"IF ANY MAN SIN" Part 2
The wisdom of the fathers
"IF ANY MAN SIN" Part 2
2. A second class is formed of those who sin after their sanctification, and are then tempted of Satan to so theorize and explain it away as not to deeply and penitently admit that it was a real sin. They think if they admit the reality of their sinning, that they must abandon a life of holiness. While thus debating with self, on the one hand feeling they can not give up the great pearl of sanctification, and on the other, not willing to deeply mortify self by frankly admitting the sin; at this point the devil comes as an angel of light, in the guise of a profound theologian, and proposes to so explain the Bible, and so palliate or explain away the sin, as to make it and sanctification agree with each other.
He will endeavor to enrol the sin as only an infirmity; if it is too glaring for that, he will suggest the theory that we are sanctified only up to our knowledge, that there is an un- fathomable amount of depravity in us, and that sanctification consists only in wiping it away as fast as it comes to view; or he may introduce the abominable wolf in sheep's skin doctrine of imputed holiness, and blandly convince the poor soul, that it may be full of sin and yet so covered over with the holiness of Jesus that God takes no account of the sin.
I verily believe, that the miserable heresy of imputed holiness was invented at this point to lull the conscience of somebody who had sinned and was trying to cling to a state of unimpaired holiness. Will not this explain why it is that so many who confess to being purified, sooner or later, fly the plain old track, and adopt some error that either cripples or destroys their experience and usefulness? Satan gets them to accept a theology of his framing, in which a little sin and much holiness can somehow be packed together in the same bundle.
3. The third class of such as commit sin after their sanctification, are they that take the Scripture way of admitting to self and God the whole sad fact of evil, and by self-renunciation and faith return speedily to their infinite Owner and Healer. They follow the example of Noah, Moses, David and Hezekiah. They know both the strictness and the unmeasured sweep of Divine grace. They will not let failures discourage them from being established in holiness, nor will they take any theory of holiness by which a little sin can be smuggled along with it. If they are wise, they will waste no time in idly debating as to whether they have lost the blessing or not; they will spread it all before God, renounce self in every point, commit everything just as it is, to God, renounce all discouragement from the past, and all anxiety about the future, and accept Jesus, just as John saw Him, as a lamb newly slain, to cleanse from all sin now.
(from "White Robes" by G.D. Watson)