2. The Meaning of Sanctification - Enter His Rest

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and wrote a beautiful poem of herself as Christ’s songbird shut up to sing for him. That takes power. Incidental to this witnessing for Christ, there might be times when the Spirit’s power would take the form of the prophetic gift of inspired preaching, in which the soul is caught up in rapture, filled with strange, lovely, bright and beautiful thoughts which are uttered with a passionate fervor that the oratory of trained speakers can never approach. In all cases, this power is simply the manifestation of the Spirit to aid us in witnessing for our beloved and exalted Lord. How foolish it is to think that this power should mean hysterical jumping and jerking and falling into trances. The Apostle Paul taught differently: “God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (II Tim. 1:7). The power that accompanies Pentecost would rather strengthen the mind, quicken the intellect, warm the heart, elevate and intensify the intellectual capacity of its possessor. The greatest of all the Old Testament prophets, if we except John the Baptist, was Moses. He was the prophet whom the Messiah should most resemble (Deut. 18:15). Yet Moses never had one moment when his intellect was darkened by hysterical emotional excitement. He talked to God “face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend” (Exod. 33:11), but always in the full blaze of a brilliant and clear-seeing intellect. Jesus is the supreme prophet of all time, both in ancient Israel and the Christian church, and he was the one of whom it was said, “He shall not strive, nor cry; neither shall any man hear his voice in the streets” (Matt. 12:19). Never once did he become hysterical, or unduly excited. Never once did he fall in unconsciousness. Always his mind was clear under the anointing of the Holy Ghost. Perhaps we cannot too much exalt the blessed work of the Spirit, sending streams of healing, of peace, and of joy through what was once the wilderness of the human heart and making the desert blossom as the rose. Nevertheless, all Christians must be on guard against loving our Lord for his gift, rather than loving him as the giver. We love him for what he is, rather than for what he does for us. Remember, Judas was one disciple who prized Christ for what he thought he could get out of following him, rather than for what Christ was in himself. Thomas a’ Kempis, who died in 1471, wrote as follows: Many love Jesus so long as adversities happen not. Many praise and bless him, so long as they receive any consolations from him. But if Jesus hide himself, and leave them but a little while, they fall either into complaining, or into too much dejection of mind. But they who love Jesus for the sake of Jesus, and not for some special comfort of their own, bless him in all tribulation and anguish of heart, as well as in the state of highest comfort. And although he should never be willing to give them comfort, they notwithstanding would ever praise him, and wish to be always giving thanks. [41] 10. THE MEANING OF HOLINESS Sometimes it baffles the keenest intellect to formulate a clear-cut definition of many of the most common ideas in our minds. One reason why these ideas are so hard to define is
ecause a few of them stand in a perfectly unique position, having no other thing like them to which they can be compared. Stop for a minute and try to define life. The attempt will baffle most people, and those who succeed in satisfying themselves will probably fail to satisfy many others. Prof. Rudolph Otto has written a massive book "The Idea of the Holy", in which there is scarcely any mention of the kind of holiness with which we are concerned at this time. A brief reference to Dr. Otto’s views will, however, contribute to a better understanding of the present discussion. Dr. Otto thinks that men first came to be aware of the presence of God as a tremendous mystery that aroused fear and trembling in all who gained any perception of its reality. In the thought of these ancient, savage men there was at first no distinction between God and devil; for they supposed that both good and injury might come from that brooding mystery of power which gave man his life without any choice or foreknowledge on man’s part and suddenly withdrew that life like a man drawing his own breath back into his body. Before we leave Dr. Otto we ought to be reminded that the historic development of religion always has been, and continues to be, along the lines he has indicated, and there is no other way to begin a genuinely religious experience but by evoking an awakening of the fear of God in a person’s soul. