We will begin in verse 1 and
read all of the chapter, there are 10 verses. But down about
verse 8 and 9 and 10 are our principal text of the morning,
so we'll look at that. But let's look at what John has
to say as he writes. that which was from the beginning,
which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which
our hands, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled
of the word of life. For the life was manifested,
and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that
eternal life which was with the Father, and was manifested unto
us. that which we have seen and heard
declare we unto you, that ye also may have fellowship with
us, and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His
Son, Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto
you, that your joy may be full. This then is the message which
we have heard of him, and declare unto you, that God is light,
and in him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship
with him, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not the truth. But if we walk in the light,
as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another,
and the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanses us from all
sin. If we say that we have no sin,
we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is
faithful and just to forgive us sins and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned,
we make him a liar and the truth is not in us. Now those last
verses are our text, our subject being sinless perfection and
empty delusion. Perhaps it is well if we should
say a few things first of all by way of introduction concerning
the epistle and its author before we take up a particular text
this morning. Few have doubted among good theologians
that John is the author of this epistle. John that wrote the
Gospel of John. John that was one included in
the, what we might call, the inner circle of our Lord. There was always Peter and James
and John that were honored with special privileges and sites
before the Lord. These three were witnesses of
the transfiguration of our Lord and of our Savior in Mark 5 and
verse 37. It was John, among others, who
saw the restoration of the life of Lazarus again in chapter 11. He was there when our Lord said,
Lazarus, come forth, and he did. He was one of the first to the
empty tomb on resurrection morning. John 20 verses 2 through verse
5. It was John that leaned upon
the bosom of our Savior in the upper room in the Last Supper. John 13 and verse 23. It was
he that had a closer view of the Lord's agony in the garden,
for he was brought closer than some of the other. And he was
among those that Paul calls pillars in the church in Jerusalem. You'll
find that in Galatians 2 and verse 7. Now here in the last of the first
chapter of 1 John, the apostle assures his readers that what
he is giving them is a literal first-hand eyewitness account
of what the Lord did and of what the Lord taught. Notice for example
in verse 1, which we have heard. which we have seen with our eyes,
which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled of the
Word of life. The second verse again, for the
life was manifested, we've seen it, we bear witness, we show
unto you this eternal life, which was in the Father and was manifested
in Him. In the third verse, that which
we have seen and which we have heard, that we declare unto you."
You know, Peter claimed the same thing. He said, we were eyewitnesses
of His majesty. 2 Peter 1 and verse 16. He says, we're not giving you
cunningly devised fable, but we're eyewitnesses of His majesty. In verse 5, he said this, This
is the message which we have heard of Him and declare that
unto you. I agree with those who think
that verse 5 through verse 7 ought to go together as a cluster or
as a paragraph. In the end of verse 5 is the
message which the apostles had heard from Christ and which they
were declaring. It is this. God is light, and
in Him is no darkness at all. Light and darkness, in the scriptural
sense of the word, are figures of speech or metaphors referring
to righteousness and unto sin. And in the sons of men, a state
of sin is a state of darkness, and a state of grace is a state
of light. As he said in Ephesians 5 and
verse 8, you were sometimes darkness, but now are you light in the
Lord. Now concerning those words there,
God is light. and in him is no darkness at
all. The apostle makes a double conclusion. First of all, we look at verse
6. Any that claim fellowship with God while walking in darkness,
that is, living in sin are liars and the truth of God is not in
them. Now, to live in sin is incompatible
with a Christian profession and regeneration. Secondly, we notice
in verse 7, On the other hand, if we walk in the light, as He
is in the light, we are having fellowship not only one with
another, but also with His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the
blood of Christ is cleansing us from all sin. Then it would seem that verses
8 through verse 10 are an outgrowth of the last part of the seventh
verse. That while walking in fellowship
with Him who is the light, while doing that, the blood of Christ
is cleansing us or purifying us from all sin. Now, of course, at conversion,
the whole mass of all of our past sins, long practiced, are
fully and completely and forever forgiven. As in Matthew chapter
9 and verse 2, the Lord said to a man, Thy sins be forgiven
thee. All sins that you have done are
forgiven you. I kind of like to side here with
Thomas Goodwin, that John in our text is speaking of a continual
or of a perpetual cleansing. As if describing a flowing fountain. with cleansing. Zechariah 13
and verse 1, a fountain has been opened for sin and uncleanness. And that fountain, as it were,
using that metaphor, continually bubbles up. It continually is
flowing out because we are ever sinning, yet the blood of Christ
is ever cleansing us. Goodwin, in fact, called it forgiveness
which is received every day, the pardoning of new sins, unquote. As we pray daily for our daily
bread, as the Lord has taught us, even so we pray daily for
pardon, as His compassion is new every morning to the children
of God, Lamentations chapter 3 and 23. So His pardon is new
every day. It is constant. It ever the fountain
is flowing, cleansing, cleansing, cleansing. Then notice the apostle
in verse 8 and following, where he takes up the matter of such
as might and do deny that they have sin. Or he says, if any
say, I have no sin. Now here, let me ratchet down
and go slow. Like a man, crossing over a deep
precipice or a narrow ledge, who goes not a-running, but step
by step, steadily, slowly, and carefully. So let's do that.
