LAWTON CHURCH OF GOD, LAWTON, OKLAHOMA

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25 IF SANCTIFIED, HOW COULD A PERSON SIN?

This is a question which seems to distress some people very much. They ask the question with that seriousness that would give the impression that they would regard it a great calamity and misfortune should one become so thoroughly saved as to be entirely free from sin. The inference is that they desire a little license or liberty to sin occasionally, should they desire so to do, hence they would not be willing to have the Lord sanctify them, and thus deprive them of this privilege.

Of such we can only say, there is no occasion for them to be worried about the subject of sanctification. Such persons have not reached the place where sanctification begins. A person who has not yet fully abandoned and renounced all sin is not justified and therefore is no proper candidate for sanctification.

Touching the question, “If sanctified, how can a person sin?” we would answer, just as Adam and Eve, who were holy and in the image of God could sin; and just as angels who were holy and in the very presence of God in a holy heaven could sin, just so they who have been sanctified may again yield to temptation and fall into sin. Sanctification does not exempt men from temptation; and neither does sanctification destroy the free agency of man, and so change him into a machine. A sanctified man still has his free will, and hence has the power of choice, and therefore can choose that which is forbidden. Because Adam and Eve yielded to temptation and thereby made a wrong choice, is not in evidence that they had not been created holy and in the image of God. If the reader will explain how holy angels could sin, and how Adam and Eve could sin, they will have explained how a sanctified person might sin.

Sanctified people do not say that they do not have the power to sin, or could not sin if they wanted to, as they are frequently charged. But they do say that they have reached a place where they do not want to sin, and where they have power not to sin, and where there is no occasion or necessity to commit sin. In the language of John Wesley to Miss Jane Hilton: “Two things are certain: the one, that it is possible to lose even the pure love of God; the other, that it is not necessary, it is not unavoidable; it may be lost, but it may be kept.” Works, vol. 7, p.43.

However, sanctified people have just as much right to commit sin as people who are not sanctified. No one has license or liberty to commit sin. “He that committeth sin is of the devil.” We do not teach that men should seek sanctification in order to quit sinning; a person has to turn from and forsake all sin before God will ever hear him and pardon him. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” A man must go out of the sin business before God will even save him.

Genuine conviction and repentance will result in the abhorrence and forsaking of all sin.

“What then is the advantage in being sanctified?” Much every way; while there is yet the possibility of a man losing this grace out of his heart and committing sin, the inward responses to the temptations of Satan without, have ceased in the sanctified soul, hence the probabilities and liabilities to commit sin are not near so great, as where there is evil within and a foe without.

When inbred Sin is eradicated, and the inward conflict has ended, there is a free hand to cope with the enemy without, and therefore victory more easy.