Part 2.1 - Chapter 6-9
VI
The Spirit-Controlled Life
Text: "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give
him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall
be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life." —
John 4:14.
LET us think of the Holy Spirit and the
inner life of the believer. There is an
inner life; an inner life so deep, so truly
inner, that no one knows it but God and
ourselves. It is a life of which, in its deeper
depths, we never speak to our dearest friends.
There are defeats there, there are victories
there
— heart-surgings, heartaches that we can-
not put into words — we can only go with them
before God, and the Spirit, who helpeth our
infirmities, can make intercession for us with
groanings which cannot be uttered.
Now, we are to think of the Holy Spirit as
indwelling the believer:
THE UPSPRINGING FOUNTAIN WITHIN
What a wonderful symbol it is ! How apart
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from all other instructions, it speaks of the con-
stant renewal of the spiritual life. You know
the contrast was with Jacob’s well, which was
very deep, and out of which water must be la-
boriously drawn. When our Lord spoke to the
woman about this living water, this water which
was not down in the bottom of the well, but
was upspringing, she asked a question:
"Whence hast thou this water? Thou hast
nothing to draw with and the well is deep."
What a contrast, what a picture of the aver-
age Christian life! Somehow, if we are Chris-
tians at all, we get on; we manage to get
through the day after a fashion, but it is just
like that poor woman, laboriously drawing
water out of Jacob’s well. We draw it up
just a little at a time, and some of us with a
sense that we have nothing to draw with, and
there is a constant effort to be spiritual; and
over against that our Lord puts the picture
of a fountain that springs up of its own lovely
energy, and throws its crystal flood into the
clear air and dances and sparkles there in the
sunlight, and then flows away to be kissed by
the sun back again into the azure blue.
THE SPIRIT-CONTROLLED LIFE 69
Now the Christian life, the true spiritual life
in Christ’s conception of it, is a life which has
within it the source and renewal of its freshness
and vigor and power. An upspringing foun-
tain constantly fed from a higher source, com-
ing down that it may ascend again. Here is a
little springlet in the valley half afraid that it
may dry up; and the spring up on the moun-
tain says: "No, you shall not dry up, for I am
renewing your abundance all the time." What
a contrast with the average life! Here is the
plenitude of divine power, the omnipotent
Spirit of God, who has not only taken up his
abode in us, but wishes to be in the believer a
living vital force, constantly renewed, himself
the unwasting Source.
Now, is our Christian life like that, or do we
have to painfully draw it with a creaking wind-
lass out of Jacob’s well till our backs ache?
Which is it? There is the contrast.
SOURCE HIGHER THAN ITSELF
And, too, the inlet must be kept open and
the outlet must be kept open.
There are two sins which Christians commit
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against the Spirit. We are said to grieve the
Spirit, and we are told some of the things which
grieve Him. "Grieve not the Holy Spirit of
God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of
redemption. Let all bitterness and wrath and
anger and clamor and evil speaking be put
from you with all malice." Now are you allow-
ing a little bitter feeling toward somebody in
your heart? Bitterness! Wrath! Anger! Per-
haps we do not care much about that. We say,
"The Lord knows I was born with a hot tem-
per; I am made up that way, but it is just a
flash and all over in a minute." All over with
you, perhaps, but is it all over with the heart
you have wounded? Anger! Malice! Envy!
Ah, my friends, all these things which we allow
in ourselves, defended, petted, kept there, are
but stones that choke the inlet and prevent the
upspringing of the fountain.
And then we are told not to quench the
Spirit; not to say "No" to the Spirit, but to let
the Spirit have His way. To say "No" when
the Spirit says, "Pray, serve, give," is to choke
the outlet, and the fountain does not flow.
Now
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JUST A FEW PROPOSITIONS
Do not imagine that your Jacob’s well ex-
perience proves that you have not the fountain
within you. In other words, don’t imagine, if
you are a believer on the Lord Jesus Christ,
that you have not the Spirit within. Every
believer of the Lord Jesus Christ is indwelt by
the Holy Spirit. You have not to intercede
for Him, you have not to seek Him, you have
but to take account of the fact that you have
Him already. "What?" says Paul in the sixth
chapter of 1 Corinthians, "Know ye not that
your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost,
which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye
are not your own?" And remember, the
apostle is addressing there a people whom he
has just described as "carnal’ — running after
human leaders — babes in Christ, to these he
says, "What? Know ye not that your body is
the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you,
which ye have of God, and ye are not your
own?"
Now, when that fact is received by faith,
without waiting for feeling, you have taken a
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long step toward better things. If you really
believe that the Holy Spirit of God dwells in
your mortal body, a transformation of life has
begun.
