The Major Prophets are Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel and Daniel. The twelve prophetic books in the Old Testament following the book of Daniel are called the Minor Prophets. In the writings of both classes we find many allusions and predictions as to the entire sanctification of believers in the gospel dispensation and under the reign of Messiah or Christ.
The sixth chapter of Isaiah is usually regarded as his call to the prophetic office. Whether this be so or not, it records a very wonderful experience of that grand man, and a remarkable type of the baptism with the Holy Ghost as described in the book of Acts.
It is quite evident that Isaiah was a converted man before he wrote his first chapter. In that he laments the sins of the Israelites and the Jews, all of them God’s chosen people, though now divided into the two kingdoms and these often at variance, shows the utter futility of their own efforts to regain the favor of God, by observances and sacrifices and ceremonies, and then tells them how to be converted as plainly as any gospel minister in our own day would be able to do. He shows them that the way of salvation is by repentance and faith, and by trusting to the unmerited mercy of God. Hear him: “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek judgment; relieve the oppressed; judge the fatherless; plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord; though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.”
Here are repentance and amendment of life and pardon, the washing away of guilt and committed sins, symbolical of the New Testament washing of regeneration, symbolical also of John’s baptism of repentance unto the remission of sins.
But now in the sixth chapter, and “in the year that king Uzziah died,” a wondrous vision of the pre-existent Christ, “sitting upon a throne high and lifted up” and the seraphim crying one to another “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts,” was vouchsafed to the prophet. And the first effect of the glorious things which he saw and heard was not to exalt him and minister to his pride, but to fill him with despair at his own depravity. He felt just as Peter did at the first miraculous draught of fishes on the Sea of Galilee, when he exclaimed “Depart from me for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” Ah! beloved, it never fosters spiritual pride, nor any other kind of pride to get a nearer and clearer view of Christ than we ever had before. Quite the contrary. Such a vision turns us towards our inner selves, and enables us to behold by contrast the darkness and sinfulness and pollution of our own souls, and in such a view we shall find food for the deepest humiliation, but nothing to nourish pride.
Accordingly, Isaiah exclaimed in agony of soul “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” If we may credit Jewish tradition, it was for the offence of saying that he had seen the King, the Lord of hosts, that the prophet was afterwards sawn asunder. But the record of the glorious vision is still preserved and will, no doubt, be blessed to millions of readers in the future, as in the past, and until the end of the age.
But the seraph was sent to touch the “unclean lips” of Isaiah—unclean because of innate depravity, and unclean notwithstanding he had probably been preaching repentance and amendment of life and forgiveness for two or three years before this wondrous experience—to touch them with holy fire. And then he was assured not that his sins of commission and omission were forgiven—that had been done before—but that his iniquity was taken away, and his (inbred) sin purged. This was a second and a definite experience, and strikingly emblematic of the baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire under the gospel dispensation, which is also accompanied by “the purifying of the heart by faith,” or entire sanctification.
How wondrous are the prophecies of Isaiah after this experience. He seems to look down the centuries for seven hundred years and to see the glorious blessings of the gospel dispensation almost as clearly as if they were already present. Hear him in the thirty-fifth chapter: “And an highway shall be there and a way; and it shall be called the way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.” And in the fifty-first chapter: “Awake, awake! Put on thy strength, O Zion! put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city; for henceforth, there shall no more come into thee the uncircumcised and the unclean,” and in the sixtieth chapter: “Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself; for the Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning shall be ended.”
To Jeremiah the Lord said, “I sanctified thee; and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations,” which must mean not only that he was set apart for the office of a prophet, but also that he was cleansed from inbred sin, as a necessary preparation for the office itself.
In the thirty-sixth chapter of Ezekiel we have some striking passages on the theme before us. These were, no doubt, addressed primarily to the outward Israel, but they may very justly be appropriated by the Israel of God, the Church of Christ, since as Augustine says, “The New Testament lies hidden in the Old, and the Old is revealed in the New.”
In the twenty-fifth verse we have the promise of pardon or justification with cleansing from the pollution of their past sins: “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you and ye shall be clean, from all your filthiness and from all your idols will I cleanse you.” Committed sin implies both guilt and pollution. And the pollution that is thus acquired by the practice of sinning is removed in regeneration. Thus the new convert is brought back again to the state of the little child. “Except ye be converted,” said the blessed Saviour, “and become as little children, ye cannot enter into the kingdom of God.” The little child has neither the guilt nor the pollution of committed sin; whilst he does have within him the inherited or inbred sin of his nature.
Now in the promise quoted above, allusion is made to the clean water made from the ashes of a red heifer and sprinkled, under the Mosaic law, upon those who had incurred ceremonial uncleanness. The thing signified, however, is the precious blood of Christ which cleanseth from all sin, or possibly the cleansing operation of the Holy Spirit, typified by water, may here be meant. At any rate the twenty-fifth verse points to nothing less than a full and free justification.
But the prophet continues: “A new heart also will I give you and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and I will give you a heart of flesh.” Here we have described certainly the experience of regeneration, if indeed not the still fuller experience of entire sanctification. But let us admit that it means only the new heart which is given to the penitent sinner at his new birth. Regeneration implies the impartation of a new life by the Divine energy of the Holy Ghost. And this new life is comparable to the “heart of flesh,” not, of course, a carnal heart, but a heart tender and teachable, and impressible to heavenly influences, such a heart as we always find in the new-born babe in Christ.
But listen still further: “And I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My statutes, and ye shall keep My judgments and do them.” In this verse we have a pre-figuring of the Holy Ghost baptism, by which the heart is cleansed from all sin and sanctified wholly, and also of the subsequent “walking in the Spirit,” to which Paul alludes in one of his epistles. Zacharias, the father of John the Baptist, who was also seized with prophetic fire at the birth of his son, exclaims, “That He would grant unto us that we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life.” Surely the gospel of Christ has something better for its recipients than a constant daily sinning and repenting, which is too often the experience of Christian people. The twenty-seventh verse, therefore, signifies holiness of heart and life through the power of the indwelling Spirit.
How blessed it is thus to be assured that what we cannot do by our own strength, the Holy Spirit will cause us to do. This doctrine of spiritual causation is indeed glorious. Like the mainspring of the watch which supplies the power within, by which the hands are moved without, and thus the fleeting minutes and hours are correctly measured, so the Holy Spirit within supplies the energy by which the sanctified believer is enabled or caused to adorn the doctrine of Christ, his Saviour, in all things, and to bring forth the fruit of the Spirit in all righteousness and goodness and truth.
