Finney on theological education

With hearts as cold as marble, instead of going right to the source of light, they go and gather up the husks of learning, and peddle it out among the churches as religious instruction. Horrible! While they do thus, we never shall have an efficient ministry. It is right they should get all the help they can from learning, to understand the word of God. But they ought never to rest in anything they get from book learning, until they are satisfied that God has put them in possession of the very idea which he would have them receive.—Charles Finney

Finney on Friday

No degree of learning, or power of discrimination as to the didactics of theology, will ever make a man a successful teacher of religion, unless he enjoys the illuminating powers of the Holy Ghost. He is blind if he supposes he understands the Bible without this, and if he undertakes to teach religion, he deceives himself, and all who depend on him, and both will fall into the ditch together.—Charles Finney

Christ, our?

When it is said that Christ is our sanctification, or our holiness, it is meant that he is the author of our holiness. He is not only the procuring cause, by his atonement and intercession, but by his direct intercourse with the soul he himself produces holiness. He is not the remote but the immediate cause of our being sanctified. He works our works in us, not by suspending our own agency, but he so controls our minds, by the influences of his Spirit in us in a way perfectly consistent with our freedom, as to sanctify us. And this, also, is received by faith.—Charles Finney

<idle musing>
Amen and amen! A very good summary of what sanctification/holiness is. We aren't some kind of zombie, possessed by a foreign spirit; we are filled with the Spirit of God, but at any moment can act against that Spirit—but why would we want to?!

Unfortunately, we sometimes do. We don't have to, but we can. That is where the tension of living the Christian life arises.

Of course, if we believe we have to sin, we won't even try not to sin. The illustration that I read years ago in Turkeys and Eagles is that of a person wearing a white tuxedo versus someone wearing a pair of overalls that they use to slop the hogs.

Which one is more likely to try to avoid the mud? The one in the overalls, dirty with mud and pig dung? Or the one in the white tux?

Exactly! If you see yourself as dirty with sin, you are more likely to fall into sin. But, if you see yourself as a saint (the biblical view of a Christian, by the way), you are more likely to try to stay clean. Remember, you are only clean by the saving act of Christ! You are not clean by any self-effort.
</idle musing>

Blind leading the blind

If he thinks his own theorizing and speculating are going to bring him to any right knowledge on the subject of religion, he knows nothing at all, as yet. His carnal, earthly heart, can no more study out the realities of religion so as to get any available knowledge of them than the heart of a beast.—Charles Finney

Thought for a windy Tuesday

O that I could convince the whole church that they need no other help but Christ, and that they would come at once to Christ for all they want, and receive him as their wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. How soon would all their wants be supplied from his infinite fullness.—Charles Finney

Finney for a Monday

When will you learn the first lesson in religion, that you have no help in yourselves without Christ, and that all your exertions without Christ, for sanctification, are just as fruitless as are those of the wretch who is in the horrible pit and miry clay, who is struggling to get himself out.—Charles Finney

Finney for a Thursday

Is it possible that Satan has so got the advantage of God, that God's kingdom cannot be re-established in this world, and that the Almighty has no way but to back out, and to take His saints to heaven, before He can make them holy? Is God's kingdom to be only partially established, and is it to be always so, that the best saints shall one-half of their time be serving the devil? Must the people of God always go drooping and driveling along in religion, and live in sin, until they get to heaven? What is that stone cut out of a mountain without hands, that is to fill the earth, if it does not show that there is yet to be a universal triumph of the love of God in the world?—Charles Finney

<idle musing>
Sure, many will finesse sin in Christians, trying to justify it. Finney will have none of that. Is God able to do it? Is God willing to do it?

Well? What is your answer?

If he is willing and able, then why doesn't it happen?

I suspect a lot of it is that we don't really believe he's able. We subconsciously believe that the body is evil. That the fall isn't really the problem, but the physical body is...

Jesus was fully human. Don't forget that. But we do in our day-to-day living. We're practicing atheists with a strong Docetic bent. We don't believe God can intervene, and if he does, we don't believe he can overcome our physical bodies.

I've written about this lots over the past 9 years (yes, 9 years ago on Tuesday was my first post!). The bottom line is, do you believe God is able? Is so, do you believe he wants to?

