Was It Sin, or “Infirmity”?
Any view that leads us to lower the standard of holiness to fit our experience, or to argue with the devil or with ourselves over sin, is in error. A Christian who has had a blessed new experience notices something in the life that is not quite according to the Spirit of Christ. He begins to examine it and decides that this is not a sin but one of the “infirmities” from which he has not expected complete deliverance. Or he confesses it as a sin and is cleansed in the blood of Christ, but since he does not want to believe that he has lost his experience he explains that this was a temptation from without and was not due to any evil within. Or, not able to delude himself with these bits of human reasonings, he falls back into his old life of struggle and failure.
John Wesley has a word in season here also: “And if any of you should at any time fall from what you now are, if you should again feel pride or unbelief, or any temper from which you are now delivered, do not deny it, do not hide it, do not disguise it at all, at the peril of your soul. At all events, go to one in whom you can confide, and speak just what you feel. God will enable him to speak a word in season which shall be health to your soul. And surely the Lord will again lift up your head and cause the bones that have been broken to rejoice.”
The Bible treatment of the conquest of sin is subject to none of these distressing difficulties. It guards from dangerous errors on every side, and at the same time leaves no loopholes for tolerating sin as do the current views held by nearly all Christians.