and relied on we can really
achieve nothing John 15 verse 5 is needed to correct us there this is
activism activity gone to seed activity become self-reliant through not being
grounded on sustained self distrust and dependence upon God but activism is not
holiness nor is it the fruit of holiness and the activists preoccupation with his
own plans and schemes and know-how tends to keep him from either seeking holiness
or increasing it it's another wrong term and yet the activist spirit seems to
have infected us all when for instance we think of the pastor's role and when
we choose men to minister in our churches we habitually rate skills above
sanctity and dynamism above devotion as if we didn't know that power in ministry
stems from the man behind the ministry rather than from the particular things
he can do the corrective we need comes from the Scottish minister from a
Scottish minister of a hundred and fifty years ago the great Murray
McCheyne who once began a sentence thus my people's greatest need is now how
would you expect a pastor to complete that sentence how do you imagine that
modern pastors would complete that sentence if invited to do so by
specifying a program or a new way of looking at things or what would they say
in fact McCheyne ended his sentence with these words my people's greatest need is
my personal holiness take time to be holy said the old him and it seems that
we all of us need to learn afresh to do that it isn't the way of the church
these days but self-reliant business so far from being a former or expression of
holiness is a negation of it and a distraction from it and this is
something which we have to face and come to terms with nor I think is this the
worst as holiness is a neglected priority throughout the modern church
generally so it is specifically a fading glory in the evangelical world
historically holiness has been a leading mark of evangelical people just as it
has been a central emphasis among their teachers think of Luther stress on faith
producing good works think of Kelvin's insistence on the third use of the law
as the code and the spur for God's children think of the Puritans
demanding a changed life as evidence of regeneration think of them hammering
away as they did at the need for everything in personal and community
life to be holiness to the Lord think of the Dutch and German pietists and of
John Wesley proclaiming that scriptural holiness as he understood it was
Methodism's main message think of the so-called holiness revival of the second
half of the 19th century and of the all-time classic bile JC Ryle still in
print I'm glad to say and selling well after a hundred years and think of the
thrust of the thought of such latter-day teachers as Oswald Chambers
Andrew Murray a w-toser watchman knee John White and I'm going to add your own
our own Sinclair Ferguson but these today are exceptional rather than
standard these interests are not by any means majority interests that which was
formerly a priority and a passion has become a secondary matter for most of us
who bear your local name today one asks why and I can see at least three reasons
why here they are first evangelicals today are preoccupied with controversy
to defend the biblical faith from diminution and distortion with
developing evangelical scholarship to stem and if possible turn the liberal
radical subjectivist tide with mobilizing outreach in mission and
evangelism with combating the superstition that the essence of holiness
is abstaining from supposedly worldly activities which really are biblically
lawful and culturally worthwhile and truly recreated to those who engage in
them and with answering positively the question how much liberty in Christ do
we have now these preoccupations are proper and necessary in their own place
but they keep us from pursuing holiness as zealously as our fathers did and
that's disturbing and then second evangelicals today are disillusioned
disillusioned I mean with what has been put to them as holiness teaching and you
know the phrases which describe what has been standard holiness teaching for
the last hundred years higher life deeper life victorious life Union life
Keswick teaching entire sanctification or any other version of the second
blessing theme we've had it put to us and many evangelicals today are
disillusioned now for what they've heard strikes them as sterile and superficial
and irrelevant to today's perplexities and conflicts about Christian living an
inner-city pastor in my hearing asked what he thought of the higher life which
holiness teach on which holiness teaching dwells said it's all right if
you got the time and money for it and that comment I thought showed clearly
some disillusionment breaking surface we are disillusioned with the kind of
holiness teaching we've had we might as well admit it perhaps what I say a little
later on will speak directly to their disillusionment let's see then thirdly
evangelical talent today is preempted so that holiness when discussed is not dealt
with as weightily as it deserves you see in Reformation and Puritan days
theological and pastoral leaders of outstanding mental gifts men like Luther
and Calvin Owen and Baxter sibs and gurnell Watson and Brooks for starters
thought and taught constantly and at length about holiness it was one of
their big major central themes but in this 20th century most of the best
evangelical brains have been put to work in other fields and the result is that
most of our best modern theology our best modern evangelical theology is
relatively superficial about holiness however profound it succeeds in being on
other themes while modern treatments of holiness often lack the biblical
insight and theological depth and human understanding that they need in order to
do the subject justice the best evangelical theologians in this century
have not been the most ardent exponents of holiness and the most ardent
exponents of holiness in this century have not been the best evangelical
theologians well I think I hope you agree with me that this relative
eclipse of holiness as a main evangelical concern is little short of
tragic I hope it will not long continue a generation ago both sides of the
Atlantic the vision of evangelicals out thinking the liberals grabbed leading
Christian minds and the vision was born much fruit over the years may it bear
yet more fruit through Rutherford house I for one I'm very thankful that it
still remains so much alive and is motivating so many long may it continue
to do so but it's high time but a comparable vision of evangelicals
outliving non evangelicals made a similar grab for our attention and began
to activate us to explore the realities of holiness of afresh at the deepest
level of scholars and pastoral insights in this century Roman Catholics high
Anglicans medievalists have produced many profound sensitive treatments of
the spiritual life from their own point of view they've dealt with faith and
