My “Over-Realized Eschatology!” 

January, 2021:

This is one of five responses to the session of University Presbyterian Church, Las Cruces, NM in 2020. It had challenged my doctrine of sanctification and eschatology as error, declaring them “over-realized”. This debate relates to the issue in the PCA of unchanging homosexual desire in the life of a Christian. I believe that in the gospel there is not only forgiveness but cleansing from all sin. The session’s objection appears on pages 4-6 below.

May 20, 2020:

My old colleagues in UPC, you think I am quite wrong in my so positive view of sanctification. So here is my doctrine: I simply believe that the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit is wonderfully effective; he produces changed lives. I have emphasized this doctrine because one cannot hold to Westminster’s sound doctrine of sanctification and tolerate the claims of so-called homosexual Christians, including PCA elders, who speak of their lusts enduring without letup. When they speak this way, they contradict the lovely nature of sanctification. To have sham holiness in contrast to genuine sanctification is to jettison an element of salvation without which salvation cannot exist! Owen: “… There is a certain and infallible connection between true mortification and eternal life.” (Mortification of Sin, chapter 1)

In the needless debate over same-sex lust (often called an “attraction”), there is no disagreement in the PCA that sin remains in this life, or that glorification comes only at the coming of Christ. The debate is whether progress in holiness is essential to our definition of Christian, or in different words, whether a person can be plagued with homosexual desire (or any other sin) unmitigated, unrelieved, and neither weakened nor hindered until Jesus comes. My view is that Christians actually DO grow in grace (2 Peter 3:18), and we are being renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16). As we develop in sanctification, sin is weakened and increasingly deplored. Without holiness no professing Christian is one, and such a person shall not see the Lord. In the Session Letter, the truths of A & C are emphasized above the encouraging truth of B. The Session Letter pays scant attention to the positive aspect of sanctification.

Sanctification Underway                   

Sanctification begins with the event of regeneration when one is converted. It is only completed at the event of the Second Coming:  “We shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). Until then, our lives as Christians are a time of genuine sanctification underway in spite of many sins. Sanctification is the progressive and varied activity of the Spirit in everyone united to Christ from the event of our conversion to the event of the coming of Christ. It is the divine process between the two events. Here is my understanding of and agreement with the Confession.

The Westminster Confession of Faith XIII – Of Sanctification

1. They, who are once effectually called, and regenerated, having a new heart, and a new spirit created in them, are further sanctified, really and personally,

through the virtue of Christ’s death and resurrection, by His Word and Spirit dwelling in them, the dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed,

and the several lusts thereof are more and more weakened and mortified;

and they more and more quickened and strengthened in all saving graces, to the practice of true holiness,

without which no man shall see the Lord.

2. This sanctification is throughout, in the whole man; yet imperfect in this life, there abiding still some remnants of corruption in every part;

whence ariseth a continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.

3. In which war, although the remaining corruption, for a time, may much prevail; yet, through the continual supply of strength from the sanctifying Spirit of Christ, the regenerate part doth overcome; and so, the saints grow in grace, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

I agree with John Owen’s positive assessment: The Christian wants sin exterminated, but “Now, by the Spirit and grace of Christ, there may be wonderful success, and an overriding victory against sin. He may realize nearly constant triumph over it. Even so, absolutely killing and destroying it should not be expected in this life.”  (Mortification of Sin chap. 5) Owen affirmed realism about remaining sin and confidence in the power of the Spirit.  He knew the law cannot deliver us, but he delighted that gospel “means of preservation are a thousand times stronger!” (Mortification of Sin Chap. 9) – certainly a positive view of the sanctification promised.

