Jason Albertson

George MacDonald didn’t believe that Jesus’ death on the cross atoned for our sin. [1] I base this claim on MacDonald’s sermon, “Justice,” published in his Unspoken Sermons , vol. 1, 2, and 3. I read from this Project Gutenberg edition. I don’t agree with him about that. But he did have some other ideas that are useful. He was a bit eccentric. According to one scholar, MacDonald esteemed roses so highly that he “seemed to think it unbecoming to speak of them as growing on bushes.” [2] Timothy Larsen, George MacDonald in the Age of Miracles (Grand Rapids: MI, Intervarsity Press), 2018. Read for free from HooplaDigital . Instead, in novels, poems and short stories, he most often describes roses as growing on trees. The trees may be small and crooked, the roses may grow close to the ground, but they’re rose trees, not rose bushes. He’s got one fantastic scene in The Princess and Curdie in which a boy enters a room to find that “on a huge hearth a great fire was burning,...

1 Cor. 3 uses the word the KJV translates as "carnal." A lot of us in the American Holiness tradition tend to associate "carnality" with "whatever that thing is that needs to be fixed by entire sanctification," so it might come naturally to us to think of entire sanctification when we run into "carnal" or "carnality" in the wild. Problem : entire sanctification isn't always part of what's going on when "carnal" pops up. Example : 1 Cor. 3:1-4 This passage was part of the Sunday school lesson this last week in a curriculum I ran across. The comments in the lesson talked about how the Corinthians needed to be entirely sanctified to get this carnality dealt with. You know what's interesting? Paul doesn't mention entire sanctification as the solution to their carnality. Not a word. Maybe you're like me. Maybe when you hear the word "carnality," it's hard not to just hear it as "t...

Victor Frankl was a Jewish neurologist who lived through the Holocaust. To try to save his family and his life, it looks like he did some unethical experimentation on other Jews for the Nazis, but he and his family were eventually imprisoned anyway. His wife and immediate family all died; he survived alone. Frankl was a neurologist and psychologist, a doctor, and while he was in the concentration camps, he observed the people around him. He wanted to know what psychological factors make the difference between life and death when people are at the very limits of pain and suffering. He wrote a book about his experience and his observations, Man's Search for Meaning . He concluded that no matter how much someone suffered, the difference between life and death was whether someone had a purpose for living. Whether someone was living for the day when they could take revenge on the Nazis or whether someone hoped they could somehow lighten someone else's suffering, having a  wh...

In the last few blog posts. I’ve been talking about how God works in people to save them from sin’s power and effects. In theology-speak, I’ve been talking about soteriology , the study of salvation. There are a couple salvation-events that get a lot of attention in preaching: salvation and entire sanctification. To be clear, I don’t want that to stop. Both are important. However, I think there’s another piece of salvation that doesn’t get as much air-time as it should: becoming more like Christ gradually (theology-speak: progressive sanctification). Why should progressive sanctification get more air time than it currently does? A good bit of the Bible’s instructions for believers focuses on helping us up the road of progressive sanctification. For example, check out Romans 12. Verse 1 gets a lot of attention, but the rest of the chapter (and chapter 13, and 14, and 15) are about how to think and act like Jesus in your relationships with others. Fully surrendered people must ...

Romans 12:2 says,* And do not be being conformed to this world, but be being transformed by the renewal of your mind, so that you may be testing and finding out what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of God. The two phrases I underlined are commands (linguistic jargon: imperatives). In Greek, commands come in two types: Snapshot command (linguistic jargon: aorist imperative) An example would be when a parent is driver training with a teen and yells, " Help us , Lord!" Help us  doesn't tell you anything about the action the parent wants God to take except that it be helpful (and quick, preferably). It could just be a single moment of God's help, or it could be however many more hours the teen needs on their log sheet to get a driver's license. Video command (linguistic jargon: present imperative) An example would be when someone prays at a board meeting, " Be guiding our plans and discussion, Lord." Be guiding  does tell you somethi...

Entire sanctification will probably not involve God removing your temptations. It will definitely involve effort to resist temptation (Heb. 12:4). You will lean into what is already true about you because you were united with Christ at salvation (Rom. 6:1-10), believing and living out what is already true (Rom. 6:11-14). And as you pursue being influenced by the Spirit (Eph. 5:18), He will bless your effort. You will find that you have abilities you didn't know you had--abilities like... Working with God on the renewal of your mind and growing in your ability to discern God's will and how good it is (Rom. 12:2). Practicing and growing in gratitude toward God (Eph. 5:19-20). That seems like it would involve practicing viewing things that happen in your life as under His control and as evidence of His goodness, wisdom, and power. Seeing things that way will probably help you speak to others in God-glorifying ways (Eph. 5:19). Submitting to other believers, not necessarily...

Yesterday's post might seem like so many arguments about angels on pinheads. Here's where the rubber meets the road: if you struggle with sin related to (for example) anger, envy, same sex attraction, opposite sex attraction, or substance abuse, what you believe about how God works matters. If you are in a church in the Holiness Movement, chances are that you have heard something to this effect: When you get saved, the "tree" of sin in your heart is chopped down, so it stops bearing fruit (acts of sin), but the "stump" is still there. If the stump is allowed to remain, new shoots of sin will pop up from it occasionally. To walk steadily with God, not falling into sin periodically, God will have to remove the stump by entirely sanctifying you. What you expect to happen when you are entirely sanctified matters. When we use language for inherited depravity like "stump" or "heart of stone," I think there's a danger that people ...