Wesleyan Doctrine of Entire Sanctification
by Sidney Yuan
Before I give the sermon, I like to make a confession. I am not an Arminian. However, I don’t consider myself to be a Calvinist either. I think I am a Calminian. Calvinists have a tendency to stress the sovereignty of God more than the responsibility of man. Arminians, on the other hand tend to stress the responsibility of man more than the sovereignty of God. As you could probably tell from my sermons that I stress both the sovereignty of God and responsibility of man. Whether it is Arminian or Calvinism, I don’t believe in being extreme. For example, the extreme of God’s sovereignty leads to the Hyper-Calvinism of Double-Predestination, saying that God predestined some to go to heaven and others to hell. On the other hand, the extreme on man’s will leads to Pelagianism which says man can choose God without any divine help. Either extreme is unbiblical. The topic of today’s sermon is on Wesley’s Doctrine of Entire Sanctification. I see the sovereignty of God and responsibility of man equally important in the sanctification process.
What is Sanctification?
This is not a chart of the Dow Jones Industry Average. This is better than the Dow Jones Index. It depicts three important stages in a Christian’s life. When we accept Christ as our personal Savior, we are justified by God. We put our sins on Christ, who bore our sin on the cross, and Christ puts His righteousness on us. This is so-called the imputed righteousness of Christ. What a deal it is! See, I told you this is better than the Dow Jones Industry average. When a person is justified, he is no longer under the “penalty of sin”. His sins are paid for, by the blood of Christ. The second stage is the Sanctification Process. If we are truly saved, we should have spiritual growth to go along with our faith. Since Christ had broken the bondage of sin, we are no longer under the power or dominion of sin, although we are still under the presence and temptation of sin. We continue to grow until the day we die. When we die physically, we are finally no longer under the “presence of sin”. We are glorified and our spirit will be with God. If Christ would return before we die, then we will escape the physical death.
Thus the sanctification process is the time between justification and glorification. It is the time between we are saved to when we die or when Christ comes back. We are supposed to grow spiritually and be sanctified. To be sanctified also means to be purified, to be cleansed, or to be made holy. Remember that special word holy?
What is Holiness?
The Hebrew word for Holiness is “qadosh” (kadosh) or the Greek word “hagios” (Ha-ge-os) both mean to be separated, set apart for God. It is sacred and holy. I learned from another pastor that an excellent illustration of holiness is to bring a cleaver, a chopping board and a piece of meat to the pulpit, set the chopping board on the pulpit and chop the meat into two pieces right before the congregation, setting apart one piece of the meat to be holy. I did not do it because dread the thought of carrying my laptop, a chopping board, a knife and a piece of meat up to the pulpit. I worried that I would either drop the laptop on the floor or the cleaver on my foot. Either way will be very memorable but painful, so I finally gave up the idea.
In the Old Testament, God wanted the Israelites to be holy and separated. He gave them special laws to observe and special diet to keep, to separate them from their neighbors.
Why Do we Need to be Holy?
For those who are set apart for God, He calls us to a high standard of living
• Leviticus 19:2- God told Moses to “Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.
• Matthew 5:48- Jesus said “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect. “ (here we see a equation of holiness to perfection)
• 1 Peter 1:15-16- “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
Here we see that we are asked to be holy in all things that we do.
• Hebrews 12:14- the author says “make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy / without holiness no one will see the Lord. “
The author of the book of Hebrews reminds us that no one can see God, unless we are holy.
Is Entire Sanctification Biblical?
So to be sanctified is a process to be purified, cleansed and set apart for God’s purpose. But wait, Wesley did not just say that we need to be sanctified, but he said we need to be entirely sanctified. Wesley believed Entire Sanctification is achievable in our life time. He had a high view of sanctification, which he said is barely attainable.
What does it mean to be entirely sanctified? How entirely is entire? If we become entirely sanctified, what else is there for us to do in our Christian live? Most importantly, is the teaching of Entire Sanctification biblical?
The only time, the words Entire Sanctification can be found in the Bible is in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 which says, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (NASB).
Instead of “sanctify you entirely”, other translations include sanctify you “in every way” (NLT, ISV), “completely” (ESV), “wholly” (KJV) and “through and through” (NIV).
Some may ask, how can one build a doctrine of Entire Sanctification based on only one verse? If we pay attention, we see that Entire Sanctification is closely related to the word blameless or without blame.
• Colossians 1:21-22 - And you, who once were alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now He has reconciled in the body of His flesh through death, to present you holy, and blameless, and above reproach in His sight—
• 1 Corinthians 1:8 – (Our Lord Jesus Christ) who will also confirm you to the end, that you may be blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.
