2. The Meaning of Sanctification - Enter His Rest

undoubtedly the deepest saint would not dare to spurn the opportunity to pray for more of
God. If a public call is made, asking: “Who desires to get nearer to God, to become more
spiritual, to live closer to God?” undoubtedly it will be the most spiritual and the most
deeply consecrated who will respond to such a call. This fact has made appeals to
reconsecration very popular among us, and the response to such appeals is usually so
satisfactory that no afterthought is ever given to the significance of such an appeal. But I
believe that the whole subject deserves more consideration in the light of the doctrine of
entire sanctification.
We often hear it said that there are unconsecrated areas in the life of every Christian, and
it is his business to consecrate these areas as he discovers them. To say the least, this is an
unfortunate way of expressing whatever truth there is in the theory, because it is, in form
at least, a complete surrender of the doctrine of entire sanctification as a crisis experience,
once for all, in human life.
This theory of unconsecrated areas of life is simply a statement of the doctrine of gradual
sanctification, and is fully consistent with such a theory. If the unexplored regions of life
are therefore unconsecrated, it is simply impossible for any man to be wholly consecrated
at any time before the moment of his death, because who knows what regions of life lie
around him as yet unexplored.
The doctrine of entire sanctification teaches that when the center and core of a man’s
heart is consecrated, then all of these outlying regions are likewise consecrated, too.
When a Christian sets up the flag of Immanuel on the continent of his soul he means that
all the areas of that continent belong to the King Immanuel, whether he ever makes an
intellectual discovery of them or not.
Sometimes a theory of reconsecration may cover a false view of a Christian’s mission in
life. It is possible, for example, to think of a Christian duty to master every possible phase
of living and fill it with success. This, however, is a false view of the meaning of life, as a
little reflection will show anyone. It is the work of Christian asceticism to give up the
good things of life in order that the best may thereby be cultivated. We cut off a dozen
good roses in order that the best rose may flower to its finest development. This is a
commonplace of natural life. A boy destroys his possibilities to be a doctor, a musician, a
lawyer, or a skilled mechanic in order to be an expert accountant. He actually sacrifices
all these other possibilities in order to realize this one which he prizes most. The idea of
the Christian life is not to be a Jack-of-all-trades, but to be a master of one, a specialist in
some spiritual realm of divine service. At least such a spiritual specialism is just as
worthy as an attempt to develop all the possibilities of life. A Christian young man gives
up, let us say, the possibility of developing his talents in any one of a dozen different
ways in America in order to give all his strength to the development of his talent as a
missionary in foreign lands. St. Francis of Assisi was, according to the record, a
marvelous saint but he had no experience in life as husband and father, or in the joyful
fellowship of a Christian in a modern evangelical church.
How a consecrated man should regard these areas of life, these potential personalities,
which he has no call or duty to develop in himself. Let us suppose that a young Christian
discovers an area of life in which he feels it is his duty to work, and yet he finds himself
unequal to his responsibility. Here the proper method is not to reconsecrate, but to
reaffirm his consecration, and then begin the slow and sometimes tedious task of
acquiring spiritual skill in the realm of Christian life where he would labor. A young man
consecrates himself, let us say, to be an artist, but he finds that his hands are unskilled.
The pictures he draws are crude. He does not need to consecrate again, but he needs to
devote himself, to train his hands, until the vision of beauty in his brain gradually masters
the clumsiness of his hands and the skill of his hands comes to match the vision of his