13 - Entire Sanctification
Entire Sanctification
"Our religion is not a system of ideas about Christ. It is Christ. To believe in Him is what? To say a creed? To join a church? No; but to have a great, strong, divine Master, whom we perfectly love, whom we perfectly trust, whom we will follow anywhere, and who, as we follow Him or walk by His side, is always drawing out in us our true nature and making us determined to be true to it through everything, is always compelling us to see through falsehood and find the deepest truth."
Phillips Brooks No series of studies in this subject of Christian holiness could be complete if it did not include, at some point, a deliberate encounter with the word, "sanctification." There is scarcely a more precious or meaningful word in our Christian terminology. It is definitely Scriptural; for although it is an English word built from Latin forms, it truly translates to us its New Testament Greek original. The central idea of the word, both in the Greek and in the English, is set-apartness. How many Christian believers there are who have longed that their inner life might be like a temple entirely set-apart to the Lord, and continually filled with the purifying Shekinah of His presence! Well, the Scriptures teach us that such an inward condition is possible. But how many believers there are who have been discouraged from seeking and finding the reality of it because of perplexing theories such as those which we have disapproved in our earlier pages! So long as we still cling to that "counteraction" error of a supposed "old nature" in us which can never be sanctified, but must live on inside us like a contaminating lodger to our dying day, we shall never know the joy of "entire sanctification"; but that theory cannot bear the true light of Scripture upon it, as we have seen. (For a thorough discussion of this see our companion volume, His Deeper Work In Us.)
What we say here will be very simple. It need not be otherwise. We quote just one text, not to expound it, but simply to show that the Scripture does indeed teach "entire sanctification", with no place for a supposed "old nature" which cannot be sanctified. The text is 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24.
"And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and may your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is He that calleth you [to this entire sanctification] who also will do [or effect] it."
If that resplendent text does not teach in plainest wording anentiresanctification of the whole threefold territory—"spirit and soul and body", of which our human constitution is comprised, and if it does not teach anentiremoral blamelessness as the result of a divine work within the believer, then what language could? Let the very forthrightness of the promise capture our grateful hearts!
Let us grasp the fact that this text teaches an experiential sanctification. I stress that because in many verses of Scripture where sanctification is spoken of, the reference is to positional sanctification. There is indeed a sense in which the Christian believer becomes positionally "sanctified" from the very first moment of union with Christ through conversion and regeneration. Just as truly as the born-again believer has immediate justification in the sight of God through the imputed righteousness of Christ, so is there an immediate sanctification in the sight of God through the representative, all-covering holiness of Christ. Here, however, we are concerned, not with this positional sanctification, but with practical sanctification in the believer’s heart and life. On the human side this entire sanctification is an entire and continuous yieldedness and obedience (set-apartness) to God. From the divine side it is an entire possession and use of the yielded vessel; an unobstructed infilling of the believer by the Holy Spirit, a penetrative renewing of the moral nature which decisively breaks the tyranny of inherent depravity, and lifts the mind into an experience of dominant holiness in all its spontaneous impulses, desires, motives, and inclinations. This is not any so-called "sinless perfection", but it is full suffusion by the Holy Spirit, in which the believer’s continuous abiding in Christ is answered by the Holy Spirit’s continuous renewing of the believer’s moral nature—heart, mind, soul, contemplations, reactions, aspirations, aims and urges. It is the fullest present abiding in Christ, accompanied by the fullest spiritual abounding in Christ, and resulting in truest character-likeness to Christ. The entirely sanctified believer is not yet in heaven. He does not yet have a supernalized resurrection-body which has no response to animal attractions. He still has a body with response to earthly appeals. Not being yet in heaven, he does not yet have a mind utterly permeated and perfected by dwelling in that ineffable divine light in which sin absolutely cannot exist. He can still feel the pull of temptation. He is still sensitively susceptible to allurements of the flesh. In answer to stimulants or aggravations or injections from without, subtle movings within may pressure him sinwards, unless there is uninterrupted renewal of the mind by the Holy Spirit. Yet the power of "the flesh" is really broken. There is true release from bondage. There is indeed an inward transformation and refining. All the highest and best is now greatly strengthened; the base, the mean, the sin-tending is greatly weakened. The mind is now more and more habitually set on the holy. The nature which has been chronically sinward becomes fundamentally Godward.