• Philippians 2:15 - that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world
• Ephesians 1:4 - For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love
• 1 Thessalonians 3:13- May he strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus / comes with all his holy ones.
See how many times, the word holy and blameless are linked together? Various characters in the Bible are said to be blameless. Noah was called "a righteous man, blameless" (Genesis 6:9). Job was said to be "blameless and upright" (Job 1:1). In his first letter, Apostle John says: "Love has been perfected among us" (1 John 4:17, NRSV). According to Wesley, perfection is equal to holiness. This is a good time to introduce Wesley’s view on Entire Sanctification.
Wesley’s View on Entire Sanctification
• According to Wesley Entire Sanctification means to set apart our lives and completely surrender to God and His will. (Remember, setting our lives apart is the definition of holiness).
• It is also to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind and strength.
• It is to have a completely cleansed heart and freedom from the power of sin (Romans 6:14). (If we truly love God with all our heart, mind and strength, we will not have the desire nor the intention to sin. If we sin, it’s only because we choose to sin and disobey God.)
• To be entirely sanctified is to be perfect in our relationship with Christ. (Christian perfection does not mean we are sinless or absolutely perfect. Biblically it means completeness and fullness of “maturity” and “Christian character”)
Trichotomy Nature of Man
Let’s first look at the Trichotomy Nature or three-fold nature of Man, which will help us understand the Entire Sanctification Process. Three fold nature tells us that we are made of body, soul and spirit. The Bible says that God made Adam out of dust in Genesis 2:7, and that’s the only material part of man. The soul and the spirit are the non-material parts. God then breathed into the nostrils of Adam and gave him life, turning him into a living being, or living soul. So that he had a mind, emotion and will. The spirit on the other hand, allows us to communicate with God. God told Adam that if they ate from the Tree of Knowledge, they would certainly die. However, after Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of Knowledge, they did not die immediately. Although they did not die physically, they became dead spiritually. To die means to be spiritually separated from God. Because of Adam’s sin, we were all born spiritually dead. Only by accepting the Christ’s salvation can we be right with God again, and be spiritually alive. By accepting Christ, we are born again and we become a new creation in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17). Although our outward man or the body is perishing, our inward man or our soul is being renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16). Our soul is being renewed by aligning to our spirit.
There are a number of Biblical passages which support the theory that a man is made up of body, soul and spirit. We already read our main passage today
1 Thessalonians 5:23- Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you entirely; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved complete, without blame at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (NASB).
Hebrews 4:12- For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. (Thus we see there is a difference between soul and spirit).
1 Corinthians 2:14-3:4- The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. (Indeed, without the spirit, we cannot accept or understand the things that come from God).
The Sanctification Process
This is again the chart that looks like the Dow Jones Industry Average. As mentioned earlier, after spiritual birth, a Christian grows through the sanctification process. Wesley believed there are stages in sanctification and perfection just like there are different stages in life. He liked to use the example of little children, young men and fathers (use by Apostle John 1 John Chapter 2) to describe various stages in sanctification. At each stage, we try to align our soul with our spirit. Spiritually, we understand the things that come from God and what we need to do, but there is a constant struggle between the old self and the new self, or between the flesh and the spirit. Paul said in Romans 7:15,”what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do”. Thus sanctification is to align our soul to our spirit, to put to death the old self and put on the new self.
I like to highlight three points on this chart. According to Wesley, the nominal process of sanctification is a progressive (that’s the first point). We should open ourselves “entirely” to God’s grace and have the intention to be wholly devoted to God. Wesley called this a pure heart. With the pure heart, we then slowly align the soul to the spirit, and grow in maturity. The second point is that sanctification can also be instantaneous. Sometimes, a crisis might happen in life that may help us to mature quickly, or have no desire to sin in a certain capacity. We will talk about that in more details. The Third Point, is that Wesley said one can fall from ES, that few can keep it all the way. But Wesley said most people who fall from it, and regain it in life
If we look at Paul’s life, we see a progressive growth. Early in Paul’s ministry, he wrote in 1 Corinthians 9:1, Paul asked “Am I not an apostle? Have I not seen Jesus our Lord?” (One can sense that Paul was very proud of being an Apostle). Then just after six chapters in 1 Corinthians 15:9, he referred to himself as the least of the apostles. Towards the middle of his ministry, during his first Roman imprisonment, in Ephesians 3:8, he referred to himself as the least of all the saints. (It’s quite a big jump to go from the least of the apostles to the least of the saints). Then, at the end of his ministry and during the second Roman imprisonment, he wrote in 1 Timothy 1:15, that he was the chief of sinners”. In Romans Chapter 7, Paul disclosed his struggle between his spirit and flesh (soul) as he grew from one stage of ES to the next.
