We are urged by perfectionists “to keep up the standard.” We do this, not by calling certain men perfect, but by calling Jesus Christ perfect. In proportion to our sanctification, we are absorbed in Christ, not in ourselves. Self-consciousness and display are a poor evidence of sanctification. The best characters of Scripture put their trust in a standard higher than they have ever realized in their own persons, even in the righteousness of God.
Fourthly, the word τέλειος, as applied to spiritual conditions already attained, can fairly be held to signify only a relative perfection, equivalent to sincere piety or maturity of Christian judgment.
1 Cor. 2:6—“We speak wisdom, however, among the perfect,” or, as the Am. Revisers have it, “among them that are fullgrown”; Phil. 3:15—“Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded.” Men are often called perfect, when free from any fault which strikes the eyes of the world. See Gen. 6:9—“Noah was a righteous man, and perfect”; Job 1:1—“that man was perfect and upright.” On τέλειος, see Trench, Syn. N. T., 1:110.
The τέλειοι are described in Heb. 5:14—“Solid food is for the mature (τελείων) who on account of habit have their perceptions disciplined for the discriminating of good and evil” (Dr. Kendrick's translation). The same word “perfect” is used of Jacob in Gen. 25:27—“Jacob was a quiet man, dwelling in tents” = a harmless man, exemplary and well-balanced, as a man of business. Genung, Epic of the Inner Life, 132—“'Perfect' in Job = Horace's ‘integer vitæ,’ being the adjective of which ‘integrity’ is the substantive.”
Fifthly, the Scriptures distinctly deny that any man on earth lives without sin.
1 K. 8:46—“there is no man that sinneth not”; Eccl. 7:20—“Surely there is not a righteous man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not”; James 3:2—“For in many things we all stumble. If any stumbleth not in word, the same is a perfect man, able to bridle the whole body also”; 1 John 1:8—“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
T. T. Eaton, Sanctification: “1. Some mistake regeneration for sanctification. They have been unconverted church members. When led to faith in Christ, and finding peace and joy, they think they are sanctified, when they are simply converted. 2. Some mistake assurance of faith for sanctification. But joy is not sanctification. 3. Some mistake the baptism of the Holy Spirit for sanctification. But Peter sinned grievously at Antioch, after he had received that baptism. 4. Some think that doing the best one can is sanctification. But he who measures by inches, for feet, can measure up well. [pg 880]Some regard sin as only a voluntary act, whereas the sinful nature is the fountain. Stripping off the leaves of the Upas tree does not answer. 6. Some mistake the power of the human will, and fancy that an act of will can free a man from sin. They ignore the settled bent of the will, which the act of will does not change.”
Sixthly, the declaration: “ye were sanctified” (1 Cor. 6:11), and the designation: “saints” (1 Cor. 1:2), applied to early believers, are, as the whole epistle shows, expressive of a holiness existing in germ and anticipation; the expressions deriving their meaning not so much from what these early believers were, as from what Christ was, to whom they were united by faith.
When N. T. believers are said to be “sanctified,” we must remember the O. T. use of the word. “Sanctify” may have either the meaning “to make holy outwardly,” or “to make holy inwardly.” The people of Israel and the vessels of the tabernacle were made holy in the former sense; their sanctification was a setting apart to the sacred use. Num. 8:17—“all the firstborn among the children of Israel are mine.... I sanctified them for myself”; Deut. 33:3—“Yea, he loveth the people; all his saints are in thy hand”; 2 Chron. 29:19—“all the vessels ... have we prepared and sanctified.” The vessels mentioned were first immersed, and then sprinkled from day to day according to need. So the Christian by his regeneration is set apart for God's service, and in this sense is a “saint” and “sanctified.” More than this, he has in him the beginnings of purity,—he is “clean as a whole,” though he yet needs “to wash his feet” (John 13:10)—that is, to be cleansed from the recurring defilements of his daily life. Shedd, Dogm. Theol., 2:551—“The error of the Perfectionist is that of confounding imputed sanctification with inherent sanctification. It is the latter which is mentioned in 1 Cor. 1:30—‘Christ Jesus, who was made unto us ... sanctification.’ ”
Water from the Jordan is turbid, but it settles in the bottle and seems pure—until it is shaken. Some Christians seem very free from sin, until you shake them,—then they get “riled.” Clarke, Christian Theology, 871—“Is there not a higher Christian life? Yes, and a higher life beyond it, and a higher still beyond. The Christian life is ever higher and higher. It must pass through all stages between its beginning and its perfection.”C. D. Case: “The great objection to [this theory of] complete sanctification is that, if possessed at all, it is not a development of our own character.”