In your letter to me of March 9, 2020, you wrote:

Your Over-Realized View of Sanctification

Returning to the broader subject of sanctification, you have asserted that the Lord “does not authorize evil desire in the same heart on which he writes his law.”  [1] You also state that, certain sins left “unhindered” by the Holy Spirit are “proof that such a person has never been admitted into the family of God,” that such a person with “persistent illicit desires, even if bridled, loses his claim to being a Christian.”  [2] Let us speak to this. It is certainly true that, for every believer, the law of God has been written on their hearts (Jer. 31:33; 2 Cor. 3:3); we are all “growing in grace” as “servants of righteousness.” (2 Pet. 3:18; Rom. 6:18). And while it is also true that the Holy Spirit CAN mortify all sin in a believer’s heart and life – and never does He authorize sin – it is incorrect that the Holy Spirit WILL mortify (or even “hinder”) every sin in a believer prior to death.  Rather, as the Bible says, “the law of God” is at war with the “law of sin” (Rom. 7:22-23) in our members, i.e. some indwelling sins persist throughout one’s life. In other words, both “laws” co-exist in the heart of a regenerate believer. While we pray earnestly and work diligently for the fullest mortification of sin, the Christian life is rife with spiritual warfare, “the passions of the flesh” waging war against the soul (1 Pet. 2:11). Warring against “persistent illicit desires” (as you put it) is the Christian life in a nutshell, not something alien to the Christian life.

As we confess, “this corruption of nature, during this life, doth remain in those that are regenerated.” [3] Also, regarding sanctification, we confess that it is “yet imperfect in this life, there abiding still some remnants of corruption in every part, whence ariseth a continual and irreconcilable war, the flesh lusting against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh.” [4] The Larger Catechism puts it this way: there are “perpetual lustings of the flesh against the spirit, where [we] are often foiled with temptations, and fall into many sins, and are hindered in all [our] spiritual services, and [our] best works are imperfect and defiled in the sight of God.” [5] Walter Marshall summarizes,

In a similar vein, John Owen observes,

While God certainly releases Christians from the power of sin upon regeneration, liberating them from the lusts and pleasures of the flesh, to suggest that homosexual desires will be fully uprooted in the hearts of the regenerate in this life is to collapse sanctification into glorification, i.e., an over-realized eschatology. It seems to emit the odor of Wesley not the aroma of Westminster. To be sure, “he who began a good work WILL bring it to completion” (Phil. 1:6; you quote this verse in your email to a member of UPC on 1/27/20). And yet, we cannot forget the salient conclusion of this verse -… “in the day of Christ Jesus.” This is not to place limits on the work of the Holy Spirit. This is not a “testimony to the failure of the Holy Spirit in sanctification,” as you assert in one of your articles. [8] This is not a “rebuke to the integrity of the Lord;” nor is this “to render the new covenant inoperative concerning any sin,” as you say;[9] nor is this to condone any sin as “basically ok.” Rather, it is simply surrendering ourselves to the freedom which God assigns Himself in the work of sanctification. As B. B. Warfield opines, God does it in His own way ; and that is by process – whom He calls He justifies, and whom He justifies He glorifies…Expecting the end of the process only at the time appointed is no limitation upon the power of the Savior.” [10] (Emphasis in bold is added.)

Some direct response

I agree with you when you say that the Spirit has no limits in our sanctification; in the new covenant he works against all our sins, even though the measure and degree is not total in this life. It is therefore a contradiction for you to say that some sins are not even hindered in this life! Surely we cannot hold that Christians are released from the power of death in regeneration, and then believe that some sins remain unhindered.

You intimate that I teach that homosexual desires “will be fully uprooted.” I have never said that any sin will be fully uprooted before Christ comes. When my so called over-realized eschatology was being discussed, I was not present to declare that I do not believe any doctrine of perfectionism.

