The Perfection of the Church

Something to keep in mind regarding the authenticity of the church within the context of her imperfections is that while the church exists she is also in a very real sense coming into existence. The church is complete and yet incomplete. The church in her present form is capable of fulfilling God’s purpose for her. However, the church also has a future purpose for which she strives to attain. In that sense, the church will never be complete or perfect until she becomes fully united with Christ. However, completeness or perfection need not be measured by a standard that is only applicable for the future. The church as she is now may be seen as perfect in the midst of her imperfections. While there are many throughout history and up to the present time who have misused the church and used her as a platform for their own agenda, this does not extinguish absolutely the fact that the church has also been made up of many people who have given themselves whole-heartedly to serving Christ and those made in the image of Christ.

To put this symbolically, the church is the body of Christ, and if a form of cancer or a tumor or some sort of disease infects the body, the imperfection must be removed. However, in the removal of the disease, the rest of the body is not done away with – at least of course, every effort must be made in order to save what remains good within the body. Similarly, when an imperfection arises within the church, the imperfection should be removed or made to be in alignment with the perfect rather than issuing the removal of the entire body. So while, imperfections do exist within the church, the church is indeed a valid institution that will never be destroyed. The church has an eschatological hope that says that all that is imperfect will one day be removed, leaving only the perfect. So in a very real sense, the church may actually be viewed correctly as being perfect. She is perfect because she serves her purpose. She may have not reached the pinnacle of her perfection, but she is perfect. The fullness of her perfection will be made complete through Christ in the event of the eschaton.

In the meantime, there are many problems that still exist within the ministry of the church. There are many examples of this, from priests who sexually abuse children, to a church in Kansas that wishes death upon soldiers and homosexuals; from the crusades, to Hitler’s use of the church to support his creation of the Aryan race and the extermination of the Jews among other people groups. While these unfortunate and sinful acts are a part of the church’s history, one must call to mind the parable spoken by Jesus in Matthew chapter thirteen in which he stated that there was a farmer who planted his seed, but an enemy came and scattered weeds among his crops. The servants were instructed to let the weeds grow up alongside the wheat for fear that if all of the weeds were uprooted while the wheat was still growing, then the entire crop would be pulled up and destroyed. At harvest time, both the wheat and the weeds will be taken up and sorted. This parable may be applied to the church in that one may recognize how the church with all its imperfections will one day be rid of its imperfections. It was not the will of God that the church should appear distorted to the world because of the influence of evil upon her, attempting to overtake her, but that is the way things are at present. God is still using the church to bring His presence into the world. The church is the manifestation of God Himself in the present time.

This brings us to another point. The church remains authentic in spite of her imperfections because the church was God’s idea. It is God who has established the authority of the church to be made into His image and to reflect His own nature to the world. The mission of the church remains the same: to reconcile humanity with God. While many like to point out the hypocrisy of people within the church and while it is a shame that hypocrisy exists within the church, one way of looking at the church’s imperfections is to point out that it was the will of God to display His own nature within humankind. This would include the very raw and very earthy aspects of humanity. God chose to reveal Himself in the person of Jesus Christ, and the church is now considered to be the body of Christ. So while people within the organization of the church do not always measure up to the standard of Christ, they still may maintain the image of Christ, who was the image of God in the flesh. I do not say this in order to excuse sin, but rather to show that it was God’s good will to make His dwelling within us, within people with physical bodies who have been tainted by sin. The best way to view “hypocrites” within the church is to realize how wonderful the grace of God is that He would desire to have people as bent and twisted as these to be a part of His church.

The church is the bride of Christ. Something that has resonated with me is, ironically enough, something that Dr. Quanstrom has occasionally spoken of in his time serving at College Church. He has said that the church is the bride of Christ, and that we ought to speak of the church as though she truly were the bride of Christ. We ought not to speak of someone’s bride in a negative and critical way. It is a nasty tendency and in poor taste for someone to go around uttering criticisms against someone else’s wife, and yet people speak many ill-words against the church, who is the bride of Christ. A groom ought to be angry if he overheard someone speaking poorly of his bride. In the same way, Christ, it would seem, would also be angry to hear someone slandering His bride. Dr. Quanstrom said that to the groom, the bride is never ugly. This is another example of how the church remains authentic regardless of her imperfections because it is God who makes her authentic.