Wesley also taught that sanctification can take place instantaneously. However, he did acknowledge that progressive sanctification is the nominal process. Since entire sanctification is also death to sin, there is a noticeable crisis or instant in which the experience takes place. A good example is that of Jesus healing the paralytic man in Matthew 9:3. He told him, “Take heart, son your sins are forgiven”. Later, He told the man to “pick up his mat and walk”. From this we see that the sin of the paralytic man was forgiven. Jesus’ words of forgiveness may be an indication that the man’s disease was a direct consequence of his own sin, although not all diseases are caused by sins (e.g., the blind man in Chapter 9 of the Gospel of John). There is another miracle, which Jesus also healed a paralyzed man and told him to pick up his mat and walk. This is recorded in John Chapter 5 and it took place at the Sheep Gate Pool. This time, Jesus did not forgive the man’s sin, but healed him physically and told him, “Go and sin no more.” A lot of times a crisis situation like this will help us to be sanctified in a hurry. Imagine if Jesus healed you and said, “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you” (John 5:14). Would you continue to sin? I don’t think so. Or imagine as in the case of the adulterous woman, being caught and threatened to be stoned, Jesus rescued her and said, “Neither will I condemn you. Go and sin no more” (John 8:10). If you were the adulterous woman, would you continue to commit adultery? Or, instead of Jesus, someone can be convicted by the Holy Spirit through the reading of the Bible, or an encounter with God in his prayer that leads the person to a crisis or lack of desire to sin. I am not saying that entire sanctification means we are sinless. It just means that whatever sins we are struggling with at our stage of maturity are dealt with. That we love God, obey Him and surrender to Him and we have no desire or intention to sin.
A twelve year old can love God and surrender to Him at his age and spiritual maturity. In studying the topic of Entire Sanctification and preparing for the sermon, I honestly feel that I have reached a crisis in dealing with the sins that I have been struggling with personally, in particular my temper. One thing I know, it’s instantaneous. I don’t know whether it is a miracle from God, or whether I have strong determination to love God and obey Him? But I do know I have no desire to sin in these capacities any more.
The Doctrine of Entire Sanctification had a great impact on the 19th Century Holiness Movement. This great revival helped a lot of people to be saved and experienced Entire Sanctification in both England and America. However, there are also a lot of misconceptions regarding the doctrine of entire sanctification. Let’s take a look at some of the common misconceptions of entire sanctification.
Misconceptions of Entire Sanctification
The first misconception is that Entire Sanctification must be achieved instantaneously. Methodist preachers like John Allen Wood of the 19th century began to preach that Entire Sanctification can only be achieved instantaneously and not by growth, and that one cannot grow into purity. Americans love instant gratification, we don’t have the patience. We love instant coffee, instant milk, TV dinner, cars that go from 0 to 60 miles per hours in less than 6 seconds, losing weight in 20 days, learning a foreign language in 10 days. We love fast food, and we want to have drive throughs in fast food to get our fast food even faster. Even in sanctification, the Americans were seeking an instantaneous experience. On the other hand, the Bible teaches that sanctification is a progressive process. The instantaneous experiences in the 19th century were by the grace of God and they were supernatural deeds.
There appears to be an analogy between spiritual healing and physical healing. Sanctification is a spiritual healing, and healing of a disease is a physical healing. Wesley himself often compared sin to diseases. As we know, God does heal supernaturally. In such cases, the patient is cured instantaneously. When Jesus healed, the blind could see, the leper recovered, the lame walked. Not only were the healings instantaneous, they were healed completely. The man who was blind since birth could see instantly, the lame picked up his mat and walked, and flesh of the leper was restored completely. However, God also heals naturally, e.g., through doctors and medicine. In such cases, the healing is generally not instantaneous. There might be lengthy and slow recovery processes. When does God choose to heal supernaturally and when does He decide to heal through natural causes is His prerogative. Similarly, instantaneous sanctification could take place supernaturally like in the 19th century revivals, or it can happen progressively like what’s happening nowadays.
A lot of people asked, how come we don’t see more supernatural deeds by God nowadays? There are beliefs that God allowed supernatural deeds to authenticate Moses’ ministry in giving the Old Testament, and He allowed supernatural deeds in Jesus’ and His disciple’s ministry to authenticate the giving the New Testament. Similarly, he also gave supernatural powers were given to Elijah and Elisha to introduce the prophetic age. Incidentally, Jesus, Moses and Elijah were also the three at the transfiguration (Matthew 17:3). Other than these three periods, there were very few miracles in the Bible. Job, Noah, Joseph and Daniel were all extremely Godly men, but none of them had any supernatural power. Abraham was called the father of faith and he did not have miraculous power. David was a man after God’s own heart and he did not perform any supernatural deeds. Does God still heal supernaturally, nowadays? Absolutely! God is allowing a lot of supernatural deeds in third world countries. For us who have God’s complete teaching & revelation in the Bible, there is less of a need for supernatural activities, but it can still happen. God can also use miracles to heal through natural means of doctors and medicine too.
