5. It is perverted by those who divorce the purpose of God from the means through which it is accomplished. God has purposed the eternal felicity of His people and that purpose is certain of full fruition-nevertheless it is not effected without the use of means on their part, any more than a harvest is obtained and secured apart from human industry and persevering diligence. God has made promise to His saints that “bread shall be given” them and their “water shall be sure” (Isa. 33:16), but that does not exempt them from the discharge of their duty or provide them with an indulgence to take their ease. The Lord gave a plentiful supply of manna from Heaven, but the Israelites had to get up early and gather it each morning, for it melted when the sun shone on it. So His people are now required to labour for “that meat which endureth unto everlasting life” (John 6:27). Promises of Divine preservation are not made to sluggards and idlers but those called unto the use of means for the establishing of their souls in the practice of obedience. Those promises are not given to promote idleness but are so many encouragements to the diligent, assurances that sincere endeavours shall have a successful issue.

God has purposed to preserve believers in holiness and not in wickedness. His promises are made to those who strive against sin and mourn over it, made to those who take their full thereof and delight therein. If I presume upon God’s goodness and count upon His shielding me when I deliberately run into the place of temptation, then I shall be justly left to reap as I have sown. It is Satan who tempts souls to recklessness and to the perverting of the Dive promises. This is clear from the attack which he made upon the Saviour. When he bade Him cast Himself from the pinnacle of the temple and to rely upon the angels to preserve Him from harm, it was an urging Him to presume upon the end by disdaining the means. Our Lord stopped his mouth by pointing out that, notwithstanding His assurance from God and of His faithfulness concerning the end, yet Scripture requires that the means tending to that end be employed, the neglect of which is a sinful tempting of God. If I deliberately drink deadly poison I have no ground for concluding that prayer will deliver me from its fatal effects.

The Divine preservation of the saints no more renders their own activities, constant care and exertions superfluous than does God’s gift of breath make it unnecessary for us to breathe. It is their own preservation in faith and holiness which is the very thing made certain. They themselves, therefore, must live by faith and in the practice of holiness, for they cannot persevere in any other way than by watching and praying. They must carefully avoid the snares of Satan and the seductions of the world, resisting and mortifying the lusts of the flesh, working out their own salvation with fear and trembling. To neglect those duties, to follow a contrary course, is to “draw back unto perdition” and not to “believe to the saving of the soul” (Heb. 10:39). He who argues that since his perseverance in faith and holiness is assured he needs exercise no concern about it or trouble to do anything toward it, is not only guilty of a palpable contradiction but gives proof that he is a stranger to regeneration and has neither part nor lot in the matter. “Make me to go in the path of Thy commandments, for therein do I delight” (Psa. 119:35) is the cry of the renewed.

6. It is perverted by those who deny the truth of Christian responsibility. In this section we shall turn away from the “mongrel Calvinists” to consider a serious defect on the part of “hyper-Calvinists,” or as some prefer to call them, “fatalists.” These people not only repudiate the general offer of the Gospel, arguing that it is a virtual denial of man’s spiritual impotency to call upon the unregenerate to savingly repent and believe, but they are also woefully rent in exhorting believers unto the performance of Christian duties. Their favorite text is, “without Me ye can do nothing,” but they are silent upon, “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Phil. 4:13). They delight to quote the promises wherein God declares, “I will” and “I shall,” but they ignore those verses which contain the qualifying “if ye” (John 8:31) and “if we” (Heb. 3:6). They are sound and strong in the truth of God’s preservation of His people, but they are weak and unsound on the correlative tone of the saints’ perseverance. They say much about the power and operation of the Holy Spirit, but very little on the method He employs or the means and motives He makes use of.