If you don't believe it is possible, why not? What is preventing it? Is it something in your life that you think you need to fix first?

Be honest!

If so, then you are seeking it by works and not by faith!

Ouch! Saved by faith, sanctified by works. The default position of the church today...

Think about it. What is keeping it from happening in your life? Forget that you don't see it in anybody else for a moment. Just concentrate on yourself.

And be honest. Brutally honest.

Yep. I don't really trust that God will do it right! I think I know better than God. I don't really want to surrender my will fully to him. He might make me do something I don't want to do! He might screw it up!

And then I think of Jesus on the cross. God's son willingly giving up his claims to deity's prerogatives in order to pay the debt...

How small of me. How stupid of me. How selfish of me...

But I still hang on...

What about you? Does that describe your life?
</idle musing>

Is it possible?

If it is not a practicable duty to be perfectly holy in this world, then it will follow that the devil has so completely accomplished his design in corrupting mankind, that Jesus Christ is at fault, and has no way to sanctify His people but by taking them out of the world.—Charles Finney

<idle musing>
That's the default position of most Christians today, isn't it?

If it is true that we can't be holy, then we might as well hang it up. The devil won and God isn't who he says he is. He can't deliver on his promises so why pretend? At least be honest with yourself and stop trying to "convert" others to such a miserable life!
</idle musing>

There's more to it than we think

If you have never looked into the Bible with this view, you will be astonished to see how many more passages there are that speak of deliverance from the commission of sin, than there are that speak of deliverance from the punishment of sin. The passages that speak only of deliverance from punishment, are as nothing, in comparison of the others.—Charles Finney

<idle musing>
But most people don't read—or read with blinders on that prevent them from seeing such a radical idea as salvation from sinning instead of just salvation from the judgment of sin. That's too much for God to do! After all, we're finite beings!

By that logic, there was no innocence and Christ didn't truly become human! Think of the ramifications of your presuppositions, people! Are you docetists? (Look it up! You might find out that you are and didn't even know it...)
</idle musing>

The details count

Christians may strongly wish or desire to be rid of all their sins, and may pray for it, even with agony. They may think they are willing to be perfect, but they deceive themselves. They may feel, in regard to their sins taken all together, or in the abstract, as if they are willing to renounce them all. But take them up in the detail, one by one, and there are many sins they are unwilling to give up. They wrestle against sin in general, but cling to it in the detail.—Charles Finney

Daily dose of Finney

The command in the text, "Be ye perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect," is given under the gospel. Christ here commands the very same thing that the law requires. Some suppose that much less is required of us under the gospel, than was required under the law. It is true that the gospel does not require perfection, as the condition of salvation. But no part of the obligation of the law is discharged. The gospel holds those who are under it to the same holiness as those under the law.—Charles Finney

<idle musing>
Mind you, he believed it was only possible through the power of the Holy Spirit. And he certainly wasn't a legalist. He felt that the Holy Spirit would so fill us with love for God that the natural outflow would be love. Love as the fulfilling of the law...we could use more of that, couldn't we.
</idle musing>

There you sit

You see, from this subject, the true position of a vast many church members. They are all the while struggling under the law. They approve of the law, both in its precept and its penalty, they feel condemned, and desire relief. But still they are unhappy. They have no spirit of prayer, no communion with God, no evidence of adoption. They only refer to the 7th of Romans as their evidence. Such a one will say, "There is my experience exactly." Let me tell you, that if this is your experience, you are yet in the gall of bitterness and the bonds of iniquity. You feel that you are in the bonds of guilt, and you are overcome by iniquity, and surely you know that it is bitter as gall. Now, don't cheat your soul by supposing that with such an experience as this, you can go and sit down by the side of the apostle Paul. You are yet carnal, sold under sin, and unless you embrace the gospel, you will be damned.—Charles Finney

Finney on a Friday

How often do ungodly sinners delight in eloquent preaching or powerful reasoning, by some able minister! It is to them an intellectual feast. And sometimes they are so pleased with it, as really to think they love the word of God. This is consistent with entire depravity of heart and enmity against the true character of God. Nay, it sets their depravity in a stronger light, because they know and approve the right, and yet do the wrong.—Charles Finney

Why is it missing?

