A BELIEVER'S
SIN
By
D. M. PANTON.
[Blind
leaders within the church are a
great danger, and the only possible warning is a plain statement of
facts. One of the
grave defects of to-days ministry
and evangelical literature,
is the careful suppression
of unpopular truths and unpalatable facts. But
rousing facts and truths can be the very
dynamite of God: they are greatly needed today to awaken His people.]
All
evangelical believers are agreed that only a changed life can prove
a
changed heart; that without a new character and a new conduct, openly
shown,
there has been no second birth. My
little children,
let no man lead you astray: he that doeth
righteousness is
righteous (1
John 3: 7) - the imparted
righteousness proves his possession of the imputed
righteousness. The
Apostle John puts it, both positively and
negatively, with extreme clearness. Ye
know that every
one that doeth righteousness is
BORN of GOD
(1 John 2: 29).
Such a one may be
overcome by temptation, and
fall into gross sin; nevertheless the bent of his mind, the current of
his
life, is Godward: as a stream can flow only if there be a fountain, and
the
rush of the current alone proves that there is a fountain, so a godly
life can
only issue from the Divine nature implanted; and invariably it
does
thus flow out of the new birth. In this the children of God are
manifest, and the children of
the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not
of God
(1 John 3: 10).. Or as our Lord expresses it:- Do
men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles?. Therefore
by their fruits ye shall know them
(Matt. 7: 16).
But
now the exceedingly important and exceedingly practical question arises
as to
the degree to which a believer can
sin, and his consequent
fate.. And here the
Now
there are two examples recorded in Scripture - to name no others - so peculiarly plain and decisive
as to be utterly
unanswerable; and they prove both groups wrong: for, as is so often the
case in
Scripture exposition, they prove that the truth lies in a golden mean. These two cases establish -
against the
Calvinist - that the
converted can so
sin, and - against the Arminian
- that the
converted man so sinning is not
thereby eternally lost, however
fearful may be the punishment which he incurs. Or,
to put it in another way:- the truth is
that a child of God can suffer a far severer judgment than the
Calvinist
dreams, while his bedrock security is unforfeitable - which the Arminian denies; and these two
facts cover, and reconcile,
all the Scriptures.
The
first case is the model of all excommunication. Ye
being gathered together, to deliver such
a one -
for it applies to all who sin according to the list given unto Satan for the destruction of the
flesh
(1
Cor. 5: 5).
The sin in this case
- incest - is a
form of immorality so revolting that it was almost unknown even among
the
heathen; as Paul himself says, - such
fornication as
is not even among the Gentiles; and the penalty the destruction of the flesh
- assumes that the sin
continues until death. So
here is the
grossest sin, found in a member of the Church and handled by Paul
himself on
the ground that the man is a
member: do
not ye judge them that are within,
whereas them that are
without God judgeth? Put away the wicked man from
among
yourselves. That
the incestuous brother was a [regenerate]
believer is proved decisively by the fact -
which we learn from the second Epistle (7:
9-12)
- that he confessed and abandoned his sin, and was never put out of
fellowship
at all. Otherwise the dread sentence must have fallen. We all shrink inexpressibly
from the surgeons
knife falling on one whom we love: nevertheless if it cuts out a
cancer, and so
saves his life, we let the knife fall.
Pauls
own summary of the sentence now enables us to apply this critical case
to the
two sets of doctrines prevalent in the
[*
We have every reason to
believe that Satan is still
employed in Gods hands for this very work of discipline or
destruction.
The ruin, thus wrought in the outer man, is not to be an utter and
final one
(Lange).
** The punishment, though it be the
withdrawing of one
instrument of Grace, is itself another, and therefore purposely chosen
and
allowed in exchange for the former, because it is looked on as the more
probable
to produce the effect (Bishop Wordsworth).]
The
second case - for we are dealing with but two - is mental sin rather
than
moral, and not one sin
but wrong conduct throughout the
entire discipleship. The fire
itself shall prove each [regenerate
believer's] work, of what sort it is. If any [believer's] work shall be burned, he shall suffer,
loss (1
Cor. 3: 15): that
is,
he escapes down a blazing corridor, and out through the collapsing
doorway, of
the building he has spent his whole discipleship in erecting..
