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Chapter 3
Chapter 2. Sanctification. Sanctify them through thy truth. John 17, 17.
This is the will of God, even your sanctification. 1 Thessalonians 4, 3. The subject of sanctification is one which many, I fear, dislike exceedingly. Some even turn from it with scorn and disdain.
The very last thing they would like is to be a saint or a sanctified man. Yet the subject does not deserve to be treated in this way. It is not an enemy, but a friend.
It is the subject of the utmost importance to our souls. If the Bible be true, it is certain that unless we are sanctified, we shall not be saved. There are three things which, according to the Bible, are absolutely necessary to the salvation of every man and woman in Christendom.
These three are justification, regeneration, and sanctification. All three meet in every child of God. He is both born again, and justified, and sanctified.
He that lacks any one of these three things is not a true Christian in the sight of God, and dying in that condition will not be found in heaven and glorified in the last day. It is the subject which is peculiarly seasonable in the present day. Strange doctrines have risen up of late upon the whole subject of sanctification.
Some appear to confound it with justification. Others fritter it away to nothing, under the pretense of zeal for free grace, and practically neglect it altogether. Others are so much afraid of works being made a part of justification that they can hardly find any place at all for works in their religion.
Others set up a wrong standard of sanctification before their eyes, and failing to attain it, waste their lives in repeated successions from church to church, chapel to chapel, and sect to sect, in the vain hope that they will find what they want. In a day like this, a calm examination of the subject as a great leading doctrine of the gospel may be of great use to our souls. 1. Let us consider, firstly, the true nature of sanctification.
2. Let us consider, secondly, the visible marks of sanctification. 3. Let us consider, lastly, wherein justification and sanctification agree and are like one another, and wherein they differ and are unlike. If unhappily the reader of these pages is one of those who care for nothing but this world and make no profession of religion, I cannot expect him to take much interest in what I am writing.
You will probably think it an affair of words and names and nice questions, about which it matters nothing what you hold and believe. But if you are a thoughtful, reasonable, sensible Christian, I venture to say that you will find it worthwhile to have some clear ideas about sanctification. 1. In the first place, we have to consider the nature of sanctification.
What does the Bible mean when it speaks of a sanctified man? Sanctification is that inward spiritual work which the Lord Jesus Christ works in a man by the Holy Ghost when he calls him to be a true believer. He not only washes him from his sins in his own blood, but he also separates him from his natural love of sin and the world, puts a new principle in his heart, and makes him practically godly in life. The instrument by which the Spirit effects this work is generally the word of God, though he sometimes uses afflictions and providential visitations without the word.
1 Peter 3.1 The subject of this work of Christ by his Spirit is called in Scripture a sanctified man. Footnote There is mention in the Scripture of a twofold sanctification, and consequently in a twofold holiness. The first is common unto persons and things, consisting of the peculiar dedication, consecration, or separation of them unto the service of God by his own appointment, whereby they become holy.
Thus the priests and Levites of old, the ark, the altar, the tabernacle, and the temple, were sanctified and made holy. And indeed, in all holiness whatever, there is a peculiar dedication and separation unto God. But in the sense mentioned, this was solitary and alone.
No more belonged unto it but this sacred separation, nor was there any other effect of this sanctification. But secondly, there is another kind of sanctification and holiness, wherein this separation to God is not the first thing done or intended, but a consequent and effect thereof. This is real and internal, by the communicating of a principle of holiness unto our natures, attended with its exercise in acts and duties of holy obedience unto God.
This is that which we inquire after. A quote from John Owen on the Holy Spirit, Volume 3, page 370, from his works, Gould's edition. The end of the footnote.
He who supposes that Jesus Christ only lived and died and rose again, in order to provide justification and forgiveness of sins for his people, has yet much to learn. Whether he knows it or not, he is dishonoring our blessed Lord, and making him only half a savior. The Lord Jesus has undertaken everything that his people's souls require, not only to deliver them from the guilt of their sins by his atoning death, but from the dominion of their sins by placing in their hearts the Holy Spirit, not only to justify them, but also to sanctify them.
