Sinless Perfection Or Faith and Repentance
RICHARD FOSTER |
As former Adventists we have all heard the reasoning. No disobedient person will enter heaven, therefore only those who perfectly keep every single command of God will enter heaven. This can be a very tempting line of reasoning for those who aren’t well grounded in Biblical teaching. On the surface it very much makes sense. After all, God is holy, God hates sin, the Bible says nothing that defiles shall enter into heaven. By the time we enter heaven, therefore, we will be sinless.
These things are true, so what is the problem?
The problem is, as usual, cherry-picking God’s word instead of considering the whole counsel of God, and injecting human reasoning in place of Biblical theology.
Throughout history Christians have rightly understood the scriptural teaching that we are not sinless in the present life:
Surely there is not a righteous man on earth who does good and never sins (Ecclesiastes 7:20).
For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me (Romans 7:15-17).
If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us (1 John 1:8).
These texts (and others) clearly run contrary to sinless perfectionism. And no matter how hard Adventists try to reinterpret these texts to apply to unbelievers instead of Christians, that simply doesn’t track. Ecclesiastes 7:20 is talking about a righteous man, not an unbeliever. Paul, in Romans 7, is talking about about his agreement that the law is good, but that he does what he hates. People who are aren’t born again don’t have any hatred for their sin or any recognition that the law is good. And in 1 John it is the church who is being instructed that if we say we have no sin, present tense, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.
But if no sin will enter heaven, and we will sin until the end of this life, then how will we be able to enter heaven and God’s holy presence?
I recently heard a debate between a Protestant and a Roman Catholic, and the debate was over the Roman Catholic doctrine of purgatory. The Catholic debater used as his main argument in favor of purgatory this very thing. We are not sinless in this life, but we will be in heaven, so there must be an intermediate state in between for us to get sinless.
I couldn’t help but be struck with thoughts of what I had believed as an Adventist. Like the Catholic, I believed I had to undergo a drawn out process to get all sin internally removed from myself.
I couldn’t help but be struck with thoughts of what I had believed as an Adventist. Like the Catholic, I believed I had to undergo a drawn out process to get all sin internally removed from myself. Not believing in the doctrine of purgatory, though, or that there was anything happening between now and entering heaven, I concluded (with the help of Ellen White) that I would have to get internally sinless before the end of this life, otherwise I would not be able to enter heaven. As time went on, the realization began to dawn in my mind that at current rates of my sanctification, I didn’t have nearly enough lifespan in front of me to become sinless. And so I began to be in great anxiety and despair. But in that, God graciously intervened in my life, and I learned from the Bible how I could have peace with Him.
How Do We Become Righteous?
To be sure though, God does work through processes. Our salvation as Christians has been completely secured by the finished work of Christ, but the complete fullness of salvation comes to us over time. Importantly, there is a Biblical explanation of how this process works, and it exposes the numerous unbiblical explanations for how it works.
So what is the Biblical process?
In real time from our perspective, our salvation begins when we believe the gospel. When we have Christ as our own Savior through faith, we are justified. Occurring simultaneously with justification is regeneration, adoption, sealing by the Holy Spirit, cleansing, and sanctification in the sense of being set apart to God. All these things happen simultaneously with justification, though we don’t have time to delve into every detail now.
The point is, at the moment of faith, a sinner is justified, and he or she now has peace with God. He is saved and secured in Christ. And now he will embark on the Christian life.
The point is, at the moment of faith, a sinner is justified, and he or she now has peace with God. He is saved and secured in Christ. And now he will embark on the Christian life. For the rest of his life he shall seek to live by God’s word instead of according to the desires of the flesh. Often called progressive sanctification, this process is never complete in this life. There is always more growth for us in our walk with Christ. But when we shall reach the end of this life, we shall enter into what the Bible calls glorification.
Glorification is the complete opposite of sin. We are all probably familiar with the Biblical statement that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). One of the things we learn from this verse is that sinning is equated with falling short of the glory of God. Therefore, to not sin is to be glorified.
When does glorification take place?
It is understood even by the Adventist that it shall take place after this life. But having the physicalist perspective that Adventism does, glorification is not viewed as the complete removal of sin, but simply going from a body that is mortal and subject to decay, to a body immortal and not subject to decay. Although Christians understand that the current body will be resurrected and transformed into a glorious body, the spiritual aspect of glorification cannot be denied—the removal of all indwelling sin. It has been said that in justification sin’s penalty is removed. In sanctification sin’s power is removed. And in glorification sin’s presence is removed, once and for all.
So, when our sinful flesh is gone from us, either at the time of physical death or at the return of Jesus, whichever happens first, we shall be entirely free from sin at that point.
So, when our sinful flesh is gone from us, either at the time of physical death or at the return of Jesus, whichever happens first, we shall be entirely free from sin at that point. In Galatians 5:17 Paul speaks about the battle between the Spirit and the flesh. At the moment we believed in Jesus’ finished atonement, we received the Holy Spirit. But the reception of the Spirit in regeneration didn’t obliterate the flesh. It did, however, create a battle within us that previously didn’t exist. Before receiving the Spirit we were at peace with our sin, but now, having received the Spirit, we are resisting sin—though by reason of remaining corruption in our fallen flesh, we don’t perfectly succeed in our resistance against our sin.
So, while Adventism promotes sinless law-keeping as the mark of a converted Christian, the Bible promotes faith and repentance. We don’t start out in faith and repentance only to get put back on probation under the law. But as Scripture declares, “The just shall live by faith” (Romans 1:17).
The mark that we are saved Christians is not that we are perfect, but that we continue in the faith in which we began. It is not that we are sinless, but that we continue in repentance on account of our sins.
If it were true that sinlessness was the mark of a converted Christian, then the petition in the Lord’s Prayer to “forgive us as we forgive our debtors” would not be applicable to converted Christians. But we know that as Christians we are instructed by our Lord Himself to pray for forgiveness in our prayers.
In summary, we don’t have to be troubled by crafty human reasoning that is not the word of God. We shall be sinless, but it will be according to the sovereign Lord’s timing. When He shall remove our sinful flesh and glorify us in an instant by His power it will happen, but not until then.
This is how God has ordained it in His purposes. Remember that the mark of conversion is not sinlessness, but walking in the faith in which we once started. We repented when we turned to Christ in faith and away from walking according to the prince of the power of the air (repentance simply means to turn), and all who continue in the faith may know for certain that they have peace with God and have certainly been adopted into God’s family as His own child.
Faith and repentance, not sinless perfection, is the mark that we are saved and know Christ.
“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life. He does not come into judgment, but has passed from death to life” —(John 5:24). †
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