Ques. When the sanctified fall into actual sin, do they lose their sonship?
Ans. They forfeit both fellowship with God and spiritual sonship. Communion with God depends upon walking in the light as God is in the light (1 John i. 7). No man can retain his sonship who is “guilty of the body and blood of the Lord” (1 Cor. xi. 27). “Whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all” (James ii. 10).
When the eye of the Christian is single, the whole body is full of light; but when evil, the whole body is full of darkness. “Take heed, therefore, that the light which is in thee be not darkness” (Luke xi. 34, 25).
The eternal life given to him who believeth in Jesus is contingent upon a continuance of faith and good works. “What shall I do, that I may have eternal life?” “If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments” (Matt. xix. 16, 17).
Only those who continue to “do His commandments,” shall have a perpetual “right to the tree of life” and shall “enter in through the gates into the city” (Rev xxii. 14).
Ques. Will the holy who sin finally be lost, unless they repent and do their first works again?
Ans. They will; for God warns His Church: “The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgressions… If he trust to this own righteousness, and commit iniquity, he shall die for it” (Ez. xxxiii. 12, 13; Rev. ii. 5).
–’A Catechism on Christian Perfection’ by E. T. Curnick, Page 98, 99
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