PARTIAL SALVATION: ITS SCOPE. Philippians 1:6: “He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”

Salvation in its simplest sense means recovery from sin. There is no possibility of understanding salvation only as it is studied On the dark background and in the long-drawn perspective of sin.

The Scriptures teach, and Christian experience corroborates the truth, that it is God’s plan under the atonement to recover the human soul from sin in this life by two distinct stages — partial salvation (regeneration), and perfect salvation (entire sanctification). The one is salvation from the guilt and power of sin; the other is salvation from the principle and defilement of sin. Each of these experiences is epochal, and not transitional. They do not glide one into the other imperceptibly. Each is obtained through definite conviction, consecration, prayer, and faith They are respectively attested by the witness of the Spirit, and are attended by emotions peculiar to each.

When they are well developed, as the photographer would say, under the light of truth and by the power of the Holy Ghost, they stand out clear-cut and well defined in their distinctive lineaments. Let us study, in this paper, partial salvation as a work of the Spirit.

The fundamental difference between partial salvation in pardon, and perfect salvation in entire sanctification, is what each does for the soul in respect to sin. Sin is of a twofold form: It is an act, the transgression of law; it is also a disposition, a tendency of the heart toward evil. Sin as an act incurs upon the soul guilt; as a disposition, it infects the soul with impurity.

Regeneration, or partial salvation, delivers the soul from the guilt of the sin and its concomitants — dread, distress, and spiritual death entire sanctification, or perfect salvation, removes the principle of sin with its concomitants — impurity, doubt, fear, and unrest.

The Scriptural discriminations between these successive states of grace are indicated by the provisions and promises of redemption.

The prophet said: “There shall be opened up in the house of David a fountain for sin, [its guilt] and for uncleanness [its impurity].”

The apostle says: “If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive [pardon] our sins and to cleanse [sanctify] us from all unrighteousness.”

The work of partial salvation is the preparation for that of perfect salvation.

The Spirit, by washing of regeneration, accomplishes the first, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost the second. Partial salvation is Pentecostal n its nature, because it is the work of the Spirit commenced, which he will perfect if the soul follow on to the gift of the Holy Ghost himself. The Holy Spirit brings the soul out of the Egypt of guilt by the washing of regeneration, that he may bring it into the Canaan of perfect salvation by the renewing of the Holy Ghost. “The holy to the holiest leads.” The outer court of regeneration is the way to the inner court of full salvation.

The highest incentive which Peter on the day of Pentecost presented to those who were awakened and said, “Men and brethren, what shall we do?” to induce them to at once become believers, was that if they should repent and be baptized they should receive the gift of thee Holy Ghost. It was in effect saying to them, to be born of the Spirit would qualify them to receive the fullness of the Spirit. Partial salvation effectuated by the washing of regeneration has as its most significant characteristic an instinctive longing for the fullness of the Spirit. When rightly instructed, the new convert starts at once for the gift of the Holy Ghost.

A young man, the son of a minister, for six years a seeker of pardon, through a mistake respecting the way of faith, at last believed and was saved. In these years he had heard the truth of the fullness of the Spirit for believers taught by preaching and testimony. So the next night after his conversion he was again at the altar. When asked what he desired, he replied: “I am saved; but I must have full salvation, the baptism with the Holy Ghost.” The third day he received the gift of the Holy Ghost. Since then he has walked in the Spirit, going from strength to strength and from glory to glory with the Indwelling Spirit.

Partial salvation is the glorious anteroom to the King’s chamber of full salvation in the royal palace of redemption. The washing of regeneration makes ready the soul for the white robes of the renewing of the Holy Ghost.

Never is a soul fully recovered from sin in this life until it is delivered from the inherent defilement of sin in the soul. When this is obtained, it is saved from all sin. Not from the power to sin, or the possibility of sinning, but from the presence of sin in the soul, which does not destroy the power to sin, but does diminish the probabilities of sinning to its very minimum. The only sinless perfection possible is to be perfectly saved from sin in the soul, and this is fully provided for as promised to us in the Gospel: “The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin.”

The question is asked, Why doesn’t God cleanse the soul from interior sin simultaneously when he pardons its guilt? The Divine rationale of this is not revealed. There are, however, reasons which we may conjecture as justifying this Divine procedure in first forgiving and afterwards cleansing.

There may be an impossibility in the condition of the soul under sin which makes this order of salvation necessary. The moral darkness of the soul under sin may be such that it is incapable of apprehending both its guilt and deformity at one and the same time. Hence it becomes necessary for God to first awaken it respecting the danger of sin to itself; then, when being moved by fear, it flees to the Ark of Safety, and finds refuge from the curse of sin, it is prepared soon or late, as it walks in the light of adoption, to have revealed to it its interior sinfulness. Moreover, while the unrenewed heart has thorough prevenient grace, the power to believe unto salvation from the guilt of sin, it is incapable of such a stretch of faith as would compass at one bound both pardon and purity. It is hardly credible that God expects or deems it possible for the natural heart by one leap of faith to cover both the Red Sea of guilt and the Jordan of depravity.