Just suppose that Satan wanted to destroy the work of God. He need not eliminate the church. He only has to convince the people that they cannot obtain perfection in Christ.Holiness, purity of heart, perfect love- these are names for the experience of "entire sanctification". Most of America's religious publishers espouse a doctrine which has watered down scriptural holiness and declares that purity is attained at conversion. The teaching of a second work of grace has been abandoned. The concept of the old man (Romans 6:6) has slipped into the back row of our church libraries. The removal of inbred sin has been ignored and replaced by a new "Feel Good Gospel."
Addition without subtraction is inviting God to dwell in a house that has not been properly cleaned. Recent polling tells us that fifty nine million Americans believe they have been born again. The study of modern day ethics will reveal a very broad description of morality and "situation ethics". The revival of current day religion is a dismal failure. We have exchanged the narrow path of scriptural holiness for a "feel good religion".
1. What is inbred sin?
2. What does it cause me to do?
3. Do I have to wrestle with it until death?
The doctrine of entire sanctification ,"Wesleyan Holiness", was reborn in a period called "The Great Awakening". The Church was stagnant. Most people believed that if you did the right things and lived a good life you were acceptable to God. John Wesley preached a Gospel of faith. He taught the message of a second work of grace. The act of God destroying the root of sin thus killing the old bent toward evil.
Entire sanctification is that moment in time when God destroys the filthy bent of the earthly mind which daily lures us to do what we know is wrong. What made Wesley different was his new nature that was totally motivated by the mind of God. Our impotence in ministry is because we have endorsed a doctrine of "addition without subtraction". Many well intentioned preachers today are preaching a message of love and holiness and ignore the need for the crucifixion and death of inbred sin.
What is inbred sin?
When we are converted we are given new life (regeneration). This is God's work of grace that pardons sins (evil acts we have committed). At regeneration we are adopted into the family of God. The root of sin is not pardoned. It cannot be pardoned, because we are not responsible for it. We inherited it from our parents.
James writes in his letter about a double minded man. The sinner is truly single minded. He thinks only of satisfying earthly desires. When converted the mind of Christ is planted in his heart. The result is two minds constantly wrestling for control of the soul. Thus the heart of a new believer must be directed to the issues of entire sanctification. The Scripture never suggests that the old nature can be forgiven. It always declares we must put to death the deeds of the flesh. To perpetuate the gospel of "Addition without Subtraction" is placing yourself in the hollow world of "feel good faith'. What does inbred sin cause me to do?
We need only look within ourselves to see the effect of the carnal nature. No matter how hard we try to suppress the evil tendency we cannot put it out of our mind. In Psalm 66, David says that cherished sin interferes with the communication between ourselves and God. We must surrender all of the selfish earthly desires. Paul says "Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature:" (Col 3:5). It is the work of the believer to clean house. When we remove the cob webs then God will kill the spider. Allowing sinful desires to exist in our actions, thoughts, and deeds will eventually cause us to return to a life of sinning. In my own experience I wandered for thirty years teaching and preaching goodness. When I finally surrendered the last area of cherished sin, God killed the spider. I no longer desire the things that led me into sin. My heart is pure and my desire is to do the will of God.
Our Baptist friends say "yes". They insist that death is the door to holiness. Why is it that so many great preachers of the word rise to great heights only to fall to original sin? It is because they have never endured the subtraction of the old nature. Inbred sin hacks away at the soul until, in one weak moment, desire gives way to sin. Sin always produces death. Ezekiel prophesied of the age of the Spirit saying "I will cleanse you from all your impurities and from all your idols, I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. (Ez 36: 25-26) It is God's will that we be rescued from a life of schizophrenic duality.
Is there peace? The true test of carnal nature is conflict. Those who testify to the second work of grace all share the same description of peace in the midst of struggle. It was hard to admit that I had spent thirty years in the ministry without the blessing. I was convinced that because of my sin-nature I would have to live forever wrestling with two minds. My heart is pure in its desire to serve God. Temptation comes, but not from within. The old man is dead. If there are secret areas of cherished sin in your life surrender them to God. Put the old man on the cross, and keep him there until he is dead.
"Elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Grace unto you and peace be multiplied." (I Peter 1:2) KJV
Here we have the gospel from a mathematical standpoint;
Election = Addition
Sanctification= Subtraction
Multiplication = Growth
Division = Ministry
The prominent fact of conversion is "addition". Your name is added to the Lamb's book of life, and the life of God is added to your soul. Regeneration, the central fact of conversion, is positive "addition." In conversion you get something, You get salvation. How many Christians spend all their lives in "addition"?". What do you think of a school teacher who can't lead his pupils beyond "addition?"
How many teachers in the school of Christ have never progresssed beyond "Adittion" in spiritual arithmetic?
Conversion puts the life in you, and sanctification takes the old life out. Sanctification literally taking the fallen nature,old Adam, out of you. So sanctification is "subtraction."
How can preachers teach the churches when they don't know the elementry rules? Preachers and people, it is time you had reached "Subtraction."
"Multiplication" is but a rapid form of "Addition" and "Division" that of "Subtraction." So the four elementary rules are reducible to two, namely "Addition" and "Subtraction"; Regeneration and sanctification.
When you get a clean heart, then the Spirit fills it with the pure love of God. Then all the graces are made perfect, because there is no antagonism to the perfect work of the Spirit.
You have:
1. Perfect love, without any of the malevolent affections.
2. Perfect faith, without doubt.
3. Perfect patience, without impatience
4. Perfect hope, undimmed by a solitary cloud.
Oh how rapidly these pure graces grow!
Now you are in "Multiplication," moving right along. The clensing of your heart (sanctification) opens an artesian well in your soul. You no longer stand pumping at the old dry well as you did in the wilderness, but your heart is full and overflowing. Now what becomes of the overflow? You divide it freely to all you meet.(John 7:37-39)
So now you are in "division." This is the way we are to conquer the world for Christ. We are to get full of salvation and it will overflow. We expect soon to get all the heathens converted. Then all the wondeful resources of the Church will be appropriated internally. Oh, how sanctification will then move! The knowledge of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the abyss of the sea.
Come, brothers and sisters, get religion, ("addition") then get sanctified ("subtraction"), have all origonal sin, inbred corruption and wayward tendicies, washed away by the cleansing blood. Then the Holy Spirit will fill you, and your growth in grace will be wonderful. Then you will begin to scatter the fire. So you will multiply and divide like an ever-winding river, irrigating and enriching in its onward sweep till it flows into the ocean.
You people in "addition" are constantly longing for grandeur and sublimity of "multiplication" and "division." But you can't reach them without going through "subtraction." If you want your corn to grow, clean out the weeds, briers and bushes. If you want to grow in grace, and be influential for good, get your heart "washed in the blood of the Lamb," cleansed from all inbred sin and you will soon be astonished at your own growth. Throw down this unscriptural doctrine of growing into purity. The Bible nowhere imputes purity to growth: but it constantly imputes it to the cleansing blood and the refining fire. Growth never changes the quality of anything, but the quantity. So get converted, get sanctified, then grow forever and spread out a sea of holy influence wherever you go.
(This article is chapter seven of the book "Sanctification" by Dr. W. B. Godby Published in 1884. Dr. Godby was a prominent exponent of Holiness. He was an evangelist with the Methodist Church in Kentucky and elsewhere.