SIN IN BELIEVERS
by
LEO G. Cox, Ph.D.
When I began an investigation on the subject of holiness and the human element back in
the early forties, I was quite disturbed at the lack of clear teaching on the subject of
sin in believers as distinguished from failures in the lives of entirely sanctified
persons. My findings of that time are in an unpublished thesis entitled, "In Earthen
Vessels."
In the late fifties, another investigation of Wesley's view of sin and perfection still
revealed little new on the subject. The encouraging discovery here was the clear and
biblical exegesis of John Wesley and his understanding of the "sins" of
ignorance and infirmity in the lives of persons possessing perfect love. I was also
impressed with Wesley's strong language describing the sin in believers which is destroyed
in entire sanctification.
It was gratifying indeed to discover, when I sought help for this paper, the increased
amount of material on the subject of sin in believers, as seen over against sanctified
human nature published during the last few years. Especially would I refer to articles by
Merne Harris and Roy Nicholson in Insights into Holiness, and by Ortho Jennings,
Cornelius Haggard, Leslie Marston and Lewis Corlett in Further Insights into Holiness.
Some of the subjects -- "Christian Holiness: Its Psychological Frame of
Reference," "Holiness and Nervous Reactions" -- reveal the nature of these
writings.
In the study conference conducted one year ago by the NHA, papers on the subject of sin
and holiness were presented that give further definition to sinfulness in believers. The
book, The Word and the Doctrine, contains a wealth of very helpful discussion. The
publication of W. Curry Mavis's book, The Psychology of Christian Experience, gives
added light in this field.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze some of these discussions, and to seek for a
clearer definition of the sinful nature and its manifestations in the Christian believer.
If inbred sin in the believer cannot be distinguished from the sinful state of the
unbeliever on the one hand, or from the faulty nature of the entirely sanctified on the
other hand, then the message of holiness stands in jeopardy in the hands of its own
theological surgeons.
I. Sinfulness in the believer must be distinguished from the state of sinfulness
existent in the unbeliever. It is possible to place the standard of the regenerate
life so high that only entirely sanctified people can live it, or allow it to fall so low
that believers are "miserable sinners still." It is very important that clarity
be attained at this point.
One of the clearest definitions of the sin in unbelievers is found in I John 3. John
wrote, "Every one who practices sin also practices lawlessness; and sin is
lawlessness" (I John 3:4, NASB). No one who abides in God commits this kind of sin
(v.6); in fact, a person in the state of the new birth is unable to sin in this manner (v.
9). Such a person who thus sins "is of the devil" (v.8), and has no spiritual
vision or knowledge of God (v. 6). The use of the present tense in these verses clearly
portrays the total surrender of the person to a career of lawless rebellion against God.
Many other Scriptures can be cited giving this same view of the person apart from God.
It is important to recognize the beneficial effects of prevenient grace in the lives of
many people who are not yet Christians. Some people by training may have refined their
outward actions to the point of a good life, while still their heart practices
lawlessness. In Romans 7 the Apostle pictures himself as such a person. Though desiring
God's law, and longing for obedience, Paul finds himself controlled by a sinful nature and
left helpless and wretched under a body of sin. To reckon this man regenerate is
inconsistent with John's declaration in I John 3:9. Yet he may be living a socially
respectable outward life. Wherein then is he a sinner?
Merne Harris and Richard Taylor give an excellent treatment on the subject of sin in
their article, "The Dual Nature of Sin." (1) There they make very clear that
sin, strictly speaking, is "ethical sin" as over against "legal sin,"
and it is "accountable wrongness before God." Further, they say that if
inherited depravity is called sin, the term is then used in an "accommodated,
sub-ethical sense." Sin in act, then, when it is voluntary, against God, and with
some degree of knowledge, is the only basis for eternal damnation.
However, it must further be observed that when a responsible person sins in this
ethical sense, he gives himself over to his depraved heart, and by these acts of sin makes
his heart-sinfulness his own. Paul points out that when men sinned, "God gave them
over to a depraved mind" (Rom. 1:28, NASB), and such persons became "haters of
God," and "although they know the ordinance of God, that those who practice such
things are worthy of death, they not only do the same, but also give hearty approval to
those who practice them" (Rom. 1:30, 32, NASB). Obviously, surrender to evil is not
only in action, but also in a state of mind. In this sense a sinful nature becomes ethical
sin, or "accountable wrongness," in the unbeliever. Apparently this is the
"lawlessness," or career of sinning, John defined in his epistle. Even though
prevenient grace modifies this sinning condition in many unbelievers (Paul said he
"acted ignorantly in unbelief" before his conversion, I Tim. 1:13), yet
basically the sinner has given himself over to an evil within, and has become a slave to
that evil. This is the kind of sinning a believer does not, and cannot, be doing.