He is thus not only their righteousness, but their sanctification. 1 Corinthians 1.30 Let us hear what the Bible says. For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified.
Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it. Christ gave himself for us, that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works. Christ bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sins should live unto righteousness.
Christ hath reconciled you in the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreprovable in his sight. John 17.19, Ephesians 5.25, Titus 2.14, 1 Peter 2.24, Colossians 1.22 Let the meaning of these five texts be carefully considered. If words mean anything, they teach that Christ undertakes the sanctification no less than the justification of his believing people.
Both are alike provided for in that everlasting covenant ordered in all things and sure, of which the mediator is Christ. In fact, Christ in one place is called, He that sanctifyeth, and his people, they who are sanctified. Hebrews 2.11 The subject before us is of such deep and vast importance that it requires fencing, guarding, clearing up, and marking out on every side.
A doctrine which is needful to salvation can never be too sharply developed or brought too fully into light. To clear away the confusion between doctrines and doctrines, which is so unhappily common among Christians, and to map out the precise relation between truths and truths in religion, is one way to attain accuracy in our theology. I shall therefore not hesitate to lay before my readers a series of connected propositions or statements drawn from scripture, which I think will be found useful in defining the exact nature of sanctification.
1. Sanctification then is the invariable result of that vital union with Christ which true faith gives to a Christian. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. John 15.5 The branch which bears no fruit is no living branch of the vine.
The union with Christ which produces no effect on heart and life is a mere formal union which is worthless before God. The faith which has not a sanctifying influence on the character is no better than the faith of devils. It is a dead faith because it is alone.
It is not the gift of God. It is not the faith of God the left. In short, where there is no sanctification of life, there is no real faith in Christ.
True faith worketh by love. It constrains a man to live unto the Lord from a deep sense of gratitude for redemption. It makes him feel that he can never do too much for him that died for him.
Being much forgiven, he loves much. He whom the blood cleanses walks in the light. He who has real lively hope in Christ purifies himself even as he is pure.
James 2.17-20 Titus 1.1 Galatians 5.6 1 John 1.7 3.3 2. Sanctification again is the outcome and inseparable consequence of regeneration. He that is born again and made a new creature receives a new nature and a new principle and always lives a new life. A regeneration which a man can have and yet live carelessly in sin or worldliness is a regeneration invented by uninspired theologians but never mentioned in Scripture.
On the contrary, St. John expressly says that he that is born of God does not commit sin, doeth righteousness, loveth the brethren, keepeth himself, and overcometh the world. 1 John 2.29 3.9-14 5.4-18 In a word where there is no sanctification there is no regeneration and where there is no holy life there is no new birth. This is no doubt a hard saying to many minds but hard or not it is simple Bible truth.
It is written plainly that he who is born of God is one whose seed remaineth in him and he cannot sin because he is born of God. 1 John 3.9 3. Sanctification again is the only certain evidence of that indwelling of the Holy Spirit which is essential to salvation. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ he is none of his.
Romans 8.9 The Spirit never lies dormant and idle within the soul. He always makes his presence known by the fruit he causes to be born in heart, character, and life. The fruit of the Spirit, says St. Paul, is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance, and such like.
Galatians 5.22 Where these things are to be found there is the Spirit. Where these things are wanting men are dead before God. The Spirit is compared to the wind and like the wind he cannot be seen by our bodily eyes.
But just as we know there is a wind by the effect it produces on waves and trees and smoke, so we may know the Spirit is in a man by the effects he produces in the man's conduct. It is nonsense to suppose that we have the Spirit if we do not also walk in the Spirit. Galatians 5.25 We may depend on it as a positive certainty that where there is no holy living there is no holy ghost.
The seal that the Spirit stamps on Christ's people is sanctification. As many as are actually led by the Spirit of God they, and they only, are the sons of God. Romans 8.14 Number 4 Sanctification again is the only sure mark of God's election.
The names and number of the elect are a secret thing no doubt which God has wisely kept in his own power and not revealed to man. It is not given to us in this world to study the pages of the book of life and see if our names are there. But if there is one thing clearly and plainly laid down about election it is this, that elect men and women may be known and distinguished by holy lives.
