Holiness Through Faith
Table of Contents
Holiness Through Faith: Part 1
The above is the title of a small pamphlet that has obtained some considerable circulation among believers in the Lord Jesus; especially among those who, dissatisfied with the ordinary evangelical experience of our day, are seeking with sincerity of heart to grow "in grace and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Longing, according to the instinct of the divine life within them, to enter more practically into that "kingdom of God which is not meat and drink; but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost," they have found, in this little book, and other kindred publications, that spoken of, as known and experienced by others, which they are longing for, and, as they hope too, the way marked out for arriving at it themselves.
Feeling that this longing after Christ and fellowship with Him, for it is that in true souls in whom grace is working, is really a wide-spread movement of God's Spirit among believers, and that this little book, with all its many and marked imperfections, may have in some instances been used of God to help souls, as showing that there is a better state of soul to be reached, we hesitate to condemn it thus publicly in our pages, but having been more than once asked to warn our readers against it, and the teachings that it gives currency to, we believe we should fail in love to souls, and in responsibility to the Lord and His truth, did we longer refrain.
We believe the writer of the book in question to be sincerely desirous of helping his fellow believers, and of glorifying the Lord Jesus. His tone, spirit, and aim we love, and thank God for. All this makes it the more difficult to find fault with it; besides which we have no desire to give our pages the savor of hypercriticism or controversy.
We would mention here, and it is one of our chief reasons for making these remarks, that the little work we are considering has been carefully and thoroughly discussed by a well known and accepted teacher in the church of God, and is advertised on our last page under the title, "A Review of R. Pearsall Smith, on Holiness Through Faith,' by J. N. D." We have read this " Review " with ranch profit ourselves, and have heard of very many instances in which it has been blessed to others. We therefore greatly desire to 'commend it to the attention of our readers, believing that it will, not only give them a true estimate of the real evil of the doctrine that is taught in the book reviewed, but be directly used of God to give them, in a divine way, the blessing their souls are seeking.
The great defect of the teaching of Mr. Smith is, that lie makes a certain state of soul the object before the mind, instead of Christ and His grace. In this way self occupies the heart, and not Christ. In the language of the writer we have named, " It makes a subtle self dominant, which lowers the spiritual state." He goes on to say, " I never saw any one make his experience the object before his mind, or that with which his mind was occupied. that it did not make self a great object to self, whether the experience was ordinary evangelical experience, seventh of Romans, Gal. 5:17, or that of the perfectionists, self holds a large place in the mind's eye, and it cannot be otherwise. And I think this book is a clear example of it. The blessedness and beauty of Christ Himself nowhere appears in it. He tells us that, this doctrine makes more of Christ, and ourselves humble, but, if you examine it, it is what Christ effects and produces in us, not what Christ is. And this makes all the difference."
We believe thoroughly in the state of soul, or experience, Mr. Smith advocates. That is to say, we believe, not only in forgiveness of sins, but in deliverance practically from the power of sin, and in the unclouded and uninterrupted enjoyment of divine power, as living in the consciousness, not merely that by the work of Christ we are set beyond condemnation, but that we are loved by the Father as Jesus is loved. It is not then with this experience we find fault, but with Mr. Smith's teachings with refer-mice to it. Teachings which, however well meant, are fundamentally unsound. The very title of his book is unsound, and if' taken in an exclusive sense, completely sets aside the work of Christ on the cross, as that by which the believer has been sanctified and made holy, according to the teachings of Heb. 10:10, where with reference to the will of God in the sacrifice of Christ, the Spirit of God says: "By the which will we are sanctified through the offering up of the body of Jesus Christ once." Tins is not our faith, as practically bringing us into holiness as a state of soul; but the work of Christ on the cross for us, true of course only of believers, but true, of every believer, the moment he believes in Jesus.
This is holiness through sacrifice, and not "holiness through faith," which is a misinterpretation of the expression in Acts, used with reference to the conversion of the Gentiles, "purifying their hearts through faith." In some remarkable way this expression was used for blessing to Mr. Smith's; own soul, as he tells us, and thus became, so to speak, the keystone of his whole system, being made to mean an act of faith whereby, at one leap, the believer attains to purity, and conformity to Christ as He was on earth. It is a mere perversion of scripture, and is a fair sample of the way in which throughout his whole book Mr. Smith misuses scripture to support a false system. All that is taught by it is, that, in contrast with law-keeping and ceremonial ordinances, God was purifying the hearts of the Gentiles in a practical sense, putting no difference between Jews and others. It was the work of grace that was being carried on by God continuously in their souls, and by no means a state of purity reached by a single act of faith, as taught by the author of "Holiness through faith."