In the minor prophets, we find numerous allusions to the subject of holiness, though their language is often highly figurative. In Hosea 2:16, after reproving Israel for her unfaithfulness in the past, the Almighty, through His prophet, employs the following language, viz: “And it shall be at that day, saith the Lord, that thou shalt call Me Ishi, and shalt call Me no more Baali,” and again in the nineteenth verse, “I will betroth thee unto Me forever; yea I will betroth thee in righteousness and in judgment and in loving kindness and in mercies; I will even betroth thee unto Me in faithfulness; and thou shalt know the Lord.” Now the word Ishi means my husband; while the word Baali means my Lord, and the language, therefore, points to an experience or a relation of marriage. The bride is exalted immeasurably above the servant. While the position of the servant points to a legal justification and a service for wages and reward, that of the bride must signify entire sanctification, and the closest possible union with the Heavenly Bridegroom. Again, the word betrothed points legitimately to a marriage which is always justly expected to follow if both parties are faithful to the engagement. Beloved, let us get so near to Christ that we shall not address Him as my Lord, in the spirit of a servant, but as my husband, in the spirit of a loving and faithful wife. At your conversion, you are, as it were, betrothed to Him, or in ordinary language engaged to Him. At your entire sanctification, your engagement is consummated by the marriage union. Engagement must precede marriage, it is true, but, as a rule, engagements should not be long. Do not needlessly defer your nuptials, but rather hasten to the embraces of Everlasting Love. Like Rebecca, appreciate your high and holy calling, and like her say promptly and decidedly, “I will go.”
In the book of Joel we find the prophecy which Peter quoted on the day of Pentecost, and assured the multitude of Jews, out of every nation under heaven, that what they beheld on that day was the fulfillment of the same. “And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out My Spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. And also upon the servants and upon the handmaidens in those days will I pour out My Spirit.”
Now, these words are clearly a foreshadowing of the baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire, designed for all of God’s children without distinction of nation or sex, and intended, first, to purify their hearts by faith (see Acts 15:9) and, secondly, to endue them with power for whatever line of service God may call them to. And we may add that this text, as well as many others, shows that in these gospel days women as well as men may be, as we find in the facts of our daily experience that they are both called and qualified for the work of the ministry, as well as other labors in the vineyard of the Lord. But both men and women need the Holy Ghost baptism which consumes inbred sin, as an indispensable qualification for the highest efficiency and most marked success in the work to which they may individually be called. Every Christian may and should do something for the Lord, but none can do all for Him which he makes it his privilege and his duty to do, without the grace of entire sanctification and the fulness of the Spirit.
In the prayer of Habakkuk we have some sentences which point unmistakably to the experience of perfect trust in God and perfect love for Him. “Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labor of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls; yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.” Compare this with John Wesley’s description of a holy man after Paul. One who is enabled to rejoice evermore, to pray without ceasing, and in everything to give thanks. Does not Habakkuk answer beautifully to this description?
The prophecy of Zechariah contains a number of visions, which are, no doubt, full of instruction to those who have eyes to see. We can only mention one or two of these. In the third chapter, verses one to seven, we are introduced to Joshua, the high priest, representing the Jewish people, and typifying Christ Jesus with His eternal and unchangeable priesthood after the order of Melchizedek. But the Angel Jehovah also represents Jesus in His capacity of Judge. And Satan, the adversary, is present as the accuser of the brethren, resisting them in the person of their representative, the high priest.
And surely it would seem, at first, as if there was ground for his accusations, for Joshua, the high priest, is clothed in filthy garments, and these can signify nothing else than sins, aye, the sins of His people imputed to Him as their representative and priest, and not their actual sins only but their inbred sin also, for, “The Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all,” and “He hath made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin.” “His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men.” “He hath no form nor comeliness, and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him.”
“Many were astonished at thee,” says Isaiah. “Behold the man,” said Pilate, as he brought forth Jesus scourged, tortured, bleeding, but uncomplaining, and the only answer was “Crucify Him!” Thus, beloved, was He clothed in very truth with the filthy garments not of His own vileness but of ours.
But Joshua was “a brand plucked from the burning,” and, therefore, in Him all His people have found pardon. And now comes the order “Take away the filthy garments from him, and unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment.” Surely, beloved, we here have nothing less than entire sanctification, not in ourselves but in Him, and not only simply imputatively and representatively, but actually and experimentally. Praise the Lord.
The prophet Malachi assures us that “He shall sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; and He shall purify the sons of Levi” (that is, the “royal priesthood” which constitutes the true church) “and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” Surely no one will deny that there is holiness in prophecy.
Gabriel said to Mary in the annunciation, “Therefore, that holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.” Or in the Revised Version, “Wherefore, also, that which is to be born shall be called holy, the Son of God.” The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews speaks of Him as “holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners,” and Peter says that “He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth.” He is called “Thy holy child Jesus.” Jesus Christ, therefore, was wholly free both from sin committed and sin indwelling. He was absolutely holy in heart and holy in life, holy in word and holy in act, holy in His birth, holy in His death, holy in His resurrection, holy in His ascension, holy in His eternity. Glory be to His Holy Name.
And if the Divine Founder of the Christian Church was thus a holy man, it would, naturally, be expected that He should desire to have a holy people; and if He desire it, that He should also make provision for it; and if He both desire it and hath made provision for it, that we should find allusions to it in His teachings. In this, we are not disappointed, as we shall proceed to show.
The Sermon on the Mount contains an epitome of the public preaching of the Lord Jesus, and every sentence is pregnant with meaning. From beginning to end, it inculcates holiness as the privilege and duty of believers. Many things are enjoined which would only be possible to those who are sanctified wholly, such as, “Bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, love your enemies, resist not evil,” and many others.
The teachings of our Lord are like the headings of chapters, which are filled out and developed in the writings of the apostles. This is remarkably true of the Sermon on the Mount, which, without going largely into details, sets forth the principles which are to govern His kingdom on earth. The application and interpretation of these principles, He leaves to the inspired apostles and evangelists, who continued to teach and preach after His departure, and to the Holy Spirit who is promised to the believing church as its guide, teacher and comforter until Christ Himself shall come again.
But besides many precepts and injunctions which imply holiness, there are several, also, which expressly require it. Among the beatitudes at the beginning of the Sermon, we find this striking statement: “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God.” Now, heart purity cannot exist while there is any sin in the heart. Wherever there is sin in the heart, whether actual or indwelling, there is also defilement; and purity and defilement are incompatible terms.
Heart purity, therefore, is identical with entire sanctification, and heart purity is not only a great energizer, so that a man is powerful for good in proportion to the purity of his heart and life, but it is also a great illuminator, so that it enables its possessor to see God. This, of course, does not imply an open or an outward vision, but a spiritual apprehension of God, whereby we are brought into fellowship and communion with Him, and in a spiritual sense, we maybe truly regarded as seeing Him who is forever invisible to outward sense.
This inward purity, as distinguished from a blameless outward walk, was by no means unknown to the Old Testament writers. In the Twenty-fourth Psalm, David asks the question “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in His holy place?” And He immediately answers it by saying, “He that hath clean hands and a pure heart.” The clean hands imply that his works are in accordance with God’s law; in other words, that his outward life is free from condemnation. But the “pure heart” means more than this, and suggests what the same royal Psalmist remarks again in the Fifty-first Psalm. “Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts, in the hidden part, Thou shalt make me to know wisdom.” It is also noticeable in the Twenty-fourth Psalm, as already quoted, that the clean hands or justification comes before the pure heart or entire sanctification. So accurate is the blessed spiritual logic of the Holy Ghost.