Who is John describing in verses 8 through verse 10? For two eras
are quite possible to be made concerning the person that might
say, I have no sin. I've escaped sin. I've risen
above it. I'm living above it. Number one,
would it be a supposition and a conclusion that one might draw
from the last part of verse 7 that we read? The blood of Christ
cleanses us from all sin. So some then might say, since
Christ has taken away my sin, and is cleansing me of all sin,
I stand so pure in the sight of Him that I have no sin, not
even in my life or in my nature. Or as some have believed, God
does not see sin in His people. We've run into that a time or
two along the way. Their argument being that sin
has been punished so fully and completely in the Lord Jesus
Christ, we being cleansed by His blood, He therefore does
not see sin in His people. Now, if this view were to be
espoused and allowed, we would ask, how then could this be reconciled
with the scriptural doctrine of chastisement? It certainly
is true that there is no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. Romans 8 and verse 1 says so. Nothing, not even sin, can condemn
those for whom Christ died. Romans 8, 31-33, yet their natures are not yet made pure and free
from sin. Sin still dwells in the saintliest
and most righteous child of God. John Gill points out, this has
been the confession of the saints of God, of whom we read one after
another in the scripture, both Old and New Testament. It has
been the confession of saints in and out of the Scripture,
and was so even of the Apostle Paul in Romans chapter 7. Woe is me, wretched man, sin
dwelleth in me, the Apostle said. The prophet Isaiah, a holy man
of God if ever there was one, cried out, I'm a man of unclean
lips, as he saw the holiness of God about the throne. But
then there is a second era that might be made. This has been
called sinless perfection in history, which is the teaching
in some sections of Christendom. that complete and entire sanctification
is possible while living in this body, in this life, in this world. That one might become, they say,
so fully sanctified that they don't sin. That reminds me of
being in a Bible conference, probably way back in the 70s,
and I heard a man during the testimony period stand up and
say, I have not had an evil thought in two months now. Well, you
know what? I had an evil thought right then
and there. So let us observe from our text
that neither of these two views can be reconciled to John's word. For he says such as make a claim
that they have no sin are liars. Verse 8, we deceive ourselves
and the truth is not in him. Verse 10, we make him a liar
and his word is not in us. If we say we are free from sin,
we have no sin, we have deceived ourselves, we are a liar, God's
Word of Truth is not in us. Now, before we proceed with this,
let's stop and take the time to look at a bit of history of
the doctrine. How and when did such a thing
become encased in what we call Christianity? There are two names
that you might read or hear connected with this issue of sinless perfection. Perhaps the first one would be
Charles Grandison Finney, who lived from 1792 until Then John Wesley, one of the
Wesley brothers, born in 1703 and died in 1791. Now Wesley
was the founder of what we know as Methodism. Both in their time
taught a particular view of perfectionism or of entire sanctification. That it was possible for Christians
to become so sanctified that they actually lived above sin. It appears that Wesley held that
justification and sanctification are two entirely separate acts
of faith in the child of God. First, by faith he is justified,
then later by faith he becomes sanctified to a great degree. Some have called this a second
work of grace. You may hear that term in our
particular day. A second work of grace. Some in the Pentecostal circles,
we'll refer to it. Some as the higher life. Some
as the deeper life. And the baptism of the Holy Ghost
as they call it, when they receive the Holy Ghost baptism, they
speak in tongues, they become super spiritual and highly sanctified
by so yielding themselves up unto the Lord that they enter
into entire sanctification. Wesley, for example, believed
that one could so advance in the love of God that love lost
all self-interest at the moment of entire sanctification. As for Finney, some biographers
say that Finney was at first a lawyer in New York. That explains a lot, does it
not? And after a religious experience that he had, studied under a
Presbyterian pastor and ministry for a time, pastored Chatham
Street Chapel in New York, spent some time, as you probably know,
as a revivalist, a very lively, animated revivalist. There was
a professor at a college in Ohio, I believe it was Oberlin College
if I'm not mistaken, who developed the doctrine of Christian perfection
and Phineas spoused that and then became a congregational
minister, an avid revivalist and brought many under his revivals
to a profession of Christianity. But Finney was disappointed and
distraught because so many of his converts soon fell away,
went back into sin and their old way of life. And even he
said, this is a quote from him, that they were or became a disgrace
to religion, unquote. B.B. Warfield, writing about
this on the ministry of Finney, says that Finney came to the
conclusion the reason that so many of his converts fell away
