When Invalids Grow
Growth in grace is positive, not negative. Sin is a hindrance to true growth in the spiritual life as well as in the natural life. An invalid may, indeed, grow in body, and sick Christians do grow in grace, but the growth in both cases is retarded. When the disease germs are conquered then begins normal growth. So in the Bible figure of the race toward the goal: this race is not a struggle to overcome sin, but a race which sin may greatly retard. We are counseled to lay aside every weight and the sin that clings closely about us, and run the race, looking unto Jesus. A Christian may run with the weights and the sin, and he is in the race, but it is not to be wondered that there are many stumbles and slow progress.
There are several passages in the New Testament which give a marvelously clear picture of this positive growth in grace, and show beautifully the distinction between the present purity of the believer and his future entire conformity to the Lord Jesus.
God’s present standard of purity for his children is the purity of his only Son in whom he is well pleased. He is our Life; and apart from him we have no purity. “Every one that hath this hope set on him purifieth himself, even as he is pure” (1 John 3:3). But just before this statement of God’s purpose for the present purity of his children, we read: “we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” This is the hope set before us,—perfect conformity to the likeness of Christ. And this very hope is urged as a reason for present purity of the kind that Jesus has. Is there a contradiction here?