It is expressly written that they are elect through sanctification chosen unto salvation through sanctification predestinated to be conformed to the image of God's Son and chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world that they should be holy. Hence when St. Paul saw the working faith and laboring love and patient hope of the Thessalonian believers he says I know your election of God. 1 Peter 1.2 2 Thessalonians 2.13 Romans 8.29 Ephesians 1.4 and 1 Thessalonians 1.3-4 He that boasts of being one of God's elect while he is willfully and habitually living in sin is only deceiving himself and talking wicked blasphemy.
Of course it is hard to know what people really are and many who make a fair show outwardly in religion may turn out at last to be rotten hearted hypocrites. But where there is not at least some appearance of sanctification we may be quite certain there is no election. The church catechism correctly and wisely teaches that the Holy Ghost sanctifies all the elect people of God.
Number 5 Sanctification again is a thing that will always be seen. Like the great head of the church from which it springs it cannot be hid. Every tree is known by his own fruit.
Luke 6.44 A truly sanctified person may be so clothed with humility that he can see in himself nothing but infirmity and defects. Like Moses when he came down from the mount he may not be conscious that his face shines. Like the righteous in the mighty parable of the sheep and the goats he may not see that he has done anything worthy of his master's notice and commendation.
When saw we thee and hungered and fed thee. Matthew 25.37 But whether he sees it himself or not others will always see in him a tone and taste in character and habit of life unlike that of other men. The very idea of a man being sanctified while no holiness can be seen in his life is flat nonsense and a misuse of words.
Light may be very dim but if there is only a spark in a dark room it will be seen. Life may be very feeble but if the pulse only beats a little it will be felt. It is just the same with the sanctified man.
His sanctification will be something felt and seen though he himself may not understand it. A saint in whom nothing can be seen but worldliness or sin is a kind of monster not recognized in the Bible. Sanctification again is the thing for which every believer is responsible.
In saying this I would not be mistaken. I hold as strongly as anyone that every man on earth is accountable to God and that all the lost will be speechless and without excuse at the last day. Every man has power to lose his own soul.
Matthew 16 verse 26 But while I hold this I maintain that believers are eminently and peculiarly responsible and under a special obligation to live holy lives. They are not as others dead and blind and unrenewed. They are alive unto God and have light and knowledge and a new principle within them.
Whose fault is it if they are not holy but their own? On whom can they throw the blame if they are not sanctified but themselves? God has given them grace and a new heart and a new nature. Has deprived them of all excuse if they do not live for his praise. This is a point which is far too much forgotten.
A man who professes to be a true Christian while he still sits content with a very low degree of sanctification if indeed he has any at all and coolly tells you that he can do nothing is a very pitiable sight and a very ignorant man. Against this delusion let us watch and be on our guard. The word of God always addresses its precepts to believers as accountable and responsible beings.
If the savior of sinners gives us renewing grace and calls us by his spirit we may be sure that he expects us to use our grace and not to go to sleep. It is forgetfulness of this which causes many believers to grieve the Holy Spirit and makes them very useless and uncomfortable Christians. Number 7 Sanctification again is a thing which admits of growth and degrees.
A man may climb from one step to another in holiness and be far more sanctified at one period of his life than another. More pardoned and more justified than he is when he first believes he cannot be though he may feel it more. More sanctified he certainly may be because every grace in his new character may be strengthened, enlarged and deepened.
This is the evident meaning of our Lord's last prayer for his disciples when he used the words sanctify them and of St. Paul's prayer for the Thessalonians the very God of peace sanctify you. John 17, verse 17 and 1 Thessalonians 4, 3 In both cases the expression plainly implies the possibility of increased sanctification while such an expression as justify them is never once in Scripture applied to a believer because he cannot be justified more than he is. I can find no warrant in Scripture for the doctrine of imputed sanctification.
It is a doctrine which seems to me to confuse things that differ and to lead to very evil consequences. Not least it is a doctrine which is flatly contradicted by the experience of all the most eminent Christians. If there is any point on which God's holiest saints agree it is this that they see more and know more and feel more and do more and repent more and believe more as they get on in spiritual life and in proportion to the closeness of their walk with God.