was because he stopped at teaching them only traditional Christianity,
and he did not teach them or exhort them to go on unto perfection. Then he surmised had he also
preached perfection unto them, the outcome would have been different. carrying them to the extra mile
of perfectionism, then they had not fallen away and gone back
again to sin and their old way of life. Now this is not to say
that the teaching of possible perfectionism either began or
ended with Finney or with Wesley. It was in place long before their
day and it is in place even now. Their names may be the most prominent
associated with a teaching. There were others, however, before
them and some after them that teach entire sanctification is
possible to attain in this present life while living in this rotten,
broken down tabernacle of flesh. Now, perhaps the first perfectionist
I thought about were the Pharisees. Think about the Pharisees in
the days of our Lord. They were the perfectionists
in the day of our Lord upon earth. Remember, Paul formerly belonged
to that sect of Jewry. He practiced Phariseeism, the
most stricted sect of Jewry, as he called it. Now these people,
these Pharisees, saw themselves as righteous. Luke 18 and verse
9. And that's why our Lord spake
unto them a certain set of parables to expose their self-righteousness. Paul once thought himself blameless
before the law in Philippians the third chapter. And verse
6, he says, before the law blameless, as he describes his former life. The Jews made this error. They went about to establish
their own righteousness in Romans chapter 10 and verse 3, not submitting
themselves unto the righteousness of God, but seeking to establish
their own. Now one thing which is more often
than not true of those teaching the doctrines of perfectionism
is their faulty and inadequate view of sin, of depravity, of
original sin. In every case I submit to you,
there will be found an erroneous view of the human condition because
of sin, either in part or in whole. a denial of the corruption
of the natural frumber. The question is when and how
does one become sinful and depraved in the sight of God? When is
one counted a sinner? in God's sight? When is one deserving
of and in danger of perishing in hell? In other words, is our
nature sinful and corrupt from our very birth, or does it come
later to each individual separately in the process of living our
life? And does it come from within
or does it come from without? Is our sinful condition innate
and inward or does it come to us some way from without? Are we sinners by nature and
by birth or are we sinners by education, by influence, and
by the example that we see all around us. Now generally, we
find that Armenians who teach that perfection is possible,
greatly in error on the matter original sin, denying both the
imputation of Adam's sin and the transmission of the corrupt
nature to all of his offspring. This allows them to say sin is
learned behavior and therefore can be unlearned. B.B. Warfield that I refer to wrote
a rather large volume published under the title, Studies in Perfectionism. And one chapter is devoted to
the theology of Charles G. Finney. And if I understood what
I read from the good man, Finney, a proponent of perfectionism,
He taught that infants at first have no moral nature. In fact, call them little animals. That if they die, they die only
as a brute beast. But then as they grow, after
a while, they pick up a moral nature, and at the same time,
he said, they also pick up sin as well. Now, I say to us, if
one is wrong on the doctrine of human depravity, You will
be wrong all the way down the line. If you start wrong, you
will be wrong all the way. Imagine a carpenter building
a house. He starts the first corner out
of square. The further he goes, the more
it becomes evident, the more off-plumb it will become. Now, there is no way to treat
or there is no way to treat for a cure unless there is a proper
diagnosis of the disease. The antidote must be able to
counteract the poison that has been ingested or that is there. Imagine going to the doctor and
he said, well, I have no idea what's wrong with you, try this
and see if that will help you any. That's not the way that
it works and in theology we must diagnose correctly the problem
in order that we might know the remedy. For a denial or a weakness
at depravity throws all other things down the way out of kilter. That if one fails to see how
wicked sinners are, if they do not see that they are as bad
as they are, then they might also think them better than they
are, and that would be an error. Now, obviously depravity is a
major factor in dealing with sinners, and every aspect of
salvation also. In view of man's condition by
nature, the ruin, the effect of the fall, it is a question
to consider. Is it that man's very nature,
his inward being, is corrupt? from birth or is it a question
of the actual deeds and outward acts of sin only which he commits? Again, the question is sin first
internal or is it external? Does it come out from within
or does it enter in? from without. If you exclude
the corruption of nature, then you say that only the actual
deeds are sin. Then, if a person should reform
themselves outwardly, would that be accounted as perfection. If they gave up all those outward
bad habits or sins or whatever they call them, must one only
confess, repent of, and forsake only the deeds of the flesh?
