ERADICATION VERSUS SUPPRESSION (B)

A -- OUTLINE

Introduction

The suppressionist view and almost all other anti-eradicationist theories emphasize the idea that the body is sinful. Such a claim logically bars eradication until death, or until the destruction of the present body.

I. Hollenback's Claim as to the Sinfulness of the Body

In his book True Holiness, Roy L. Hollenback asserts that the chief error of the holiness people is that they completely separate inbred sin, or the carnal mind, from the fleshly body. Then he goes on to say that such a position is a pure invention and does not have the slightest foundation in the Word of God. According to him, the Bible undoubtedly teaches that the body is inherently sinful. He makes this claim the foundation of his anti-eradicationism. If it is shown to be false, then his two-nature notion does not have anything to stand on.

II. The Body Is Not Inherently Sinful

Several authorities are cited that were never connected in any way with the holiness movement and, therefore, could not be said to be prejudiced in favor of our view.

A. B. Bruce, in his St. Paul's Conception of Christianity in spite of his Calvinistic background, asserts that Paul holds to an ethical and not a metaphysical dualism. The former is the Hebrew position, while the latter is the Greek. Paul, he says, follows the Hebrew concept and not the Greek. All of this means that when Paul talks about the flesh and the spirit he refers to two ethical principles and not to a physical body as over against a metaphysical spirit, or entity.

G. B. Stevens, in his New Testament Theology, discusses this question and concludes by saying that Paul by no means regards the body as essentially sinful, and adds that the term sarx in the Greek does not mean this. Reinhold Niebuhr states that sarx means the principle of sin rather than the body; and Millar Burrows declares that Paul does not teach that the body, as such, is evil.

Burrows also states that the New Testament uses "flesh" to designate man's lower nature as over against his higher nature.

Thayer's Greek Lexicon tells us that sarx when opposed to the spirit has an ethical sense and includes whatever in the soul is weak, low, debased, and tends to ungodliness and vice. This statement certainly does not support the claim that the flesh, or sarx, always refers to the body. William Sanday, in his great commentary on Romans, takes issue with those who say that Paul taught that the body is inherently sinful. In fact, he states that one of Paul's key passages proves the opposite. H. C. Sheldon, in his New Testament Theology, closes his lengthy discussion of this problem by giving seven reasons why he prefers the interpretation that the body is not inherently sinful.

Thus, we have given the conclusions of seven outstanding authorities as to the sinfulness of the body; and all of them agree that it is not the teaching of Paul or of the New Testament as a whole.

III. First John 1:8

Those who are opposed to holiness of heart and life, or eradication, often bring up I John

1:8. This verse reads as follows: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." First of all, I cannot see how anyone can rule out eradication, or a holy heart, on the basis of this verse if he will only read it in its context. In harmony with this thought, one excellent authority says that there is a way out of the difficulty which this verse seems to present if it is interpreted in the light of its context. Thus dealt with, it becomes the second of three false claims of the opponents with whom John was dealing. The first error is the belief that one can commune with God while living in sin; the second is a general denial of sin in principle -- we have no sin; and the third is a particular denial of one's actual sins. Thus the second erroneous teaching is that which is set forth in I John 1:8. It has to do, then, only with those who deny that they have a sin nature to be cleansed, and not with the impossibility of being cleansed.

IV. Christ's Summary of the law

The Lord's great injunction is to love God with all of our hearts and our neighbors as ourselves. This, as O. A. Curtis indicates in Ins book The Christian Faith, is not just an ideal for which we are to strive in this life, as some hold; it is rather a goal of perfection which the Christian can attain to here and now. The Master undoubtedly intended that it should be this. "Every Christian deed is Christian, every Christian thought is Christian, every Christian feeling is Christian, precisely to the extent that it expresses this supreme love."

Conclusion

There are many scriptural terms which describe what can happen to the sin nature in this life which could not mean anything less than eradication. Here are some of them: crucify, crucified, mortify, destroy, abolish, cleanse, purify, and purge. Freedom from sin, or Christian perfection, is clearly implied by these Biblical words.