Holiness, that is. Finney seems to know the answer:

How many are seeking sanctification by their own resolutions and works, their fastings and prayers, their endeavors and activity, instead of taking right hold of Christ, by faith, for sanctification, as they do for justification. It is all work, work, WORK, when it should be by faith in "Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and SANCTIFICATION, and redemption." When they go and take right hold of the strength of God, they will be sanctified. Faith will bring Christ right into the soul, and fill it with the same spirit that breathes through Himself. These dead works are nothing. It is faith that must sanctify, it is faith that purifies the heart; that faith which is the substance of things hoped for, takes hold of Christ and brings Him into the soul, to dwell there the hope of glory; that the life which we live here should be by the faith of the Son of God. It is from not knowing, or not regarding this, that there is so little holiness in the church.

<idle musing>
Not a whole lot has changed in 150 years, has it?
</idle musing>

Thought for the day

Too long has the church been in the habit of thinking that the great design of the gospel is, to save men from the punishment of sin, whereas its real design and object is to deliver men FROM SIN. But Christians have taken the other ground, and think of nothing but that they are to go on in sin, and all they hope for is to be forgiven, and when they die made holy in heaven. Oh, if they only realized that the whole framework of the gospel is designed to break the power of sin, and fill men on earth with all the fullness of God, how soon there would be one steady blaze of love in the hearts of God's people all over the world!—Charles Finney

Is this true?

Is it possible that Satan has so got the advantage of God, that God's kingdom cannot be re-established in this world, and that the Almighty has no way but to back out, and to take His saints to heaven, before He can make them holy? Is God's kingdom to be only partially established, and is it to be always so, that the best saints shall one-half of their time be serving the devil? Must the people of God always go drooping and driveling along in religion, and live in sin, until they get to heaven? What is that stone cut out of a mountain without hands, that is to fill the earth, if it does not show that there is yet to be a universal triumph of the love of God in the world?—Charles Finney

<idle musing>
Well, is it true? Is that what you believe? That you have to live a defeated, half-hearted christianity until you die? Is that what the kingdom of God is all about? Is that why Jesus came, to sorta, kinda, maybe deliver us?

In the immortal words of Paul: No way! (my translation of μὴ γένοιτο)

Life in Christ is more than that! (Note the in Christ part of that!)
</idle musing>

To be specific...

Sinners may strongly wish to become Christians, and Christians may strongly wish or desire to be rid of all their sins, and may pray for it, even with agony. They may think they are willing to be perfect, but they deceive themselves. They may feel, in regard to their sins taken all together, or in the abstract, as if they are willing to renounce them all. But take them up in the detail, one by one, and there are many sins they are unwilling to give up. They wrestle against sin in general, but cling to it in the detail.—Charles Finney

Romans 7

Those who find their own experience written in the 7th chapter of Romans, are not converted persons. If that is their habitual character, they are not regenerated; they are under conviction, but not Christians.—Charles Finney

<idle musing>
Strong words! Few today would agree with him, but I wonder if he isn't right? Have we lost sight of how much God wants to transform us? Have we created a culture that accepts sin in believers as the norm? If so, then we haven't got a gospel to preach...we're still lost in our sins, a slave to our lusts. And Finney is right, we aren't regenerated, we're just under conviction.
</idle musing>

Context? What context?

Much of the language of common life may be tortured into anything, if you lose sight of the subject, and take the liberty to interpret it without reference to what they are speaking of. How much injury has been done, by interpreting separate passages and single expressions in the scriptures, in violation of this principle. It is chiefly by overlooking this simple rule, that the scriptures have been tortured into the support of errors and contradictions innumerable and absurd beyond all calculation. This rule is applicable to all statements. Courts of justice never would allow such perversions as have been committed upon the Bible.—Charles Finney

<idle musing>
You mean they were doing that back then too?! What a surprise! Not!
</idle musing>

It is well

You see why so many professors of religion are always in the dark. They are looking at their sins, confining their observations to themselves, and losing sight of the fact, that they have only to take right hold of Jesus Christ and throw themselves upon Him, and all is well.—Charles Finney