prayer and peace and love and self-knowledge and self-denial and self
discipline and cross bearing with inward detachment and intercessory involvement
and other such themes in a way from which we evangelicals can learn a great
deal and yet what they've written from their own standpoint hasn't been
entirely acceptable to an evangelical how could it be I am longing to see the
day when evangelicals take up these themes and handle them in the
magisterial way that some of the great teachers of two and three hundred years
ago did meantime to fill the gap I offer you now some elementary basic
reflections which I hope will function it will help at least on a stopgap basis
as reference points for the rest of this discussion so let me quickly refer now
to some biblical basics in the doctrine of holiness six principles quickly six
principles which I think any reader of the New Testament will have to
acknowledge to be beyond dispute one the nature of holiness is transformation
through consecration the New Testament has two words for holiness the first
hagiasmos also translated sanctification connected with the adjective hagiose
translated saint and the verb hagiadzo translated sanctify is a relational word
signifying the state of being separated to God and set apart for him on the
human side consecrated for service on the divine side accepted for use the
second word is hosiotes with its adjective hosios which signifies an
intrinsic moral and spiritual quality that of being righteous and pure
inwardly and outwardly before God the full idea of holiness is reached by
putting both these concepts together relational holiness comes first through
that sustained energy of consecration and dedication of oneself to God which
is the other side of the Christians lifelong practice of repentance moral
and spiritual purification as God progressively changes us into Christ's
likeness follows upon consecration both as the matching of our characters to our
new position of privilege as God's adopted sons and also as the perfecting
of the committed relationship itself from our human side for we must realize
that while God's acceptance of each Christian is perfect already in Christ
our repentance and that means our consecration always needs to be
extended further just because it never at any stage goes far enough and that
continues as long as we are in this world so the substance of our holiness
is the active expression of our knowledge of the grace that separated us
sinners to God through Christ and is now transforming us into Christ's image
we express that knowledge by complying with the will of God in this matter in
obedience to God we work out our salvation with reverend or at God's
mercy in our lives knowing that having saved us from condemnation he's now at
workiness to make us will and work for his good pleasure as Paul says in
Philippians 2 verses 12 and 13 and holiness is the name for the quality of
life that results then second I have to cut some material here or I'll never get
through I'd like to develop that point but I mustn't second the context of
holiness the context of holiness is justification through our Lord Jesus
Christ God's free gift of justification that is pardon and acceptance here and
now through Christ's perfect obedience culminating in his substitutionary sin
bearing for us on the cross that is the basis on which the entire sanctifying
process rests it's out of our union by the Spirit through faith with the Christ
who died for us and whom first we are taught to trust for justification as in
Romans 3 to 5 chapters 3 to 5 that our subsequent life of holiness is
lived as is explained in Romans 6 7 and 8 holy people glory not in their
holiness but in Christ's cross for the holiest saint is never more than a
justified sinner and never sees himself in any other way
John Bradford by common consent among those who knew him the saintliest of the
English reformers constantly described himself when signing his letters as a
hard-hearted sinner a Puritan and his last illness testified never did I so
feel my need of the blood of Christ and never was I enabled to make such good
use of it John Wesley on his deathbed was heard to whisper no way into the
holiest but by the blood of Jesus it looks as if Paul himself was he advanced
in years and presumably in holiness to grew downward into an increasingly vivid
and humbling sense of his own unworthiness for whereas in 1st
Corinthians written about 54 AD he called himself the least of the
apostles and in Ephesians written about 61 AD the very least of all the Saints
in 1st Timothy written about 65 AD he describes himself as the foremost of
sinners see 1st Timothy 1 verse 15 of course I may be reading too much into
those three isolated phrases but in any case it's the most natural thing in the
world for a Christian at any time to see himself as the foremost of sinners
just because he knows the inside story of his own life the moral defeats and
hypocrisies and lapses into meanness and pride and dishonesty and lust the
exploitative thinking of the cowardice of motivational level and all the rest
of his private shame he knows about these things in himself in a way that he
doesn't know the inside story of anyone else increase in holiness means among
other things an increased sensitivity not only to what God is but to what one
is oneself in God's sight an increased sensitivity in other words to one's own
sinfulness and particular shortcomings and hence an intensified awareness of
one's constant need of God's pardoning and cleansing mercy all growth in grace
is growth downward in these respects so we need to remember that any ideas of
self-satisfied holiness self-righteous holiness any thought of a divinely
imparted righteousness that in any way reduces our need of Christ's imputed
righteousness such ideas are delusive and ungodly will of the Wisps they're
indeed contradictions in terms the right name for them is Pharisaism not
Christian holiness then third basic the root of holiness is co-crucifixion and
co-resurrection with our Lord Jesus Christ in Romans 6 Paul explains that
all who have faith in Jesus Christ who died for them are new creatures in him
they have been crucified with him which means that an end has been put to the
sin dominated lives they were living before and they've been raised with him
to walk in newness of life says Paul which means that the power which wrought
Jesus resurrection is now at work in them causing them to live differently
because in truth they are different at the very center of their being they've
been changed by the dethroning in them of that aller negative reaction to the
law of God which is called sin and through the creating a number of what
Luis Palau in the title of one of his books called a heart after God that is a
deep sustained desire to know God and draw near to God to seek God to find God
to love God to honor God to serve God and to please God as the controlling