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” To understand the meaning of heart holiness, we must go back to this tremendous mystery of all ancient religions. In the Old Testament the holy thing is understood as "the thing which belongs to God". Scan a good concordance and you note “holy ground,” “holy gift,” “holy garment,” “holy thing,” “holy crown,” “a holy act,” “holy anointing oil,” and so we might go on at great length. Everything which belonged to the Tabernacle or the Temple belonged to God just as a man’s house and furniture belong to that man. And everything which thus belonged to God was designated as holy. HOLY AND MOST HOLY At this point, there appears a paradoxical element in the idea of holiness which is likewise represented in the conception of personal property. That is, some things are more holy than others. From the standpoint of strict logic this is, of course, impossible. Since holy means the thing which belongs to God it is difficult to think of one thing as being more holy than another — that is, of God’s owning one thing any more than he owns another. Nevertheless, this same idea occurs in our own ordinary conception of property. A multimillionaire owns a great factory and a vast estate. Literally, he owns everything in the factory and every blade of grass on the vast estate. But there are certain private belongings which seem to have a special reference to him. They are his clothing, his bed, or his spectacles. A guest in the mansion sits on chairs belonging to the master, uses furniture belonging to the master, reads books and papers belonging to the master, but he dare not intrude into the master’s own bedroom where the master’s own clothing is, carry the master’s watch, and read the master’s diary and personal account books. These are the master’s peculiar, private, personal property. That is exactly the meaning of the text so often quoted: “Peculiar people, zealous of good works” (Tit. 2:14). That is also the meaning of the holy of holies in the ancient Temple. It was holier than the rest of the Temple because in a peculiar way it was the private, personal possession of God. Meditation on this subject will help us to understand the meaning of entire sanctification. There is a sense in which every Christian is holy, as has been so urgently asserted against the holiness people.
Page 1 and 2: THE MEANING OF SANCTIFICATION By Ch
Page 3 and 4: man is slain, another man is drowne
Page 5 and 6: most, if not all, specific instance
Page 7 and 8: views, because nearly every Christi
Page 9 and 10: transformed into the image of Chris
Page 11 and 12: conceivable methods of obtaining th
Page 13 and 14: an obscure feature of rock formatio
Page 15 and 16: Stanley Jones is an outstanding exa
Page 17 and 18: Christ. It is heaven begun here on
Page 19 and 20: sin: “We believe, also, that this
Page 21 and 22: which fully purifies the heart from
Page 23 and 24: state, which would make all of its
Page 25 and 26: Kepler ecstatically as he worked ou
Page 27 and 28: Here it could be said that it is no
Page 29 and 30: a perverted tendency to man’s wil
Page 31 and 32: northern latitudes and never saw an
Page 33 and 34: process as follows: METAPHORICAL EX
Page 35 and 36: might illustrate it in this way: A
Page 37 and 38: times, from the dawn of their exist
Page 39 and 40: thy seed, and my blessing upon thin
Page 41 and 42: While it is correct that the instin
Page 43: FEATURES OF THE VICTORIOUS LIFE Hav
Page 47 and 48: shalt break his neck: and all the f
Page 49 and 50: "Holiness is the glorious fullness
Page 51 and 52: which Wesleyan theologians call inb
Page 53 and 54: in order to give each its proper tr
Page 55 and 56: eing manifested in one respect by a
Page 57 and 58: consecration. He needs to tarry in
Page 59 and 60: undoubtedly the deepest saint would
Page 61 and 62: itemized form the solemn covenant t
Page 63 and 64: thine be done. [53] The famous Bapt
Page 65 and 66: make it eternal. No experimenting w
Page 67 and 68: 25 as pertaining to the time of Chr
Page 69 and 70: Ghost at their Baptism.” [60] Thi
Page 71 and 72: sinner.” The conditions of pardon
Page 73 and 74: est.” Other instances of the aori
Page 75 and 76: especially horrified at an instanta
Page 77 and 78: fullness of the Spirit? If gradual
Page 79 and 80: earnest effort is enjoined. The wor
Page 81 and 82: completed whole. See Alford on II T

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