Dean Stanleys paraphrase brings home the truth
vividly:- The nature of every
ones work or superstructure shall
sooner or later be known; for the Great Day of the Lord is at hand,
which shall
dawn in a flood of fire. The house of gold and silver shall be lit up
by its
dazzling brilliancy; but the house of wood and thatch shall be burnt
up; and
the builder whose house is consumed will lose his reward, having
nothing to
show. Our
Lord expresses the
identical truth as applied to conduct. * Every
one that heareth these words of mine - the Sermon on the
Mount and doeth them not,
[builds] his
house upon the sand - it is the building of a lifetime and the floods came and smote upon that
house, and it fell; and
great was the fall thereof
(Matt.
7: 26). The
whole structure
crashes.
[* The context in
Corinthians lays special
emphasis on Christian teachers and how they build; and it is
exceedingly
solemn to learn - though it fits in exactly with the facts around us -
that
while such can hold vitally, and teach, the fundamental truths, they
can so add
what is unscriptural in all the rest of their teaching as to have their
entire
creed - apart from the fundamentals - swept away in the judgment.]
Now
this case also is extraordinarily convincing. For
it is no isolated sin which the believer
here commits, however gross; but the Holy Spirit here assumes a child
of God
who, after a lifetime of discipleship, has nothing to show: his entire
superstructure, though truly built on the foundation of Christ, is
destroyed as
worthless by the consuming fire. Yet
what is the summary? HE HIMSELF SHALL BE SAVED,
yet so as through fire;
See the Greek through the midst of fire'
(Stanley).*
To
quote Dean Stanley
again:- He himself, as having
built on the true
foundation, will be saved, yet he will come out singed and scorched as
by an
escape out of a burning ruin: his personal faith saves himself from
destruction, but it is at the cost of seeing his work destroyed and his
labour
lost - like a merchant who escapes from shipwreck, but at the cost of
his
property. He
is saved for
Christs sake, his
labour is lost for his own. So
again both current views proved erroneous..
A discipleship entirely worthless - from the viewpoint of
the Judgment-Seat - is not, by itself, decisive that the man was never
regenerated; on the contrary, here he is saved:
so, equally, a
regenerate mans complete miscarriage in theology and conduct, for a
lifetime,
does not prove him lost he himself shall be
saved. Therefore
the very refusal of this truth so common among
evangelicals of both
groups, together with all that is built upon that refusal in erroneous
theology
and conduct, must itself be ablaze of straw before the Judgment Seat. **
[*
He himself, as contrasted with
his reward and with his work:
he will be snatched as a brand from the burning saving nothing but his
bare
life (Lange).]
**
Thus the doctrine of reward is made inescapably clear. Reward rests in no degree
whatever on the fact
that we are on the Foundation, but results from what our own hands have
wrought
(through grace) after being saved. So
also it would be impossible to make salvation by faith plainer. For, according to the
picture, apart from the
foundation already laid, and actually beneath us, no God-acknowledged
superstructure can exist - that is, no works are accepted before
conversion: on
the other hand, works wrought for a lifetime on
the foundation by
a saved soul can be completely burnt up, and yet that soul saved. Works
therefore, before or after faith are divorced forever from all salvation.]
It
is exceeding remarkable that the Apostle who instructs us most clearly
that a
mans active righteousness is the only proof that he is fundamentally
righteous is the very Apostle who invokes us to the highest, on the
ground that
our whole workmanship may be lost. Look
to yourselves,
that ye lose not the things that ye have wrought,
but that
ye receive A FULL REWARD (2 John 8).
False materials,
spiritual collapse, unabandoned
sin* - and the building, it may be after
fifty years, crashes: on the other hand, by facing at once the darkest
Scriptures, and squaring our lives to their demands, we adopt Napoleons
master principle, - I ALWAYS
MASTER THE WORST FIRST,
AND THEN I KNOW THAT I HAVE MASTERED ALL THAT IS LESS THAN THE WORST.
[*
Believers are even warned against committing murder (1
Pet. 4: 15); and while it is probable that some
Inquisitors have been
regenerate men, it is certain that Calvin shared
in the killing of Servetus.
In the Day of Grace, killing on the
principle of religion (Stephen says) is murder. Acts
7: 52.]
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