The Presbyterian Theologian and professor at Princeton, when it was still a school of theology, B. B. Warfield wrote a whole volume on it. You can read a review of it here:
http://heidelblog.net/2014/11/warfield-on-the-two-sources-of-perfectionism/
BTW, he taught against it.
Good read, but I'll go one step further.
B.B. Warfield wrote "Entire Sanctification", here are some excerpts:
"Let us observe next that Paul does not speak of this perfecting of the entire man as if it were a mere ideal, unattainable, and to be looked up to only as the for ever beckoning standard hanging hopelessly above us. He treats it as distinctly attainable. He seriously prays God to grant it to his readers; and that as the end of his exhortation to them to study moral perfection as the aim of their endeavours.
He does not, indeed, represent it as attainable by and through human effort alone, as if man in his own strength could reach and touch this his true ultimate goal of endeavour. Rather he emphatically represents it as the gift of God alone. After exhorting men to their best endeavours, he turns suddenly from man to God and besieges Him with prayer. Strive, he says, strive always, do this thing and do that—and so work out this, your ethical salvation.
"But may God
Himself— the God of peace Himself"—the stress is on the "Himself." It is in God, in God alone, the God of peace alone, that hope can be placed for such high attainments.
And now, let us observe, thirdly, the period to which the Apostle assigns the accomplishment of this great hope. It is at once evident that he is not dealing with this perfection as a thing already in the possession of his readers. It is not a matter of congratulation to them—as some Christian graces were, for the presence of which in their hearts he thanks God,—but a matter of prayer to God for them. It is a thing not yet in possession but in petition. It is yet to come to them. He does not permit us to suppose, then, that the Thessalonians had already attained—or should already have attained—it. He thanks God, indeed, for their rescue from the state in which they were by nature. He thanks God for their great attainments in Christian living. But he does not suggest they had already reached the goal. On the contrary, a great part of the letter is taken up with exhortation to Christian duties not yet overtaken, graces of Christian living still to be cultivated. His readers are treated distinctly and emphatically as
viatores, not yet as
comprehensores. Not in and of them, but in and of God, is the perfection which he prays for. What we see is not hoped for, what we pray for is not already attained. Moreover the very pledge he gives of the attainment of this perfection bears in it an implication that it is yet a matter of hope, not of possession. He pledges the faithfulness of God, the Caller. Accordingly, the perfection longed for and promised is not given in the call itself; it is not the invariable possession of the Christian soul. He that is called looks yet for it; it is sought still; and at the hands of the Caller whose faithfulness assures the performance. The performance, therefore, still lags.
It is clear, therefore, that Paul, though promising this perfection as the certain heritage of every Christian man, presents it as a matter of hope, not yet seen; not as a matter of experience, already enjoyed. That it belongs to us as Christians we can be assured only by the faithfulness of God, the Performer as well as the Caller. Can we learn from Paul
when we can hope for it? Assuredly, he has not left us in ignorance here. He openly declares, indeed, the term of our imperfection—the point of entrance into our perfection. "May the God of peace," he prays, "sanctify you wholly and may there be preserved blamelessly perfect your spirit and soul and body,
at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" You see it is on the second advent of Christ—and that is the end of the world, and the judgment day—that the Apostle has his eyes set. There is the point of time to which he refers the completeness of our perfecting.
And if you will stop and consider a moment, you will perceive that it must be so, for the entire perfecting, at least, of which the Apostle speaks. For you will bear in mind that the perfecting includes the perfecting of the body also. It is the perfecting of the whole man that he prays for, and this expressly includes the body as well as the soul and spirit. Now the perfected body is given to man only at the resurrection, at the last day, which is the day of the second coming of Christ. Until then the body is mouldering in the grave. Whether spiritual perfection may be attained before then, he does not in this passage say. But the analogy of the body will apparently go so far as this, at all events—it raises a suspicion that the perfecting of the soul and spirit also will be gradual, the result of a process, and will be completed only in a crisis, a cataclysmic moment, when the Spirit of God produces in them the fitness to live with God. This suspicion is entirely borne out by Paul's dabbing with the whole matter of sanctification in this context, and in this whole epistle: as a matter of effort, long-continued and strenuous, building up slowly the structure to the end. There is no promise of its completion in this life; there is no hint that it may be completed in this life. There is only everywhere strong exhortations to ceaseless effort; and strong encouragements by promises of its completion in the end—against "that day." "That day" of judgment, that is, when God shall take account of all men and of all that is in man.
What is thus fairly implied here is openly taught elsewhere. Men here are not
comprehensores but
viatores; we are fighting the good fight; we are running the race. The prize is yonder. And not until the body of this death is laid aside shall the soul be fitted to enter naked into the presence of its Lord, there expecting until the body shall be restored to it—no longer a body of death but of glory. Meanwhile the gradual process of sanctification goes on in soul and body —until the crisis comes when the "Spiritus Creator" shall powerfully intervene with the final acts of renewal.
Source:
https://www.monergism.com/entire-sanctification-1-thessalonians-523-24
Nuff said.
God Bless
Till all are one.