B -- MAIN BODY TEXT

One of the most important problems connected with the debate between suppression and eradication is the relation of the body to sin. Those who argue for suppression, or in some other way deny the possibility of eradication in this life, almost invariably make the body sinful. Such a claim logically bars eradication until the present body has been destroyed by death.

R. L. Hollenback, in his book True Holiness, writes thus of sin and the body: "Among the several gross errors in the established doctrine of the holiness people there is one which we believe to be foundational, and parent to many others. It is the teaching that inbred sin is a principle entirely separate from the fleshly body. They call this principle or entity by many names, some of which are scriptural in origin, and others not. 'Carnality,' 'the old man,' 'the carnal mind,' 'the Adamic nature,' 'the body of sin,' 'inbred sin,' 'indwelling sin,' 'root sin,' are some of the names used. None of these would be misleading if applied in the right way. They affirm that the words, 'body' and 'flesh,' particularly when found in Romans and Galatians, do not refer to our corporeal body, but to that separate principle designated by the above names. They see no connection between this 'body of sin' and man's physical body; which they hold is neutral and incapable of being sinful.

"It may startle some of the readers when I say that this separate entity which they call 'carnality' is another pure invention. It is without the slightest foundation in the Word of God. We have heard many of the holiness preachers use such literalism in referring to it as to call it a 'beast,' a 'snake in the heart,' 'a devilish hyena,' 'the devil's child,' and other things of like nature. But by whatever names they call it in their literalization, the fact still remains that this entity is purely a creature of their own imagination. They affirm that this monster lives in the same heart with the Spirit's life (the Spirit's life, mark you, without the Spirit!!) in the born-again soul.

"With exception of two places, the word flesh is from the same word in the original every place it is found in the New Testament; and always refers to the physical body. (sarx is the Greek word.) The two places where another word is used is where reference is made to the flesh of animals, and the word used is kreas.

"Likewise the word BODY is from the same word every place but two in the New Testament. (soma in the Greek.) Only in Acts 19: 12 and Eph. 3:6 is any other word used. By what line of reasoning can anybody say this word means our mortal body in most places, and means a principle within our hearts in other places? Human language could not plainer state anything than it does that our mortal bodies are sinful, as careful reading of the following references will clearly show: Rom. 7:5, 7: 18, 8:3,1 Cor. 9:27."

We have quoted at some length from this writer because the position here outlined is representative of most of the anti-eradicationists. Like him, they regard the claim that there is a sinful nature in man which is psychical and nonphysical as both unscriptural and ridiculous. These teachers who are so sure that the body is to be identified with sin cannot imagine how anyone could believe otherwise.

Please notice that Hollenback makes his claim that the body is inherently sinful foundational to his anti-eradicationism. This means that, if this position is proved unscriptural, Hollenback has no case. Let this be kept in mind as we proceed with this discussion.

Next we shall give what some prominent Bible scholars have to say about this matter. All of them are men who are definitely outside of the holiness movement and, therefore, could not be prejudiced in favor of entire sanctification as attainable in this life.

A. B. Bruce, in his St. Paul's Conception of Christianity, goes into this question carefully and fully. And, although Calvinistic in background, he does not give any sanction to the contention outlined above. He starts out by admitting that the idea of a sinful body is fully in harmony with Greek philosophy, but he definitely denies that Paul patterns after Plato or Plato's followers. He gives us these significant words: "The theory that matter or flesh is essentially evil is decidedly unHebrew. The dualistic conception of man as composed of two natures, flesh and spirit, standing in necessary and permanent antagonism to each other, is not to be found in the Old Testament Scriptures. It is true, indeed, that between the close of the Hebrew canon and the New Testament era the leaven of Hellenistic philosophy was at work in Hebrew thought, producing in course of time a considerable modification in Jewish ideas on various subjects; and it is a perfectly fair and legitimate hypothesis that traces of such influence are recognizable in the Pauline doctrine of the sarx. But the presumption is certainly not in favor of this hypothesis. It is rather all the other way; for throughout his writings St. Paul appears a Hebrew of the Hebrews. His intellectual and spiritual affinities are with the psalmists and prophets, not with Alexandrian philosophers; and if there be any new leaven in his culture it is Rabbinical rather than Hellenistic" (p. 269) .