Returning to the Sermon on the Mount, we find at the end of Matthew fifth the direct command, “Be ye, therefore, perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,” or if we take the Revised Version, which is more accurate in translation, the command becomes a positive assertion, which is equally forcible. “Ye, therefore, shall be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect.”
But whether command or declaration, it is at first sight simply astounding. It is overwhelming. So much so, indeed, that our poor human spirits shrink back in amazement, and we are ready to say, This is wholly impossible. Surely, Jesus cannot mean what He says. Or if He does, then my case is hopeless. But let us examine the words a little more carefully.
In the first place, we are to notice that He does not say that we are to be equal in perfection to our Father in Heaven. That would, indeed, be too absurd for the wildest fancy to conceive. God is infinite in all His attributes and, therefore, infinite in perfection, and this in all directions. We are poor, finite, sinful human beings, and can never even approach the boundless perfection of Him who is wholly without limit, either as to power, space or duration, or righteousness, justice and holiness.
But the command is not, Be ye equal to your Heavenly Father in perfection, but, Be ye perfect with the same kind of perfection which appertains to Him. It may be similar in kind whilst falling infinitely short of His perfection in degree. Now, God is infinite and perfect in all His attributes, but apart from His attributes is His essence. And what is the perfection which is predicated of the essence of God? Or, rather, what is His essence itself? It is love. “God is love,” says the apostle. “Thy nature and Thy name is love,” says the great hymnologist, Charles Wesley. The essential perfection of the Godhead, therefore, is a perfection of love. And we are assured by the beloved John that it is possible for us, also, to be made perfect in love, and to possess the perfect love which casteth out fear. Hence, if we are perfect in love we are perfect even as our Father who is in heaven is perfect. Behold the blessed simplicity of the gospel.
The context of the command referred to proves the same thing. Jesus had just been telling His disciples that it is not sufficient for them to love their friends, and do good to those that do good to them. All these things and more are done even by worldly minded people and open sinners. Unsaved people love those who love them. But Jesus continues, “I say unto you, love your enemies; bless them that curse you; do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you.” Why? “That ye may be the children of your Father who is in heaven,” for that is just the way He does. He does not wait for a man to be His friend before He loves him and shows kindness to him. “He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” And, if we are to be the children of such a Father, we must adopt His sentiments and love in our measure as He loves. His essence being love, all His infinite activities are controlled and regulated and directed by love, and when there is nothing contrary to love in our hearts, so that all our finite activities are in like manner impelled and swayed and directed by love, then we are perfect in love, and perfect even as our Heavenly Father is perfect. Glory to His Name.
I believe that if we search carefully and prayerfully we shall find the doctrine of entire sanctification in many of the parables of our Saviour. Take, for instance, the parable of the sower. Here we are expressly told that the seed is the word of God, and, of course, the sowers are all ministers and Christian workers who are trying in any right way, to diffuse a knowledge and acceptance of gospel truth. They are devoting themselves to the salvation of human souls. Now, mark the difference as to the ground upon which the good seed falls. (1) The wayside hearers are not concerted at all. (2) The stony ground hearers are converted but not established. Their shallowness is such as to prevent them from withstanding trial and temptation and hence they fall into backsliding. (3) The thorny ground hearers are converted, but inbred sin remains in their hearts in form of the love of riches, whether these riches are possessed or only desired, or too much care and cumber, having so much regard to the secular as to neglect the spiritual, or in the form of unsanctified desire, “the lusts of other things,” and so by sin that dwelleth in them the word is “choked,” and though they may bring forth a little meagre fruit of inferior quality, yet they bring “no fruit to perfection.” They are justified but not sanctified wholly.
Now, our Heavenly Father desires not a little fruit but much fruit. “Every branch that bringeth forth fruit, he purgeth it that it may bring forth more fruit.” To purge is to purify or, in a spiritual sense, to sanctify, and this is the condition of abundant fruitage. When the thorns are removed the good seed will grow and flourish. When inbred sin is taken out of the heart the Christian believer will bring forth fruit to perfection, even the perfection of love, and this will be the “much fruit” whereby God is glorified.
On one occasion we are told that a lawyer asked Jesus “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” and when asked in reply what were the words of the Mosaic law he answered, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind; and thy neighbor as thyself.” Jesus commended his answer and added “This do and thou shalt live.” Hence, our Saviour teaches that holiness consists of nothing more nor less nor else than perfect love to God and man. What constitutes this love has been already explained.
Martha was a good Christian, but she was “careful and troubled about many things.” Mary was a good Christian and still earnestly seeking the one thing needful, which is full salvation, or holiness of heart and life. Even good Christians may be “cumbered about much serving,” and so miss this one thing needful. We cannot doubt that both the sisters, who vividly typify the two experiences, obtained the blessing of holiness when the pentecostal baptism was poured out upon the church of the hundred and twenty, if not before. In the marvelous intercessory prayer of the Lord Jesus, given in the seventeenth of John, we find these expressions, “Sanctify them through Thy truth. Thy word is truth.” And again, “For their sakes I sanctify Myself that they also may be sanctified through the truth.” Here we discover the two senses of the word sanctify. Jesus sets Himself apart or consecrates Himself to the work of human redemption in order that His followers, in all ages, may be not only set apart or consecrated, but also sanctified wholly, or made holy in heart and life. He gave Himself for the world of sinners lost, that they might be forgiven and saved. He gave Himself for the church, on the other hand, that He might “sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that He might present it to Himself a glorious church, not having spot nor wrinkle nor any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish.” Thus, the atoning sacrifice of Christ procured pardon and acceptance for the penitent sinner. It procured not less, certainly, entire sanctification for the consecrated believer. And it is only by accepting Him as a perfect Saviour that He “is made of God unto us, wisdom and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.”
For the blessed Saviour does not leave us in doubt as to the method of obtaining this great blessing of holiness, nor as to the price, which must be paid for it. Entire sanctification is “one pearl of great price,” and he who would possess it must go and sell all that he has. The rich young ruler had a first-class record as to morality and the outward observance of the law of God, yet Jesus said to him, “One thing thou lackest,” and that one thing was perfect love, for He added, “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast and give to the poor,” and then interjecting a promise, “Thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come take up the cross and follow Me.” The price was too great, and the young man went away sorrowful. Alas! Myriads of souls since have found the price too great, and by refusing to pay it, have deprived themselves of unspeakable blessing. Christ would not have us become His followers without counting the cost, and the cost is all that we have and all that we are. “Whosoever forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be My disciple.”
First, we are to forsake, with full purpose of heart, all known sin. It may be the sin which “easily besets,” our own bosom sin, near as a right eye or a right hand, but if it causes us to stumble, it must be relentlessly sacrificed. And even if the sacrifice seems like crippling and maiming us, yet Jesus assures us that it is better to enter into eternal life with one eye or one hand, than to be consigned to everlasting death with two eyes or two hands. In the first place, therefore, we are to “reckon ourselves dead, indeed, unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ, our Lord.”
