The Imperfections of Perfectionism

Perfectionism, at least in its manifestation in modern Protestantism, traces its roots to John Wesley, who taught that sanctification can be entire and complete in this life; “perfect love,” Wesley’s preferred term, could be exercised this side of glory. By Warfield’s day and the turning of the twentieth century, perfectionism had come to be espoused by a rather diverse group, constituting an extreme case of strange bedfellows. Warfield found perfectionism in the teachings of the leading German liberal Albrecht Ritschl, in the revivalistic sermons of Charles Finney, in the Keswick movement, and in Pentecostalism. Warfield also saw it among fundamentalists in the 1910s who were proponents of the so-called “victorious life.”

In his critique of perfectionism, Warfield names names and offers detailed criticisms of its teachings, dismantling it literally line by line. These varied and multiple criticisms may be boiled down to three major contentions. Warfield argues that the adherents to the victorious life movement build a high wall of separation between justification and sanctification. This bifurcation between entering the Christian life and living the Christian life put asunder what Warfield argues must be kept unified. “We cannot divide Jesus,” Warfield intones, “and have Him as our righteousness while not at the same time having Him as our sanctification” (The Works of Benjamin B. Warfield, vol. 8, p. 475). This division, Warfield tells us, stems from a deficient view of Christ and the cross. Keep reading

See also
Calvinists, Please Rescue Evangelicalism from Perfectionism!
B. B. Warfield