05 - Holiness in New Apparel

Holiness in New Apparel Not that either the teaching of holiness or the emphasis upon it was then new. Nay, the call to Christian sanctity is as old as the New Testament itself. Yet I certainly do mean that the form, or doctrinal presentation, of the holiness message was new; and the joyfulness of the reawakened emphasis was new; and the pattern of holiness experience was new; and the development into a distinctive holiness movement was new. It would seem as though, beginning with John Wesley (1703-1791) there came nothing less than a rediscovery of New Testament doctrine con­cerning holiness. Others, who followed in the wake of that Methodist pathfinder, explored anew its exegetical aspects and its experiential practicalities. With a far more worthwhile eagerness than ever the Klondike or California gold-finds excited, the "rank -and file" of Christian believers, thousands of them, pressed in to "know the doctrine", and to see "whether those things were so" (Acts 17:11).

Just as the New Testament doctrine of our Lord’s second advent and the cardinal truth of justification by faith, and the true doctrine of the Church, had all been buried for centuries beneath the sacerdotal draperies and superstitious perversions of Roman­ism, until the gigantic struggle of the Protestant Reformation began to uncover and free them again, so had it been with the true doctrine of Christian holiness. During the mediaeval cen­turies there were many holiness movements, but holiness had been thought of, all too often, in terms of monastic isolation, rigorous asceticism, and more-or-less morbid merit-works. Now, however, even as the true doctrine of salvation by faith, and the true doctrine of the Church, had been largely recovered for millions in Christendom, so the true New Testament doctrine of Christian holiness began to be rediscovered and re-explored. By Wesley’s time the concept of Christian sanctification had already been fairly rescued from the cloister and the sackcloth, from sentimental penance-mortifications, and from ascetic body-flogging. But now it became increasingly freed, also, from a sombre, Puritanical severity, from a stereotyped religious rigidity, and from the chains of a self-repressive negativeness. Flinging away those mediaeval graveclothes and strait-laced post-Reforma­tion austerities which it was never meant to wear, Christian holiness now began to appear in beautiful raiment of gladness, and with songs of jubilant liberation. Wesley’s insistence that entire sanctification is "perfect love" filling the heart and over­flowing through the life set the new urge in motion. On it moved, and out it spread, despite setbacks here and temporary recessions there. By and by, it could not be confined within Wesleyan boundaries. It was too big to be denominational. It was too badly needed by all, and too contagiously joyful, not to "catch fire" among the other Protestant churches.

New Distinctions and Accents

I doubt whether even yet we have fully "taken the measure" of what then happened, or, rather, began to happen. Most significant of all, perhaps, was the distinguishing between regeneration (or newness of life) and entire sanctification (or fulness of life); between justification (or righteousness imputed) and Christian perfection (or holiness imparted); between the first blessing (conversion) which does away with the legal guilt of sin, and the "second blessing" (entire sanctification) which deals with the inward bent to sin. These were the new accents which came with Wesley and then became increasingly current in holiness teaching. The feature which should be noted thoughtfully is, that entire sanctification then became preached again as an inward transform­ation effected by direct, divine intervention, as a "second work" in those already regenerated, and therefore usually later than conversion. It is not something which can be achieved by mystical seclusion, or by supposedly meritorious religious exercises, or by any other contrivance of human effort; it is a post-conversion operation of God in the Christian believer. It cannot be achieved; it must be received. It is not a state which we attain by self-effort ; it is an inwrought renovation which we obtain through Christ by the Holy Spirit.