II. The sin in the believer must be distinguished from the failures that are still
present in the entirely sanctified. Some very excellent distinctions in this area have
been recently made which aid greatly in understanding this problematic area in the
doctrine of Christian holiness. To state the doctrine of perfection in a way that makes
impossible its attainment by human beings is not scriptural. To lower the standard of
purity to a level inferior to a full victory in Christ mutilates the Wesleyan message.
Care must be exercised at this point. Leslie Marston fears the possibility that "from
the psychoanalytic reservoir called the subconscious there has developed a murky seepage
into the stream of holiness teaching beclouding it with alien concepts." (2)
In the first place it must be said that there are results of the fall that will remain
as flaws in one's basic human nature until the resurrection. Holiness of heart is not a
grasping for resurrection glory. It is well that personality traits, basic human desires,
and human limitations are recognized as no bars to Christian holiness. Furthermore, the
careful distinctions made by W. Curry Mavis between repressed complexes and carnality are
greatly needed. (3) Such discussions make one realize how naive is the claim that all
struggle after entire sanctification is on the outside. The pure in heart must learn to
distinguish between the sinful and human battles within.
Some of John Wesley's questions to persons professing the great blessing seem almost
overdone in the light of repressed complexes.
Do you find no interruption or abatement at any time of your joy in the Lord? Do you
continually see God; and without any cloud, or darkness, or mist between? Do you pray
without ceasing, without ever being diverted from it by anything inward or outward? Are
you ever hindered by any person or thing? by the power or subtlety of Satan, or by
weakness or disorders of body, pressing down the soul? Can you be thankful for every thing
without exception? And do you feel all working together for good? Do you do nothing, great
or small, merely to please yourself? Do you feel no touch of any desire or affection but
what springs from the pure love of God? Do you speak no words but from a principle of
love, and under the guidance of his Spirit? (4)
If complexes produce "fearful phantoms," "fear of failure,"
"distracting anxieties," "belligerent actions," and "other forms
of maladjustive behavior that constitute frustrations in the Christian life," (5)
then preachers of holiness must learn to ask the right questions when probing the hearts
of seekers. Unless there is success at this crucial point of cleavage between carnality
and humanity, our profession of freedom from sin will be merely academic.
III. What then is the sin in the believer that remains after justification, but is
gone in the entirely sanctified? In what way is the carnal believer different from the
wicked man on the one hand, and from the pure-in-heart saint on the other? Wesley
describes the carnal believer as follows:
These continually feel a heart bent to backsliding, a natural tendency to evil; a
proneness to depart from God, and cleave to the things of the earth. They are daily
sensible of sin remaining in their heart, pride, self-will, unbelief; and of sin cleaving
to all they speak or do, even their best actions and holiest duties. (6)
After Wesley has said that this remaining sin in believers does not reign, and does not
condemn, and does not have the consent of the will, he can describe it in strong terms.
The believers have in them the "seeds of pride and vanity, of anger, lust, and evil
desire, yea, sin of every kind." This is a "matter of daily experience"
with them. The "babes in Christ" at Corinth were believers in a "low
degree" because "much of sin remained in them, and the carnal mind, which is not
subject to the law of God." They "feel the flesh, the evil nature in them,"
but they "do not yield thereto," nor give place to the devil, but "maintain
a continual war with all sin" so that "God is well-pleased with their sincere,
though imperfect obedience." Wesley insisted further concerning the believer:
Although they are continually convinced of sin cleaving to all they do; though they are
conscious of not fulfilling the perfect law, either in their thoughts, or words, or works;
although they know they do not love the Lord their God with all their heart, and mind, and
soul, and strength; although they feel more or less of pride, or self will, stealing in
and mixing with their best duties; although even in their more immediate intercourse with
God, . . . they are continually ashamed of their wandering thoughts, or of the deadness
and dullness of their affections; yet there is no condemnation to them still, either from
God or from their own heart. (7)
Though some would question whether this person, so described by Wesley, is a Christian
at all, and others would doubt the Christianity of the Corinthians who possessed envy,
strife and divisions, yet if language is at all dependable, both Wesley and Paul believed
that they were describing Christians. Paul, farther on in this third chapter of
Corinthians, stated that these people were on the foundation (vv. 11, 12), and even if
their materials used in the building are burned, yet they themselves will be saved (v.
15). Clearly jealousy, strife and other manifestations of carnality (v.3) are not the same
as unrighteousness, fornication, idolatry, and robbery (I Cor. 6:9, 10). No one described
by this latter group can inherit the kingdom of God.
What then is the essential difference between this sinfulness in believers, and these
wicked deeds of the unbeliever? Surely it is not in the outward deeds alone. A person may
be a thief or murderer without performing the outward deed. A thief is one who gives full
consent to greed in his heart; a murderer is one who yields to hate in the soul. This
willing yielding to evil makes one the condemned sinner.