WHAT THE UPSPRINGING FOUNTAIN DOES
First, the Spirit indwells the believer that he
may give victory over the old self -life. A might-
ier power has come in and while the old, evil
life of the flesh is there, omnipotence is hold-
ing it in the place of death and we may be
free from the dominion of it. Not by good
resolutions, not by struggling to keep a law,
but by divine power within, to which we have
yielded our whole being. Ah, it is a deep
truth that old John Newton uttered when he
said, "I hear a great deal of talk about the
pope, but the pope who troubles me most is
Pope John Newton." Now, the Spirit of God
is there to govern, to control, to keep that self
life in the place of death and to give us victory
as we walk in the Spirit.
And secondly, He is there to make real the
things of Christ. "He shall receive of mine,"
as the promise was, "and show it unto you."
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Now that does not mean "exhibit," but "make
actual" to us the things of Christ.
And thirdly, He is here to make real to you
the Fatherhood of God. You realize that God
is your Father by the Holy Spirit. And when
you pray to God you are not merely praying
to a Creator, to one who laid the foundations
of the earth and who keeps the planets in their
courses, but you are praying to your Father in
heaven; and just as you go to an earthly father
with your needs, wanting help and counsel,
just so you may go to your heavenly Father.
So, because the Spirit of sonship dwells in you,
von realize the Fatherhood of God.
Furthermore, the Spirit will take up every
one of the blessings which we have in Christ
and give us possession of them.
And when He is ungrieved and unquenched,
He is doing that. That is the life in the Spirit.
And then he takes up the problems, the diffi-
culties that we have to do within our lives and
settles them for us according to the will of
God; so that the outer life is the unforced ex-
pression of an inner life which is pure and clean
and high, and full of love and tenderness, look-
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ing about with the eyes of love on all human-
ity, watching for opportunities to put out the
helping hand and to lift up the downtrodden
and oppressed.
The whole problem lies, not in self -effort,
not in painfully drawing water out of Jacob’s
well — that is going back to the law; to what
the apostle calls the "beggarly elements of the
world"; to elementary things — and not going
on to the fulness of what God has for us.
Which is it to be hereafter? The upspringing
fountain, or Jacob’s well?
VII
The Joyous Life
Text: "That they might have my joy fulfilled in them-
selves."— John 17:18.
WE have here two simple ideas — Jesus
Christ filled with joy; ourselves priv-
ileged to partake of that joy until
we also are filled.
PLEASURE, HAPPINESS, JOYOUSNESS
It is not uncharitable to say that many peo-
ple in this world are content if they may be
merry ; they seek nothing higher from life than
pleasure. If they may put far from them the
burden and sorrow and care of this world, and
forget its grief in a passing jest, they are con-
tent. There is a place in life for pleasure, but
pleasure is never the object of lives which are
noble.
Better than this and the pursuit, I would fain
believe, of a far great number, is happiness.
Happiness is an infinitely higher thing than
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pleasure, and the desire of God that His chil-
dren should be happy is abundantly revealed
in the Bible. The Beatitudes are instructions
in the art of happiness.
But our text speaks of something which is
better even than happiness, and that is joyous-
ness. Joyousness, in the scriptural sense of
the word, might be defined as happiness over-
flowing. Happiness too full to be used up in
mere personal satisfaction; happiness all alive
and aglow. If happiness might be compared
to a tranquil lake, embosomed in protecting
hills, joyousness would be like the outflowing
of a brimming river.
It may, then, help us just at the beginning,
to fix in our minds these three things which
stand over against sorrow or pain; pleasure,
which exists for and ends upon self; happi-
ness, a deeper, nobler thing, and joyousness,
which is the overflow of happiness.
THE JOY OF JESUS CHRIST
First of all, Jesus speaks of His own joy.
Now, we do not habitually think of Jesus
Christ as joyful. Long before His manifesta-
THE JOYOUS LIFE 77
tion, the Prophet Isaiah had said of Him that
He would be a "man of sorrows and acquaint-
ed with grief." And so it was. But observe:
A man of sorrows, not a man of melancholy.
We can not think of Jesus Christ as moping
through life; we can not think of Him as turn-
ing fretfully toward His burden, as thinking
of His wrongs — His throne denied Him, His
people rejecting Him, His poverty and humil-
iation in a world which He had made. Just
once, in Gethsemane, He speaks of His sorrows :
"My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto
death." But habitually He speaks of His joy-
fulness. That, then, is the paradox of His life.
"A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief" ;
but bearing these sorrows, as it were, upon the
deep floodtide of a mighty joy. And the joy
was more than the sorrow.
Let us try to understand this paradox — an
exultant and joyful man of sorrows.