In short they grow in grace as Saint Peter exhorts believers to do and abound more and more according to the words of Saint Paul 2 Peter 3.18 and 1 Thessalonians 4.1 Number 8 Sanctification again is a thing which depends greatly on a diligent use of scriptural means. When I speak of means I have in view Bible reading private prayer regular attendance on public worship regular hearing of God's word and regular reception of the Lord's Supper. I lay it down as a simple matter of fact that no one who is careless about such things must ever expect to make much progress in sanctification.
I can find no record of any eminent saint who ever neglected them. They are appointed channels through which the Holy Spirit conveys fresh supplies of grace to the soul and strengthens the work which He has begun in the inward man. Let men call this legal doctrine if they please but I will never shrink from declaring my belief that there are no spiritual gains without pains.
I should as soon expect a farmer to prosper in business who contented himself with sowing his fields and never looking at them till harvest as expect a believer to attain much holiness who is not diligent about his Bible reading his prayers and the use of his Sundays. Our God is a God who works by means and He will never bless the soul of that man who pretends to be so high in spiritual that He can get on without them. Number 9 Sanctification again is a thing which does not prevent a man having a great deal of inward spiritual conflict.
By conflict I mean a struggle within the heart between the old nature and the new the flesh and the spirit which are to be found together in every believer. Galatians 5 17 A deep sense of that struggle and a vast amount of mental discomfort from it are no proof that a man is not sanctified. Nay rather I believe they are healthy symptoms of our condition and prove that we are not dead but alive.
A true Christian is one who has not only peace of conscience but war within. He may be known by his warfare as well as by his peace. In saying this I do not forget that I am contradicting the views of some well-meaning Christians who hold a doctrine called sinless perfection.
I cannot help that. I believe that what I say is confirmed by the language of Saint Paul in the 7th chapter of Romans. That chapter I commend to the careful study of all my readers.
I am quite satisfied that it does not describe the experience of an unconverted man or of a young and unestablished Christian but of an old experienced saint in close communion with God. None but such a man could say I delight in the law of God after the inward man. Romans 7.22 I believe furthermore that what I say is proved by the experience of all the most eminent servants of Christ that have ever lived.
The full proof is to be seen in their journals their autobiographies and their lives. Believing all this I shall never hesitate to tell people that inward conflict is no proof that a man is not holy and that they must not think they are not sanctified because they do not feel entirely free from inward struggle. Such freedom we shall doubtless have in heaven but we shall never enjoy it in this world.
The heart of the best Christian even at his best is a field occupied by two rival camps and the company of two armies. Canticles 6.13 Let the words of the thirteenth and fifteenth articles be well considered by all churchmen. The infection of nature doth remain in them that are regenerated.
Although baptized and born again in Christ we offend in many things and if we say that we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. Footnote The devil's war is better than the devil's peace. Suspect dumb holiness.
When the dog is kept out of doors he howls to be let in again. Contraries meeting such as fire and water conflict with one another. When Satan findeth a sanctified heart he tempteth with much importunity.
Where there is much of God and of Christ there are strong injections and firebrands casting at the windows so that some of much faith have been tempted to doubt. A quote from Rutherford's Trial of Faith page 403 End of footnote. Number 10 Sanctification again is a thing which cannot justify a man and yet it pleases God.
This may seem wonderful and yet it is true. The holiest actions of the holiest saint that ever lived are all more or less full of defects and imperfections. They are either wrong in their motive or defective in their performance and in themselves are nothing better than splendid sins deserving God's wrath and condemnation.
To suppose that such actions can stand the severity of God's judgment atone for sin and merit heaven is simply absurd. By the deeds of the law shall no flesh be justified. We conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.
Romans 3 verses 20-28 The only righteousness in which we can appear before God is the righteousness of another even the perfect righteousness of our substitute and representative Jesus Christ the Lord. His work and not our work is our only title to heaven. This is the truth which we should be ready to die to maintain.
