Article August 14, 1902 Issue

Religious Items

with contributions from George Whitman, C. H. Wellbeloved, Spalding

Let us now pass on to consider the second question: Is the highest life attainable?

We are met at the outset with a great many Scripture injunctions that lay upon us the necessity of striving to reach the topmost of Spiritual possibility. We recall the words, "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." This is the Saviour's standard of moral and spiritual living. Nowhere does the Bible present a lower standard. In the second epistle to Timothy we are told that the Scripture is given, "That the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works." In Ephesians we are given to understand that the agencies of the Church are intended to bring its members "Unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ." In the same epistle the Apostle prays that Christian may be so indwelt by Christ, and so rooted and grounded in love, "that they might be filled with all the fulness of God." In Philip-pians, third chapter, Paul speaks of this question of spiritual attainment. The goal of his striving was as to "know him." He confesses he had not attained as yet, nor had reached perfection, but, he declares, "I press toward the goal." He was eagerly reaching out, with the goal in view, for the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus. This, evidently, was not a striving after fields of service, but a seeking to know more of Jesus. In simple phrase it was an effort to reach the highest moral and spiritual attainments that are possible to one in the flesh. Surely we should not have such statements in the Bible if the highest altitudes were not attainable.

I am tired of hearing this persistent iteration of the idea that sanctification is impossible. We are constantly told that sinfulness is a part of our fleshly limitation, and as a consequence, people make up their minds to continue in sin! There is no effort to be holy, for holiness is supposed to be a Biblical Utopia.

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