Sin-response is an exquisitely subtle evil in our nature; often it moves through imperceptibly delicate processes of the mind, and only becomes recognizably sin to our mental perception when it has already in part deceived and drawn us. That is still true even in the entirely sanctified. There will always be sin to resist in this present life. Yet this also is true, that where there is entire sanctification the main bent of mind and heart is against sin, whether it invades from without or is subtly induced from within. Therefore victory now comes through living above it, rather than fighting it down on its own level.
There can, of course, be fluctuations of abiding in Christ, with suspensions of the Holy Spirit’s full operation within the believer; yet there is no necessity for such intermissions, nor need we envisage them. The point which we here make is, that when, on the human side, there is this complete set-apartness to God, then those precious results of "entire sanctification" follow which we have eagerly described.
Accompaniments As with conversion, so with this inward sanctification: the experience of it is not identical in any two persons. Much has to do with the type of personality and disposition; also the Holy Spirit exercises His gracious sovereignty in continually new patterns. Yet there are certain accompaniments of the blessing which seem more or less inseparable from it.
There is the witness of the Spirit. Verses like the following leap into vivid experience. "The Spirit himself beareth witness with our spirit that we are the children of God" (Romans 8:16). "He which hath anointed us is God, who hath also sealed us, and given us the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts" (2 Corinthians 1:22)—such wording evidently signifying a conscious inner realization of the Spirit’s indwelling. "He that believeth on the Son hath the witness in himself" (1 John 5:10). This inward witness by the Holy Spirit, deep down in the human consciousness, is a joy-inspiring and often vivid reality to the entirely sanctified. It is too definite and recognisable to be confused with any kind of dreamy or excited autosuggestion. It is not necessarily a continuous emotional attestation. More often, perhaps, it is the presence of an unmistakably God-given assurance which steadies, sustains, uplifts, and gladdens the mind. It confers no infallibility of knowledge. It is no mere visitation of visions and impressions. All such notions are far astray. In times of busy mental activity or other workday absorptions it is often more-or-less subconscious, but it is there, giving a soul-deep, unbroken awareness of God and of divine guidance. One cannot read the New Testament references to this witness of the Spirit without seeing that in the first days it was a definite reality to the early Christians, and that it is meant to be known by all the Lord’s people. Where there is entire sanctification it is still a wondrous reality.
Then, again, entire sanctification brings the promised enduement of power; the "power from on high". Did not our Saviour say, "Behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; tarry ye ... until ye be endued with power from on high"? (Luke 24:49). Did He not also say, "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you; and [in that power] ye shall be witnesses unto Me"? (Acts 1:8). Entire sanctification brings with it, in one way or another, that "enduement"—and how indispensable it is, if there is to be a prevailing witness for Christ! How unspeakably vital it is to those of us who are in whole-time Christian ministry!
Let me not seem to make a distinction which is not real, but this heavenly enduement is specifically a spiritual equipment for Christian service, for witness-bearing, for "holding forth the Word of life" (Php 2:16). This enduement was upon Stephen when his traducers were "not able to withstand the wisdom and the Spirit by which he spoke" (Acts 6:10). This enduement was upon Paul when in Corinth he preached "in demonstration of the Spirit and of power" (1 Corinthians 2:4); the "power" was in the preacher, the "demonstration" was in the hearer. That is how spiritual work is done with maximum "attraction and repulsion"—attraction of faith and repulsion of fraud. There is an eloquence which is not merely natural, and a persuasiveness which is not merely human, and (in individual soulwinning) an indefinable influence which is more than earthly. This does not mean that all unconverted hearers become immediately converted, though many of them do. The power of Satan is strong and deadly; and many proud men are his gullible satraps. Stephen’s slayers were not able to resist his wisdom, but they did resist his witness. Yet although that malicious group fiercely refused his testimony, think how many others were won and blessed by it (Acts 6:7-8). Finney, Moody, Torrey, and others have left honest reports how that enduement swept upon them; and they were all men unforgettably magnetic and prevailing in the winning of souls to Christ. Oh, this enduement of "power from on high" is no spent force or otiose thought-form. Nor is it only for conspicuous public spokesmen of Christ like those just mentioned. Let no one suppose that it is now (in fashion-store phrase) a "discontinued line". If it seems little in evidence today, that is because of the far-gone breakdown of true holiness teaching in our evangelical churches, and the now comparatively rare experience of this entire sanctification.