For all this however the Bible distinctly teaches that the holy actions of a sanctified man although imperfect are pleasing in the sight of God. With such sacrifices God is well pleased. Hebrews 13 verse 16 Obey your parents for this is well pleasing to the Lord.
Galatians 3 verse 20 We do those things that are pleasing in his sight. 1 John 3 verse 22 Let this never be forgotten for it is a very comfortable doctrine. Just as a parent is pleased with the efforts of his little child to please him though it be only by picking a daisy or walking across the room so is our Father in heaven pleased with the poor performances of his believing children.
He looks at the motive principle and intention of their actions and not merely at their quantity and quality. He regards them as members of his own dear son and for his sake wherever there is a single eye he is well pleased. Those churchmen who dispute this would do well to study the twelfth article of the Church of England.
Number 11 Sanctification again is a thing which will be found absolutely necessary as a witness to our character in the great day of judgment. It will be utterly useless to plead that we believed in Christ unless our faith has had some sanctifying effect and been seen in our lives. Evidence, they got there.
Heaven is essentially a holy place, its inhabitants are all holy, its occupations are all holy. To be really happy in heaven it is clear and plain that we must be somewhat trained and made ready for heaven while we are on earth. The notion of a purgatory after death which shall turn sinners into saints is a lying invention of man and is nowhere taught in the Bible.
We must be saints before we die if we are to be saints afterwards in glory. The favorite idea of many that dying men need nothing except absolution and forgiveness of sins to fit them for their great change is a profound delusion. We need the work of the Holy Spirit as well as the work of Christ.
We need renewal of the heart as well as the atoning blood. We need to be sanctified as well as to be justified. It is common to hear people saying on their deathbeds, I only want the Lord to forgive me my sins and take me to rest.
But those who say such things forget that the rest of heaven would be utterly useless if we had no heart to enjoy it. What could an unsanctified man do in heaven if by any chance he got there? Let that question be fairly looked in the face and fairly answered. No man can possibly be happy in a place where he is not in his element and where all around him is not congenial to his tastes, habits, and character.
When an eagle is happy in an iron cage, when a sheep is happy in the water, when an owl is happy in the blaze of noonday sun, when a fish is happy on dry land, then and not till then will I admit that the unsanctified man could be happy in heaven. Footnote. There is no imagination wherewith man is besotted, more foolish, none so pernicious as this, that persons not sanctified, not purified, not made holy in their life should afterwards be taken into that state of blessedness which consists in the enjoyment of God.
Neither can such persons enjoy God, nor would God be a reward to them. Holiness indeed is perfected in heaven, but the beginning of it is invariably confined to this world. John Owen, On the Holy Spirit, page 575, Gould's edition.
End of the footnote. I lay down these twelve propositions about sanctification with a firm persuasion that they are true, and I ask all who read these pages to ponder them well. Each of them would admit of being expanded and handled more fully, and all of them deserve private thought and consideration.
Some of them may be disputed and contradicted, but I doubt whether any of them can be overthrown or proved untrue. I only ask for them a fair and impartial hearing. I believe in my conscience that they are likely to assist man in attaining clear views of sanctification.
Number two. I now proceed to take up the second point which I propose to consider. That point is the visible evidence of sanctification.
In a word, what are the visible marks of a sanctified man? What may we expect to see in him? This is a very wide and difficult department of our subject. It is wide because it necessitates the mention of many details which cannot be handled fully in the limits of a paper like this. It is difficult because it cannot possibly be treated without giving offense, but at any risk, truth ought to be spoken, and there is some kind of truth which especially requires to be spoken in the present day.
Number one. True sanctification then does not consist in talk about religion. This is a point which ought never to be forgotten.
The vast increase of education and preaching in these latter days makes it absolutely necessary to raise a warning voice. People hear so much of gospel truth that they contract an unholy familiarity with its words and phrases, and sometimes talk so fluently about its doctrines that you might think them true Christians. In fact, it is sickening and disgusting to hear the cruel and flippant language which may pour out about conversion, the Savior, the gospel, finding peace, free grace, and the like while they are notoriously serving sin or living for the world.