Let it sink in: this was the crucial re-emphasis; true holiness is a radical renewing of the nature. Other religions may have their "holy men"; the Roman Church may have its monks and nuns and pilgrims; but all humanly contrived holiness is at best pathetically superficial; for despite all its outward devotement and self-denying rigours, it leaves human nature itself still unchanged, still sin-perverted and unsubjugated. Entire sanctification is a "second blessing" in which God Himself strikes a fundamental blow at sin in the very nature of the fully yielded believer, dealing with the basic evil itself, and renewing the innate proclivities of the soul by the Holy Spirit. A Lasting Legacy and Impress That teaching was so powerfully used of God, and so vividly implemented in the experience of multiplying thousands, that it left an indelible impress on Christian churches throughout the English-speaking world. When the Methodist revival as a whole had receded into the past, that was the "grand depositum" which it left for all the churches. A truer doctrine of Christian holiness had been recovered (for undoubtedly sanctification as a decisive "work of God" in the soul is what was preached long ago by the Apostles, and is fixedly deposited in the New Testament). As time left the eighteenth century behind, competitive schools or theories emerged, with differing modifications or intensifications of the doctrine, some insisting that entire sanctification is nothing less than an unqualified eradication of the hereditary sin-principle, and others interpreting it as a less drastic deliverance through subjugation or counteraction by the Holy Spirit; yet all uniting in this, that the "second blessing" is a post-conversion, divine intervention which effects inwrought holiness. That was the teaching which, two or three generations after the Wesleyan beginnings, broke out again in the spreading holiness movement which reached its maximum extensiveness about the beginning of our twentieth century, or up to the outbreak of the First World War. A decline: but why? As we have lamented, the flood-tide of holiness enthusiasm has given place to a disappointing ebb. Where today is the spate of publications on holiness? Where are the crowded holiness meet­ings such as were widely in vogue fifty, sixty, seventy years ago? I concede gratefully that certain conferences which origin­ated then are still largely attended. Yet even so, do we find the same specialized expounding of Scriptural holiness today as that of the earlier years, when the emphasis was distinctively upon the elucidation of holiness as a special doctrine, and as the inwrought experience of a "second" or deeper work of God in the Christian believer? It is no mere petulance which provokes our sigh of regret that today we are in the shallows of an ebb tide so far as holiness emphasis is concerned. This naturally raises the question: Why?

Eclipsed by bigger issue

There can be no doubt that the holiness movement became ^eclipsed by a bigger issue. That bigger issue was the grim battle to preserve the validity of Christianity as a whole against the deadly assaults of nineteenth and twentieth century rationalistic criticism. Many elderly Christians can still remember that first bewildering shock as the impact of the older "Modernism" shuddered through the Protestant churches in the earlier years of our century. Under the pseudo-aegis of "Modern Scholarship", rationalistic criticism, alias "Modernism", assaulted all the main citadels of Biblical revelation and traditional Christianity. With the Darwinian evolution theory riding high in the domain of science, and the "higher critical" schools capturing the intellectual aristocracy of Protestant Christendom, and the "New Psychology" hammering its way into our western educational institutions, evangelical Christianity was fighting a life-and-death battle. In all denominations, those holding to the evangelical faith were compelled to sink minor divergences and particular doctrinal emphases, such as those in the new holiness movement, and join hands in common cause against the one, common, deadly foe.

Harassed by Controversy

There is no doubt, either, that the decline is considerably due to the fact that the movement has been harassed by controversy. When rival schools strongly contend for their competitive presenta­tions of a doctrine, the doctrine itself is often brought into dis­repute. I remember how perplexed I myself was, in the earlier years of my Christian life, by conflicting theories of the "Second Blessing." Some would say, "I am of Wesley", others "I am of Keswick". Some urged me to claim the complete annihilation of my sinful "old nature", while others, equally devout and dogmatic, warned me not to heed any such inanity, but to realize that innate sinfulness could only be suppressed. "Eradication" was the magic word of some. "Counteraction" was the watchword of others. Alas, I remember also the rasping spirit which all too often clove the differing groups. This was among the lesser personnel of the differing groups rather than among the leaders. It did not cancel all the lovely character-transfigurations in which the holiness fervour had authenticated itself; but it injected a poison which eventually caused wide discredit.

Divorce from Evangelism

Another reason for the waning of the holiness movement was its being divorced from evangelism in many places. After a glowing holiness meeting in our cotton-mill town of Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, England, in the early nineteen hundreds, when I was but a boy, I overheard a lady exuberantly blurt out to a group of friends, "I’ve become so thrilled with this glorious holiness teaching that I seem quite beyond any interest in meetings just for the converting of sinners"! Many others, though not so frank, betrayed a similar enchantment with the one at the expense of the other. Beyond a doubt, the all-too-frequent diverting of the holiness movement from earnest evangelism became a definite factor in the ensuing deterioration.

