IS CHRISTIAN PERFECTION POSSIBLE? Part 3

The wisdom of the fathers

IS CHRISTIAN PERFECTION POSSIBLE? Part 3

No one can ever be fully satisfied in this redemption life until this second work of grace is accomplished in the heart. Justification brings us into the blessed kingdom of God’s love. Sanctification perfects His love in us. This second grace enables us to realize not only the meaning of perfect love, but we also comprehend the glorious fact that God has wrought in us perfect purity and holiness.

This implies our being perfect in God’s will, and because we have yielded our will completely to Him. Every disposition of our will which sought its own way is now in perfect conformity with His and as Jesus could say in Gethsemane, “Thy will be done,”* which meant death on Calvary to Him, so we have said the same to God with a vivid consciousness that once for all it meant death to us. It has required the perfect will of Jesus to obtain this grace of sanctification for us, and it now requires our perfect will to receive it from Him. Here is where we can stand perfect and complete in all the will of God.

Another beautiful characteristic of sanctification is perfect unity. One of the most striking features of the religious world today is division among those who profess to believe in and follow Christ. There is no greater evil existing than this. Men have made creeds and sects and have persuaded the people to join them, until the disgusting spectacle of division is seen everywhere, and the non-professing world is amazed at the sickening sight. to be continued

(by William B. Byers)