Can we doubt that such talk is abominable in God's sight, and is little better than cursing, swearing, and taking God's name in vain? The tongue is not the only member that Christ bids us give to his service. God does not want his people to be mere empty tubs, sounding brass, and tinkling cymbals. We must be sanctified not only in word and in tongue, but indeed in truth.
1 John 3.18. 2. True sanctification does not consist in temporary religious feelings. This again is a point about which a warning is greatly needed. Mission services and revival meetings are attracting great attention in every part of the land, and producing a great sensation.
The Church of England seems to have taken a new lease of life and exhibits a new activity, and we ought to thank God for it. But these things have their attendant dangers as well as their advantages. Wherever wheat is sown, the devil is sure to sow tares.
Many, it may be feared, appear moved and touched and roused under the preaching of the gospel, while in reality their hearts are not changed at all. A kind of animal excitement from the contagion of seeing others weeping, rejoicing, or affected is the true account of their case. Their wounds are only skin deep, and the peace they profess to feel is skin deep also.
Like the stony ground hearers, they receive the word with joy. Matthew 13.20. But after a little they fall away, go back to the world, and are harder and worse than before. Like Jonah's gourd, they come up suddenly in the night and perish in the night.
Let these things not be forgotten. Let us beware in this day of healing wounds slightly and crying, Peace, peace, when there is no peace. Let us urge on everyone who exhibits new interest in religion to be content with nothing short of the deep, solid, sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost.
Reaction after false religious excitement is a most deadly disease of the soul. When the devil is only temporarily cast out of a man in the heat of a revival, and by and by returns to his house, the last date becomes worse than the first. Better a thousand times begin more slowly, and then continue in the word steadfastly, than begin in a hurry without counting the cost, and by and by look back with Lot's wife and return to the world.
I declare I know no state of soul more dangerous than to imagine we are born again and sanctified by the Holy Ghost because we have picked up a few religious feelings. Number three. True sanctification does not consist in outward formalism and external devoutness.
This is an enormous delusion, but unhappily a very common one. Thousands appear to imagine that true holiness is to be seen in an excessive quantity of bodily religion, in constant attendance on church services, reception of the Lord's Supper, and observance of fasts and saints days, in multiplied bowings and turnings and gestures and postures during public worship, in self-imposed austerities and petty self-denials, in wearing peculiar dresses and the use of pictures and crosses. I freely admit that some people take up these things from conscientious motives and actually believe that they help their souls, but I am afraid that in many cases this external religiousness is made a substitute for inward holiness, and I am quite certain that it falls utterly short of sanctification of heart.
Above all, when I see that many followers of this outward sensuous and formal style of Christianity are absorbed in worldliness and plunge headlong into its pumps and vanities without shame, I feel that there is need of very plain speaking on the subject. There may be an immense amount of bodily service, while there is not a jot of real sanctification. Number four.
Sanctification does not consist in retirement from our place in life and the renunciation of our social duties. In every age it has been a snare with many to take up this line in the pursuit of holiness. Hundreds of hermits have buried themselves in some wilderness, and thousands of men and women have shut themselves up within the walls of monasteries and convents under the vain idea that by so doing they would escape sin and become eminently holy.
They have forgotten that no bolts and bars can keep out the devil, and that wherever we go we carry that root of all evil, our own hearts. To become a monk or a nun or to join a house of mercy is not the high road to sanctification. True holiness does not make a Christian evade difficulties, but faith and overcome them.
Christ would have his people show that his grace is not a mere hothouse plant, which can only thrive under shelter, but a strong hearty thing which can flourish in every relation of life. It is doing our duty in that state to which God has called us, like salt in the midst of corruption and light in the midst of darkness, which is the primary element in sanctification. It is not the man who hides himself in a cave, but the man who glorifies God as master or servant, parent or child, in the family and in the street, in business and in trade, who is the scriptural type of a sanctified man.
Our Master himself said in his last prayer, I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from evil. John 17 verse 15. Number 5. Sanctification does not consist in the occasional performance of right actions.