But we are to become dead, indeed, not only to all sin, but we must be dead, also, even to lawful things, except as God in His mercy may grant them to us, to have and enjoy in moderation and to His glory. Jesus teaches us that our highest affection, our deepest love must be fastened upon Him alone, and that if any individual love, father or mother, son or daughter, wife or husband more than Him, such a one is not worthy of Him. We are to love His gifts and thank Him for them, but still more are we to love the Giver Himself.
And when we love Him supremely, we shall learn to be satisfied with Himself, and what He in His love and mercy chooses to give us. If He permits us to have an abundance of earthly goods, we shall thank Him and use them as stewards of His for His glory. If He allows our family circle to be invaded by death, and one dear one after another is carried away to the tomb, or if He permits our wealth to be taken from us and consign us to poverty and desolation, if His gifts one by one or altogether are withdrawn from us, why, praise the Lord, we still have the Giver, and can still say with Job “The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”
It thus appears that the teachings of our Lord require us to be dead to sin, and dead to self, yea, even to lawful self, in order that we may possess this inestimable blessing of entire sanctification. Let us not hesitate, then, beloved, to lay down our lives. “Whosoever will save his life shall lose it, but whosoever will lose his life for My sake, the same shall save it.”
“Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.”
The apostleship of the Gentiles was committed specially to Paul. And as the Gospel of Christ is intended for the salvation not of the Jews only, but of all mankind who are willing to accept the conditions, we find in the writings of this apostle, perhaps, a more complete exposition and expansion of the teachings of the Lord Jesus than in any other inspired author. Jesus gave the concise germinal principles of all gospel truth; and Paul deduces from these principles their logical consequences and develops them, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, into those wonderful epistles to the churches, which, though as Peter well observes containing some things hard to be understood, are no doubt destined, nevertheless, in the future as in the past, to form a large part both of the foundation and framework of every system of theological doctrine. How wondrous, for instance, is the scheme of redemption as unfolded to us in the Epistle to the Romans! How profound and how exalted is the spirituality of the Ephesians and Colossians! How pure and how practical are the directions to the Corinthians! What a counter-blast to all legality in the church do we have in Galatians! What a marvelous unfolding of Old Testament typology in the Hebrews! What a guidebook of unequalled excellency for ministers of all times in the pastoral epistles!
In the Epistle to the Romans, Paul regards mankind under the two divisions of the Gentile and the Jew, and proceeds to show that both classes alike had failed in their efforts to attain to righteousness and salvation.
The Gentile, it is true, had not been favored with an outward revelation, but he had been permitted to behold the outward universe, and to know that it had a Creator “of eternal power and divinity.” He had also had a conscience within him, and so much light as rendered him an accountable being, with a sense of obligation to a supreme power, and furnishing another proof of the existence of a personal God. But the Apostle tells us that they, the Gentiles, did not like to retain God in their knowledge. They wickedly extinguished the light which He had given them, because they were not willing to give up their immoralities. And as their hearts became more corrupt, their intellects also were darkened, and in their senselessness they changed the glory of the incorruptible God into the baser image of “birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things.” They sank into the grossest idolatry and licentiousness and all wickedness. This picture drawn in colors which shock our sensibilities, in the first chapter of Romans, is confirmed by the authentic writings of heathen historians, and this in all particulars, Paul says, “They are without excuse, because they did not live up to the light which they had received, obscure and imperfect as it was.”
And how was it with the Jews? The advantage was, indeed, to them much every way, but chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God. They had an outward revelation, and with it a knowledge of that law of God, which is holy and just and good.
But they had failed, if possible, more grievously than the Gentiles themselves. They had received the law by the disposition of angels, as Stephen told them and had not kept it. They had had far more light than the Gentiles, but they had fallen into the same sins as they. They prided themselves on the law, and looked with contempt upon the Gentiles, and condemned them for their immoralities, and yet were guilty of similar immoralities themselves. They talked loudly about the words of the law. “Do not steal.” “Do not commit adultery,” and yet violated these very commands themselves. Jesus in His scathing denunciation of the Scribes and Pharisees, compared them to whited sepulchres, looking well outwardly, but within full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness: and He warned His disciples to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy, and the leaven of the Sadduces, which is infidelity, and the leaven of the Herodians, which is worldly mindedness.
The cause of failure was the same, both with Jew and Gentile. It was something that had occurred long before the division into Jew and Gentile had an existence. It had occurred, in short, when man fell. From fallen parents our entire race had inherited a fallen nature, that is to say, a natural proclivity towards sin. There is a disposition in all mankind to yield to temptation, some in one direction, some in another, and thus to say yes to Satan, while they also say no to God. This bias towards evil is sometimes called depravity or original sin. It is called by Paul “Our old man,” “the flesh,” “the carnal mind,” “the body of sin,” and “sin that dwelleth in me.” A good and convenient name for it is inbred sin. It is sin in the heart as distinguished from sin in the act. It is the inward cause of which our outward sins are the effects. It is the evil root of which our outward sins are the bitter fruits.
Now, it was the inbred sin in the hearts of the Gentiles which caused them to quench the light of the knowledge of God, which they must have had for, at least, a generation or two after Noah came out of the ark, and which made them blind to the light even of natural religion, notwithstanding before their eyes the heavens were declaring the glory of God and the firmament was showing His handiwork, day unto day was uttering speech, and night unto night was showing knowledge. They forsook the knowledge of God, and He left them to their own reprobate minds, the result being that they sank into the grossest idolatry and the most beastly sensuality.
The Jew had the unspeakable advantage of an outward revelation. He received through Moses the law of God, which showed him what God desired him to be and do, and what he ought to be and do, but which conferred upon him no power for being or doing what it required. It is like a looking-glass placed before a child to show him that his face is soiled, but having no power to cleanse that face. It was like a plumb-line applied to a leaning wall, which shows how far it deviates from the perpendicular, but which has no power to make it upright. Nay, it even comes to pass that in consequence of inbred sin, the law multiplies offences. It causes sin to abound. We find even in most children a disposition that impels them to do and to have just what they are told they must not do and have. That is to say, when the law comes in, inbred sin rises in rebellion against it.
The workings of the sin that dwelleth in us is most vividly described by Paul in the seventh chapter of Romans. Over the real meaning of this chapter, there has been much discussion and wide differences of opinion. Some writers think that this is the best experience of the great apostle of the Gentiles, and they draw consolation from this fact, as well as argument, in favor of continuing to sin in thought and word and deed as long as they live. Others think that the apostle is not here describing a Christian experience at all, but the struggles of a Jew who is seeking the favor of God by keeping His law, but finds his attempts to keep it all in vain, the hindrance being inbred sin. I freely admit that it is not what even a justified experience ought to be, for God has assured us through His apostle, John, that He that is born of God doth not commit sin, and, therefore, notwithstanding the presence of inbred sin in the heart of the justified and regenerated believer, yet such a one, by watchfulness and prayer, may be kept from acts of sin and from becoming a backslider. But in point of fact, the seventh of Romans does describe what, in many cases, is the experience of the converted Christian.
