2. The Meaning of Sanctification - Enter His Rest

man is slain, another man is drowned, a third breaks his neck with a fall from some high place, this
man died eating, and that man playing! One perished by fire, another by the sword, another of the
plague, another was slain by thieves.
Thus death is the end of all, and man’s life suddenly passeth away like a shadow.
DEDICATION
Thomas a’Kempis, in The Imitation of Christ (Fifteenth Century) —
To the congregation who listened to my first Sermon on or about September 3, 1895 and
to all those to whom I have since ministered the Word of God,
In solemn remembrance.
PREFACE
That brilliant French theologian, Auguste Sabatier, crystallized in one sentence the
substance of what I have tried to say in this book. “Salvation,” he writes, “is deliverance
from the power of evil, it is filial communion with God, which, restored to its proper
place in the heart, henceforth becomes the spring of the believer’s peace and joy, the true
germ of eternal life, the victory of the Spirit.” [1] It was my first intention to discuss the
whole subject of salvation in one book; but as I wrote the manuscript grew to such
dimensions that it seemed altogether best to publish the material in two volumes,
separately titled and each complete in itself, and yet each complementary to the other.
The first volume has been published under the title "The Meaning of Salvation"; this
companion volume is now published under the title "The Meaning of Sanctification".
The doctrine of sanctification has been abused so badly by its advocates and ridiculed so
thoroughly by its opponents that few modern scholars care to plunge into the welter of
fanaticism and passionate strife with which the subject is involved. To the present writer
this seems a great pity and certain tragic loss. The subject of sanctification has ever been
the holy of holies of the Christian church; and regardless of the method of obtaining this
experience, it has always been esteemed a jewel in the breastplate of the church’s high
priest, our blessed Lord. And throughout all the church’s nearly two thousand years of
history there have always been pure and radiant souls who rejoiced in the mystic light of a
Shekinah that glows softly but brilliantly on the mercy seat within the sacred enclosure of
the holy of holies. In every age there have been gentle souls filled with spiritual passion
who have cherished this holy vision as the greatest treasure of life. Shall we Christians of
the twentieth century leave that inner chamber not only silent, but empty, by reason of our
neglect of the supreme purpose which Christ has always cherished regarding the relation
of his people to himself? The writer is one who believes in progress. The changing
emphases of the church’s teaching seem to him to be merely a reflection of the fact that
the enduring church must interpret the eternal gospel in conformity with the changing
needs and conditions of the world of our time. Doubtless it is a good thing that we are
more active than our fathers were. There is a value in organization and co-operation. We
prize the concept of the church as a corporate body of interacting individuals rather than a
mob of selfish individualists who acknowledge no relation to each other. The Spirit of
God is leading the church today as he led her nearly two thousand years ago.
Nevertheless, it is still possible to overemphasize a good and necessary principle and in
the process neglect an equally essential truth.
For this reason it will be a mistake if we neglect the inner experience of sanctification,