It is the habitual working of a new heavenly principle within, which runs through all a man's daily conduct, both in great things and in small. Its seat is in the heart, and like the heart in the body, it has a regular influence on every part of the character. It is not like a pump which only sends forth water when worked upon from without, but like a perpetual fountain from which a stream is ever flowing spontaneously and naturally.
Even Herod, when he heard John the Baptist, did many things while his heart was utterly wrong in the sight of God. Mark 6 20. Just so there are scores of people in the present day who seem to have spasmodical fits of goodness, as it is called, and do many right things under the influence of sickness, affliction, death in the family, public calamities, or a sudden qualm of conscience.
Yet all the time any intelligent observer can see plainly that they are not converted and that they know nothing of sanctification. A true saint like Hezekiah will be wholehearted. He will count God's commandments concerning all things to be right and hate every false way.
2 Chronicles 31 21 and Psalm 119 verse 104. Number 6. Genuine sanctification will show itself in habitual respect to God's law and habitual effort to live in obedience to it as the rule of life. There is no greater mistake than to suppose that a Christian has nothing to do with the law and the Ten Commandments because he cannot be justified by keeping them.
The same Holy Ghost who convinces the believer of sin by the law and leads him to Christ for justification will always lead him to a spiritual use of the law as a friendly guide in the pursuit of sanctification. Our Lord Jesus Christ never made light of the Ten Commandments. On the contrary, in his first public discourse, the Sermon on the Mount, he expounded them and showed the searching nature of their requirements.
St. Paul never made light of the law. On the contrary, he says, the law is good if a man use it lawfully. I delight in the law of God after the inward man.
1st Timothy 1 8 and Romans 7 22. He that pretends to be a saint while he sneers at the Ten Commandments and thinks nothing of lying, hypocrisy, swindling, ill-temper, slander, drunkenness, and breach of the seventh commandment is under a fearful delusion. He will find it hard to prove that he is a saint in the last day.
7. Genuine sanctification will show itself in a habitual endeavor to do Christ's will and to live by his practical precepts. These precepts are to be found scattered everywhere throughout the four Gospels and especially in the Sermon on the Mount. He that supposes they were spoken without the intention of promoting holiness and that a Christian need not attend to them in his daily life is really little better than a lunatic and at any rate is a grossly ignorant person.
To hear some men talk and read some men's writings, one might imagine that our blessed Lord when he was on earth never taught anything but doctrine and left practical duties to be taught by others. The slightest knowledge of the four Gospels ought to tell us that this is a complete mistake. What his disciples ought to be and to do is continually brought forward in our Lord's teaching.
A truly sanctified man will never forget this. He serves a master who said, ye are my friends if ye do whatsoever I command you. John 15 verse 14.
Number 8. Genuine sanctification will show itself in a habitual desire to live up to the standard which St. Paul sets before the churches in his writings. That standard is to be found in the closing chapters of nearly all his epistles. This Reformation audio track is a production of Stillwater's Revival Books.
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Or by mail at 4710-37A Edmonton Alberta Canada T6L3T5. You may also request a free printed catalog. And remember that John Kelvin in defending the Reformation's regulative principle of worship or what is sometimes called the scriptural law of worship commenting on the words of God which I commanded them not neither came into my heart from his commentary on Jeremiah 731 writes God here cuts off from men every occasion for making evasions since he condemns by this one phrase I have not commanded them whatever the Jews devised there is then no other argument needed to condemn superstitions and that they are not commanded by God for when men allow themselves to worship God according to their own fancies and attend not to his commands they pervert through religion and if this principle was adopted by the papists all those fictitious modes of worship in which they absurdly exercise themselves would fall to the ground it is indeed a horrible thing for the papists to seek to discharge their duties towards God by performing their own superstitions there is an immense number of them as it is well known and as it manifestly appears were they to admit this principle that we cannot rightly worship God except by obeying his word they would be delivered from their deep abyss of air the prophets words then are very important when he says that God had commanded no such thing and that it never came to his mind as though he had said that men assume too much wisdom when they devise what he never required nay what he never knew