As many as are led by the Spirit of God they are the sons of God” (Rom. 8:14). He does not compel but inclines: it is not by the use of physical power but by the employment of moral suasion and sweet inducements that He leads, for He deals with the saints not as stocks and stones but as rational entities. “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go: I will guide thee with Mine eye” (Psa. 32:8). The meaning of that is more apparent from the contrast presented in the next verse: “Be ye not as the horse (rushing where it should not) or as the mule (stubbornly refusing to go where it should) which have no understanding: whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle.” God does not drive His children like unintelligent animals, but guides by enlightening their minds, directing their inclination, moving their wills. God led Israel across the wilderness by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night: but they had to respond thereto, to follow it. So the Good Shepherd goes before His sheep, and they follow Him.

It is true, blessedly true, that God “draws,” yet that drawing is not a mechanical one as though we were machines, but a moral one in keeping with our nature and constitution. Beautifully is this expressed in Hosea 11:4, “I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love.” Every moral virtue, every spiritual grace, is appealed to and called into action. There is perfect love and gracious care on God’s part toward us. There is the intelligence of faith and response of love on our part toward Him-and thereby He keeps us in the way. Blessed and wondrous indeed is the inter-working of Divine grace and the believer’s responsibility. All the affections of the new creature are wrought upon by the Holy Spirit. He draws out our love by setting before us God’s love: “We love Him, because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19), but we do love Him, we are not passive, nor is love inactive. He quickens our desires and revives our assurance, and we “rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Rom. 5:2). He brings into view “the prize of the high calling” and we “press toward the mark, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before” (Phil. 3:13, 14).

It is very much like a skilled musician and a harp: as his fingers touch its strings they produce melodious sounds. God works in us and produces the beauty of Holiness. But how? By setting before our minds weighty considerations and powerful motives, and causing us to respond thereto. By giving us a tender conscience which is sensitive to His still small voice. By appealing to every motive-power in us: fear, desire, love, hatred, hope, ambition. God preserves His saints not as He does the mountain pine which is enabled to withstand the storm without its own concurrence, but by calling into exercise and act the principle that was imparted to them at the new birth. There is the working of Divine grace first, and then the outflow of Christian energy. God works in His people both to will and to do of His good pleasure, and they work out their own salvation with fear and trembling (Phil. 2:12, 13). And it is the office of God’s servants to be used as instruments in the hands of the Spirit. It is their task to enforce the responsibility of the saints, to admonish slothfulness, to warn against apostasy, to call unto the use of means and the performance of duty.

If the hyper-Calvinist preacher compares the method he follows with the policy pursued by the Apostles he should quickly perceive the vast difference there is between them. True, the Apostles gave attention to doctrinal instruction, but they also devoted themselves to exhortation and expostulation. True, they magnified the free and sovereign grace of God and were careful to set the crown of glory upon the One to whom alone it belonged, yet they were far from addressing their hearers as so many paralytics or creatures who must lie impotent till the waters be moved. “No,” they said, “Let us not sleep, as do others” (1 Thess. 5:6), but “awake to righteousness and sin not” (1 Cor. 15:34). They bade them “run with patience the race that is set before us” (Heb. 12:1) and not sit down and mope and hug their miseries. They called upon them to “resist the Devil” (James 4:7), not take the attitude they were helpless in the matter. They gave direction, “keep yourselves from idols” (1 John 5:21) and did not at once negate it by adding, “but you are unable to do so.” When the Apostle said, “I think it meet, as long as I am in this tabernacle, to stir you up by putting you in remembrance” (2 Peter 1:13), he was not usurping the prerogative of the Spirit but was enforcing the responsibility of the saints.

7. It is perverted by those who use the doctrine of justification to crowd out the companion doctrine of sanctification. Though they are inseparably connected, yet they may be and should be considered singly and distinctly. Under the Law, the ablutions and oblations, the washings and sacrifices were together, and justification and sanctification are blessings which must not be disjointed. God never bestows the one without the other, yet we have no means of knowing we have received the former apart from the evidences of the latter. Justification refers to the relative or legal change which takes place in the status of God’s people. Sanctification to the real and experimental change which takes place in their state, a change which is begun at the new birth, developed during the course of their earthly pilgrimage and is made perfect in Heaven. The one gives the believer a title to Heaven, the other a meetness for the inheritance of the saints in light. The former clears him from the guilt of sin, the latter cleanses from sin’s defilement. In sanctification something is actually imparted to the believer, whereas in justification it is only imputed. Justification is based entirely on the work which Christ wrought for His people but sanctification is principally a work wrought in them.