Another quotation from the same writer on page 275 reads thus: "On these grounds it may be confidently affirmed that the metaphysical dualism of the Greeks could not possibly have commended itself to the mind of St. Paul. An ethical dualism he does teach, but he never goes beyond that. It is of course open to anyone to say that the metaphysical dualism really lies behind the ethical one, though St. Paul himself was not conscious of the fact, and that therefore radical disciples like Marcion were only following out his principles to their final consequences when they set spirit and matter, God and the world, over against each other as hostile kingdoms. But even those who take up this position are forced in candor to admit that such Gnostic or Manichean doctrine was not in all the apostle's thought." He who believes in a sinful body could get little comfort out of these quotations.

G. B. Stevens, in his New Testament Theology, discusses the meaning of flesh or sarx. The following quotation lets us know where he stands as to this controversy. "In Gal. v.19-23, the apostle enumerates the works of the flesh, and sets them in contrast with the fruit of the Spirit. Among the former are found not only sensuous sins, such as unchastity and drunkenness, but (chiefly) such as have no direct connection with bodily impulses, -- enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, heresies, envyings.' Similarly in Rom. xiii. 13, 14, the avoidance of making provision for the flesh includes the renunciation, not only of 'chambering and wantonness,' but also of 'strife and jealousy.' In addressing the Corinthians the apostle designates them as carnal, because 'there is among them jealousy and strife' (I Cor. 3: 3). Moreover, he speaks (II Cor. 1:12) of a [English letters not all phonetic -- please change English letters to Symbol font for the Greek] sofia sarkikh: that is, a worldly and selfish policy as opposed to the 'holiness and sincerity which come from God.' These examples appear to me to be absolutely decisive against the view that Paul associates sin inseparably with the body, or makes its essence to consist in sensuousness. In these expressions at least, sarx is used in a sense at once more comprehensive and more distinctly ethical than the theory supposes which makes it a name for the 'impulse of sensuousness.'

"If we consider Paul's doctrine of the body (soma) we shall find that he by no means regards it as essentially sinful, and this conception of it is not equivalent to the idea denoted by sarx."

Here we have given but a brief quotation from several pages which are devoted to this topic, but it indicates the general tenor of the author's position. Certainly, he does not contend for the view that the body is sinful.

Two modern authorities may be appealed to next. They are Reinhold Niebuhr and Millar Burrows. The former, although Calvinistic in his general theological position, denies the sinfulness of the body. He says that the Bible knows nothing of a good mind and an evil body. This is the Greek but not the Hebrew view (Nature and Destiny of Man, Vol. I, p. 7). He further states that sarx means the principle of sin rather than the body (Vol. I, p. 152).

On page 134 in his An Outline of Biblical Theology, Burrows declares that Paul did not teach that the body, as such, is evil. He also says that the New Testament uses "flesh" to designate man's lower nature as over against his higher nature. These two men rank among the best scholars of the day, and have no reason at all to interpret the teaching of the Bible in favor of those who believe in eradication.

Turning back to an older authority, Thayer's Greek Lexicon has this to say under the fourth definition of sarx: "When either expressly or tacitly opposed to [change to Symbol font] "to pneuma" [tou qeou], has an ethical sense and denotes mere human nature, the earthly nature of man apart from divine influence, and therefore prone to sin and opposed to God; accordingly it includes whatever in the soul is weak, low, debased, tending to ungodliness and vice."

