All that we fall short of this is sin.  There is no want of ability in the case, but what arises from our own voluntary wickedness of heart.  Christ says that he came not to destroy the law, but to fulfil it.  “We are not released from the obligation of perfect obedience; though grace has taken away the necessity of such obedience as the ground of our acceptance with God.”  The law is not made void, but established, by grace.  We cannot be saved by our obedience; because we have already broken the law, and we cannot mend it.  But, while we trust alone in Christ, independent of anything in ourselves, for justification before God, the signs or evidences of our faith must be found within us.  There must be a new and holy principle in our hearts; and just as far as this principle prevails, so far it will show itself in obedience to the law of God.  There is no resting-place, in the agonizing conflict, till we are “holy as God is holy.”  I do not say that Christians ever do become perfectly holy in this life.  The contrary appears, from the testimony both of Scripture and experience, to be the universal fact.  But this is the measure of obligation, and we should strive after it with all the earnestness of which we are capable.

We must not settle down contented with our attainments, while one sin remains unsubdued in our hearts.  The Scriptures are full of this doctrine.  The apostle Paul expresses far more earnestness of desire after higher attainments in the divine life than is ever felt by such Christians as have only a feeble and glimmering hope of entering the abodes of the blessed.  “If by any means,” says he, “I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead;” or that state of perfect holiness which the saints will have attained at the resurrection.  And the kind of effort which he put forth to obtain the object of his desires is most forcibly described in the passage quoted at the beginning of this letter.  In view of this standard, you will be able to see, in some measure, the exceeding sinfulness of sin; and it will drive you more entirely out of yourself to the cross of Christ.  You will see the necessity of daily renewing your repentance, submission, and faith.

You see, from what the apostle says of his own experience, that high spiritual attainments are not to be expected without great labor and strife.  True piety is indeed the work of the Holy Spirit; but the fact that God works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure, is made the ground of Paul’s exhortation to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.