For there are many who even after a clear conversion and a joyful sense of God’s favor, with the witness of the Spirit to their adoption, yet do yield to temptation under the pressure of inbred sin, and so pass weeks, or months or weary years in what is called an up-and-down experience, not becoming confirmed backsliders, but sinning and repenting, delighting in the law of God after the inward man, but often yielding to the demands of the law of sin, which is in their members, not losing their sonship, but losing their communion and their joy, often like Peter weeping bitterly over their transgressions, but finding that while the spirit is willing, the flesh is weak.
I said that such a process, unsatisfactory as it is, might go on for years. It ends either in complete religious declension amounting, sometimes, to apostacy on the one hand, or infinitely better, in the entire sanctification of the heart and complete deliverance from inbred sin. And in these days of enlightenment, when the doctrine and experience of holiness are so plainly taught, and so generally diffused among the children of God, it is, at least, doubtful whether a soul can continue long in a state of justification, which means that it will either go forward to the experience of entire sanctification, or else it will fall into back-sliding as did some of the Corinthians, or into legality as did the Galatians.
Now, legality is nothing more nor less than Judaism. It is seeking salvation after the pattern of the Old Testament, and not after that of the New. It is a matter of works, and not a matter of faith. It inquires “What good thing shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” It is the child of the bondwoman and not that of the free. It is Ishmael and not Isaac. It is Sinai and not Calvary.
And so it happens that many Christians are simply good Jews. They may even possess circumcised hearts, and may yet serve the Lord in the spirit of bondage, as did good Jews of old. They fail to realize that they have been called unto liberty, which liberty does not, by any means, signify license; it does not signify the liberty of making our own choices, but the liberty of accepting gladly and submissively God’s choices; it does not mean the liberty of doing either right or wrong as we may prefer, but the liberty of always preferring to do right and never wrong, and so to spend our years on earth, doing right in all directions, and doing wrong in none. This, beloved, is the glorious liberty of the children of God.
After the birth of Ishmael, we may well suppose that Hagar’s chief employment in Abraham’s house was to look after the said Ishmael, to care for him and to restrain him. Mark, it was never her business to care for or to restrain Isaac. He was the child of promise, the child of faith, the son of the lawful wife and the free woman, and when Ishmael’s persecuting spirit broke forth at the weaning of Isaac, then the command was “Cast out the bond woman and her son.” Both must go together or stay together. Ah! beloved, when inbred sin is cast out, there is no more need of the law either to restrain or constrain. Perfect love casts out fear; it also casts out sin, and becomes the motive power of the whole spiritual man. “The love of Christ constraineth us.”
So Paul shows us that both Gentiles and Jews had failed to attain unto the law of righteousness, because of inbred sin, which caused the former to put out the light which they had, and the latter to fall short of keeping the law, which was their only hope of salvation, but which was never intended by its Divine Author to save men, but to show them how utterly incapable they were of saving themselves.
But Paul does not leave them there. After putting both classes of the human family into the same position of failure and condemnation, and declaring that there is no difference, “for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” he adds, “Being justified fully by His grace, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.” When man’s helplessness and inability have been sufficiently demonstrated, then God comes to his rescue. “For God hath concluded them all in unbelief, that He might have mercy upon all.”
Thus in the Epistle to the Romans, the apostle teaches the great doctrine of justification by faith and the consequent peace of reconciliation, the “peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” But he goes farther than justification, and shows us that sanctification, also, is by faith and not by works. He will not be satisfied with anything less than the death of our old man, and the death of inbred sin is precisely the experience of entire sanctification. “Knowing this that our old man is crucified with him, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that, henceforth, we should not serve him.”
But we are wholly unable to destroy or do away with the body of sin by any resolution or will-power or effort of our own. Sin will not go dead at our bidding, nor can we become dead to sin by wishing or striving to be so. Again, we are brought face to face with our helplessness, but the apostle solves the problem for us by directing us to resort to the process of reckoning. “Likewise reckon ye, also, yourselves to be dead, indeed, unto sin, but alive unto God, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.” Ah! now, our help is laid upon one that is mighty. “The things that are impossible with men are possible with God.” What we reckon, with the sublime reckoning of faith, Christ can make real and true. We have only, therefore, to reckon ourselves to be dead, indeed, unto sin, and leave to Him to make the reckoning good. But we must not fail to reckon ourselves alive as well as dead. And to be alive to God means, in this connection, to be responsive to every intimation of His will, to love Him perfectly, to be, to do and to suffer joyfully all that He may determine concerning us, in short, to be sanctified wholly. Oh, beloved, what a blessed reckoning is the reckoning of faith! How vastly does it transcend all the reckonings of logic or mathematics. For, by it, we experience a continual deadness to sin, and a continual holiness of heart and life.
For it must be clearly understood that Paul is not asking us to fancy, or imagine, or hypothecate. He is not telling us that if we believe a thing to be true, the believing will make it true. He is not persuading us to reckon without factors and with no result. The factors in his direction are God’s promises and commands, alike in the Old Testament and in the New, urging His people to be holy, and promising to make them so, and our acceptance of the provision He has made for our cleansing, by faith, and then by the reckoning alluded to, the result is secured.
In foggy or cloudy weather, mariners at sea are often compelled to resort to what they term dead-reckoning. Sometimes for days together, the sun is hidden by clouds, and no observation can be taken with the usual instruments for determining latitude and longitude. Then the captain ascertains by the compass what direction he is pursuing, and by the log, the rate at which the ship is sailing, and thus by marking out his daily advance on a chart, he is enabled, with astonishing accuracy, to determine when and at what point he will sight the shore toward which the voyage is directed. What he reckons becomes real, when he tells the passengers, “Within five minutes, we ought to see the Irish coast,” followed within the specified time by the cry from the lookout, “Land, ho!”
To the Christian believer, the Bible is both compass and log and chart. Sometimes, he enjoys the witness of the Spirit clear as the sunshine, assuring him that he is going in the right direction, and informing him as to his whereabouts in Christian experience, but when not thus favored, he can still move on by faith, he still has his compass and his chart, and he can still employ the dead-reckoning, and go forward with a holy trust that in due time he shall land in the heavenly port. Praise the Lord.
To comment in detail upon all that the great apostle of the Gentiles has written in reference to entire sanctification would require a volume instead of a single chapter. I must, therefore, content myself with a few selections, and leave the reader to pursue the subject for himself in the inexhaustible mine of the Pauline Epistles.
In Romans 6:13, we have the best description of consecration that is to be found anywhere. “Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin; but yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.” And, again, in the 19th verse, “For as ye have yielded your members servants to uncleanness and to iniquity, unto iniquity; even so, now, yield your members servants to righteousness, unto holiness.”
Here, the apostle clearly teaches us that consecration is not the same thing as entire sanctification. The one is an act proceeding from man to God, the other is an act proceeding from God to man. It is man who consecrates; it is God who sanctifies.