to reach entire sanctification. Can the heart be fully purified
in this life? Proverbs 20 and verse 9. Who can say? Who is it? I have made my heart clean, I
am pure from my sin. There is a challenge that Solomon
cast out upon the water for all to hear. This is a prerequisite
to attain perfection. Yet who can say, who can truthfully
say, who can say and it be true, they have made their hearts pure. What we say, is there no Unbelief? Is there no lust? Are there no
vain thoughts yet lingering within? Is there no vain pride bubbling
up? No temptations ever come? No sinful desire? No remaining
ignorance of the things of God and of Christ? And also we see
that in 1 Kings 8 and 46, Solomon said, Not a righteous man upon
the earth. Not only is the heart not clean
and not pure from sin, but the heart is actually the cesspool
out of which flows all manner of sin. You ought to read the
words of our Lord in Mark chapter 7, 21 through 23. He likened
the heart to a cesspool, out of the heart flow all of these
things. Jeremiah said, the heart is deceitful
above all things, desperately wicked Who can know it? Jeremiah
17 and verse 9. At the same time, we are bound
to concede some things. Number one, there is no sanctification. There is sanctification, rather,
in the life of the child of God. The Bible teaches that. There
is sanctification. There is a measure. It increases. It decreases. It grows stronger
and maybe stronger. There is sanctification in the
life of the children of God. If there's no sanctification,
one is not a child of God. Secondly, there will be full
sanctification Absolute, perfect, full sanctification realized
in the world to come. Completed at death when we enter
into the presence of the Lord. Now, number one, the elect are
sanctified by and through the death of Christ. Only by and
through the Holy Spirit which is given them in regeneration. And this sanctification, once
it is commenced by the work of God in His elect, is never wholly
stopped or put at an end. It is never ceased. Paul says
in Philippians 1 and verse 6, He which hath begun a good work
in you will perform it until the day of Christ Jesus. He will carry it on. He will
carry it on unto completion. Sin received a fatal, deadly
blow in the death of Christ upon the cross. It is dying in the
regenerate and sanctified elect. This the Scripture calls mortification,
putting to death the deeds of the flesh. Pardon an illustration. You might remember that my wife
Dorothy had a tumor in her ear a few years ago. And the doctor
put the radiation on it. He put some harness on her and
put her perfectly still. And he zapped that acoustic neuroma
tumor with that radiation. And we go back every six months. We say, how's it doing? He said,
it's dying even as we speak. It's dying. Oh, how long will
it be gone? Well, how long will it take?
Well, it'll take a few years. But every time we always ask,
how's it doing? And his answer is, it is dying.
See, it received a fatal blow at that particular time, and
it's dying, dying, dying. So it is. with those elect of
God. Sin received its fatal blow in
the cross. And in the work of the Spirit
of God, sanctification and mortification is at work in the children of
God. Romans 8.13, Colossians 3.5 speak
of mortification, that they are done through the Spirit. for
mortifying means to put to death. And it is progressive in this
life, but will never be full and entire in this life. Secondly, and I'll quote William
G.T. Shedd here, the souls of believers
are at death made perfect in holiness. This is the purpose
of God in election, Ephesians 1 and verse 4. that we should
be holy and without blame before Him in love. Hebrews 12 and 23
speaks about the spirits of just men made perfect when we are
gathered to that assembly. Now the proponents of perfectionism
have scripture, as you might expect, which they use as proof
text. One of their favorites is Matthew
chapter 5 and verse 48. The words of our Lord, Be ye
therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is
perfect, unquote. Now taken in its context, it
does not seem to teach sinless perfection in this life. For
example, if you look back at verse 45 of that same chapter,
that ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven. Not that these things enjoined
in verse 43 and verse 44 would make them the children of God,
but would make it manifest that they were the children of God. That such conduct would distinguish
them from the publicans and sinners and cause their righteousness
to exceed that of the scribes and the Pharisees. In Matthew
5 and verse 20, Jesus said, Except your righteousness exceed that
of the scribes and the Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into
the kingdom of God. In Luke 6 and verse 36, Be ye
merciful as your Father is merciful. So those things are a reflection
of what God has wrought in us. Now in some instances, the word
perfect, at least in the King James Version, means mature. It means full grown. You might
see it translated full grown. It means to be sincere and upright
in conduct and life. Remember what God called Job. God said of Job, have you considered
him? He called him a perfect and upright
man. Three times. Job 1.1, Job 1.8,
and Job 2, and verse 3. A perfect and an upright man. Does that mean that Job had attained
sinless perfection? It was not that he was sinless,
in that he feared God and he eschewed evil. A perfect and
an upright man. 2 Kings 20 and verse 3, Hezekiah
prayed the Lord to remember, how I have walked before you
in truth and with a perfect heart and have done good in your sight."