You quote John Owen, who pointed out that in sanctification, sin “may be greatly weakened in its power.” He adds that “mortification will wither the root of sin” (Mortification of Sin chap. 2).  That is precisely what am I driving at when I say that sin is hindered in believers. The Session Letter claims it is   “incorrect [to say] that the Holy Spirit WILL mortify (or even hinder), every sin in a believer prior to death.”   You have embraced a terrible error! I simply agree with Owen and our Confession that sin is much weakened. However, this is not what our gay leaders and their supporters are saying! “Sin” in Owen’s writing (and mine) is not qualified so that some sins are being mortified and others are not, as if certain transgressions might get a pass. Oh how the gays would like that! They could pick a sin which has not withered and claim, “Oh, it will be gone when Jesus comes.” Those who think that way are at peace with sin.

Thus you have come up with a new doctrine from somewhere, I know not where, the doctrine of “selective sanctification” where only some sins are cleansed.  1 John 1:9 promises cleansing “from all unrighteousness.” If you can lay your hands on any reformed creed which asserts that only some sins are weakened in this life, I would like to see it. Skip Westminster; it is not in ours. Owen warns of inventing “a new righteousness that the gospel knows nothing of.” You have taken a large step away from what he calls “universal righteousness” – universal because it includes all commandments. The Session Letter says, “some indwelling sins persist throughout one’s life.” Why not say just sins persist rather than some? Where does Scripture make this kind of distinction that some sins persist, and by implication some do not? Would a godly person claim that he has certain sins which never show up again? He would not. No one this side of heaven has ever had any sin eradicated, but still the Lord effectively strives against every sin because, “the Lord disciplines the one he loves, and chastises every son whom he receives” (Hebrews 12:6). I think you may revise that. I hope so. It seems to me to be something you do not really mean.

I insist on this, because progressive sanctification without progress is not sanctification at all. When God writes his law on our hearts, does he not write all of them? Yes! If the Spirit does not write all of them, he is falling down on his job and failing to deliver on the divine promise in the new covenant. One Revoice star does not like the word “deliverance” with good reason; he does not have it.  His view is not of sin weakened but of sanctification reduced to what suits him. In your excellent Owen quotation, we get a very different theological drift when he says, “… he who dies fighting in this warfare dies assuredly a conqueror” To some sensitivities that sounds like perfectionism, but Owen simply believes that Jesus saves us from our sin.

You quote Marshall, Owen, Warfield, the Confession and Larger Catechism, plus some Scripture texts. Many of these were to serve as a corrective of my over-realized view. It is a strange feeling to have material I agree with laid out as a remedy for my supposed theological error. You provided major quotations to prove we should believe there is remaining sin in us. Then you give strong confessional material to prove that perfection comes only when the Lord does. I agree, but you do not show that our standards also show that sanctification is an effective work of God in every believer’s life during the interim. This is a vital matter in the current debate. The Larger Catechism explains beautifully:

Note that sanctification speaks of the powerful operation of the Spirit so that the elect are “renewed in their whole man.” God’s saving graces are “so stirred up, increased, and strengthened … that [believers] more and more die unto sin, and rise unto newness of life.”  That is not the way Christian homosexuals describe their unchanging passion for their same sex. Therefore, I ask, “Where is their sanctification?” The Session Letter spends most of its energy to say what sanctification is not.

You point out that the good work spoken of in Philippians 1:6 will be completed in the day of Jesus Christ. I have never suggested that it is completed earlier, and you think I have. Note that the verse also teaches that God’s good work in us has begun in every believer. Those who deny any work of God to reduce and kill their lusts deny their sanctification, and thus salvation’s inseparable package. They do not point to a good work liberating them from their homosexual lusts. My eschatology is not over-realized in the present. Complete conformity to Christ will come only at the appointed time, which is never in this life. Yet a major heading for a large section in your letter to me is that my eschatology is over-realized. You mean of course that I bring forward glorification into current sanctification. Wesleyans do that. The correction you offer misses the mark. I am not guilty of that error.