Perfect consecration is an entire surrender of a personal human being to a personal God. The term members may well be understood to include all bodily organs and powers, all mental faculties and sensibilities, and all appurtenances, such as time, money, influence, culture, health, and, in short, the whole personal, individual man, with all his belongings. The surrender must be complete, absolute, unreserved and forever. Body, soul, spirit, time, talents, possessions, all that we have and all that we are must be His, wholly His, and His to all eternity.
Such a consecration cannot be made by any one who is not already a Christian believer. Paul informs us, explicitly, that he is not calling upon sinners “dead in trespasses and sins,” to consecrate themselves, but upon converted persons, “those who are alive from the dead.” How thankful we ought to be that he has settled that point forever. Sinners may repent, but only Christians can consecrate. Whatever surrender the sinner may and must make in order to be saved, the believer must make a broader, deeper, fuller, more complete surrender of a different character and for a different purpose. In repentance, the sinner gives himself away as a dead sacrifice, and his purpose is to receive pardon and life. In consecration, the Christian yields to God his living and regenerated faculties and powers, and his purpose is that he may be sanctified wholly, filled with the Spirit, and used to the utmost extent of his capacity for the glory of God.
Consecration does not mean the giving up of our sins, or vices, or depraved appetites, or forbidden indulgences. We cannot consecrate our alcohol, or our tobacco, or our opium, or our card-playing, or dancing, or theater-going to God. He wants none of these things. All actual and known sins must be abandoned at conversion. Our consecration is for a deeper work, that is to say, for the removal of inbred sin, which, after all, is not accomplished by our consecration, though that is an essential preliminary, but by the baptism with the Holy Ghost and fire.
The essence of consecration is in the sentence, “Yield yourselves unto God.” When you yield yourselves, you yield everything else. All the details are included in the one surrender of yourself. Changing the emphasis, we may read again, “Yield yourselves unto God.” Consecration is not to God’s service, not to His work, not to a life of obedience and sacrifice, not to the church, not to the Christian Endeavor, not to the missionary cause, nor even to the cause of God; it is to God Himself. “Yield yourselves unto God.” Your work, your service, your obedience, your sacrifice, your right place and your allotted duty will all follow in good time.
Consecration is the willingness, and the resolution and the purpose to be, to do, and to suffer all God’s will. Its essence, already given in the words of Paul, is given also in the words of the Saviour. “Not My will but Thine be, done,” which is beautifully versified by Frances Ridley Havergal, in the couplet,
“Take my will and make it thine,It shall be no longer mine.”
Consecration being a definite transaction, and made once for all, does not need to be repeated unless we have failed to keep it. To consecrate over and over again is like a husband and wife marrying over and over again. We are consecrated just as we are married. The vow is upon us, and in the force of that vow, we walk all our days. All we have to do is to remember day by day that we are wholly the Lord’s, and see to it that nothing is taken from the altar. Those who have kept their consecration complete should testify to its maintenance upon all suitable occasions, and never deny it by word, deed or silence.
Many years ago, I saw a form of consecration in an English periodical, which is here given very slightly modified, and which has been adopted by many. Let all my readers unite with the author in entering into this personal yielding to God.
I am willingTo receive what Thou givest,To lack what Thou withholdest,To relinquish what Thou takest,To suffer what Thou inflictest,To be what Thou requirest,To do what Thou commandest.Amen.
In this connection, we may add that when the consecration is complete, it becomes, comparatively, an easy matter to believe. Entire sanctification like justification, and, indeed, all other gospel blessings and experiences, is to be received by faith. But so long as the surrender to God is not complete, faith refuses to act.
When all obstructions are removed by an act of heartfelt and sincere consecration, then it becomes as natural and as easy to believe as it is to breathe, after everything that hinders breathing is removed from the air passages. We hear much complaint among Christians of a want of faith. If they only had more faith, they imagine that all would be well. When the disciples of old asked Jesus to increase their faith, He told them, in effect, to use what they had. If it were only a mustard-seed faith, He assured them that it would remove mountains. And we may justly conclude that the difficulty with most seekers after entire sanctification is not in a want of faith so much as in an incomplete surrender. The carnal mind dies very hard. It attaches itself to one worldly thing or another, and refuses to be sundered from what it loves, and while this is the case, the individual cannot believe that God gives him the unspeakable blessing of heart purity. But when all the preliminaries have been attended to, and there is nothing else needed but to trust in Jesus, then faith can appropriate His promises, and in so doing realize their fulfillment.
Another class of seekers is very much concerned about the witness of the Spirit to assure them that the blessing has been received. Probably in these cases the very point that has not yet been consecrated to God is the feeling, or the witness, which they so much desire. “It often happens,” says Dr. G. D. Watson, “that a patient, who has been cured of some contagious disease, has to have a certificate on leaving the hospital. In such a case the certificate does not cure him, but certifies that he is cured. How absurd for a patient just entering the hospital to clamor for his health certificate before receiving the doctor and taking the remedies. In like manner, it is useless for a seeking soul to be clamoring for the witness and waiting for the feeling before receiving Jesus and fully trusting Him for the cure. We are not to trust in the experience, but the Saviour who imparts the experience.”
Let us now return to Paul. In his first epistle to the Corinthians, second and third chapters, he tells us of three classes of persons: the natural man, the spiritual man, and the babe in Christ. The natural man, he tells us, receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God; they are foolishness unto him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. Such is a description of the unregenerate wherever and whenever they are found. Their standard of judgment is not that of the Holy Spirit. They are blind to the truth of God and deaf to the story of salvation. Being without spiritual life they are, of course, without spiritual judgment. And yet, just such persons are in all our churches, and the number is by no means small. And often it strangely happens that these are the very individuals who are noticeably forward in expressing their opinions on the right way of managing a church. Fine and costly edifices, artistic music, entertainments and theatricals, eloquent preaching or lecturing, something to be proud of and to draw the crowd—these are the things which in their view make the church of their choice a success; but as for the conversion of sinners, as for the spread of the gospel at home and abroad, as for the sanctifying of believers, as for the things of the Spirit of God, they are foolishness unto them. What they need is a deep and pungent conviction, a true repentance, a living faith and a sound conversion. May God hasten it in His time.
“He that is spiritual,” says our apostle, “judgeth or discerneth all things, yet he himself is judged or discerned of no man.” The spiritual man is the man who has been baptized with the Spirit and filled with the Spirit, and in whom the Spirit abides as an ever-present Guide, Comforter and Friend. In short, he is the man who is wholly sanctified and saved to the uttermost. I should not, of course, affirm that such a one is always remarkable for depth or soundness of judgment, for, as his religion is in his heart rather than in his head, the heart may be perfect while the head may be weak. And yet holiness, or rather the Holy Spirit dwelling in the heart, does have a wonderfully illuminating influence upon the understanding. And the spiritual man, however many things he may be ignorant of, does understand the condition of the natural man, because he has been there, while he is not understood by the natural man because the latter has not been where he is. And the same is true of the relation of the spiritual man to the carnal Christian or babe in Christ. He, also, is understood by one who has the Spirit, while he is himself incapable of judging or discerning the position of the latter.