Sanday, in his great commentary on Romans, has this to say on verse five of the seventh chapter [use Symbol font]: "einai en th sarki is the opposite of einai tw pneumati: the one is a life which has no higher object than the gratification of the senses, the other is a life permeated by the Spirit. Although sarx is human nature especially on the side of its frailty, it does not follow that there is any dualism in St. Paul's conception or that he regards the body as inherently sinful. Indeed this very passage proves the contrary. It implies that it is possible to be 'in the body' without being 'in the flesh.' The body, as such, is plastic to influences of either kind: it may be worked upon by Sin through the senses, or it may be worked upon by the Spirit. In either case the motive-force comes from without. The body itself is neutral." This quotation speaks for itself, and it certainly does not sanction the idea that the body is in and of itself sinful.

On page 213 of his New Testament Theology, Sheldon gives us his view of the term flesh. His words read as follows: "The reader of the Pauline epistles very soon discovers that the term flesh (sarx) is frequently used in a larger than the physical significance. While literally it denotes the pliable substance of a living physical organism, and thus is related to body (soma) as the specific to the general, in many instances it evidently incorporates the ethico-religious sense. From what point of view did the apostle attach to it this meaning? Did he proceed from the standpoint of Hellenic dualism, and thus regard the flesh in virtue of its material as intrinsically evil, from its very nature antagonistic to the spirit in man with its sense of obligation to a moral ideal? Or, did he, putting a part for the whole, intend to denote by the flesh unrenewed human nature, man viewed as dominated by the desires and passions which have their sphere of manifestation especially in the bodily members? The latter we believe to be by far the more credible interpretation."

Then Sheldon gives seven reasons for preferring this interpretation rather than the narrower meaning in the direction of Hellenic dualism. First, Paul includes sins which are not connected with the physical members or sensuous life in his catalogue of the works of the flesh. Second, the phrase "our old man" is used in such a way as to indicate that its meaning is substantially equivalent to that assigned to the flesh. Third, Christians are so referred to as to imply that they are not in the flesh. Fourth, the body can be the temple of the Holy Spirit -- this could hardly be if it were inherently sinful. Fifth, Christ was sinless, and yet He possessed a human body. Sixth, Paul does not make man's sinful nature the offspring of the sensuous nature, but rather ascribes it to the trespass of Adam. Seventh and last, if Paul had believed that the body is intrinsically evil, he would have been more of an ascetic than he was. I have very briefly summarized these seven reasons which are given by Sheldon, but they suggest the breadth of the foundation upon which his conclusion rests.

There are several scripture passages which are often referred to by anti-eradicationists as sure proofs of the belief that freedom from sins and sin in this life is impossible. One of the most important of these is found in I John 1:8. Those who are opposed to holiness of heart and life are continually calling our attention to this verse. In the first place, it has never seemed to me to have the meaning they ascribe to it, if it is considered in its context. In the fifth verse we are told that God is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all. This means, of course, that He is absolutely free from sin. Then in the sixth verse we are told that we are liars if we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in darkness, or commit sin. This is followed by the outstanding truth in the seventh verse, which asserts that we have fellowship with God and are cleansed from all sin if we walk in the light. In view of these verses, how can the eighth be interpreted to mean that we can never be freed from sin in this life? The only interpretation of it that makes sense with that which precedes must be that he who denies that he has sin and needs cleansing deceives himself and is a liar. The same is true as to the verse which follows the eighth. What sense is there in saying that we can be cleansed from all unrighteousness if this is something which, according to the eighth verse, cannot be attained in this life? Such a claim as to the eighth verse certainly makes the Bible a comedy of errors.

This is essentially the position of R. Newton Flew in his excellent book The Idea of Perfection in Christian Theology. His words on page 109 as to I John 1:8 are as follows: "There is no way out of this difficulty except to expound the sentence we have no sin strictly in its context as the second of three false claims of the opponents with whom John is dealing. The first is the claim of enjoying communion with God while living in sin. That is hypocrisy. The second is a general denial of sin in principle. We have no sin. The third is a particular denial of one's actual sins. We are not to understand the 'we' as a general statement about Christians. That may be the interpretation which comes naturally enough to Englishmen who constantly hear the words in their Liturgy, but it is at variance with the context. Again and again we are told that fellowship with God means freedom from sin. The thought of I. i. 7, as Westcott says, 'is not of the forgiveness of sins only, but of the removal of sin.'