The fact is, Mr. Smith confounds purity and holiness with deliverance from the power of sin, i. e. gaining victory of it, as a thing that remains in the believer. This scripture does teach. Blessedly teach. But for the moment we must end our remarks, and the Lord willing, continue them in our next.
Holiness Through Faith: Part 2
It is a poor way of meeting the charge "that such teaching is a lowering of God's standard of holiness, joined to spiritual pride," to say, as Mr. Smith does, we did it ourselves once, because " we did not understand that what was claimed was not ' absolute perfection,' but that up to the measure of to-day's consciousness they were kept by faith, and that all the glory was given to Christ equally and in the same way with that of remission of sins." The question' is this, is the being kept by Christ from practical sinning " up to the measure of to-days consciousness," and Christ having all the glory given to Him equally and in the same way with that of remission of sins, is this holiness according to God's standard of holiness? Is this purity according to God's measure of purity?
We affirm it is not. God's standard of holiness is Himself, and therefore, as a matter of aim, we are exhorted, " as He which hath called God is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy," 1 Peter 1:16-6. God's standard of purity is Christ, and because -we are to be like Him in glory when He comes, we read, " every man who hath this hope in -Him (Christ) purifieth himself even as He (Christ) is pure," (1 John 3. Does Mr. Smith mean to say He is actually as holy as God is, and as pure as Christ. If he does not, and we know He does not, spiritual pride does not go this length with him, though it does in some we have met with who hold similar views, why does he talk of " God's standard of holiness " and then speak of not "claiming absolute," but only something " up to the measure of to-day's consciousness "? Why does he not say, We don't pretend to have a holiness and purity up to the measure of God's standard of holiness and purity, but merely something up to the measure of our to-day's consciousness of holiness and purity.
But the book we are occupied with comes forward to teach " God's way of holiness," " a way taught in the Bible," " a way in Christ," " a way hid from mere intellect, and revealed by the Spirit to the soul hungering for righteousness," and we affirm, Scripture being- the test, that it does not teach God's way of holiness, nor a way taught by the Bible, nor a way in Christ, nor a way revealed by the Spirit, but a way peculiar to Mr. Smith, which does grievously lower God's standard of holiness, and that does induce " spiritual pride," while at the same time it sadly misleads souls who are seeking to find their way out of the experience of the seventh of Romans.
We would press it, as earnestly as Mr. Smith does, that the seventh of Romans is not proper Christian experience, and that those in it are, as to the state of their souls, under law and not under Christ,- or "in the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free." But deliverance from the seventh of Romans, and the liberty wherewith Christ has made us free, is neither holiness nor purity, in the way in which these two things are presented to us in Scripture.
Holiness is either the believer's standing before God in the perfection of all that Christ has done for him, and is for him before God, or it is the work of the Holy Ghost in him daily making him practically holy, and which implies holiness unattained to perfectly in practice. Purity is either what the believer will he in glory with Christ when actually like Him, or the process of purifying by the way because he is not yet pure as Christ is.
To talk then of our being " holy, and pure, and conformed to the image of Jesus Christ," as a present condition, which is to be attained by one simple act of faith is utterly to mislead souls, both as to their own state and as to Christ Himself. Christ was " holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners," as much in nature as in practice. Are we, even when " up to the measure of today's consciousness," we are kept from actual transgression, whether of thought or action? Christ had no sin in him. Have we none in us; even when it is not active? Scripture says, "if we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is riot in us," 1 John 1:8. In the light of such Scripture, where is Mr. Smith's "inward purity," and present " conformity to Jesus Christ "?
Mr. Smith's doctrine is not in Scripture. It dishonors Christ by lowering Him down to the level of our to-day's consciousness as to not sinning, while it puffs the person who believes in it up in a fancied conformity to Christ, which does not really exist, and to which he supposes he has attained over his fellow believers, even though it be by faith, and Christ gets all the glory of it.