motive around which the whole of their life must now be built this is the
change wrought by what John Wesley and his apostolic namesake following Jesus
himself called the new birth so we must realize and remember that the believers
holiness is a matter of learning to be in action what he already is in heart it
is in other words the living out of and expressing of the life the disposition
the instincts the new nature that God has brought in one holiness in other
words is the natural mess of the spiritually risen man just as sin is the
naturalness of the spiritually dead man and in pursuing holiness by obeying God
the Christian does actually follow the deepest urge of his own renewed being
that is a much profounder thought I think then the suggestion often made
that in following the command of God the Christian is going against his own
deepest desires that isn't true actually the regenerate man who understands
himself and is in touch with himself knows that that isn't true his own
deepest desire is to do the will of God and please the Lord who has loved him
and saved him holiness then is the naturalness of the regenerate man it's
the Christ nature if you like the Christ life which is the deepest thing in him
expressing itself if he backslides if he slips morally immediately he makes
himself acutely miserable why because he's doing violence to what is now his
own real nature that's why the backslider is the most miserable man in
the world any holiness as man full refusal to do all that one most wants to
do then must be with dismissed as misunderstanding very unregenerate minds
misunderstanding of what true holiness is true holiness spring does from what
the Puritans called the gospel mystery of the sanctifying work of God is the
Christians true fulfillment and the Christians true path of joy for it's the
doing of that which deep down he now wants to do more than he wants to do
anything else according to the urging of his new dominant instinct the fact that
few Christians today seem to be sufficiently in touch with themselves to
appreciate this doesn't alter its truth
fourth basic now the agent of holiness is the Holy Spirit yes of course it is
the indwelling Spirit of God in his role as the Spirit of Christ who induces
holiness in Christians when Paul says that God works in them to make them will
and work for his good pleasure the Apostle is certainly thinking of the
spirits power active in what August English as the prevenient grace that
creates in us a purpose of doing God's will by cooperative grace which aids us
in the practice of the desired obedience by the spirits enabling Christians
resolve to do things that are right and do them and those form habits of doing
right things and out of these habits comes a character so an action read the
habit so a habit reap a character says the proverb and this is us true in our
and as this is true in our natural life so it is true in the life of grace Paul
described us of character by this means as one of being changed into Christ
likeness as from one degree of glory to another 2nd Corinthians and he calls the
character itself the fruit of the Spirit which on inspection proves as we all
know to be nothing more nor less than the profile of Jesus Christ himself in
his disciples love joy peace long-suffering gentleness goodness
faithfulness kindness self-control what is that but the ninefold image of Jesus
in his disciples it's familiar ground so I need not dwell on it but let me
underline at least remember first that the Spirit works in this transformation
through means the objective means of grace biblical truth prayer fellowship
worship the Lord's Supper and also through the subjective means of grace
whereby we open ourselves to open ourselves to the change when I say the
subjective means of grace what I mean is thinking and listening and questioning
oneself and examining oneself in oneself hearing what is in one's heart with
others and weighing the responses you see the Spirit shows his power in us not
by constantly interrupting our use of these means with those impressive
impressions prophecies which serve up to us ready-made insights or whatever these
come rarely if at all to many believers they never come at all but rather the
by making these regular means of grace subjective and objective together
effective angels for the better and for the wiser as we go along so that
holiness teaching which skips over discipline persistence in the
well-doing but forges holy habits is thus weak holiness teaching and is
going to produce weak Christian however well it's meant habit forming is the
spirits ordinary way of leading us on in holiness the fruit itself is a series
of habits of action and reaction love joy peace and the rest are just that
habitual dispositions habitual ways of thinking and feeling and behaving habits
brothers are all important in holy life particularly those biblically prescribed
habits which we find it difficult and even painful to form so we must remember
that and member with that that these habits thus often painfully formed by
sheer hard work with ourselves by self-discipline and effort are
nonetheless not natural products effort must be blessed by the Holy Spirit or it
would achieve nothing so all our attempts to get our lives into shape
which acknowledges our inability to change ourselves and which looks to the
Holy Spirit to work the change and which gives thanks recognizing that every
virtue we possess and every victory one that every thought of holiness are his
spirits alone holiness by habit forming you see is not self-sanctification by
self-effort that would be activism all over again no holiness by habit forming
is simply a matter of understanding the spirits method and keeping in step with
the experience of holiness is one of the desires of the pleasure against the
spirit of the desires of the spirit against the flesh these are opposed to
each other to prevent you you would Galatians 517 these words alert us to
the reality of the tension the reality of of tension the necessity of effort
and the incompleteness of achievement which marks the life of holiness in this
world the desires of the spirit and Paul's sentence are the inclinations of
our renewed heart the desires of the by contrast are the contrary inclination
sin which dwells within me as Paul calls it in Romans 7 20 the anti God energy
which indwelling sin repeatedly loses in the form of temptations and delusions
and distractions keeps total perfection beyond our gross by total perfection I
mean what John Wesley called angelical perfection in which everything is as
right and wise and wholehearted and God honoring as it could possibly be the
born-again believer who is in good spiritual health aims each day at
perfect obedience perfect righteousness perfect pleasing of his Heavenly Father
angelical perfection if we may so call it but in this world he never achieves
it his reach exceeds his grasp he cannot do just as Paul says he knows
