Divine truth as revealed in Scripture seems often to lie between two extremes. It is emphatically so in regard to this question. What a paradox it is that side by side in the Epistle of John we should have the strongest affirmation of the Christian's sinfulness: "If we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us"; and the strongest affirmation of his sinlessness: "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin, for his seed remaineth in him, and he cannot sin because he is born of God" (1 John 1: 8; 3: 9). Now heresy means a dividing or choosing, and almost all of the gravest errors have arisen from adopting some extreme statement of Scripture to the rejection of the other extreme. If we regard the doctrine of sinless perfection as a heresy, we regard contentment with sinful imperfection as a greater heresy. And we gravely fear that many Christians make the {117} apostle's words, "If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves," the unconscious justification for a low standard of Christian living. It were almost better for one to overstate the possibilities of sanctification in his eager grasp after holiness, than to understate them in his complacent satisfaction with a traditional unholiness. Certainly it is not an edifying spectacle to see a Christian worldling throwing stones at a Christian perfectionist. What then would be a true statement of the doctrine which we are considering, one which would embrace both extremes of statement as they appear in the Epistle of John? _Sinful in self, sinless in Christ_--is our answer: "In him is no sin; whosoever abideth in him sinneth not" (1 John 3: 5, 6). If through the communication of the Holy Spirit the life of Christ is constantly imparted to us, that life will prevail within us. That life is absolutely sinless, as incapable of defilement as the sunbeam which has its fount and origin in the sun. In proportion to the closeness of our abiding in him will be the completeness of our deliverance from sinning. And we doubt not that there are Christians who have yielded themselves to God in such absolute surrender, and who through the upholding power of the Spirit have been so kept in that condition of surrender, that sin has not had dominion over them. If in them the war between the flesh and the spirit has not been forever ended, there has {118} been present victory in which troublesome sins have ceased from their assaults, and "the peace of God" has ruled in the heart.