2. The Meaning of Sanctification - Enter His Rest

Stanley Jones is an outstanding example of this. Some of these men have even preached
against entire sanctification as a theory, but they have had an experience of it in their
lives. Prof. William James has gathered many testimonies in his book "Varieties of
Religious Experience". While some of these testimonies are plainly examples of
abnormal or deranged minds, and they are all laid out by James with the coldness of a
scientist examining insect specimens, nevertheless, in many of them there is such a
warmth and spiritual reality that even the professor himself is compelled to acknowledge
that these people have touched supernatural sources of power.
The Quakers have preached a form of this doctrine for many generations. In 1675 Robert
Barclay wrote fifteen propositions which were universally accepted by the Friends as
expressing their beliefs (although the Friends do not officially recognize any binding
standards of doctrine). The Eighth Proposition reads as follows:
"In whom this holy and pure birth is fully brought forth the body of death and sin comes
to be crucified and removed, and their hearts united and subjected unto the truth, so as not
to obey any suggestions or temptation of the evil one, but to be free from actual sinning
and transgressing of the law of God, and in that respect perfect. Yet doth this perfection
still admit of a growth; and there remaineth a possibility of sinning where the mind doth
not most diligently and watchfully attend unto the Lord." [21]
3. THE SYMBOLISM OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
The pioneers of the holiness movement preached the doctrine of entire sanctification with
unflagging zeal. Part of the evidences for this truth they drew from the symbolism of the
Old Testament.
The New Testament writers in general, and the Apostle Paul in particular, did allegorize,
or as we say, “spiritualize,” the historical material of the Old Testament; and if we reject
the ideas which they developed in this way, we must deny a large part of the New
Testament and reject its teachings.
This is a fact so plain that no scholar would need any evidence to support it, but since we
are not all scholars let us refer to J. A. Weiss. He says that Paul “used this method (I Cor.
9:9; 10:5; Gal. 4:21-31), but not nearly to the same extent as we find it used in the Epistle
to the Hebrews for instance.” [23]
Those parts of the Old Testament which are definitely allegorized by New Testament
writers may well be called “types”. This sound critical method opens the door for us into
some very striking truths reflected in the Book of Hebrews.
THE REST THAT REMAINETH FOR GOD’S PEOPLE
It would make this book far too long if the writer should do all the work for the reader. To
condense as much as possible, let the student read the fourth chapter of the Book of
Hebrews. This study is worth a day of any Christian’s time. There he will learn that the
world was made in six ages of time. The seventh age began at the close of creation and is
continuing to the present moment. It is God’s day of rest.
Since it was impossible for the Israelite as a natural man to rest forever in the flesh, one
day in seven was given to him as a type of the eternal rest of the soul. As God’s rest was
symbolized, or typified, by the Jewish Sabbath, that Jewish Sabbath was a type of the rest