that angelical perfection is promised for heaven but he's resolved to get us
close to it here as he can he knows that he's being led and helped towards it he
can testify that God already is enabling him to resist sin and practice
righteousness in ways which left to himself he never could have vanished
any professed Christian who didn't have such a testimony brothers and sisters
would really make it doubtful whether he or she was yet born again but the
believer finds as I said that reach exceeds grasp all the time he wins
victories constantly by God's strength against the world the flesh and the
devil but he still falls short of angelical perfection and none of his
battles however successful bring him to the end of the war the holy life is
always as the title of John White's little classic puts it the fight and if
I may try to talk Scottish for a moment I want to applaud the way in which 80
years ago Alexander white responded to some
rhapsodic unrealities being spoken to him about a life raised above temptation
white said let me try out my Scottish eye it's a surfeit all the way and I
saying it right a sore battle sore fight yes it is we need to remember that
holiness the light holiness is a way of conflict and of real achievement which
nonetheless is imperfect achieve and we need to watch pray and to work and to
hope and to humble ourselves and to reach forward every day of our lives
well now I must cut another section or I shall never get to that which is really
my central subject on the basis of these cool parameters of holiness I now want
to talk about versions of holiness two versions in particular the Augustinian
and the Wesleyan and pinpoint the differences between them now the five
parameters of holiness that we've surveyed might seem to have tied up our
topic pretty tightly and certainly any differences presupposing agreement on
these five principles secondary importance yet differences there are
both of idea and of emphasis and here I go in my attempt to sketch them out look
first at the Augustinian approach to holiness affirmed by Augustine against
Pelagius and restated against semi Pelagianism by the reformers and still
maintained by conservative Lutheran and reform teachers its root principle is
that God out and by great must and does work in us all that we ever achieve hope
and love and worship and obedience that he requires of us in Augustin zone words
God must give what he commands well because we are all of us naturally anti
God in heart and are never at any stage wholly free from sins influence we can
never respond to God at all without grace and even when the spirit of grace
works in our lives all our responses and all our righteousness are flawed by sin
and are thus less than perfect Augustinianism was constantly developed in
the Reformation churches and the apart sorry I'm misreading my own script
Augustinianism was constantly developed was consistently developed in the
Reformation churches and still is I think one may properly say the
mainstream teaching about Christian holiness within Protestantism although
other emphasis stand alongside us now well how does the Augustinian emphasis
express itself be be Warfield cheerfully if a shade defiantly
characterized Augustinianism as miserable sinner Christianity a
description which sounds positively gruesome to our ears in these self
righteous self applauding resolutely healthy minded days but the chances are
that we've missed Warfield's meaning when he used this phrase to start with
the language is very old the very Augustinian Anglican prayer book of
1949 1549 I'm sorry contained an ash Wednesday prayer in which worshipers
confess themselves vile earth and miserable sinners and the present-day
Anglican practice of regularly saying together in the general confession at
morning and evening worship there is no healthiness have mercy on us miserable
offenders goes back to the same date hello Anglican to tell you that I am
really rather pleased that it is so and the words do not imply that cultivated
misery is a required state of mind nor should they be read as they sometimes
have been as a hangover of late medieval morbidity or an expression of neurotic
self-hatred and the denial of personal worth behind the word miserable lies the
Latin miser Andy expressing the thought but as sinners we always stand in need
of God's mercy and pity and this is not the sick unrealism of neurosis this is
healthy Christian matter-of-factness we do as a matter of fact stand in need of
God's pardoning mercy every and it's very good for ourselves that we should
admit it miserable sinner Christianity does undoubtedly keep our sinfulness in
more constant view than other accounts of holiness do but that's the mark of
its clear-sighted realism not of any spiritual barrenness or bankruptcy
three stresses in particular shape the Augustinian view first comes the
insistence that there's need for the most deliberate humility self-distrust
and self-suspicion in all our fellowship with God why well for reasons already
stated because whereas God is perfectly holy and pure and good and unchangeably
faithful in performing his promises we are none of these things we live in the
second half of Romans 7 where to a degree it is always true that quote Paul
in Romans 7 18 I can will what is right but I cannot do it therefore we need to
get down very low before our Savior God and to cultivate that sense of impotence
and dependence which Jesus called poverty of spirit Matthew 5 3 otherwise
pride will pop us up without our noticing it and pride goes before a fall
see first Corinthians 10 12 Augustinians you see are sure that Bunyan had the
truth of the matter when he's saying he that is down need fear no fool he that
is low no pride he that is humble ever shall have God to be his guide his work
to induce in us a constantly expanding sense of the infinite contrast between
God's glorious holiness and our own inglorious sinfulness so that as the
work of sanctification goes on and we become more like God and more truly
intimate with him we actually become more aware of the difference between us
and him than ever we were before then second in Augustinianism comes an
equally emphatic insistence that there is need for the most enterprising
activity by all God's servants in all walks and areas of life why because in
dwelling sin which by nature is an instinctive reluctance to do the will of
God makes us apathetic and slothful and lazy with regard to good works and leads
us to play games both with ourselves and with God to justify our slackness in
that for which he saved us Augustinianism is at the opposite extreme
from the stillness of the evangelical quietists with whom John Wesley had to
deal those quiet has held that you can't do anything that pleases God until over
and above the directives of Scripture and common sense you get a specific urge
from the spirit to make a move without this you should never attempt anything
of spiritual significance at all they said shouldn't read scripture shouldn't