David Linden’s writings have “the odor of Wesley!”  Never have I been accused by anyone but the UPC session of holding a Wesleyan view of holiness. None of us hold the error of our dear brother John Wesley. And if a person keeps reading, nothing I have written even “seems” to. I do insist that the sanctifying Spirit succeeds in transformation as he wills – thirty, sixty, or a hundred fold, but never zero.  

In September Pastor Tebbano wrote:   “Your view of sanctification seems to be closer to Wesleyan holiness than a reformed view of progressive sanctification. In particular, your concerns seem to leave little room for WLC 149.”  I replied in November, 2019 with a response I hoped he would share with the session. In that reply I referred to how I had simplified WCF XIII in my second article about Homosexuality in the PCA, Greg Johnson Wrote a Book. In that article I reaffirmed the entire WCF XIII. I told Patrick that that WCF chapter expresses:

The Resolution of our Misunderstanding   

We should tremble before the life and death words of Romans 8:13: “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death (or mortify) the deeds of the body, you will live”  (Romans 8:13 ESV). I wonder when you hear me use words like “mortify” if it may sound to some elders as an assertion of eradication. If so, naturally you would react. Much hangs on how we take this word. So I ask you to weigh the words of the reformed theologian who has perhaps studied this subject the most. He defined what he means by the word mortify in Romans 8:13, the text with which he began his classic The Mortification of Sin:

What is meant by mortify? (John Owen in Mortification of Sin, chapter 1)

Owen with some other Puritans was a framer of the Westminster Confession I think he understood it well. [13] When he speaks of a process towards perfection, he is not Wesleyan in his thinking but biblical. We have homosexual elders in the PCA who do not speak of their own experience in terms of the Spirit’s effective sanctification, or with the joyful confidence we find in the writings of John Owen. I would like to ask these men if the God they serve is able to deliver them, and if he has promised to do so. An answer is needed to that.

Epilog:   

In September, 2020 the session informed me that they had studied and benefitted from the PCA report on human sexuality, released in May, 2020. The session commends it. I too find much benefit in it. The session explained further that their March 9, 2020 letter to me has been modified by that report because the session’s position “is now better represented” by that report.  This leaves in place serious problems:

1. The PCA report does not address whether our gay minister may remain as pastor of a PCA church, and the session informed me in the summer of 2020 that they envision no supporting action on their part to bring about his removal. When I heard that announcement I knew my days at University Presbyterian Church were over. The session told me that they plan no support for any effort to remove the homosexual (not their choice of a word) minister from his office in the PCA. That was the moment where I realized I would not be a part of University Presbyterian Church.
2. The March 9 letter makes very clear that they think there are errors in my theology. In this article I defend my understanding of the lovely doctrine of sanctification. I agree with the Westminster Confession in detail. With no retraction the session’s judgment stands that my understanding of sanctification is in error.

Confusion continues

The session has not retracted this on p.4 above where they said:  “It is incorrect that the Holy Spirit WILL mortify (or even “hinder”) every sin in a believer prior to death.” In our ordination we all declared in WCF XIII:1 that our several lusts are more and more mortified by the Word and the Spirit. I believe that that is true; I also believe it is wonderful.    

“Mortify” does not mean eradicate in Scripture, the Confession, John Owen, or my writing. See the explanation on p.9 above. 

The blood of Jesus God’s Son cleanses from all sin (1 John 1:7).  According to Romans 8:13, our life depends on mortification, i.e., a ceaseless striving against our sins, giving sin no exception and no excuse. Naturally the gays in the PCA would like a little breathing space on that, and, regrettably, the session position provides a measure of comfort for them.  

There is no statement in Scripture that the Lord just lets any of our sins go. Yet the session thinks there are some sins which the Holy Spirit does not so much as even hinder in this life. That is, God’s Holy Spirit lets some sins co-exist with righteousness for the rest of a Christian’s life on earth. All one has to do now is connect this bad theology with the untransformed life of a homosexual PCA officer, and we will find that same-sex lust just keeps rolling along without remedy in this life.