Also accompanying entire sanctification there is always a richer, deeper and more constant communion with Christ. In a way never known before, those words of Ephesians 3:16,
More present to faith’s vision keen Than any outward object seen;
More dear, more intimately nigh Than e’en the closest earthly tie. As never before, those precious words now flame with rapturous meaning: "Abide in Me, and I in you" (John 15:4). Yes, it is truly a two-way "abiding": we in Him, and He in us. In the loveliest sense, there is a heart-to-heart rapprochement in which our dear Lord "sees of the travail of His soul, and is satisfied", while the believer’s inward experience becomes heaven begun below. In a new way He becomes our constant Companion, Comforter, Counsellor, Confidant; our indwelling Sympathizer, Sustainer, Satisfier; our never-failing Refuge in every crisis or disappointment or loss or trial; our ever-sufficient secret of strength and cheerfulness for day-to-day hum-drum routine and testings. In a vivid way which only those know who experience it He guides us and guards us. He shares our life with us through sunshine and shadow, lining every cloud of sorrow with heavenly gold, and painting a rainbow of reassurance over every stormy sky, and making even permitted sickness a secret stairway into richer communion with Himself. In a way known only to the entirely sanctified He becomes, along the pilgrim way, the "Friend that sticketh closer than a brother", with a glorious love surpassing that of Jonathan for David. And, oh, He becomes so much more than words could ever express. In the words of Paul, "Christ is ALL" (Colossians 3:11). We find ourselves singing raptures such as How blessed, Lord, at last to find Thy glorious love so real to me, Now filling all my heart and mind With joy I never thought could be.
This, this is heav’n begun below, This flood-tide of Thy love to know.
What now are words? Who can express The spacious rapture of the soul, The mind-refining blessedness As Thy pure love pervades the whole? The heart a very heaven knows, The earthen vessel overflows.
Perhaps one of the surest accompaniments of entire sanctification is the long-sought experience of true heart-rest. Instead of faith being any longer a mere "clinging"—sometimes, perhaps, a rather desperate clinging amid temptations to doubt, it becomes that settled inward confidence which Scripture calls "the full assurance of faith". There then ensues a peace of mind, and a rest of heart, and a poise of life, which completely break the misery of worry and the tiring tyranny of habitual hurry. Just as truly as our Lord hushed the raging elements long ago, He speaks an inward "Peace! be still" to the soul.
Yes, instead of clinging, "resting", Resting in His changeless love, And instead of doubts molesting, Sweet assurance from above:
Gone the needless care and worry Which have long my heart oppressed;
Gone the anxious, fruitless hurry, Now, in Him, I truly rest.
These are but a few snapshots of this spiritual Canaan. Oh, that thousands and thousands of us were living in it! Then indeed would Springtime revival and Summer fulness and harvest reapings come in our evangelical churches! Then indeed would our cold Winter lose its long-lasting grip, and the ice melt, and the waters flow, and the sun shine, and the flowers appear, and the birds begin to sing again, and bleakness give place to blessedness!
"Let us go up . . . and possess"
What, then, about taking Caleb’s advice:—"Let us go up at once, and possess it"? (Numbers 13:30). How many of us would fain do so, but we are hindered by wrong theories of entering and possessing, as, for instance, some of those which we have earnestly but I hope kindly rebutted in these studies! Not a few Christians are perplexed by having heard entire sanctification referred to as the "second blessing". That, indeed, used to be a very common name for it. The expression, however, is not literally Scriptural, neither is it necessary even as a convenient way of referring to entire sanctification. Cogent objections have been registered against it. Yet John Wesley who coined it, and the many others who since have used it, were not without understandable purpose in doing so, for the following reason.
Usually (though not of unvarying necessity) entire sanctification is entered upon by a post-conversion crisis. It is not something gradually grown into or entered piecemeal. The usual "case history" is, that the Christian believer, although rejoicing in sins forgiven, becomes acutely concerned, even dismayed, by reason of inward defeat, unrest, unholy thoughts, impulses, desires, a superficial spirituality and a feeling of unreality in prayer—all coupled with a deep longing to know a complete victory over sin, a clearer fellowship with Christ, and a true purity of heart. This leads to much inward scrutiny, to an earnest consulting of Scripture teaching about holiness, and often to an enquiry into the experience of those believers who testify to a "more abundant" experience of salvation. Thus a crisis-point is reached by the heart set on sanctification. On the human side it is the crisis of an uttermost yielding of heart, mind, will, life, everything, to Christ (which, although in itself the gateway to the "joy unspeakable", is often a very agony to "the flesh" before the believer actually gets there). Then, there is the response from the Divine side; the flooding of the heart with "the love which casts out fear", and the making of inward cleansing an unmistakable reality. Is it any wonder that it became called the "second blessing" (conversion being the first) in contradistinction to all others?