Paul assures the Corinthians that they are “yet carnal,” and still he asserts that they are “babes in Christ.” Such persons, and their name is legion in all denominations of Christians, are not wholly natural, neither are they wholly spiritual. They are babes in Christ, and, therefore, they may thank God that they are in Christ. They are converted, they are believers, they are disciples, they are justified; but they are not wholly sanctified, and not wholly delivered from the carnal mind. Their state is a mixed one, partly spiritual, partly carnal.
Oh, let such as these make an immediate and complete and irrevocable consecration to God, and let them ask for the baptism with the Holy Ghost and receive Him by faith in His sanctifying and empowering offices, that so they may become, not partly, but wholly spiritual. Oh, that spiritual men and women may increase and abound in all our churches. Amen.
In 2 Corinthians, 7:1, the apostle of the Gentiles bases the experience of entire sanctification on the glorious promises of God. “Having, therefore, these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” To cleanse ourselves is shown by the Greek tense to be an act done definitely and once for all. It means, therefore, to put ourselves under the conditions of cleansing by a definite act of consecration to God. It means to place ourselves in co-operation with the Holy Spirit, who is distinctively the Sanctifier and Cleanser. It means, also, that we are to seek and find the baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire, in order that our hearts may be purified by faith, and then to continually avoid all sources of temptation and all incentives to evil, so far as we may; and continuously realize and experience the holiness which Christ has instantaneously wrought in our souls through His Holy Spirit. Filthiness of the flesh signifies undue indulgence of sensual appetites, as in gluttony, drunkenness and licentiousness, which was probably very prevalent at Corinth. Filthiness of the spirit is illustrated by idolatry and pride, nor must we forget that the spirit is often polluted also through pampering the body.
Paul’s wonderful prayer in Ephesians 3:14-21, has been so admirably treated of by Dr. Daniel Steele, that I shall content myself with referring the reader to his book on “Love Enthroned,” page 123, and pass on. A single remark, however, may properly be made. That prayer, undoubtedly, embodies all that we mean by entire sanctification and the filling of the Spirit and more.
In 1 Thess. 5:23, we have another prayer of the great apostle in which entire sanctification is expressly petitioned for. “And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly: and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.” The very form of the expression in the first clause indicates that it is possible to be sanctified wholly and possible to be sanctified partially. All Christians are cleansed from the pollution of sins committed, that is to say, from the pollution they have acquired by actually sinning. And thus the Corinthians are addressed by Paul as sanctified, although, manifestly, many of them were not holy in heart and life. On the other hand, the apostle prays that the Thessalonians may be sanctified wholly, although as a church they were already in a healthy and prosperous condition, the only exception being a few members who were too neglectful of their outward business and too much disposed to be busy-bodies. So we may conclude, without hesitation, that all Christians are partially sanctified, while many good Christians are not wholly sanctified.
But provision was made in the gospel for the entire sanctification of all believers, otherwise Paul would not have prayed for it. And not only for their entire sanctification as a definite, instantaneous act of God, as shown by the Greek tense, but, also, for their continual preservation in blamelessness, though not in faultlessness, until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. And lest they should stagger through unbelief he adds, “Faithful is He that calleth you. You are not to do it. He will do it for He is able.”
And this experience extends to the whole man, the spirit which takes hold of and communes with God, the soul with its emotions, affections, desires and volitions; the body with its appetites and its powers all made holy and preserved holy. Glory!
One more citation only and I will leave the reader to his own researches in the rich storehouse of the Pauline writings. Taking it for granted that Paul is the author of the Hebrews, let us read chapter 7:25 of that profound epistle. “Wherefore, he is able, also, to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by Him, seeing He ever liveth to make intercession for them.” To the uttermost refers, undoubtedly, not only to time but to quantity. It means entirely, perfectly, altogether, through and through. And if he is able he is also willing. Oh, that all my readers, with the writer, may praise God now and evermore for salvation from the uttermost to the uttermost. Amen.
In the first place, Peter sanctioned all the writings of his beloved brother, Paul, and this probably at a period when Paul was either dead or separated from his ministerial work by imprisonment. There is a tradition that both the apostles were put to death on the same day at Rome, the one by crucifixion, choosing himself to have his head downward because unworthy to die just like his Master—the other by beheading, because he was a Roman citizen, which was deemed, at Rome, too honorable a position to be subjected to the ignominious death of the cross. Even if this should be true, yet Peter’s second epistle, in which he endorses Paul’s teachings, and gives to his writings the same authority as to the rest of the Bible, seems to have been written but a short time previous to his own martyrdom. The mature judgment of Peter, therefore, was that Paul was an inspired writer of Scripture, and that what he had given to the churches through his epistles, and left as a permanent legacy for the church universal, is to be received as gospel truth. And this will apply to his copious and frequent allusions to entire sanctification, as well as to the various other subjects treated of by his inspired pen. On the subject of holiness, therefore, Peter and Paul are as one; and we need not be surprised that in the very first sentence of his first epistle, he addresses the Christians of the Jewish dispersion in Asia Minor—though by no means excluding the Gentile converts—as elect according to the fore-knowledge (not predestination) of God the Father through sanctification of the Spirit, which must include entire as well as partial sanctification, unto (not unconditional happiness or misery,) but unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ. Thus, in one grand outburst of salutation from his glowing heart, he associates sanctification of the Spirit, the blood of sprinkling, and the obedience of faith. Neither Peter nor Paul stops in the midst of his earnest appeals to men’s hearts, in order to give a lecture on Systematic Theology, but both scatter seed-thoughts all over their inspired pages, which are abundant in fruitage to the candid and reflecting mind. And right here we remark that Paul to the Thessalonians employs the same expression, sanctification of the spirit, in connection with belief of the truth, and thus putting the apostle of the circumcision by the side of the apostle of the uncircumcision we have sanctification by the blood of Jesus, sanctification by faith, sanctification by the Holy Ghost, and even in a subordinate sense, sanctification by obedience, and all this without the slightest inconsistency or contradiction.
And as Peter starts out by calling God’s people to holiness, he continues by reminding them that their hope is to be fixed upon “an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you.” What more natural than that those who are expecting to inherit a holy heaven, should themselves seek while here to become a holy people? Surely we should desire a meetness for our inheritance as well as a title to it.
After speaking of the “trial of their faith being much more precious than of gold which perisheth,” the apostle utters forth an imperious call to entire sanctification. “But as He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy.” Thus he quotes from the words of the great lawgiver in Leviticus—that Moses, whom all Jews have delighted to honor, and shows at a glance that the Old Testament, as well as the New, bears witness to the holiness of God, and makes that fact a sufficient reason for the command and requirement that His people should be holy, also.
