For most protestant believers the idea of total and complete victory over sin is considered impossible. Thoughtfully considered, what has been echoed is that the gospel has not the power to keep one from sinning. The book of Jude states “Now unto him that is able to keep you from falling, and to present [you] faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy”. (Jude 1:24 [KJV])
This idea of victory over sin is the theme of the Bible, yet for many Christians, their minds cannot conceive that happening. It was such that the mighty Apostle Paul address the Corinthian believers with this injunction; “Awake to righteousness, and sin not; for some have not the knowledge of God: I speak [this] to your shame”. (1 Corinthians 15:34 [KJV])
He continued, “But God be thanked, that ye were the servants of sin, but ye have obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine which was delivered you. Being then made free from sin, ye became the servants of righteousness”. (Romans 6:17-18 [KJV])
These ideas have been debated for years, while some have embraced the idea and have experience the victory, others have rejected the message, choosing to remain in a sinful condition.
It must become clear, that Matthew 1:21 [KJV]) “And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins,” we are not saved in sin, neither is there any transformation in death to deliver us from the penalty of sin.
In 1839 a Presbyterian minister by the name of Charles Fitch addressed this issue with the Presbytery, after it was found out, that He taught clearly and decidedly that all Christians must be the victor over sin. He was called in by ministry to explain his teachings. The excerpt below is the detailed account. May it bless you as much as it has blessed me.
by Charles Fitch,
Pastor of the Free Presbyterian Church,
Newark, NJ.
**Due to the length, we will submit, Views on Sanctification by Charles Fitch in Parts 1 – 6. Enjoy! You will be blessed.
Views on Sanctification
“But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear.” I Peter 3:15.
The occasion of this publication is the following. {1839 CF, VOS 3.1}
The Lord Jesus Christ, “whom having not seen, I love; in whom, though now I see Him not, yet believing, I rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory” has of late made good to me, vastly unworthy as I am, His own assurance, “he that loveth me shall be loved of my Father, and I will love him, and will manifest myself to him.” I feel it would be base in me not to acknowledge, that through the amazing condescension of my Redeemer, he has made me to enjoy rich manifestations of His love. I speak of it to His praise. He has taught me to “be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, to make my requests known unto God, and the peace of God that passeth all understanding, has kept my heart and mind through Christ Jesus.” Out of the abundance of my heart, my mouth has spoken, and I have given those who attend on my ministry to understand, that it is my belief that God has “created in me a clean heart, and renewed a right spirit within me,” that He has made me to know something of the blessedness of “the pure in heart.” Some have thought that I was bringing “strange things to their ears, and such a report went abroad. At a late meeting of the Presbytery, the brethren, with perfect propriety, and with the utmost kindness, desired of me that I would tell them “What this new doctrine is.” I gave them a brief statement of my feelings and views, and answered as well as I was able several inquiries. The Presbytery, then, with perfect propriety, in my apprehension, appointed a committee to confer with me further on the subject. Of all this, I fully approve. Soon after, I received a note from one of the committees, in which, in a kind and christian like manner, he proposed the following questions, and requested an answer. {1839 CF, VOS 3.2}
1. Do you believe that the Bible teaches, men are perfect in holiness in this life? (I ask no more than yes or no.) {1839 CF, VOS 3.3}
2. What cases or characters were without sin in Bible history, except Christ? (Merely name them.) {1839 CF, VOS 3.4}
3. Of all among the martyrs, whose memoirs have come down to us, how many do you find perfect? {1839 CF, VOS 3.5}
4. In modern times, have not the best of men evidently been sinful more or less, and have they not thought themselves to be so? {1839 CF, VOS 3.6}
5. In the circle of your acquaintance, have those who claim perfection, generally turned out as well as those who feared always? {1839 CF, VOS 3.7}
6. Are those around you who claim this more meek and heavenly than others? {1839 CF, VOS 4.1}
7. Do not perfection people very frequently run into some palpable inconsistencies? {1839 CF, VOS 4.2}
8. Do you avow the belief, that you are generally without sin, in thought, desire, word, deed, or defect? {1839 CF, VOS 4.3}
9. And have you made up your mind, publicly to teach, and defend the position, that there are men among us who are without sin? {1839 CF, VOS 4.4}
I have taken this way to lay myself fully open to my brethren and to the world, because I believe it to be in all respects the easiest and the best; and do greatly rejoice in the opportunity afforded me, to testify to others of “the riches of the glory of this mystery which is Christ in me, the hope of glory.” I wish, by the grace of God, to be a living “epistle known and read of all men.” It is my prayer, that God will enable others, as He has me, to say, “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid: for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song, He also is become my salvation,” and thus may they “with joy draw water out of the wells of salvation, and say praise the Lord.” And may “the redeemed of the Lord return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy be upon their heads; and may they obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and mourning flee away.” Then shall “the joy of the Lord be our strength.”