pray shouldn't go to church good shouldn't give to God's cause shouldn't
render service of any kind shouldn't get up in the morning I suppose until you
had an urge from the Lord to do it positive in action they said is the only
right course until the spirit urges you within John Wesley disagreed good for
him do all the good you can said mr. Wesley it was a basic principle of the
holiness which he constantly taught and he was a good Augustinian when he
encouraged initiative to this end
after cut again that is the second aspect of Augustinianism and now third
and this is a feature of the Augustinian view right through from Augustine to the
present third comes a controlling insistence on the reality of spiritual
change and growth and advance by means of what the Puritans called the
vivifying of our graces and the mortifying of our sins so that we ever
grow towards a fuller Christ likeness Augustinians affirm the sovereign power
of God's love to change our characters and Augustinians look for that change of
character for which sanctification is the proper name they expect to know to
see Christians going on and growing in Christ in ways that are visible and
plain they expect constant victory over temptation in the Christian life they
expect weaknesses of temperament to be over to be progressively overcome as the
Lord leads us forward with himself they have always laid much stress on Paul's
summons to put to death the deeds of the body that is the old bad habits which
have belonged which expressed our sinful nature they expect Christians actually
to drain the life out of besetting sins so that those sins beset no longer the
fact that Augustinians never claim to be anything but sinners saved by grace and
that they deny that anyone or anything is morally and spiritually perfect in
this world and that they oppose perfectionist teaching in all its forms
and that they're grimly realistic about their own continuing shortcomings have
sometimes left the impression that they don't expect deliverance from sins power
in this life at all that they have no expectations of being made better and
more Christlike whatever they say but that's not so
John Owen for instance and his treatise on mortification sets himself to tell
the Christian what to do if he finds in himself quote Owen a powerful indwelling
sin leading him captive to the law of it consuming his heart with trouble
perplexing is weakening his soul as the duties of communion with God
disquieting him as to peace and perhaps this defiling his conscience and
exposing him to hardening Owen tells the Christian what to do when thus troubled
and ends by ends his treatise by developing the following directive I
quote Owen again note the strength of his language said faith that work on
Christ for the killing of thy sin says of it Christ's blood is the great
sovereign remedy for sin six homes live in this and thou wilt die a conqueror
yea thou wilt through the good providence of God live to see thy lust
dead at thy feet so much for the idea that's the slander as it is the truth
it is that Augustinians have no great expectations of deliverance from sin
of Christian holiness Romans 47 verses 14 through 25 will be a key passage and
in Augustinian teaching it's been prominent from the start for Augustine
pressed it against the Pelagians let me say briefly what is the typical
Augustinian exegesis of it before we go further in Romans 6 verse 1 through 6
to 7 verse 6 Paul announces his theology of liberation that believers by
virtue of their union with Christ are freed from sin for righteousness it as
much as they're freed from bondage under the law for service in the Spirit then
in order both to vindicate the goodness of the law and yet to confirm that it
cannot bring life to those whose conscience is it educates and whose
guilt it exposes Paul raises the question how do the law and sin relate
and he answers it by saying but the law does three things one it tells us what's
required and what's forbidden two it stirs up our fallen in our fallen
natures the impulse to do what's forbidden rather than what's required
and three it fails to give us any power to resist that impulse so though the law
is holy just and good it's coming makes for the increase of sin rather than the
increase of righteousness to make all three point these three points law in
the briefest and vividest way Paul recounts his own experience first in the
past before his conversion Romans 7 7 through 13 and then in the present now
that he's alive in Christ in the manner which 6 1 to 7 6 is has spelled out so
verses 14 to 25 according to this exegesis are Paul's account of his
experience with God's law at the time of writing alive in Christ his heart
delights in it he wants to do what's good and right and thus keep the law
perfectly he says that but he finds that he cannot achieve the total compliance
with the law at which he aims whenever he measures what he's done he finds that
he's fallen short from this he perceives that the anti-god urge called sin though
dethroned in his heart still dwells in his own flawed nature thus the
Christians moral experience is that as I said reach exceeds grasp and his desire
for perfection is frustrated by the discomposing and distracting energies
of indwelling sin stating this sad fact about himself renews Paul's constant
distress at it and in the cry of verse 24 following he voices his grief at not
being able to glorify God more wretched man that I am who will deliver me from
this death then at once he answers his own question thanks be to God through
Jesus Christ our Lord the question was in the future tense who will deliver me
so the verb to be supplied in the answer is in the future tense to thank God he
will deliver me through Jesus Christ Paul here proclaims according to the
Augustinian exegesis that is present in voluntary perfection summed up in
the very next words the last half of verse 25 last verse of Romans 7 will one
day be made a thing of the past through the redemption of the body referred to
in chapter 8 verse 23 where Paul says that we will receive the first fruits of
the Spirit grown within ourselves waiting for the redemption of our bodies
the cry of 724 a wretched man that I am who will deliver me was surely part of
the groaning but for that future redemption says Paul we must long and
wait maintaining always the two world homeward traveling hoping for glory
perspective which pervades not only Romans but the whole New Testament I
thank God he will deliver me through Jesus Christ our Lord so then Romans 7
25 verse 7 7 22nd half back to the present tense this is how things stand
at the moment I thus one of the self same person a go out host in the Greek
serve the Lord God with my mind but the law of sin with my flesh but then Roman
7 leads into the rhapsodic setting forth of the content of Christian assurance
which full 29 verses of Romans 8 if Romans 7 gives us the bad news about the