By our Fall in Adam we not only lost the favour of God but also the purity of our nature, and therefore we need to be both reconciled to God and renewed in our inner man, for without personal holiness “no man shall see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14). “As He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation (behaviour); because it is written, Be ye holy for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15, 16). God’s nature is such that unless we be sanctified there can be no intercourse between Him and us. But can persons be sinful and holy at one and the same time? Genuine Christians discover so much carnality, filth and vileness in themselves that they find it almost impossible to be assured they are holy. Nor is this difficulty solved, as in justification, by recognizing that though completely unholy in ourselves we are holy in Christ, for Scripture teaches that those who are sanctified by God are holy in themselves though the evil nature has not been removed from them.

None but “the pure in heart” will ever “see God” (Matt. 5:8). There must be that renovation of soul whereby our minds, affections and wills are brought into harmony with God. There must be that impartial compliance with the revealed will of God and abstinence from evil which issues from faith and love. There must be that directing of all our actions to the glory of God by Jesus Christ, according to the Gospel. There must be a spirit of holiness working within the believer’s heart so as to sanctify his outward actions if they are to be acceptable unto Him in whom “there is no darkness.” True, there is perfect holiness in Christ for the believer, but there must also be a holy nature received from Him. There are some who appear to delight in the imputed obedience of Christ who make little or no concern about personal holiness. They have much to say about being arrayed in “the garments of salvation and covered with the robe of righteousness” (Isa. 61:10), who give no evidence that they are “clothed with humility” (1 Peter 5:5) or that they have “put on....bowels of mercies, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, longsuffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one another” (Col. 3:12, 13).

How many there are today who suppose that if they have trusted in Christ all is sure to be well with them at the last, even though they are not personally holy. Under the pretence of honouring faith, Satan, as an angel of light, has deceived and is now deceiving multitudes of souls. When their “faith” is examined and tested, what is it worth? Nothing at all so far as insuring an entrance into Heaven is concerned: it is a powerless, lifeless, fruitless thing. The faith of God’s elect is unto “the acknowledging of the truth which is after godliness” (Titus 1:1). It is a faith which purifies the heart (Acts 13:9), and it grieves over all impurity. It is a faith which produces an unquestioning obedience (Heb. 11:8). They therefore do but delude themselves who suppose they are daily drawing nearer to Heaven while they are following those courses which lead only to Hell. He who thinks to come to the enjoyment of God without being personally holy, makes God out to be an unholy God, and puts the highest indignity upon Him. The genuineness of saving faith is only proved as it bears the blossoms of experimental godliness and the fruits of true piety.

Sanctification consists of receiving a holy nature from Christ and being indwelt by the Spirit so that the body becomes His temple, setting apart unto God. By the Sprit’s giving me vital union with “the Holy One” I am “sanctified in Christ Jesus” (1 Cor. 1:2). Where there is life there is growth, and even when growth ceases there is a development and maturing of what has grown. There is a living principle, a moral quality communicated at the new birth, and under sanctification it is drawn out into action and exercised in living unto God. In regeneration the Spirit imparts saving grace, in sanctification He strengthens and develops it-the one is a birth, the other a growth. Therein it differs from justification: justification is a single act of grace-sanctification is a continued work of grace. The one is complete, the other progressive. Some do not like the term “progressive sanctification” but the thing itself is clearly taught in Scripture. “Every branch that beareth fruit, He purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit” (John 15:2). “I pray that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and all judgment” (Phil. 1:9). That you “may grow up into Him in all things” (Eph. 4:15) is an exhortation thereto.

