I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto
carnal, even as unto babes in Christ. —1 Col. 3: 1.
We have before learned that there are many important
Christian doctrines which are amply proved by the Bible as a whole, but
which can not be fully established by a single text. Those who oppose the
doctrine of remaining depravity in the justified believer often insist upon
a definite single text in proof of its correctness. Yet they themselves
accept without question many doctrines which can not be positively proved by
a single text or texts. For instance, every orthodox Christian believes
unquestionably in the divine Trinity, yet it is most difficult, if at all
possible, to find a single text that proves the divine unity in trinity. Therefore
if the Bible as a whole, rightly construed, teaches that there is native
depravity remaining in the justified believer, that doctrine will be as
thoroughly established as the doctrine of the Trinity.
JUSTIFICATION REMOVES GUILT, NOT DEPRAVITY
Justification, in its very nature, relates to personal
guilt, not to native depravity. It were impossible to make one just who was not
unjust. Justification, therefore, presupposes the existence of guilt. But
personal guilt is not a native condition, but the result of a disobedient act of
a free agent. The terms " justification, " " forgiveness, "
and " remission " denote the modes of that experience and point
unmistakably to disobedience and consequent personal guilt, and not to native
depravity. We have before proved that unregenerate men are both depraved and
guilty, that they have a double need. If, then, man is both depraved and guilty,
and if justification removes only his guilt, there remains in the justified
believer an element of depravity.
It is reasonable that the conditions required for the
obtaining of a thing should be such as would lead naturally to the obtainance of
that thing. The condition requisite to justification leads unmistakably to the
removal of personal guilt, and not to cleansing from native depravity. Godly
sorrow for sin and a conviction of personal guilt can not be based upon a
consciousness of native depravity. How can we be convicted for the presence of
an element, when we are in no way responsible for its existence? We can not be
sorry for our having committed the Adamic sin, for the very obvious reason that
we were not present in the garden when our foreparents broke the divine law.
Repentance, another condition of justification, is a
turning from sin to Cod on account of godly sorrow for disobedience. How can we
turn from a nature that is native to us, from a moral state in which we were
" conceived" and " shapen" (Psa. 51: 5) ? flow gladly would
we all turn, in our better moments, from that nature whose tendency is ever
downward! When the Ethiopian can change his skin or the leopard his spots, then
may we hope to turn, in our own strength, from the evil depravity of our hearts.
We can turn from our disobedience, repent of our sins, and be justified from our
guilt; but it is impossible to repent of that native condition for which we are
totally irresponsible.
In meeting the conditions for justification, we ask
pardon for acts of disobedience, not for the existence of native depravity in
our hearts. How could we ask pardon for being depraved, when we are in no way
responsible for native depravity? However much we may deplore both our depravity
and our being overcome by it, we can feel guilt of and ask pardon only for our
own personal misdeeds.
The exercise of saving faith by the pleading penitent is
for pardon, forgiveness, and f or release from personal guilt, not for the
removal of depravity. As the penitent cries out, like the despairing publican,
"Lord, have mercy on me a sinner!" he does not stop to consider
theories, formulas, deep spiritual truths, metaphysical conditions, and profound
questions of theology. The feeling of his personal guilt overshadows for the
moment every other consideration. It is only in later experience in the light of
innocence and truth and hungering for more righteousness that he begins to
discover that there is an element of depravity within.
Therefore, since all the conditions leading leading up to the experience of
justification relate, not to the removal of native depravity, but to the removal
of the effect of actual transgressions, justification does not remove native
depravity.
That there should be native depravity in the believer is
as consistent as that there should remain in fallen man a moral instinct that
calls for God and right. As we have before learned, both the Scriptures and
human experience prove the existence of moral consciousness in the unregenerate.
Paul says that even the heathen, who have not the law, are a law unto
themselves; that their consciences shall either excuse or accuse them in the day
when God shall judge the world. No heathen tribe, with one or two possible
exceptions, has ever yet been discovered among whom could not be found traces of
a moral consciousness and a moral responsibility to a higher being. This more]
sensibility and religious consciousness, however, is often accompanied in the
same heart with the vilest of sin. This proves the existence of a good and a bad
element in the same heart at the same time. If this is true of the heathen and
unregenerate, why may there not exist in the heart of the justified believer a
dormant element of depravity?
The Scriptures clearly prove the incompleteness of the
justified state. Jesus, praying to his Father, said of his disciples, "
Keep through shine own name those whom thou hast given me"; "I have
kept them in thy name "; " I have given them thy word ";
"They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world" (John 17:
11-16). Surely, there can be no doubt that men of whom all this could be truly
said, were justified. Yet Jesus acknowledges the incompleteness of their
experience in the words of the seventeenth verse of the same chapter:
"Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth." Again, in the
nineteenth verse he says, " And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that
they also might be sanctified through the truth."
The first Christian experience of the Samaritans was
incomplete. They "with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip
spoke " ( Acts 8: 6). " When they believed Philip preaching the things
concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized,
both men and women" (Acts 8: 12). Yet in the following words the
incompleteness of their justified state is acknowledged: " Now, when the
apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of
God, they sent unto them Peter and John: who, when they were come down, prayed
for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: (For as yet he was fallen upon
none of them: only they were baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.) then laid
they their hands on them, and they received the Holy Ghost" (Acts 8:14-17).
This infilling, or reception, of the Holy Spirit and the purification of heart
are simultaneous experiences. In the following words Peter speaks of them as
such: " God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the
Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; and put no difference between us and them,
purifying their hearts by faith " (Acts 15: 8, 9).
Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, admits a partial but
incomplete experience when he says, " The very God of peace sanctify you
wholly." These people were evidently sanctified in part, that is,
justified; but Paul wished them to be wholly, or entirely, sanctified. The
experience of sanctification, using the word "sanctification" in its
broadest sense, begins with justification and reaches its completeness in entire
sanctification.
Though at the time when the first Epistle to the
Corinthians was written, the Corinthian Christians were not an example of the
justified life, Paul's words to them in the third chapter, verse one, prove that
they were at the same time both " babes in (Christ" and
"carnal": "I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto
spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ " It is true
that their " carnal " condition finally brought about "envy and
strife and divisions," and caused them to again "walk as men" (1
Cor. 3: 3); but their latter state does not destroy the fact that they were
previously both " in Christ " and " carnal. "
As we have before learned, the two negative conditions of
the unregenerate heart are native depravity and acquired guilt. These are the
double need of man and constitute the basis of the double cure. Justification
removes guilt, but does not accomplish entire sanctification, or complete
redemption. The incompleteness of the justified state, therefore, can consist in
nothing else than a remaining element of native depravity Hence we say there is
remaining native depravity in the justified believer.
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