One very confusing mistake made by users of the term, "second blessing," has been their making a too severe demarcation between regeneration (at conversion to Christ) and "entire sanctification" (by post-conversion crisis). They have often made it seem as though regeneration and sanctification were different in nature. What foggy perplexity might have been avoided if only it had always been made clear that sanctification is regeneration in fuller or fullest operation! To every Christian believer who may be seeking the blessing of heart-holiness we say: Be under no mistake; when, through your conversion to Christ, you became "born again", "born from above", the new spiritual life which was then regeneratingly infused into your moral and spiritual being was a holy life from the Holy Spirit Himself. That is always the beginning of Christian holiness. But that which was then an infusion of new life is now meant to become a suffusion of your whole mind and personality. That is what comes through entire sanctification (i.e. through entire set-apartness on the human side, and the infilling of the Holy Spirit as the response from the divine side).
Another point of misunderstanding which perhaps should be mentioned here is, the common failure of holiness teaching to distinguish between sanctification and "entire sanctification". As all of us will agree, once the new life has been received through regeneration, there can be degrees of that new life in the believer. There can be degrees of spiritual life and health in the soul just as there are degrees of life and health in the body; and that is only another way of saying that there can be greater or lesser degrees of sanctification, corresponding to fuller or lesser degrees of yieldedness to Christ. Regeneration is the fountain. Sanctification is the river (in deeper or shallower degree). "Entire sanctification" is the river in fullest flow. Once the crisis-point of entire yieldedness is reached, then, to appropriating faith (it can only be then) the Holy Spirit’s deeper answer of infilling and renewing the mind becomes a living experience. The only other point we need mention here is the difficulty which some have had in comprehending that entire sanctification is a gift to be received by faith. Again and again, in his massive treatise on Perfectionism, Dr. B. B. Warfield repels what he calls the "mischief" of the teaching "that justification and sanctification are two separable gifts of grace" which are to be "received by two distinct acts of faith". In my judgment, some of his out-flings are almost as unfair as his attitude is adamant. But after all his objections we come back to this: (1) Our justification through Christ is a gracious divine gift—necessarily so because it is something we could never have procured for ourselves. (2) Equally so, our regeneration is a gift, because we simply cannot regenerate ourselves. (3) Similarly, inwrought holiness or inward sanctification is necessarily a gift, for it is an inward renewal which we ourselves absolutely cannot bring about.
Yes, entire sanctification is a gift; a work of the Holy Spirit; and it is to be appropriated by faith. It is so exclusively a gift that it can be received only by faith. For Dr. Warfield to protest that this "suspends human salvation on human volition", and makes God dependent on our faith rather than ourselves on Him, has a ring of needless over-Calvinism in it. The written Word of God calls Christian believers to exercise faith for sanctification just as clearly as it calls to the unconverted to exercise faith on Christ for salvation. The unconverted have utterly no power to regenerate themselves, but they do have the moral capacity to appreciate and receive what God graciously offers. To say that faith comes only where God gives it, yet all who do not believe are condemned for ever, turns the Gospel into hypocrisy and the redeeming love of God into a theatrical farce. [Any theory of the divine sovereignty which makes all human volition only that which God predetermines, not only confuses the predestining acts of God with the permissive wisdom of God (both equally operate within the divine sovereignty), it takes away all Godward moral value from any and every act of ours (just as much so after conversion as before it). My hungering and thirsting after God and holiness, my looking up to Christ, and saying, "Lord, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee," my crying to the Holy Spirit for inward renewal so that I may love God with all my heart, mind, soul, strength, and my neighbour as myself; all this can mean nothing of real value to God, for it is only His own disguised coercion looking back at Him!]