"The writer of the epistle, then, must be dealing with a specific claim put forward in the church by some who would not admit that there was any sin in them at all. At the end of the first century when Gentiles with hardly any moral sensibility were finding themselves within the Church, such a claim must have been not infrequent. There is only one way, says our writer. We must confess our sins. Then forgiveness is granted and a complete cleansing.

"Once again we hear the austere note of absolute freedom from sin as the mark of the believer. I write to you, my little children, that you may not sin. There may be a fall from this ideal standard (I. ii. 1). But this is evidently regarded as altogether exceptional. The possibility of fulfilling the commands of God is set forth later in the epistle (I. iii. 22).

"So, too, in parallel passages in the Fourth Gospel (XV. 7, 8, 16), the fruit of the disciples is expected to 'remain'. The Christian in this world is to be in life altogether like his Lord.

"He that says he abides in Him (i. e. in God) ought himself to walk even as He (ekeinos, i. e. Christ) walked (I. ii. 6). The whole of the Fourth Gospel is the true exegesis of this verse."

Professor 0. A. Curtis in his book The Christian Faith, pp. 388 and 389, gives us a discussion of our Lord's injunction which indicates that Jesus' ideal for the Christian in this life is perfection. His words read as follows: "'And he said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hangeth the whole law, and the prophets' (Matt. 22:37-40).

"This one passage should forever settle the entire controversy as to both the ideal and the possible achievement in the Christian life. From the Old Testament (Deut. 6:5 and Lev. 19:18) our Lord takes the two items of supreme moment, and lifts them into a Christian primacy of injunction. It has been said that our Saviour did not intend to give an actual injunction, but only to suggest a Christian ideal. But I do not understand how anyone can hold such a view; for a study of the Saviour's life will show that love toward God and love toward man were the two tests which He used in determining all religious values. And the fact is that today the Christian consciousness surely grasps the Master's words as injunction, and responds to them as such, making them the final test of life. Every Christian deed is Christian, every Christian thought is Christian, every Christian feeling is Christian, precisely to the extent that it expresses this supreme love. Ignatius clearly apprehended the whole thing when he said: 'The beginning of life is faith, and the end is love. And these two being inseparably connected together, do perfect the man of God; while the other things which are requisite to a holy life follow after them. No man making a profession of faith ought to sin, nor one possessed of love to hate his brother. For He that said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God, said also, And thy neighbor as thyself.'"

Our final thought will be to list a few of the terms which describe God's method of dealing with the sin nature in the human heart -- some that have not already been dealt with in more detail. They are so definite and far-reaching in their meaning that they could hardly be interpreted as teaching anything less than eradication. There are the terms crucify and crucified, which signify to destroy utterly (Gal. 2: 20; 5: 24; 6: 14). Along with these are those which are or could be translated mortify, kill, render extinct (Rom. 7: 4; 8: 13), destroy, annul, abolish, put an end to, annihilate (I John 3: 8; Rom. 6:6), and cleanse, purify, cleanse thoroughly, purge (Acts 15: 9; I Cor. 7: 1; Tit. 2: 14). Freedom from sin, or Christian perfection, is clearly implied by these Biblical words.

Thus the chief foundation-stone of those who reject eradication -- belief in the body as sinful -- is proved to be unscriptural. The passage which is most often quoted against eradication is shown to be misinterpreted; the teaching of Jesus affirms the possibility of freedom from sin; and there are many terms -- especially in Paul's writings -- which substantiate our belief in eradication. This summarizes the four sections of this article and indicates the weaknesses of the anti-eradicationist view.