All who know anything about the nature of a holy God admit that holiness is a logical necessity for us if we live with Him in eternity. The question of controversy is:
HOW and WHEN is a believer purified and made holy?
Several theories have been proposed over the years but only one can be the fact. Most agree that since the fall in the garden, man has been tainted with inbred depravity. Most also agree that regeneration (the new birth), does not cleanse one from this inherited corruption in the heart. We shall first look at those theories that we believe, on the authority of scripture, are a fallacy.
1. The Suppression Theory: This theory teaches that once we are regenerated (born again), we have the power to hold this “outlaw nature” down.
Romans 8:7, states, “the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.”
One problem with the suppression theory is that if God cannot make a law it will obey how could we think we can hold it down or cause it to acquiesce to our feeble commands. This has no scriptural support.
2. The Gradual or Growth Theory: This theory teaches that following one’s conversion we are to gradually grow into a state of heart purity. While we do believe that there is growth following spiritual life in Christ, nowhere does the Word of God teach that sin can be grown out of man’s heart. It requires radical spiritual surgery for its removal. We cannot grow sin out of the heart anymore than we can grow weeds out of a garden. The reason Jesus died on the cross was so that He might sanctify the people with His own blood. (Hebrews 13:12)
3. The Death Theory: This theory teaches that man cannot be sanctified wholly until the act and article of death. Those who teach this believe, like the Gnostics of old, that sin resides in matter and as long as we are in the flesh we can never be fully cleansed from sin. They even make death our sanctifier when God’s Word says that death is an enemy and one day it too will be destroyed (I Corinthians 15:26). Those who hold to this theory attribute to our enemy, “death,” only that which the efficacious blood of Christ can accomplish.
4. The Purgatory Theory: Those who accept this theory rest their hope on a time following death, (through the intercessory prayers of others), that purgatorial fires will burn out inbred sin. They are in essence teaching that involuntary suffering after death can atone for their voluntary sins committed before death. If this theory is true, (and there is no scripture support for it), then one would have to ask, “Why did Jesus die?” The blood of Christ is the only procuring cause for our cleansing.
5. The Proxy Theory: This is the “Holy only in Christ” theory. This is a wonderful truth but it has been so construed to be misconstrued into a dangerous error. This theory teaches that we are holy in Christ but not holy in ourselves. Even though this sounds like it magnifies God and humbles the flesh, it is not the expression that concerns us but rather the interpretation of the expression that is dubious. This teaches that His holiness is imputed to us even though we may be living in actual sin. Nevertheless God accounts us as being holy while all the time we are very unholy because He who represents us Holy. This teaching makes Jesus a minister of sin rather than a deliverer from sin. We believe that He alone is the Standard and Source of all holiness. From Him all goodness is derived. However His nature is to be Imparted to us and Possessed by us.
Paul Rees, in response to the teaching that said that David would have gone to heaven from the bed of Bathsheba as certainly as he would have following his prayer of repentance, “The day our theology goes to bed with immorality, is the time that we must take a fresh new look at our theology.”
6. The Second Coming Theory: This theory teaches that we will all be purified at His return. Many are deluded by this false hope. Hebrews 9:28 says that, “He shall appear the second time without sin.” This destroys that idea because He will appear the second time without or apart from any redemptive work for sin.
In all of these theories there is not, nor ever has been, a witness to the cleansing of the heart from sin. No one has ever testified to growing into holiness, or experiencing this work of grace at death, after death or as of yet at His coming. But millions have experienced this second work of grace (Entire Sanctification) through faith in the merits of His blood, affected in the heart of a fully consecrated believer through the Baptism of the Holy Spirit in response to their faith. They enjoy the glorious experience of heart purity and perfect love; they live holy and die triumphant.
Every child of God ought to abandon their will to the will of God and through faith obtain this experience of grace before they become a victim of these false theories.
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