Keswick aka Higher Life
Kernel of truth
Keswick theology is based on the biblical truth that we must indeed come to the end of ourselves. We do crucify our ‘self’ and acknowledge that we can’t overcome sin on our own. We must depend upon another for salvation and for life. And, we truly must surrender our effort and depend on Christ, even for sanctification.
Keswick theology also states truth when it teaches that we are sanctified by faith. We can’t obtain the benefits of Christ in any other manner but by faith. Obedience will not bring the blessing of sanctification upon our souls. And, believers do indeed walk by faith, 2 Cor. 5:7. But the Keswick error affirms that sanctifying faith ceases from working in the same manner that justifying faith does, like in Romans 4:5.
Help for legalists?
Now, there are those trapped in a legalistic attitude toward their sanctification. They believe that God justifies but we must sanctify ourselves by obedience in our own strength. In such cases, Keswick theology is liberating indeed.
It has rescued many believers from the deceptive error of synergism. Synergism is the idea that we cooperate with God. Cooperation with God combines the effort of God and the effort of man so that we can be saved. Keswick theology thus frees believers from sanctification by such a legalistic two-track theology. So, it isn’t entirely bad.
It sometimes rescues people from the errors of Federal Vision and Arminianism. This theology can liberate those who put themselves on the treadmill of works-righteousness. It can set free those who are stuck in a Romish law-based systematic program. Such a program where believers must become sanctified enough to prepare themselves for justification.
Still a danger
Although Keswick theology has some good aspects; many reformed forefathers and current reformed theologians write against it. It still pops up in many devotional books. And, while it usually echoes harmlessly within many conservative denominations, it has serious spiritual dangers.
For instance, when legalists come to realize that their obedience was just a self-made treadmill to get closer to God, Keswick theology removes the treadmill. But Keswick theology replaces the treadmill with a passive faith that produces no works. Keswick theology exchanges the treadmill for an unbiblical version of holiness. It teaches a holiness that is not ever yours; but foreign, and belonging only to Christ within you. The Spirit does not cause you to grow in holiness through your use of the regular means of grace. The means of grace being the preaching, the observance of the sacraments, and prayer.
Their theology moves holiness away from outward activities that believers themselves do. The good works done by a true faith, from their hearts, and according to God’s Law. Instead, in Keswick theology, the Spirit does the believers’ good works. Thus, good works are more or less mechanically infused or injected.
Keswick believers’ good works flow effortlessly from the Spirit through the believer. Believers themselves are not doing these good works or actions of love, but Christ is doing them. And this can only happen after their ‘second act of passive faith’. It is in this second act of faith where a special and new experience occurs.
Their key to sanctification
Keswick theology teaches a ‘total surrender’ that permits God to completely take over the believer. This is their key to sanctification. Thus, the believer exerts no effort in sanctification, but is overwhelmed by God. An inner, or a spiritual experience of passive surrender is their door to holiness. Holiness consists of the knowledge of one’s blissful union with Christ. All activity on the part of the believer is ruled out for Keswick’s version of sanctification.
While scripture teaches that sanctification is a life lived by faith, it does not link sanctification with a passive faith. The Keswick teaching of faith that remains passive and devoid of working in sanctification is not a biblical teaching. Gal. 5:6 and Eph. 4:15-16 teach that faith works, it works by love.
According to Keswick theology, God does not use things in this life to sanctify us. Not suffering, not trials, not the believer’s use of the means of grace, or anything that transpires here.
What about the Keswick understanding of Colossians 2:6?
This verse allegedly establishes that one lives the Christian life by faith alone without works. In other words, we are sanctified by a passive faith in the same sense and manner that we are justified. We come ’empty’ to be given both. But the original Greek does not allow for this. “The syntax of the passage does not affirm that Christians are to walk by faith alone; it simply states that they did receive Him by faith alone in the past, and commands them now to walk in Him”. ~ faithsaves.net.
Is ‘sanctified without works’ in the Bible?
If the Keswick understanding of Col 2:6 is correct, one would find other passages that also express that teaching. When it comes to justification, we do find many passages that exclude works. But when it comes to sanctification, we find no passages that affirm that idea.
Scripture does not have passages like:
“We conclude that a man is sanctified by faith without the deeds of the law,”
“Therefore, by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be sanctified in his sight,”
“Knowing that a man is not sanctified by the works of the law,”
“… for by the works of the law shall no flesh be sanctified.”
Passive faith for sanctification?
“The idea of a simple passive trust springing from the human heart, as the God-appointed condition of sanctifying grace from Christ, is foreign to the Word of God”. ~ Alvah Hovey, Doctrine of the Higher Christian Life Compared With the Teaching of the Holy Scriptures, pg. 127.
Hovey was a long-time professor and President of Newton Theological Institution from 1849 to 1899. ‘Condition’ in his quote means: the spiritual shape, form, or pattern of something. In other words, ‘passive faith’ that does no works is not what God-appointed sanctifying grace from Christ looks like.
“Justifying faith is a grace that ‘worketh not’, but simply trusts, rests, and leans on Christ. Sanctifying faith is a grace of which the very life is action: it worketh by love, and, like a mainspring, moves the whole inward man, Gal. 5:6” ~ J.C. Ryle.
“St. Paul so often says that we are ‘justified by faith without the deeds of the law’ but never once says that we are ‘sanctified by faith without the deeds of the law’”. ~J.C. Ryle (same link).
Passive faith for sanctification denies Pauls’ words
‘I Fight’. ‘I run’. ‘Let us lay aside every weight’. ‘I keep under my body and bring it into subjection’. ‘Let us cleanse ourselves’. ‘Let us labour’.
Bavinck writes, “God works in us in an organic way, there is no conflict between what believers must become through their efforts and that which they already are. We are sanctified, yet we must follow after sanctification; we are in the vine, yet we are told to remain in the vine; … God works salvation in us, yet we must work out our salvation with fear and trembling. Each former thing is the ground and guarantee of the latter”. ~ Our Reasonable Faith p 502.
In other words, we proactively live out of our union with Christ. We live by faith, and in all holiness and good works.
More to come.