C. F. {1839 CF, VOS 4.5}
5
Newark, Nov. 25, 1839.
Dear Brother:-In compliance with your request and my promise, I will now endeavor, in the fear of God, and under a sense of my accountableness to Him, to give you my views in full, respecting the points embraced in the questions which you proposed to me. I hope you will not consider it in any sense improper that I give you my views at large on the whole subject, instead of a mere categorical answer to your interrogations. I prefer the course I here take, because I wish to present you with a view of the subject somewhat at large, as it lies before my own mind. Besides, I consider the subject too great, and the interests pending too important to be disposed of in this summary way. I have no desire to conceal or evade anything, concerning which you or the Presbytery may wish to know of my views. My design is, as far as in me lies, to be full and explicit. {1839 CF, VOS 5.1}
But I fear that I might suffer much, through the misapprehension of others, respecting my own impressions of truth, if I were not to do something more than you propose in your communication. {1839 CF, VOS 5.2}
Allow me, therefore, to open my whole heart to you as a christian brother should, and having done so, I will most cheerfully and gladly leave the event with Him on whom I have learned to cast all my cares , and whose glory is the only object for which I wish to live. On His guidance, who has said, “I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go-I will guide thee with mine eye ;” and “who of God is made unto me wisdom as well as righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption,” and who has said, “If any man lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him;” I now cast myself while I write. I shall give you such views of truth, and only such, as I feel most willing to meet in the great and dreadful day of account. {1839 CF, VOS 5.3}
I shall give them, as far as possible, in Scripture language, that it may be seen on what I rest my faith, and whether I do, or do not, pervert the Word of God. {1839 CF, VOS 5.4}
Permit me, then, to commence by saying that I find myself in my natural state, a transgressor of God’s most holy and righteous law; so guilty as to deserve to be “punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of His power .” I also find myself totally unable to make the least atonement for one of all my ten thousand sins, or to find for one of them the least excuse or palliation. In myself, I stand, and must forever stand before the universe, a hopeless reprobate, irrecoverably bound over to the damnation of hell. But I learn in the {1839 CF, VOS 5.5}
gospel, that the Lord Jesus Christ, by his atoning sacrifice, has rendered full satisfaction to the justice of God for my sins, and thus opened a way whereby the punishment of my sins may be escaped, provided I have that “holiness, without which no man can see the Lord.” {1839 CF, VOS 6.1}
The all-absorbing question with me, then, so far as my own eternal interests are concerned, is this: How shall I become obedient to that high command of the most high God, “Be ye holy for I am holy!” I have, I can have, I ought to have no expectation of dwelling where God dwells-of being an object of his love forever, and a sharer of the eternal blessedness which He only can give, unless I have a character fully assimilated to His-unless I love with a full and undivided heart, what He loves, and hate what He hates, and all that He hates, with a hatred, full, entire, uniform, perpetual, like His own. There must not be in me an approach to any thought or feeling which is not in perfect, full-hearted and joyous agreement, with everything that God is, and with everything that God does. This must be my character, or I will never see God’s face in peace. {1839 CF, VOS 6.2}
But how shall I come to possess such a character? Every feeling of my heart, in my natural state, is entire opposition to God-there is in me carnal mind, which is enmity against Him. How shall this hatred be made to give place to adoring, enraptured love? There are in me by nature all the elements of hell. Kindled by the touch of God’s deserved wrath, they will burn eternally-an unquenchable fire . How shall I have a nature fit for heaven? I acknowledge my full obligation to cease hating God instantaneously, and to love Him at once and forever with a full and undivided heart. But “I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: but I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” {1839 CF, VOS 6.3}
This is my case. Christ has died for my sins. The government of God is ready to set me free-but who shall save me from “an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God?” With such a heart, influenced by the temptations of the devil, and the allurements of a sinful world, I am just as sure (left to myself) to sin eternally, as Satan is, and must take up my abode with him forever. {1839 CF, VOS 6.4}
What I need, then, what the exigencies of my fallen nature cry out after, with an exceedingly loud and bitter cry, is a Saviour from sin.
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