No. 47. >> Perfect? In this life? That is an amazing teaching. I know some Methodists. And they don't talk that way. Can we be sure about this? Oh, and how does this teaching of sanctification among the Methodists compare with that of the Nazarenes? The father of one of our children is a devout Nazarene. And I have overheard him commenting on clean living. >>DR. LAWRENCE R. RAST, JR.: You put your finger on an extremely important point, Eric. There is a divergence of opinion on this particular point within the various components of the Methodist tradition. As well as those that have followed in the wake of it. Those we call part of the Holiness movement or the Holiness bodies. Groups like the Nazarenes, for example. To take a very complex topic and reduce it to a manageable frame, what Wesley talked about as I alluded to before, was the implications of perfection. That is to say he believed that a Christian person who was indwelled by the Holy Spirit, who had been truly converted and experienced that and was nurturing that through a methodical attempt at fulfilling the revealed will of God could see advancement or progression in sanctification. And that, in fact, one in a way could measure this progress in sanctification over time. The law of God became the standard by which you judged whether or not you were fulfilling that requirement that God had outlined in the Scriptures. The Scriptures became a book for life, a book for the moral and sanctified Christian experience. Now, what this meant in very practical terms was that while you might not be entirely free from actual sin, existentially speaking, your desire, your wills, your love, were perfect, that is you desired and loved God with all your heart, with all your soul, it may not show itself in an absolutely perfect life without the occurrence of actual sin. But those things were more attributed to the continuing reality of life in the flesh. Now, that doesn't mean you could be moving along in your sanctified life, progressing to the point where you could be quantifiably seen as sanctified and then suddenly fall into overt drunkenness or some other sin against the Ten Commandments in that respect. Denying God and denying service to one's neighbor. That would be seen as a case of falling away, of outright sinfulness that then would require a return to God, a commitment to his will and work at returning to the sanctified state that one had vacated by virtue of these actions. Now, what I mean by this is the occasional word that is out of place. The occasional thought that is misdirected. These things in and of themselves do not compromise one's perfection. But rather, they show that one is still living within the flesh. Now, here is the question: How do you determine when one is guilty of simply an occasional action and one has fallen into overt sin once again? Now, the standard, of course, is the -- are the actions of the individual person. What does your life look like? What characterizes it? And here again the method comes into play. One of the things the Methodists do is develop classes or groups of people that are mutually accountable to one another with a leader who oversees the progress and sanctification on the part of the whole group. And one is accountable to one's peers within this group. So that your actions are watched by your compatriots. And you, in turn, watch theirs. There's a mutual sense of accountability here. So that one maintains the will of God as revealed in the Bible. And practices it in a very concrete way. The assumption, you can hide certain things from certain people. But you can't hide everything from them all the time. You can see what might happen here. With these different groups of people. What if one group is not convinced that another group is actually carrying out their sanctified life to the extent that they should. There their leadership would be criticized in that particular little group by the leader in the population of the other group. And what this does then is begin to encourage a certain competition between various groups. Are you truly sanctified? Or are you only partially sanctified? Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior? Or have you simply accepted him as your Savior? What emerges over the course of the 19th Century is an idea of a second work of grace. That is to say there is a general or prevenient grace, this is what Wesley taught, that characterized the experience of all human people. God in his grace through the Book of Nature reveals himself so that all people should know, should seek the one true God. Now, one doesn't come to knowledge of that one true God until one hears the message of Christ crucified and risen again preached. At which point one must make the decision, must have the experience, that initiates the Christian life. However, at that point, said later Methodists or Wesleyans as they came later to be called, at that point one has simply received Christ as Savior. It's true. Your sins are forgiven. You do have a place in heaven. But that place in heaven will be limited in terms of its scope. That is to say you can get in on the lowest level or be at the seats that are in the farthest back. But you're in. So that's good. But the truly Christian person desires to fulfill the will of God in if their life. To seek progress and sanctification. And so will pursue the revealed will of God with all possible intent. The result from that is that the Spirit visits with a second work of grace that kind of bumps the person up to a new level of sanctification, a much more purified, sanctified, and one might even say in this case perfect life. The result is that there's a distinction made between Christians, non-Christians on the one hand, and then within Christians, those who believe in Christ as Savior but those who have experienced him truly as Lord. And the ones who have experienced him truly as Lord are then enabled -- particularly enabled to fulfill the revealed will of God. Now, as the 1800s go on, many Methodists say: That goes too far. That's well beyond anything we're intending. What we're looking for is conversion. What we're trying to do is bring about the inclusion of as many people into the kingdom of God as possible. What Wesleyans or Holiness leaders began to say at this point is that that does not finish what God intends. It starts it, yes. But it doesn't finish it. And the division emerges between a more main line Methodist and the Holiness thinkers, Wesleyans, Nazarenes, who put tremendous emphasis on the necessity of this clean living or right living in accordance with the revealed will of God. And policing and disciplining those who do not fulfill the revealed will of God. The manner in which then you can see and quantify whether a person has received that second work of grace, whether the Holy Spirit is truly at work in their lives, is their sanctification. Not surprisingly, that becomes the great goal for many of these people. The all consuming reality for many of the folks within this particular tradition. And the emphasis will increasingly be on that particular point, fulfilling the revealed will of God and disciplining those in love and in the hope that they will pursue these things all the more. But nonetheless, disciplining those who have not achieved that particular state. It's an important shift, an important move. It stratifies the churches and leads to the emergence of certain new traditions here in the American Christian scene. And it will continue to have an effect not only within the existing denominations but in the emergence of even other denominations here in the United States.