Boy, that's a bold prayer for a saint of God to pray. Walk
before you in truth with a perfect heart. Surely now you will not
insist that the king was claiming absolute perfection. If you trace out his life a little
further, I don't think you'd say so. We repeat that sinless
perfection in this life is an empty delusion, a goal not reached. Then beside we would ask, are
those who reach sinless perfection confirmed in it? Are those who reach sinless perfection
confirmed in it? That means, have they reached
it or are they locked in? Or they confirm so that they
never lose it or fall out of it again? Suppose it to be possible
to attain sinless perfection. Can it then be lost again? What an anomaly! It would be
to hold that one who attains sinless perfection at some point
in their life should then fall out and apostatize and perish. Here's one for you. The same
people who say that a child of Adam might attain perfection
prior to their glorification, also believe and also teach that
Jesus might have sinned while he were here in the flesh in
the world. Can you imagine that? He might
attain perfection, and Christ, on the other hand, might have
sinned, that is, the days of His flesh upon earth. For some reason, they dislike
the view of an impeccable Christ. They rankle And their fur rises
up at the thought of an impeccable Christ who is holy beyond sin
entering into Him. They dislike it. They think,
and think of the consequences if Christ had sinned, if Christ
could possibly have sinned, if He had sinned. Think of the awful
consequences. God's Son, the Redeemer, the
Mediator, fallen under the condemnation of sin. And then try this one
on for size. Would sinless perfection spoil
them for living in this world? Think about that for a moment.
If one reached sinless perfection, would they be spoiled for living
any longer in this world? What is there to do in this world
for a sinless person? For example, they would not and
could not participate in most activities or conversations,
for they would be twinged with sin. They could watch no TV or
ever sit down at a ball game. They could not ever overeat. They could not even ever have
a sinful thought. the rest of their life. Oh, and
they could repeat absolutely no gossip. They could never get
mad. They could never get jealous.
They could never have any sensuous lust in them whatsoever if they
have reached sinless perfection. Now, me thinks those who claim
sinless perfection are self-righteous Pharisees and what our Lord called
whited supplicants in the Gospel of Matthew. And the office of
Christ as an advocate was established specifically to act in behalf
of the sins of God's elect. If any man sins, we have an advocate
with the Father. My little children, I write that
you're not sinning. But if any man sins, we have
an advocate with the Father. How is he an advocate? because
He is the propitiation for our sins. And the office of Christ
as an advocate is established to act in behalf of saints when
they sin. Still, we have our perfection. We have our perfection, but it
is all in and through Jesus Christ. For consider, we have a perfect
God who sent a perfect Savior who made a perfect redemption,
who provided for us a perfect saving righteousness and a perfect
salvation, gave us a perfect inheritance in a perfect heaven
and given us a perfect God and a perfect and infallible scripture
to guide us on the way. I think rather than one thinking
that they have ceased sinning, the truth is the more we grow
in grace, the more we learn, the more grace God gives us,
the closer we draw to the Lord and our Christ, the nearer the
word of the Lord is unto our heart, the more aware we become
of our own vileness. along the way. The closer we
are to the Lord, the more we will be aware of our vileness. And we see complete sanctification
is not for this life, for we cry out with Paul, O wretched
man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death. And
then he said, I thank God through Jesus Christ, my blessed Lord. We have perfect sanctification
coming. We will be removed from the presence
and the power of sin completely in that day through and by the
work of our Savior, who died upon the cross, taking away all
of our sins, dealing it a deadly blow there, so that it is dying,
dying, dying, but will gasp its last breath when we wander into
the presence of our Lord and of our Savior. Yes, perfect sanctification
awaits us. but not in this life, but in
that one that is to come. And this is by God's design. This is God's purpose. This is
God's work. This is God's way. This is His
will.