We desire to repeat here, that we believe in freedom from the power of sin, and that the flesh, though in us, is not to be the source of one thought or feeling, much less of word or action. That the believer should ever be "filled with the Spirit," walking in the unclouded light of God's presence, with Christ ever dwelling in his heart by faith, so that he is filled with divine peace and joy, and has nothing on his conscience to trouble him in God's presence. In our next we shall give some instances of how sadly Mr. Smith misapplies Scripture, and thus loses, to his reader its true and blessed import; but in doing this we would say, that our aim is edification and not criticism.
('Continued from page 70.)
Holiness Through Faith: Part 3
It is wonderful how, when a false theory occupies the mind, the plainest statements of Scripture go for nothing, and what is positively false and opposed to its direct teaching is put in place of the truth. No better instance of this kind of thing could be found than the following extract from Mr. Smith gives us, "When some certain form of Sin, known to your own soul, is presented to you, although you tarp from it, is there not a response down deep in the soul, that contradicts the verdict you have given? and which says of the evil thing, in unmistakable tones, Dove it! ' A h! there is the fatal thing-you love it after all. Now what a man loves, in a certain sense that man himself is in character. His affections show the central powers of his being." Now can anything be more totally contrary to the teaching of the Spirit of God in the seventh of Romans, which gives us the very picture of the state of soul out of which Mr. Smith writes that persons, through his teachings, may be delivered? What the apostle states is that a Christian does hate sin at the very bottom of his heart, even while under its power, and that his 'distress proceeds from the consciousness of doing, in spite of himself, what he does hate. " For that which I do, I allow not, for what I would, that I do not, but what I- hate, that do I." His statement is the clear opposite of Mr. Smith's. Then, that what a man loves he is in character, is just what the apostle denies. He says, "For what I would, (what I love) that I do not." His character is just tire opposite of what he loves, and that's the trouble. And lastly, that " his affections show the central powers of his being," is just what the seventh of Romans, we might al-. Most say, is written to prove is not the case. His affections are all right, he loves holiness and hates sin, but is utterly without power to act according to his affections. That is to say, his affections are the very reverse of being the " power of his being." "I delight in the law of God after the inward man; but I see another law in my members, warring against the law Of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members." At the center, where his affections are, he is weak, and captive under a power that is in his members, and clearly they are not his affections. It really is wonderful how any one claiming to take Scripture as his guide could make, in one short sentence, three statements so plainly false and contrary to what it teaches. We give Mr. Smith credit for being quite sincere in what he teaches, but believe that the very thing he has taken upon himself to teach others, is just the thing that in his own soul he is unsound upon. The statement we are considering.
and indeed his whole book; plainly shows that he does not distinguish between the flesh and the new man, nor between the new man and the 'power of the Holy Ghost acting on the new man. With him, strength is found in the affections, and if the affections are set straight all will go well. The fact of being born again, and of two natures opposed to one another in the same person, the strength of the one and utter weakness of the other, learned while under law, ending in deliverance from the power of the one, through our Lord Jesus Christ, seem to have no place in the mind. But let us leave this question, and pass on to another where our author asks us " to be honest " and fairly look at the Scripture he is speaking of. We are to beware and not turn its edge, as he himself had often done, to his shame and loss, by the " poor tricks of the intellect." He is dealing with the 6th of Romans, in this instance, and our not serving sin. " When," he asks, " are we not to serve sin? Plainly now. From what 'is this deduced? From the fact of the body of sin being destroyed (' rendered inert, or ineffective, as in suspended life,' might be the more exact translation); when destroyed? Plainly, previously to our not serving sin. When was the old man crucified with Christ? Evidently,- previously to the destruction of the body of sin." What Mr. Smith wants us to be honest and see, is that three distinct acts, one succeeding the other, take place in the believer, by which he gets to the position where he is enabled not to serve sin. That is to say. he puts in place of the work of Christ for us on the cross, to which in figure, by baptism, the believer has been brought, as the expression of his standing before God, a supposed three-fold work of the Holy Ghost in us, by which liberty from the power of sins is attained. By this means, the whole force of the apostle's argument is lost. What the apostle -does teach is that, according to his profession in baptism, every Christian has been crucified with Christ, and is therefore to practically reckon himself dead to sin. In the same way, in Galatians, he says, " They that are Christ's have -crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts." It is the Christian standing before God in 'virtue of the cross, he is speaking of. Paul says; "I have been crucified with Christ." Not crucified by the work of the Holy Ghost in him, as Mr. Smith would teach us. He was crucified when Christ was crucified. He came to the knowledge of it when he was converted, or at leak when the Holy Ghost revealed it to him, and his aim was to make his state answer to his actual standing. Certainly we are not to serve sin; and why? because we have been crucified with Christ, and we have been crucified with Christ that the body of sin might be destroyed.