Similarly, our spiritual healing or sanctification also comes in two forms. There is the instantaneous sanctification through the Revival Experiences like in the 19th centiry and there is the progressive sanctification taught in the Scripture. It is God’s prerogative whether to sanctify us instantaneous or progressive. If He wants to bring about another revival, He can. If not, we are commanded to be sanctified progressively.
A second misconception is that ES takes out our ability to sin.
Wesley never believed that sins can be eradicated or taken away and must be dealt with. It’s more correct to say that we are no longer under the power of sin. And we sin, only if we choose to do so.
A third misconception is that ES is the end stage and sinless stage.
This is not true. We can all grow continuously regardless how mature and holy we are. A twelve year old could be struggling with peer pressure or not lying. A new Christian could be struggling with the Ten Commandments trying to honor his parents and not to covet. A more mature Christian could be struggling with the issues of the heart that Jesus said if you are angry at you brother, you have committed murder, and if you lust, you have committed adultery. Yet, an even more mature Christian may be struggling with sins of omissions (James 4:17). At whatever maturity level, we can still grow. Like Paul said in Philippians 3:12, Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Paul knew that he was not perfect, but he continued to press on.
The fourth misconception is that since it is so difficult to reach entire sanctification, let’s lower the standard or narrow the definition of sin. Traditional Holiness Theologians define sin as “sin properly so called”, which is an intentional, premeditated, fully willful act of conscious disobedience. What a definition? Wesley on the other hand had a very broad view of sin, which includes “voluntary sin”, “involuntary sin” and “sins of omission”.
In redefining sin, the Traditional Holiness Theologians have behaved much like the Pharisees who tried to build a fence around the laws of God, so that they won’t even touch the laws. One may ask, isn’t it a good thing to build a fence to make sure they won’t break the laws? By building a fence, they actually lowered the standard of God’s laws. Let me give you an example. If I tell my daughter she should come home early because I worry about her safety at night. If she loves me and knows that I am worried, she will come home early. If she starts bargaining, how early is early, Dad? Is midnight early enough? How about 11 PM? By defining a time or putting a fence around the rule, she is lowering the standard of the rule. The same applies to the Pharisees and the Traditional Holiness Theologians. Did you know that the Pharisees actually defined how far one could spit before one breaks the law of the Sabbath? If we love God, we would want to keep His laws and not try to see how much we can get away with it.
The last misconception is that entire sanctification equals the baptism of the Holy Spirit. When we first accepted Christ as our savior by confessing and repenting from our sin, we were already baptized by the Holy Spirit. John Wesley never taught that entire sanctification equals to the baptism of the Holy Spirit again. It was John Fletcher, Wesley’s successor who preached that. In 1984, the General Superintendent of the Nazarene Church officially ruled that Entire Sanctification does not need to equal to the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
More than Power Over Sin
Although Entire Sanctification means that sin has no dominion over us, it is much more than emptying of sin. It is the filling of the Holy Spirit, so that our inward holiness is lived outwardly in our lives with love and obedience. No one can see our Entire Sanctification, but they can see our outpouring of love through the grace of God.
Correct Views of Entire Sanctification
Here are the correct views on Entire Sanctification
• It is by the work of the same Holy Spirit who convicts us and baptizes us into faith. It is also the same Holy Spirit who fills us to helps us get sanctified
• It is through faith by grace alone. Just like our justification, the sanctification process is also through faith by His grace alone.
• It can be either instantaneous or progressive. As we have shown, it is God’s prerogative whether He wants us to be sanctified instantaneously or progressively, but the nominal sanctification process is progressive. The Church of the Nazarene affirms that entire sanctification can take place both instantly and progressively.
• It can have many stages little children, young men, and fathers (1 John 2:12-14).
• It is to open ourselves “entirely” to God’s grace and have the intention to be wholly devoted to God. This is known to have a pure heart. This decision or intention to be holy is instantaneous.
• It is to manifest our inward holiness in outward action of obedience and love, and more Christ-like. This is known as growing in maturity.
Conclusions
Like all living organisms, anything that is not growing is probably dead. This is also true for our spiritual life. Are you growing spiritually? If not, your faith is probably dead. Are you willing to be holy, and be set apart for God? Are you willing to have a completely cleansed heart and freedom from the power of sin? Are you willing to be filled by the Holy Spirit, to love God with all your heart, mind, and strength so that your inward holiness is manifested in your outward love and obedience?