Christian life what the law tells us about ourselves as we walk in the way of
godliness Romans 8 brings us the good news about the Christian life no
condemnation and no separation and the spirit helps so that we go forward
constantly with our God again I have to cut the clock is beating me I wish I
didn't for I love talking about Romans 8 and the way in which it gives tells us
it balances what the law in Romans 7 tells us about ourselves of Christians
with what the gospel tells us about ourselves as Christians and certainly
Paul expanded Romans 5 1 to 10 into this tremendous 39 verse rhapsody on
Christian assurance in order to make quite sure that the last word about our
Christian lives would be with the gospel but I have to come to an evaluative
section headed strengths and weaknesses I put it to you that this Augustinian
holiness teaching has three special strengths first it's uncompromising
about God's moral law it doesn't allow you to lower the standard in order to
claim a higher degree of holiness and second it's realistic about our own
attainments it doesn't allow you to pretend that you're perfect when the law
of God says that you're not do you know the story of the man who once told
Spurgeon that he had lived sinlessly for two months and Spurgeon the pastor eager
to test out this wonderful holiness as he said when describing the episode
forward heavily on the man's toe and wrecked his holiness comprehensively
it's so easy to fool yourself in this area this was Spurgeon's practical
down-to-earth way of teaching the man that he was kidding himself in supposing
that he had left sin behind Augustinians don't claim or pretend to be sinless
rather they praise God constantly for his patience and kindness towards
Christians as imperfect as they are for my part I have to say I have never
framed a prayer never preached a sermon never written a book never shown love to
my wife never cared for my children never supported my friends never done
anything at all I did not in retrospect realize that I could and should have
done better and brothers and sisters if that was the money of your conscience
when you reflect soberly in the presence of God about your life I should
be very anxious for the state of yourself I really well there it is the
second strength of Augustinian ism is its realism about our own attainments
and the third strength of this position is its expectancy on a day-to-day basis
as I said Christian or sorry Augustinians do expect help from God in
each day's trouble and strength for God for the practicing of each day's
obedience and thereby progressive transformation of character through the
Holy Spirit's but there's no room in their lives for apathy and inaction even
when for the moment they speak feel spiritually low as sometimes like all
other Christians they do but they continue to expect great things from God
and to attempt great things for God setting great store by patient
discipline determined persistence what in Britain we call stick ability but
what in North North America they call stick to it atlas and thus Augustin
expectancy is a and doesn't produce reserves well here again unless I have
to cut I think there are some minor weaknesses and the way that these points
are often put in the way I mean that Augustinians often do allow their stress
on the continued imperfection of our lives here to overshadow what they
themselves really want to say and historically have said about the power
of the Holy Spirit transforming life but I have to leave all that the clock is
beating me let me move now to John Wesley and a few minutes talking about
him John Wesley's heritage on both sides of his family was Puritan so it shouldn't
cause any surprise to learn that in his mature teaching on holiness he did keep
within the five biblical and reproduce all the characteristic Augustinian
emphases in a way but he did of course as we all know lay emphasis on what he
called Christian perfection as a Methodist distinctive believing it to be
a Bible truth which he was the first teacher clearly to have brought to
light and Calvinists since then have been attacking him for holding that we
can achieve the sinlessness which Augustine died to be attainable in this
world that however is a mistake one actually from which Wesley's own use of
words must bear much blame let me say at the outset however in fairness to
suppose that that was what Wesley taught it's much more correct to understand his
doctrine as an attempt to intensify perhaps we orchestrate elements in the
Augustinian tradition rather than to break with that tradition certainly in
discipline prayerful enterprise in underlining our total dependence on God's
sovereign love and power and in his high expectations of what God could and would
do in believers lives Wesley was entirely Augustinian and
furthermore the honest self-assessment which kept him from claiming perfection
himself and led him to write at the end of his life I have told all the world I
am NOT perfect I've not attained to the character I draw that honesty was as
Augustinian as can be you see to claim perfection never was the Augustinian way
yet Wesley's doctrine of perfection as he and brother Charles set it out in
homiletical prose and ecstatic hymns gave the Wesleyan account of the
Christian life a quality of ardor and exuberance and joy in knowing God's love
and praising his grace and resigning oneself into his hands which I believe
went beyond anything that you can consistently find in Kelvin and the
Puritans and the earlier Pietists it's something that I want to claim frankly
for the modern Augustinian point of view in the Augustinian tradition Augustine
himself and Bernard and the Puritan Richard Baxter come closest to it but
the passionate reasonings and rhapsodies of the Wesley brothers I do believe
excel them all and yet on a very fundamental point I think he was wrong
now let me tell you just where I think that point comes I have to cut a section
in which I trace out the way that Wesley built up his idea of Christian
perfection he picked it up from partly from the ain't from the fathers and
partly from Roman Catholic sources and partly from his own understanding of the
New Testament what they taught him well that is what the what the fathers of the
Roman Catholics taught him was that the heart of true godliness is a motivating
spirit of love to God and men without which all religion is hollow and empty
and then at Aldersgate Street he entered into an experience of justification and
assurance of forgiveness on the instant through faith and that gave him the idea
that similarly one could enter into a life of perfect love to God and men
through faith and thus his doctrine of Christian perfection was born it had to
do let's be clear with not with sinlessness but with growth it had to
do with the motive of love love to God and man as the driving force of one's
life rather than with angelical perfection of achievement in the things