The apostle's doctrine puts the firm, ground of the cross of Christ beneath the foot of faith, as that upon which the " walk in newness of life" is to proceed. Mr. Smith's Puts the shifting sands of experience, by a totally false interpretation of the 6th of Romans. Paul's " way of holiness " is very, very different from that of Mr. Smith's, and we don't hesitate to say, that we very much doubt the quality of " the newness of life " that flows from the latter. The doctrine of the standing of the believer in the 6th of Romans does become experience in the 7th of Romans, which is really the setting forth of how the teaching of the 6th of Romans becomes realized experimentally in the soul, so that deliverance from the power of sin is truly experienced, and this is just what Mr. Smith does not see.
We shall close our remarks by noticing just one more instance of the sad misuse of Scripture by Mr. Smith in the book we are considering and this the saddest of all, because it deals with what is of the deepest and most precious moment to the saint. It is that in which he attempts to unfold the doctrine of the atonement from the epistle of Hebrews. We feel the more as to it, because our author tells us he " waited for some weeks in special prayer for enlightenment and guidance on so solemn a subject," and yet it is just here that he goes so terribly astray, and gives the plainest evidence of the working of the human mind outside the guidance of the Spirit.
" Inward purity of heart," and " present salvation from sinning," is the doctrine that Mr. Smith is seeking to establish. It is a purified heart he is in quest of when he turns to the epistle of Hebrews, and he perverts the teaching of the whole epistle in support of the theory he has in his mind on this subject. Now, though we are exhorted to "follow after holiness," the inward sanctification of the Spirit, and the operation of the Spirit in the soul, renewing and cleansing the affections, which is what Mr. Smith is solely occupied with, is exactly that of which the epistle does not treat. Sanctification in Hebrews is by the will of God through " the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all." The believer is once and forever sanctified and fitted for the presence of God, as a worshipper, by the blood of Jesus, and the " worshippers once purged " " have no more conscience of sins." The blood is applied once, and only once. We will now listen to what Mr. Smith has to say on the subject.
"In the epistle to the Hebrews, which deals so specially with the scriptural aspect of our Lord's work, we find the various forms of the word " sanctify " more often than in all the other epistles combined_ It was that Jesus, might sanctify the people with His own blood,' that He suffered without the gate.' For if the blood of bulls and of goats,' the epistle argues, 'and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: how much more shall the blood of Christ,'" &c. Sec. Other texts are quoted to the same point, and he continues, "It is because this sanctification, to which we hear testimony, is through tire blood of Jesus, that we feel confidence in casting ourselves upon Christ to receive its accomplishment."
All this has reference to the inward cleansing of the soul as the following passage shows. "'The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth from all sin,' was probably more constantly on my lips than any single passage of Scripture for ten years before I saw that its application was not primarily to canceling the record of sin, but to the inward cleansing of the souls of those who walk in the light as He is in the light.'" After more to the same purpose he continues, "A walk in the true light always leads to the blood of cleansing. Thus we find that if we walk in the light as He is in the light, God and ourselves have fellowship one with another, and then we realize that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us inwardly from all sin." The adding to Scripture, and the confusion, not to say perversion, that this last sentence gives evidence of, we need not, we think, point out to our readers. All we want them to see is, how all the blessed import of the true doctrine of the epistle of Hebrews is lost to the souls of those who adopt Mr. Smith's interpretations of it. "Boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus," as the blessed privilege of the simplest believer in Jesus, is entirely shut out by such doctrine, and those only who have, according to Mr. Smith's theory, been inwardly and practically cleansed by the blood can avail themselves of that blessed open door.
We think we have given instances enough to show that we do well to warn our readers against the book we have been speaking of.
( Concluded from page. 77.)