On the other hand one who has spiritual life through faith in Christ cannot fully yield
to sin in his heart. Rather than yielding to the evil within, he struggles against it, and
longs for deliverance. At times he is nearly overwhelmed, but he keeps penitent and
faithful, and continues in favor with God. In this struggle a believer need not sin, that
is, allow the sin nature in him to reign (I John 2), even for a moment. However, if he
sins, that is gives in to sin for a moment, he has an Advocate with the Father (I John
2:1) Who restores the fallen and forgives his sin. So long as he is penitent, trusts in
the Advocate, and resists the evil, the believer does not fall from saving grace. Only
when he persists in yielding to sin does spiritual life depart and saving faith die.
Wesley described this loss of life as follows:
(1) The divine seed of loving, conquering faith, remains in him that is born of God.
"He keepeth himself," by the grace of God, and "cannot commit sin."
(2) A temptation arises; whether from the world, the flesh, or the devil, it matters not.
(3) The Spirit of God gives him warning that sin is near, and bids him more abundantly
watch unto prayer. (4) He gives way, in some degree, to the temptation, which now begins
to grow pleasing to him. (5) The Holy Spirit is grieved; his faith is weakened; and his
love of God grows cold. (6) The Spirit reproves him more sharply, and saith, "This is
the way walk thou in it." (7) He turns away from the painful voice of God, and
listens to the pleasing voice of the tempter. (8) Evil desire begins and spreads in his
soul, till faith and love vanish away: he is then capable of committing outward sin, the
power of the Lord being departed from him. (8)
Notice carefully that Wesley stated that the believer "gives way, in some degree,
to the temptation." It is not a full yielding of the will, only a partial. This
partial yielding to sin on the part of the believer explains the use of the word
"sin" by John (I John 2:1), over against the full practice of sin which no
believer can do (3:9). John further distinguished between the "sin unto death"
from the "sin not unto death" (5:16). This latter sin, the one not unto death,
may show up in a brother, but need not culminate in death if the Church prays for
continued life.
In the Epistle of James one obtains more light on this sin in believers. In temptation,
lust, or desire, gives birth to sin when the lust conceives. Yet this beginning of sin
does not bring death until sin is accomplished (As. 1:14,15). Obviously this completing of
sin is the full yielding of the will to it. This can only be done when life and faith have
fled. All failure before this point in the believer is properly called sin in the
believer, which has the forgiveness of God, and need not separate one from God's favor.
Such believers should press on to an experience of full deliverance from this sinfulness,
but they are not condemned because it remains.
When a believer attains complete sanctification through the Spirit, no longer in
temptation does the desire conceive and bring forth sin. So long as perfect love reigns in
the heart, even though through natural desire one is enticed, the pure heart repels the
evil suggestions, and sin is not conceived. However, the entirely sanctified person,
through neglect and coldness, may again in strong temptation experience the birth of sin
in his heart. If and when this occurs, he has yielded to a degree, and his heart has
become impure. By humility, confession and renewed trust, such a person can be restored to
full victory again.
The real problem in the entirely sanctified is in determining, when desire is enticing
in temptation, just where sin really begins. The drawing away desire may be enhanced by
lack of knowledge, infirmity, repressed complex or a faulty physical condition. The line
between a marred natural desire and a sinful moral desire is there, but may be hard to see
in experience. However, one can be certain that God the Holy Spirit will guard His citadel
if the sanctified will let Him. He is there to warn when danger lurks. If one heeds His
Voice, clings to Christ by faith, resists the Devil, takes time for renewal, his holiness
of heart is maintained. It is pleasant to dwell in that Light where sin may never come.
In conclusion it must be repeated that sin in believers is more than just the
possession of a defiled nature. It is that, but sinfulness may manifest itself in partial
failure in the moment of temptation. This sinful failure is not so much outward as inward,
and the believer needs the atoning blood. But more than this, he should claim the full
cleansing in the blood of Jesus Christ, which is the heritage of all believers.
Documentation
1. Merne A. Harris and Richard S. Taylor, "The Dual Nature
of Sin," The Word and the Doctrine, ed. Kenneth Geiger (Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon Hill
Press, 1966), pp.89-117.
2. Leslie R. Marston, "Christian Holiness: Its
Psychological Frame of Reference," Further Insights Into Holiness., ed. Kenneth
Geiger (Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon Hill Press, 1963), p.306.
3. W. Curry Mavis, "Repressed Complexes and Christian
Maturity," The Word and the Doctrine, ed. Kenneth Geiger (Kansas City, Mo.: Beacon
Hill Press, 1965), pp. 30~309.
4. John Wesley, The Works of John Wesley, authorized ed. pub.
by the Wesleyan Conference, London, 1872 (14 Vol.; photo offset ed.; Grand Rapids:
Zondervan Publishing House, 1958), XI, 217-218.
5. W. Curry Mavis, The Psychology of Christian Experience
(Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1963), pp.66-67.
6. Op. cit., V, 148.
7. Ibid., V.92.
8. Ibid., V, 231.
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