Let us thank God that the teaching of the New Testament is so plain: (1) Entire sanctification is a gift.(2) It is pledged to the fully yielded.(3) It is to be received by faith.(4) It may be received immediately where there is complete yieldedness to Christ. When the learned Dr. Warfield and others object that it cannot be received "immediately" because it is impossible to receive "all at once" something which is meant to be continually progressive, they are differing merely in word, not in reality. Do we not all believe that regeneration comes "immediately" in response to faith on Christ? We do; yet the new life which comes at regeneration is meant to develop progressively. At our conversion to Christ we could not receive the new life of regeneration "all at once" any more than a thousand tomorrows could be crammed into today, but it did begin "immediately" at that point. So is it with entire sanctification. There is a crisis-point of utter surrender and appropriating faith at which the Holy Spirit enters in fulness, and then begins in a way never known before His wondrous work of inward renewal.
Dear Christian, are you living in the experience of "entire sanctification"? Are you convinced, from what we have now said in these studies, that such an experience is promised to us in the Word? Do you not hear that Word calling you to "enter in" and "possess"? It is no mere vapoury mirage. The blessing is really there, waiting to be possessed through consecration and faith. This inwrought sanctification is the highest Christian way of victory over sin. It is victory, not by weary struggle, struggle, struggle, against a nature which is all the time wrenching or dragging you the wrong way, but by an inward renewal of that nature itself, so that with glad spontaneity it loves and keeps the divine law. There will always be temptations either loudly or subtly invading us from without via the senses of the body and the susceptibilities of the mind; but they are largely beaten foes when that condition within us which formerly betrayed us to them has been renewed into predominating holiness. No longer are we like a crippled dwarf struggling against a giant intruder, but, in the words of Zechariah 12:8, "He that is feeble shall be as David," and in the words of Joshua 23:10, "One of you shall chase a thousand." This inward sanctification is also the way to true repose of heart, tranquillity of mind, serenity of spirit, and equilibrium of disposition. It is the way of spiritual power, and wisdom, and joy, and sacredly familiar fellowship with God. It is the life of overcoming and "always abounding in the work of the Lord". It is the life of maximum effectiveness in witness-bearing for our dear Lord. The very personality becomes His living pulpit, and the whole life becomes an incarnate sermon. There is the invisible fire of Pentecost continually tinging our testimony for Christ— altogether unostentatious but unmistakably there. There is liberty without levity, exuberance without frivolity, eager service without demonstrativeness, and a quality of life which speaks of Christ more eloquently than many a brilliant speech. Have we not all known such Christians? This very minute I am thinking of a dear man—not a minister, but a banker—in whose presence I was somehow always made to think of God. Indeed, it was in him that I first saw and learned the reality of transfigured character through inwrought sanctification.
Christian, the Word says to you, "Let us therefore fear lest a promise being left us of entering into His rest, any of you should seem to come short of it" (Hebrews 4:1). It also adds, "Let us therefore give diligence to enter into that rest" (Hebrews 4:11). Do not let some petty prejudice against the expression, "second blessing," keep you (as some do) from that wonderful reality which it has been meant (well-intendedly) to represent. One thing is very plain: the New Testament sets before us a deeper, richer, higher, fuller experience of salvation than most Christians experience. One of Paul’s names for it is "the fulness of the blessing" (Romans 15:29). Another name for it is "heavenly places in Christ" (Ephesians 1:3). Thousands of Christians are not living in that "fulness" or in those "heavenly places". How are they to "enter" and "possess"? Do they not need bringing to a post-conversion crisis? Entire sanctification is not something which they drift into, or culture themselves into bit by bit, or gradually grow into without specifically seeking it. Almost all of us need bringing to a major crisis-point, when once we have grasped that the blessing is truly Scriptural. So were those significant people of Israel brought to a crisis-point at Jordan long ago, in order to possess Canaan.
What, then, of yourself, dear believer? Have you entered this spiritual "land of promise"? Are you living in the "fulness of the blessing"? Perhaps your heart may find the following verses expressing its deepest feelings and longings:
O Saviour-King, once crucified, I deeply long to be A vessel wholly sanctified, Possessed and used by Thee.
I mourn, I hate these sins of mine Which nailed Thee there forlorn, Which speared my holy King divine, And weaved the crown of thorn!
O holy Lord, this very day I wrench myself apart From every known unholy way Which hurts Thy patient heart.
Here, too, with weeping gratitude, I hand all else to Thee, Break every subtle servitude, And set me wholly free.
Thy liberating love in me Let all my life express, And thine infilling Spirit be My true heart-holiness.