that one does he understood perfection perfect love as he called it not legally
we might say but teleologically not that is as a damic or angelic faultlessness
but as advanced first into and then within the state of concentrated
integrated passionate resolute godliness for which we were made and for which we
are redeemed perfection he said is a state but it's not static it's a state
of wholeheartedly going on with God in obedient worship and service fueled by
love and by love alone it's in essence a quality of inward life rather than of
outward performance as I said one who is perfect in Wesley's sense may still lack
knowledge or in judgment and hence behave foolishly he may still behave any
perhaps many of what Wesley called I quote him those inward or outward
imperfections which are not of a moral nature weakness or slowness of
understanding dullness or confusedness of apprehension incoherency of thought
irregular quickness or heaviness of imagination the want of a ready or
retentive memory slowness of speech in propriety of language ungracefulness of
pronunciation unquote all these qualities all these defects we would say
are consistent with the sort of perfection of which Wesley was speaking
and Wesley adds that the perfect man will still be assailed from time to time
by temptations against which you'll have to fight in order to retain his
integrity but if the motive of love continues in his heart love to God and
man he continues perfect so perfection according to with Wesley is just this
subjective condition in which all powers of mind and heart are consciously
concentrated first on actively apprehending God's love to you as the
spirit witnesses to it and secondly on actively submissively prayerfully
joyfully loving your God and loving your neighbor for God's sake that's
perfection and it expresses itself first and foremost in worship and praise in
resignation of ourselves into God's hands and in readiness to do and suffer
anything that God might appoint for us it's a blessing to be desired says
Wesley for it lifts one's whole life to a new level of power and delight it's a
blessing to be sought he thought for scripture contains promises of it and
testimonies to it and he said if New Testament believers enjoyed it so may
believers today he allowed that it was a blessing which God gives in sovereignty
and which in particular cases such as presumably his own God might withhold
however much it was sought but he said it's a blessing which none receive
unless they seek it and unless they go on seeking it as long as may be
necessary for God does sometimes keep his children waiting finally Wesley
acknowledged it's a blessing that might be lost through carelessness and then
perhaps restored when penitently sought again what are we to say of this what I
better say is mr. chairman may I have another five minutes to finish this line
of argument I'm sorry I know I'm overrunning I've managed my time badly I
told the chairman that I might be an hour and a quarter I have so far been an
hour and ten minutes and I need that other five minutes with your goodwill
I'll take them and I apologize if you have been in commoded by the fact that
I'm going on rather long critique it seems to me that Wesley's Holiness
teaching merits both bouquets and brick beds bouquets first his notion of
Holiness has great strengths it focuses on motives as the touchstone of Holiness
that's right remember Jesus exposition Jesus statement of the two great
commandments thus it leaves beside or behind it all ethical externalism all
mechanical piety all Pharisaic formalism and living by
numbers all ideas of religion is essentially routine performance says
Wesley Christianity is love or it's nothing surely he's right and he focuses
on faith confident trust in the God of the self-despairing as the means whereby
holiness that is to be sought on the means whereby all holiness is found and
that's right too but now for the brick beds Wesley's doctrine of perfection the
second blessing as Wesleyans came to call it the doctrine that the Spirit of
God in one single moment makes Christians perfect in love by rooting sin
out of their hearts so that nothing is left there except love that doctrine
raises problems head was they simply proclaimed that the father and the son
do in fact from time to time make the loyal disciple conscious of their
presence in a vivid and heartwarming way as Jesus taught in John 14 20 through 23
had Wesley taught simply that through these visitations a believer may become
impervious for shorter or longer periods to previously besetting temptations had
he simply said that all Christians should constantly be asking their Lord
Lord to draw near and bless them thus then no problems would exist he would
have been speaking uncontroversially about undisputed realities of life in
the spirit unfortunately he went beyond that he affirmed perfection as a doctrine
he analyzed perfection as a work of the Holy Spirit rooting sin out this it
seems to me is teaching which cannot possibly be maintained for first the
biblical proof is inconclusive I haven't time to look at the 30 or so texts which
Wesley used in order to make his case but I tell you that all of them are
either promises and calls to holiness with prayers expressing confidence that
God will deliver his people from sin without specifying anything as anything
as full as Wesley's entire sanctification or else they are New
Testament declarations that for Christians such deliverance in real
measure has become reality but none of these texts prove as much as Wesley
wants to see Wesley affirms that these texts find their fulfillment in total
and absolute terms in this life but exegetically you can't make that good so
again I have to jump the texts don't prove his point and secondly his
theological rationale is unrealistic for what he claims is that the implanting or
inducing of total love is the uprooting or eradicating of sinful desire from the
heart completely a total change of moral nature there are passages in
Wesley's own writing which quite unambiguously show that he meant as much
as that and that as EH Sugden observed when speaking about perfection he viewed
I quote Sugden he viewed sin as a thing which has to be taken out of a man like
a cancer or a rotten tooth and in that case as you can see it ought to be
impossible for a perfect man a perfectly sanctified man to be as James puts it
James 1 verses 14 and 15 lured and enticed by his own desire in temptation
for if Wesley's doctrine was true there wouldn't be any tempting desire any
sinful desire any inordinate affection left and yet experience shows that even
Wesley's perfect saints can be tempted and how can this be if sin has been
rooted out of their hearts well that criticism I think one can develop at
length and if I had time I would develop it at length but that's gone too and
that leads on that has to go to because of time and that leads straight on to