Our Heavenly Father, then, is a holy God and dwells in a holy heaven. Is it not most reasonable and most fit that He should require all who are to dwell with Him forever in that holy place, to be holy also? And in order to find an abundant entrance into that everlasting kingdom, we must be made holy while still clothed in flesh and sojourning upon earth. Nothing that is not already pure and holy can pass through the gates of pearl into the eternal city, the New Jerusalem.
Holiness is what constitutes the family likeness between our Father in heaven and His children both on earth and in heaven. A lady was accosted in the streets of a western city by a stranger, who asked her if she was not the daughter of such a one, naming him. She replied, with some surprise at the question, in the affirmative. “I knew you,” said the gentleman, “by your resemblance to your father who was my particular friend twenty-five years ago, away back in the State of Maine.” And the lady was delighted that the lineaments of her father’s countenance were so impressed upon her own that she should thus be recognized even by one who had never seen her before as her father’s child.
Ah! beloved, have we the likeness of our Heavenly Father so imprinted upon our faces and upon our walk and upon our conversation that all who know Him shall recognize His features in us? Oh, for more of the family likeness which shall stamp us as sons of God wherever we are and whatever we do. “Be ye holy, for I am holy.”
In comparison with the precious “blood of Christ” Peter characterizes silver and gold, which men call precious metals, as “corruptible things,” and then gives the striking exhortation, “Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a pure heart fervently,” and all this on the basis of the new birth which they had already received “of the incorruptible seed by the word of God.”
Why, Peter, although a fisherman and an unlearned and ignorant man, yet when thou writest under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, it is almost as hard to keep up with thee as with thy beloved brother, Paul!
See how holiness is, as it were, piled up and repeated in various ways in the sentence quoted above. (1), “Ye have purified your souls.” Yes, and it was Peter who spoke before the council at Jerusalem in reference to Cornelius and his household, and said that God “put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.” The word “purify” is derived from a Greek root which means “fire.” Souls are purified by the fire of the Holy Spirit, and the result is a continual “obeying the truth,” and (2), the positive side of this purification is “unfeigned love of the brethren,” and this is love with a pure heart and fervent, the same love which John calls perfect love, and the standard of which is in the words of the Lord Jesus, “As I have loved you that ye also love one another.”
Was ever more holiness crowded into a single verse? Peter had never been to a Theological Seminary, but he had listened through three eventful years to the blessed teachings of the Lord Jesus, and he had been filled with the Holy Ghost on the day of Pentecost, and without aiming at system or explanation, he has compressed more sound theology into a single verse than we find in many a voluminous treatise and many a lengthy commentary and many an eloquent sermon.
And then in the rapturous eloquence of inspiration he tells us how to grow in grace. “Wherefore, laying aside all malice and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the word, that ye may grow thereby,” and his last exhortation at the end of the second epistle is, “But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.”
Peter, by no means, teaches us that we grow into grace, or that we grow into entire sanctification. We first become receivers, and get grace before we can grow in it, and we must first receive entire sanctification before we can grow in it. Like all other gospel blessings, this is the gift of God, and is forever, therefore, unobtainable by any process of growth. But Peter says in effect, in order to grow in grace you must do two things. (1), Lay aside everything that hinders growth, specifying malice, guile, hypocrisies, envies, evil speakings. Now it is plain as the sun at noon-day that all these things are the fruits of the carnal mind. And so in a single thought the exhortation is to lay aside, or put off, or give up to destruction, the depravity of our nature, the inbred sin which doth so easily beset, and which so long as it exists, will be an insuperable hindrance to all rapid and symmetrical growth, and (2) desire, and of course, partake of the sincere milk of the word. Ah, here is wisdom, the secret of successful growth, in the spiritual as in the natural world, is first to become healthy, and then to take plenty of nourishment. Holiness is spiritual health, and implies the absence of inbred sin which is always spiritual disease. The child that is healthy and gets plenty of pure milk will grow and develop rapidly. The time will soon come when he can eat and digest meat and still strengthen and expand his physical organism on this richer diet, and thus he will finally become a large and strong man. But the child may be healthy and still not grow because it is starving for want of food. Or, it may have plenty of the most wholesome food and still not grow because disease prevents it from assimilating the nourishment. Sound health and plenty of food, with proper exercise, are the essentials of the right kind of growth. Now the Holy Bible contains not only milk for babes, but strong meat for strong men. It has been remarked by another that if Christians would be giants they must eat giants’ food. And the essential requisite for appropriating either the milk or the meat is to have a sound spiritual constitution and that means simply entire sanctification. Peter is right again. We grow by the sincere milk of the word after we have gotten rid of that which always and everywhere obstructs true growth.
Of course my reader will not understand me to say, any more than Peter himself says, that we experience growth in grace simply by a head knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. I do not forget that it is not the written word but the Eternal Word, the Lord Jesus Christ Himself, who is the bread of life. Nor do I forget that we feed upon His broken body and His shed blood, not by intellect, not by reason, not by culture, not by learning, but by faith.
But after all it is the Bible, or rather it is Bible truth, whether presented on the pages of inspiration or in the preached word, which is the great instrumentality employed by the Holy Spirit, in bringing men to Christ, and in feeding and nourishing and strengthening and edifying the church which has thus been gathered to Him. And so both Peter in speaking about the “sincere milk of the word,” and Paul in referring to the “strong meat,” by which term he characterizes the deeper spiritual truths of revelation, are leading us to Jesus, the true bread, the living bread, the bread of life.
Our apostle passes next to a most glowing description of the Christian priesthood, and again the leading idea of holiness flashes from his pen, “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” Again, “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people.” Here is our title of nobility, beloved, and who of us would exchange it for an earldom, or a dukedom or a kingdom? Not I at least.
The Jews of old received spiritual blessing very largely, and even temporal blessing also, through the mediation of an outward priesthood. And the family of priests were chosen and ordained of God Himself. “No man taketh this honor unto himself but he that is called of God, as was Aaron.”
But under the Christian dispensation all God’s saved people are priests as well as kings, and the sacrifices which they offer are spiritual sacrifices, the body as a living sacrifice to be consumed like a whole burnt offering in His service, “the fruit of the lips giving thanks to His name,” and the doing good and communicating, that is to say, a life rich in faith and good works, such are the sacrifices with which God is well pleased. But to be a Christian priest in the sense here described must involve and does involve the idea of entire sanctification. Peter’s words will not allow us to doubt that the priesthood of believers is a “holy priesthood.”
Afterwards, the chief of the apostles exhorts his readers to take ill treatment patiently when they have to suffer, not for doing wrong but for doing well, and reminds us of the example of Christ, “Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth; who when He was reviled, reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not, but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously; who His own self bare our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness,” winding up with a terse expression of the great doctrine of the atonement “by whose stripes ye were healed.”
Paul would have us “dead to sin” by reckoning. Peter would have us “dead to sins” by making no response to the suggestions of Satan or the temptations which he may present to us. To be dead either to sin within us or to sins without us, implies holiness of heart, that is, entire sanctification. Praise the Lord for the perfect agreement of His two great apostles in regard to this glorious doctrine.