8. The doctrine of the Saints’ perseverance is perverted by those who fail to accord the example of Christ its proper place. Few indeed have maintained an even keel on this important matter. If the Socinians have made the exemplary life of Christ to be the whole end of the incarnation, others have so stressed His atoning death as to reduce His model walk to comparative insignificance. While the pulpit must make it clear that the main and chief reason why the Son of God became flesh was in order that He might honour God in rendering to the Law a perfect satisfaction on behalf of His people, yet it should also make equally plain that a prominent design and important end of Christ's incarnation was to set before His people a pattern of holiness for their emulation. Thus declares the Scriptures: “He hath left us an example that we should follow His steps” (1 Peter 2:21), and that example imperatively obligates believers unto its imitation. Though some have unduly pressed the example of Christ upon unbelievers, others have woefully failed to press it on believers. Because it has no place in the justification of a sinner, it is a serious mistake to suppose it exerts no influence upon the sanctification of a saint.

The very name “Christian” intimates that there is an intimate relation between Christ and the believer. It signifies “an anointed one,” that he has been endued with a measure of that Divine unction with his Master received “without measure” (John 3:34). And as Flavel, the Puritan pointed out, “Believers are called ‘fellows’ or co-partners (Psa. 45:7) of Christ from their participation with Him of the same Spirit. God gives the same spirit unto us which He more plentifully poured out upon Christ. Now where the same Spirit and principle is, there the same fruits and operations must be produced according to the proportions and measures of the Spirit of grace communicated....Its nature also is assimilating, and changes those in whom it is, into the same image with Christ, their heavenly Head (2 Cor. 3:18).” Again-believers are denominated “Christians” because they are disciples of Christ (Matt. 28:19 margin, Acts 11:26), that is, learners and followers of His, and therefore it is a misuse of terms to designate a man a “Christian” who is not sincerely endeavouring to mortify and forsake whatever is contrary to His character-to justify his name he must be Christ-like.

Though the perfect life of Christ must not be exalted to the exclusion of His atoning death, neither must it be omitted as the believer’s model. It may be true that no attempt to imitate Christ can obtain a sinner’s acceptance from God. It is equally true that the emulating of Him is imperatively necessary and absolutely essential in order to the saints’ preservation and final salvation. “Every man is bound to the imitation of Christ under penalty of forfeiting his claim to Christ. The necessity of this imitation convincingly appears from the established order of salvation, which is fixed and unaltered. Now conformity to Christ is the established method in which God will bring many souls to glory. ‘For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the First among many brethren’ (Rom. 8:29). The same God who has predestinated men to salvation, has in order thereto, predestinated them unto conformity to Christ, and this order of Heaven is never to be reversed. We may as well think to be saved without Christ, as to be saved without conformity to Christ” (John Flavel).

In Christ God has set before His people that standard of moral excellence at which He requires them to aim and strive after. In His life we beheld glorious representation in our own nature of the walk of obedience which He demands of us. Christ conformed Himself to us by His abasing incarnation. How reasonable, therefore, is it that we should conform ourselves to Him in the way of obedience and sanctification. “Let this mind be in you which was in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 2:5). He came as near to us as was possible for Him to do. How reasonable then is it that we should endeavour to come as near as it is possible for us to do. “Take My yoke upon you, and learn of Me” (Matt. 11:29). “Even Christ pleased not Himself” (Rom. 15:3). How reasonable is it that we should be required to deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him (Matt. 16:24), for without so doing we cannot be His disciples (Luke 14:27). If we are to be conformed to Christ in glory how necessary that we first be conformed to Him in holiness: “He that saith he abideth in Him ought himself so to walk even as He walked” (1 John 2:6). “Let everyone that nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity” (2 Tim. 2:19)-let him either put on the life of Christ or drop the name of Christ.