Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

in his heart as he was of previous guilt and pardon, and of a mixed experience of love, joy, and peace
resulting therefrom.
Indeed, we are satisfied that the knowledge or assurance of this fact is clearer and much more
satisfactory. Dr. Steele calls attention to the very important fact that
"after the Holy Ghost was given [at Pentecost], a word came into the Greek Testament which is not
found in the four Gospels [containing records of pre-Pentecostal facts], a strengthened form of the
word 'knowledge' -- epignosis -- meaning exact, clear, full, perfect, satisfactory knowledge of course
not exhaustive knowledge of God and spiritual things [for we may forever grow in that sort of
knowledge]. All these adjectives are used by the various great scholars of the age now living, and
some who have passed away -- by Meyer, Bishops Lightfoot, Ellicott, and Westcott, and Dean
Alford, and many others."
Dr. Steele notes, too, that "the ordinary word for 'knowledge' in classic Greek is gnosis; but that
Paul adds an intensive prefix to it, changing it to epignosis, giving it a stronger meaning. Peter in
three instances follows Paul's example." Hence we have "full assurance of faith," "full assurance of
hope," "full assurance of understanding," etc., in the Authorized Version of their writings, and
"perfect knowledge," "clear knowledge," etc., in other versions.
Dean Alford, whom a well-informed, scholarly, and spiritual divine calls "one of the most
eminent men of England, who spent his life on the Greek Testament," is uniform and emphatic in
rendering this prefix with some such adjective as "full," "perfect," "thorough," etc., making it "full"
or "perfect knowledge," in such passages as Ephesians iv. 13; Colossians ii. 2; 2 Timothy iii. 7; 2
Peter i. 8, etc.
And we are fully prepared to see the superiority of this experimental knowledge over that which
comes from reasoning, when we remember, as Dr. Steele says, that
"God reveals himself to us through his Son Jesus Christ, but he communicates himself to us through
the Holy Spirit. This is the beautiful relation of the three persons in the Trinity: God the Father
revealing himself to the world, to our intelligence, to our faith, in his Son Jesus Christ, but giving
a direct and experimental knowledge of himself by communicating himself to our spiritual intuitions
through the person of the Holy Ghost."
And we believe that if every disciple of Christ will wait on him in consecration and faith for his
personal Pentecost, he will receive "the fullness of the Holy Ghost," and that God by his Spirit will
be "imported into the very center of his being," carrying to his soul a "full knowledge" of himself.
Then it may be said of him as Dr. Steele says of Paul:
"He will be neither a gnostic, implying a conceit of spiritual knowledge; nor an agnostic,
professing ignorance of revealed truth; nor a merognostic, having only doubtful glimpses of divine
verities; but he will be an epignostic, rejoicing in perfect assurance of spiritual realities."