the next and final problem with Wesley's doctrine as the texts don't prove it as
the theological account of it seems unrealistic so the practical
implications of it are unedifying dilemmas arise which admit of no
satisfactory resolution and the prime dilemma is just that which I've
indicated how are Christians who believe sin to have been rooted out of
them to be realistic about their own continuing sinfulness Wesley's doctrine
if believed requires them not to be and you can see what sort of a practical as
well as a theoretical dilemma that becomes I have to kid myself that I'm
perfect and sinless that's what the doctrine pushes me into or
alternatively I must say I have not yet entered into the blessing well this is a
problem for Wesley's disciples in a way that it's not a problem for me personally
as a mainstream Augustinian so I you must understand I put it into the first
person singular in order to point it up I think I know what to say to the
dilemma which the doctrine raises was late struggled with the question of
whether those who've received the blessing which he thought was an
identifiable state of soul should then testify to it he was aware of the
problems into which people would get themselves by so testifying and yet he
couldn't bring himself to think that they ought not to testify and the
quotations have a certain poignancy because here he is a man with good
pastoral instincts who sees the danger and yet is driven by his own doctrine to
say no this is the work of God it ought to be testified to and then we'll clear
up the mess that results as we go along but there it is the problem really shows
I think of itself that there's something wrong with the doctrine a true doctrine
wouldn't raise a problem like this and finally a point I have to miss
completely Wesley's doctrine won't square with the Augustinian exegesis of
Romans 7 verses 14 through 25 and I for one cannot make Romans 7 14 through 25
teach anything except what Augustinians have thought it taught are you honestly
asking me to believe that John was that Paul I'm sorry was so poor a
communicator as to shift from the past tense speaking of his pre-conversion
experience with the law into the present tense for no reason at all just to make
it more difficult for readers to appreciate that though he was speaking
in the present tense he was still talking about his past experience so
that if you understood him to be talking of his present experience you would be
misunderstanding his meaning do you really think that he was such a fool in
his handling of language as to set us a problem like that I think the Apostle
Paul was a better communicator than to play a trick like that on his readers
and so I stay with the Augustinian exegesis and I reject the Wesleyan
alternative or any modern version of the idea that Paul when he speaks in the
present tense from Romans 7 14 onwards is really talking about his own past
experience just as I respect just as I reject incidentally the idea of so many
modern exegetes that when Paul says I talking about his own relation to the
law he's really talking about somebody other than himself how nutty can the
professionals get just let me note as I close that there has been in our time a
modified version of the Wesleyan view developed actually a little over a
hundred years ago to try and to parry the criticism that it's impossible to
claim that God's second decisive work in a Christian's life eradicates sin from
his heart Presbyterians like Robert Pearsall Smith and Anglicans like Evan
Hopkins and Bishop Handley Mole did the theological work here and the result was
the type of teaching that was regularly given at the Keswick Convention from its
inception till the middle of this century though it conspicuously has no
place in what is taught by most of those who minister at Keswick today let that
be said not only out of fairness to Keswick but out of courtesy to some
present let's call it old Keswick teaching Smith I quote here from Edwin
Sangster taught that by an act of faith it's possible to become dead to sin
Smith differed from Wesley so he believed in insisting that the recipient
of this grace is saved from all sinning though not from all sin in other words
Pearsall Smith taught a sinless perfection not of heart and motive but
of acts a possibility of what he called complete victory over all known sin
through the use by faith of the Holy Spirit's power to counteract the down
drag of sinful inclination the there was a crisis a second blessing in the
Christian life for Smith the crisis of consecration and faith whereby one
entered for the first time upon the discovery of this secret as an account
of the Spirit's work this seems to me to affirm at the same time both too much
and too little too much in affirming that sinlessly perfect acts are
possible for the believer too little in denying that the sinners heart is
changed at all at motivational level as an account of Christian obedience this
notion of using the Holy Spirit as you use the car which you drive or the
washing machine which you program and then switch on seems to me incoherently
Arminian if not indeed as BB Warfield thought Pelagian and the exegesis the
so-called Keswick exegesis of Romans 7 verses 14 through 25 as the testimony of
a Christian out of sorts relying on himself or not relying on the Holy
Spirit to help him seems impossible but time has gone more than gone and I
mustn't develop those points it seems to me that the Keswick teaching historically
must be viewed as an unsuccessful halfway house between Augustinian
Augustinianism and the Wesleyan modification of Augustinianism and
there I leave it why is all of this important brothers and sisters because
unreality spiritual unreality leads either to self deception and conceit on
the part of people who think they found a proffered blessing which in fact is
not set forth in scriptural a scripture at all but you know how it is somebody
preaches it and that makes you think it must be there and you sweat away and one
day you think you've got it or else it produces despair in those who hear the
blessing spoken of unpromised and who scratch around and for the life of them
cannot find it I do not wish in my ministry I hope that none of us wish in
any of our ministries I do not wish to see the Christian Church in its
ministry anywhere or in any context producing either self-deceived conceit
or the kind of despair which of which I've just spoken from which I tell you
many have suffered indeed I once suffered myself I value now the humble
realism of Augustine Augustinian Augustinianism I believe it makes for the
benefit of men and for the glory of God in our teaching of holiness and I have
allowed myself to go on rather long and speak rather passionately and thus try
your patience just because I am so anxious that we should understand these
things and get back into the old good way it will strengthen souls and it will
bring glory to our God thank you for your patience