“Christian Theology for the Church of the Nazarene”

In chapter four of his book A Century of Holiness Theology Dr. Mark Quanstrom writes that the first doctrine that H. Orton Wiley felt was alien to an authentic Wesleyan-holiness theology “was the fundamentalist dogma concerning the inerrancy of the Scriptures.” He was against the “Dictation Theory,” which says “the authors were mere amanuenses and which lent itself most easily to an inerrant view of Scripture…” Wiley wrote, “this theory is…out of harmony with the known manner in which God works in the human soul.” Quanstrom says that Wiley preferred the “Dynamical” method. “This theory allowed Wiley to state that the Bible has a human element. ‘Not only did the Holy Spirit speak through David, David also spoke.’” Wiley believed that “the Scriptures were not necessarily free from all error,” but that “they were free from essential error.” Quanstrom goes on to say that “Another critical doctrine that Wiley felt was alien to an authentic Wesleyan-Holiness theology concerned the doctrine of free moral agency…” Wiley disagreed with Miley and Hills on the ability of mankind to obey God without the grace of God. Quanstrom says, “As a result, the ‘official’ position of the Church of the Nazarene was that salvation was dependent on free grace and not on moral ability.” Quanstrom also writes that “One of Wiley’s intentions was to make certain that entire sanctification was understood in the church as an instantaneous act, a second work of grace.” Wiley believed that sanctification was instantaneous. He believed this because “when the verb to sanctify was used in the New Testament, it was most often used in the aorist tense. This is a tense that indicated a ‘momentary, completed act, without reference to time.’” Wiley understood “progressive sanctification” as not something to replace instantaneous sanctification. Wiley rejected the idea that gradual sanctification meant that one would gradually become more and more holy. Wiley believed that progressive sanctification was “the temporal aspect of the work of grace in the heart, as it takes place in successive stages. Each of these stages is marked by a gradual approach and an instantaneous consummation in experience, and the stages together mark the full scope of sanctifying grace.” Quanstrom writes, “Progressive sanctification was to be strictly understood as the gradual approach in time toward the instantaneous sanctifying experience. Gradual sanctification, according to Wiley, was simply the growing awareness of the need for the instantaneous work of entire sanctification. […] Progressive sanctification was simply a term used to describe the successive instantaneous acts of God in the life of the believer. […] While much terminology, like initial, gradual, partial, or continuous seemed to indicate otherwise, there was only one way to be sanctified wholly and that was to be sanctified instantaneously.” Wiley uses the words “entire sanctification” to describe the complete removal of all sin. He describes this as “the utter destruction of the carnal mind.” Wiley also describes other positive results of being entirely sanctified, saying “While entire sanctification considered from the negative point of view is a cleansing from all sin, from the positive standpoint it is the infilling of divine love.” Quanstrom says that “According to Wiley, there were primarily three important distinctions that needed to be made in order to preserve the doctrine from some of the more popular misconceptions. The first was the distinction between purity and maturity.” Wiley wrote that “Purity is the result of a cleansing from the pollution of sin; maturity is due to growth in grace. Purity is accomplished by an instantaneous act; maturity is gradual and progressive, and is always indefinite and relative.” Wiley’s second distinction was the difference between infirmities and sins. Quanstrom says Wiley believed, “Intentional and voluntary sin brought guilt and condemnation and, as such, required repentance. Infirmities, however, were understood as involuntary and unintentional transgressions of the divine law and were a result of ignorance and weakness as a consequence of the fall of man.” The third distinction Wiley made was on the possibility of temptation. “Wiley held that all Christians, sanctified and not, were subject to temptation and that it was entirely consistent with Christina perfection since Christ himself was tempted.” Quanstrom concludes chapter four by saying, “As might be expected, the early Nazarene church was not too interested in defining their glorious doctrine in limiting terms. They were primarily interested in proclaiming the wonderful possibilities of this second work of grace. With Wiley, that had begun to change.”