Scriptural Sanctification - Media Sabda Org

Matthew vii. 21-23, and to whom Paul refers in I Corinthians xiii. 2, as well as men of modern times,
who, at least, seem to have a large degree of evangelistic power -- ability to reach others -- but who
have not themselves been reached by the saving grace of the gospel. This gift may also come to
converted men whose salvation is comparatively superficial, or, at least, is not complete, but who
seem to have on them the "burden of souls," and who have a good degree of, at least, apparent
success in winning them to Christ. How often is this the case with preachers and laymen, who are
very zealous for the salvation of others, but who feel before, during, and after the revival that their
own experience is not entirely satisfactory. This gift may also and very especially come to the
believer who has been profoundly and thoroughly saved, giving great power and success to His
efforts to save others.
3. Of the third kind, or "ethical" fullness of the Spirit, Dr. Steele well says that it "must imply
entire sanctification -- the permanent gracious presence in the soul of the Holy Spirit, in His fullness,
not as an extraordinary gift, but as a Person having the right of way through soul and body, having
the keys to even the Highest rooms, illuminating every closet and pervading every crevice of the
nature, filling the entire being with holy love. This we may call the ethical fullness, or the fullness
of righteousness, to distinguish it from the ecstatic and the charismatic fullness. 'Blessed are they that
hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.'"
Facts seem to indicate that the sanctified believer may have the fullness of the Spirit in only one
or in all three of these senses -- at least not have the first two in large measure. He may receive the
"ethical" fullness without much accompanying emotion or a very large bestowment of the gift of
prophecy or talent for usefulness; or he may have all three of these gifts come to him in abundant
measure at the hour when "the promise of the Father" is fulfilled in him by "the baptism of the Holy
Ghost."
Dr. Mudge seems right, then, in saying that "a baptism with the Holy Ghost ... may be a very great
thing or a comparatively small thing, something permanent or something evanescent, according to
circumstances." Also, that "being 'filled with the Holy Ghost' may mean much or more or most."
Both an "emotional" and a "charismatic" fullness may be "a comparatively small thing," and both
of them may be "evanescent," while an "ethical" fullness is a "very great thing," and may be
"something permanent." And this "ethical" work of the Spirit "may mean much or more or most"
under different dispensations and to different individuals under the same dispensation. It meant
"much" to Job, "more" to the apostles before Pentecost, and "most" to them afterwards. It may have
meant "much" to the twelve Ephesian disciples before they received John's baptism, and "more" after
that, and "most" when Paul, twenty years after Pentecost, "prayed for them" and "they received the
Holy Ghost" in still greater fullness. And so it may be today with different individuals under varying
circumstances, and of the same individual at different periods in His history.
Dr. Mudge not only doubts whether Cornelius and those Ephesian disciples were at the times
referred to the subjects of entire sanctification, in the Wesleyan meaning of that term, but he
entertains the same doubt concerning the apostles and others of the one hundred and twenty at
Pentecost. He would explain the great change wrought in and upon them by the fact of their passing
from a lower dispensation into that of the Spirit, in harmony with the theory propounded and
elaborated in some of the early chapters of this book. The chief, if not the only, difference between