Set-backs through Inconsistency

Still further, it cannot be denied that the holiness movement suffered increasing set-backs through the inconsistencies of its adherents. Just because the profession of practical sanctification involves the living of a blameless life, the holiness cause inevitably laid itself the more open to criticism when those professing the blessing exhibited demeanour which belied it. All too many such sham professors were allowed to hang round the holiness move­ment, and the doctrine became sarcastically stigmatized because of it.

Changeful Decades But there has been one further factor in the decline of the holiness revival, which is second in influence only to the impact of theological radicalism. I refer to the changeful decades since the First World War. Never before, in so short a space, have the features and outlook of western society been so changed. Two world wars, staggering scientific discoveries and inventions, the rise of vast, anti-Christian ideologies, the splitting of the atom, and the repercussions from all these swift evolutions of our twentieth century, have had a distracting effect, most of all in relation to individual soul-culture. The individual has suddenly appeared so insignificant against the huge economic collectivisms and political totalitarianisms and international magnitudes of our day, that any specializing in the sanctification of the individual has seemed a religious luxury no longer tolerable. Despite the spate of revolu­tionary twentieth-century surprises, however, a saner attitude toward human individuality now seems to be emerging again; but in retrospect we can see only too clearly how the swiftly-unfolding peculiarities of the twentieth century have militated against the holiness re-call which was ringing through the churches as the old century gave place to the new.

Well, at a glance, such is the course things have taken. Beyond question the holiness movement brought a wonderful new exhilara­tion and enrichment to the evangelical churches. Therefore, despite certain very human blemishes which disfigured it, we may well regret its eclipse and diminishment.

WHAT ABOUT TODAY ?

It seems to me that the hour is ripe and the need urgent for a rediscovery of the holiness message. Doubtless, the New Testa­ment doctrine needs restudy and restatement; but beyond all "perhapses" there is an accentuated need today for a recall to Christian sanctification throughout our evangelical churches; and if there is to be a revival of the experience, there must be a new emphasis on the teaching. Is not the present juncture opportune? Although the battle still drags on against theological "liberalism" in the Protestant denominations, the earlier shock-assaults have been contained, and successful counter-attacks in the fields of scholarly apologetic and archaeological testimony have ejected rationalistic criticism from the vantage-points which it used to hold under the name of "The New Theology." The theories of the "higher critics" went down one after another before the reply of unconquerable facts. The evangelical forces have regrouped and related themselves more confidently to the challenge. The "Liberals" of today simply dare not display the conceit of the earlier "Modernists" who swept in with their vaunted "assured results" which were supposedly going to demolish our "old-fashioned" ideas of the Bible once for all. Moses could not have written the Pentateuch, for writing was not known so far back in Hebrew history! The Messianic poem of Isaiah 40:1-31 to 66 simply could not have been written until long enough after the Babylonian exile! The "prophecies" of Daniel could only have been a "pseudepigraphon" from the time of Antiochus Epiphanes! Such brilliant blunders have been answered again and again, and none can deny the scholarly conclusiveness of the Evangelical replies or the confirmations supplied by archaeological findings.

Meanwhile, it still remains true that to people in general the most convincing apologetic of Christianity is its power to trans­form human lives. One Lazarus, raised, freed, radiant, proves far more to most folk than volumes of pen-and-ink discussions. As Acts 4:14, says, "Beholding the man which was healed . . . they could say nothing against it." If the New Testament doctrine of holiness still works the lovely miracles of spiritual fulness and fruit-bearing which it wrought in Christian believers during the holiness revival of years ago, then the greatest blessing which could come to our evangelical churches today would be a "revised version" of it. A Shift to the Experiential At the present time, so it seems to me, we are needing the relief which comes of a new accent—something spiritually signi­ficant enough to turn our debate-wearied minds from the mere mechanics of religion to evidential Christian experience in the deeper things of the Spirit. Before all else, even before orthodox dogma, Christianity is a life. Holiness, according to the New Testament, is that life experienced and manifested in its purest, deepest, richest, gladdest, fullest qualities. Is it a real experience, or only imaginary? The holiness movement to which we have adverted proclaimed through a million eager voices, "Yes, praise God, it is real! It brings real victory over sin; real endue-ment of power from on high; real inward renewal of the propen­sities; real break-through in prayer; cloudless fellowship with Heaven, joy unspeakable, peace which passes understanding, and life more abundant!" Oh, we are needing that accent today, and a new revival of that experience! A Shift from Superficiality

