The doctrine we have been looking at - entire sanctification, and whether it is possible for man to be without sin in this life, was taught in the early church and called Theosis or Deification, and has been found in the west during the revival years and especially during the time of the Wesley's. The early church said that it occurs in three stages, but in the west, two stages generally though sometimes three, but it is not worth getting into disputes about it until the whole concept of holiness is understood.
This however requires that a person is seeking to know the truth rather than just having idle curiosity, and is willing to allow the Holy Spirit to reveal that it is truth, directly. It cannot come through human reasoning which gets in the way. I am greatly encouraged to see on this forum, signs that He is at work and has been giving revelations, on this most unusual forum, where this subject can be discussed freely.
After many years of reading, I know that nearly all or all other forums will stop the discussion out right so thank you
@Wynona for this opportunity.
"These are the states of beginners, the state of progress, and the state of the perfect.
the {removed] into the "purgative way", the "illuminative way", and the "unitive way".
These consolations are often withdrawn, and a state of desolation ensues, and then the passive purification of the senses begins.
So ultimately purification, illumination, deification—it’s not the pursuit of enlightenment; it’s the pursuit of love: the love of God. It is the pursuit of a spiritual marriage, loving and receiving love. It is the marriage-feast, love being the wine that’s set forth on God’s table. In the deified man, it’s the man who is bathed in the light of God’s love to the point that it radiates from him. St. Isaac of Syria says:
God’s love is by its nature warmth. When it lights on someone without any limit, it plunges his soul into ecstasy. That is why the heart of one who has felt it cannot bear to be deprived of it, but he gradually undergoes a strange alteration in proportion to the love that enters into him. These are the signs of that love: His face becomes inflamed with joy, and his body is filled with warmth. Fear and shame desert him as if he had gone outside of himself.
This is the description of the Paul who says, “I know a man who was caught up into the third heaven, whether in the body or out of the body, I do not know.”
httphttps://www.ancientfaith.com/specials/orthodox_spirituality/our_fulfillment_in_christ
Deification in the Early Church
In the introduction to
The Study of Holiness from the Early Church Fathers by J. B. Galloway(Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2014), we read: “If the teachings of the modern holiness movement are correct concerning the doctrine of holiness and the baptism with the Holy Ghost as an experience for the saints of God today, perfecting them in Christian love and freeing them form carnal sin, it seems that we should find some evidences of this faith and teachings in the period of the history of the Church where it was the closest to the days of Christ”
“The commentator Adam Clarke objected that the opinion that Paul was speaking of a regenerate person ‘has most pitifully and most shamefully lowered the Standard of Christianity, and even destroyed its influence and disgraced its character.’ A.H. Francke and J. Bengel (and, a little later, John Wesley, and, later still Moses Stuart) were among those who thought that Paul was describing a man who was under conviction of sin, but not yet regenerate. “
Rom 7:24 – Who is the ‘wretched man’? – Walking With Giants
In his celebrated book
Holiness, Ryle writes: ‘I am quite satisfied that it does not describe the experience of an unconverted man, or of a young and unestablished Christian; but of an old experienced saint in close communion with God. None but such a man could say, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man” (
Rom. 7:22).’
The analysis of Christian development into these three ‘ways’ or phases derives from Dionysius the Pseudo-Areopagite, who ascribed a rhythm of purification, illumination, and union (or perfection) both to the hierarchies of angels and to the Church on earth. Medieval W. interpreters of Dionysius turned his scheme into an account of spiritual progress in terms of the three ways, beginning with the eradication of bad habits and the cultivation of the virtues, moving on to the illumination of the mind by meditation and contemplation, and culminating in unitive love. These three ways were adopted by later writers such as St John of the Cross and so became classic in systematic theories of Christian spirituality.
purgative, illuminative, and unitive ways
St. Gregory Nazianzen, one of the great theologians of the fourth century, calls out to us over the centuries and exhorts us with the following. To quote St. Gregory: “Let us not remain what we are, but let us become what we once were.” And from St. Peter, the chief of the apostles, through the first-century voice of St. Ignatius of Antioch, from Irenaeus of the second century through the great Cappadocian Fathers of the fourth century, of the great Desert Fathers of the fifth century, Maximus the Confessor of the sixth century to John of Damascus and John of
The Ladder in the ninth century, from Gregory Palamas in the 14th century to St. Silouan in the 20th century—the great Fathers of our Orthodox Church have echoed this exhortation of St. Gregory, reminding us and ever pointing us to the truth, that by God’s grace we
can become much more than we are. [removed]