Another consideration which stresses the need for a new epi­demic of sound, Scriptural, holiness teaching is the superficiality of our average present-day Christian profession. There is an exuberant eagerness in modern Christian youth movements, but, in general, does the depth equal the noise? They are versatile, but are they also volatile? Oh, to see our Christian youth gripped by the deeper teachings of the Word concerning sanctification and the fulness of the Holy Spirit! Does someone object that the very words, "sanctification" and "holiness" are strange to the youth in our churches of today? That only confirms what we here say. The terms have dropped out of use, but they are still in the Bible. Does someone else say we need a new vocabulary by which to get the truth over to modern youth? No!—for others who have said so cannot invent a better. What we need is that the great old words shall "come alive" again today, under the power of the divine Spirit. Of course, the whole pressure of our mechanised, urbanised, industrialised, congested, present-day world, with its wheels and propellers, its specialization and restless goads to go-getting, tends to beget spiritual superficiality; and in that we moderns all need sympathy. A thousand pities that our modern hurry-mania has been allowed to invade the churches! Instead of making the sanctuary and its services a haven of quiet retreat from the outside din and scramble, too many among us seem to deem it a necessary strategy to copy the outside world. So, instead of a relieving contrast there is an unrestful imitation, with "stream­lined" services, three-minute hymns, four-minute prayers, and fifteen-minute sermonettes. We know there are many exceptions, and we thank God for all those churches which have remained evangelical; but in the many, how skimpy the hymns, and what thin fare from the pulpit! Breeziness and singiness are no compensation for lack of depth and dignity! I believe that nothing could so restore quality to evangelism, and depth to our youth movements, and reverential dignity to our evangelical churches, as a revival of sound, sane, holiness teaching and holiness experience.

Wesley and Booth That master mind, John Wesley, was quick to see how the revolutionary revival of which he and George Whitefield were the human progenitors would succumb to reaction unless the conver­sion of sinners was followed by the preaching of something beyond conversion. There was not only an Egypt of guilt and condemnation to be left behind, but a Canaan of Spirit-filled sanctification to be possessed! Wesley realised vividly enough that when the early exultations of soul-exodus had subsided, and the novelty of Christian discipleship had worn off, there might easily be a dangerous anti-climax, and a looking back to the flesh-pots of Egypt, unless there was a Canaan alluringly in prospect. Hence originated the widespreading Wesleyan holiness outreaches. A century later, General Booth was quick to see the same thing in connection with his "Salvation Army". Booth’s general-like genius revealed itself, not only in his naming and organising of the "Army", but also in his plan of campaign. He and his gifted wife foresaw that men and women who in their thousands had been saved from the foulest gutters of sin would easily fall prey to squalid reversions when once the excitement of their conversion had worn off, unless some soul-inspiring further goal were set before them. The upshot of this was the Salvation Army holiness move­ment. Catherine Booth and the early leaders of that sanctifica­tion crusade went like flaming seraphs up and down the land, preaching that message of twofold salvation through "blood and fire" for which the Army became famous—the removal of sin from the heart by the cleansing-power of the Saviour’s precious blood, and the baptism of the Pentecostal fire. And now, still another century later, are we not needing, even more poignantly, a further renaissance of New-Testament holiness testimony and experience? It need not articulate the self­same syllables of either the Wesley or the Booth presentation. They belonged to their own day and circumstances. We need a present-day version which will re-electrify the essentials while discarding out-of-date accidentals. Oh, that it might happen soon! There are many discouraged believers wistfully asking today, in Gideon’s mournful words, "Where be all His miracles which our fathers told us of?" (Judges 6:13). Some of us, at least, are convinced that a widespread new emphasis on sanctifica-tion, both doctrinally and practically, could be the answer.

Pray, where be all His miracles Of which our fathers told?

Say, were they genuine articles, Or fictions big and bold?

Nay, can we think our fathers lied, Or else were all deceived, While impacts still today abide From what they then believed?

Say, where today the praying bands Which former days have known, Upraising pleading, patient hands Toward the heavenly throne?

Say, if that praying holiness Infused our zeal to pray, Would not the old-time miracles Break out afresh today?