Have you ever observed that the nearer
Jesus came to the cross, the more He spoke of
His joy? You do not find that He testified
of His joyfulness much in the earlier part of
His ministry, and I believe not once in that
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which is called "the year of public favor,"
when the multitudes thronged Him, and it
seemed as if the nation would really receive
Him as the long-expected Messiah. But as
He went on, drawing ever nearer to Calvary,
and as the burden of the shame and sorrow
and sin of the world began to gather in awful
darkness over Him, He speaks ever more and
more of His joy fulness, and in His closing
admonitions and instruction there is a con-
stant reference to the deep joy which filled
His being. Just when the tide of sorrow is
rising highest, the joy fulness seems to rise
above it and triumph over it.
THE PARADOX SOLVED
If we ponder that, and connect it with the
prophet’s explanation of the sorrows of Jesus
Christ, "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and
carried our sorrows," I think we shall be on
the very verge of solving the paradox. In
other words (and is it not very simple?) , Jesus
found His supreme joy in bearing the sorrows
of others. He was not joyful in spite of hav-
ing to bear the sorrow and burden of the
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world; He was joyful because He could bear
it. It was the fountain head, the very source,
of His joy.
I think we can conceive of that, if we are
willing to separate ourselves for a moment
from that shrinking which we all feel at the
thought of pain and sorrow, and get upon the
nobler side of our own souls. We can under-
stand that such a being as Jesus would re-
joice, with joy unspeakable, that He could do
that thing. We can understand how, when
looking down upon this world, with its sin
and misery and want and woe, and mountain-
ous iniquity, there would be ever in His heart
the exultant joy at knowing that it was He
who, in due time, should come down here and
get underneath all that unspeakable guilt and
bear it away from man through the cross.
Just as Jean Valjean, in Victor Hugo’s
great story, was happy under the cart ; it hurt
him cruelly, but he lifted it away from the
old man who was being crushed by it. So
there was a joy in the very pain which it cost
to do it — the joy of vicarious suffering; the
joy of getting underneath all that was bearing
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down the heart of humanity, and lifting it for-
ever away — this was the joy of the Lord.
You know how easily, after all, poor as this
world is in nobleness, this truth finds illustra-
tion. Surely, Winkelreid must have felt some-
thing of that joy when he gathered the spears
of the enemy into his own bosom so that his
comrades might break the hostile line and make
way for liberty. There must have been in him
an ineffable joy as he felt those spears crush-
ing into his heart and his life going out. There
was suffering, but it was a joyful thing so to
die.
I think that pilot, who kept his burning
boat against the shore until every passenger
was safe, though his own hands burnt to a
crisp as he held the wheel, must have had a
joy greater than the pain. This is a very high
kind of joy, but we may realize it after all,
may we not?
I think that captain who stood upon the deck
of the sinking ship and gave his place in the
last boat to a poor stowaway, who had no kind
of claim upon him, and saw him pass on into
THE JOYOUS LIFE 81
safety while lie went down with the ship, drank
deeply of this joy of vicarious suffering.
SOURCES OF THE SAVIOUR’S JOY
Then there was another source of the joy
of the Lord. lie rejoiced in the will of God.
Will you consider that for a moment? What
a joyful thing it is that we are not left alone
in this world! What a joyful tiling to know
that one is not the sport of circumstance and
of accident; not orphaned amid all these de-
structive forces that move in upon us, as chil-
dren of God here in the world; to know, in
short, that over it all there is the resistless
will of God. Things are not "happening" to the
children of God. We are moving upon an
appointed course, and the joys and sorrows
of our lives are all appointed and portioned
out, molding and shaping us for better things.
The joy of doing and enduring the will of
God, and of suffering that others might not
suffer — here are the abiding sources of our
Lord’s joy.
In the Hebrews we are told of another
source of joy which sustained our Lord in
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the supreme agony of the cross — "the joy
that was set before him." The joy of the
final consummation; the joy of anticipation
when He should see the eternal results of
His suffering; all this was present with Him
helpfully in the hour of agony. That is what
we need to see. Beyond question we do not
live enough in the inspiration of the compen-
sations and balancings of heaven.
THE LORD J S JOY, OUR JOY
Turn now for a moment to the other thought
— the human side of it.
"That my joy might be fulfilled in them."
But how shall we have the joy of the Lord?
Evidently there is here a call to the unselfish
heights? If we are to share the joy of the
Lord we must be willing to share that out of
which His joy sprang. We must rejoice if
we can bear away some sorrow from another
heart, some burden from another life, even if it
means sorrow and burden to us.
We must learn to rejoice as we never yet
have learned to rejoice, in the salvation of the
lost. We read that there is "joy in the pres-
THE JOYOUS LIFE 88
ence of the angels of God over one sinner that
repenteth."
We must stop regretting that "only ten
were converted," and, like the angels, rejoice
over one sinner that repenteth.
Then we must turn our thoughts more to-
ward the future, toward the heavenly rest, the
heavenly activities and the eternal joys which
are there. I repeat, it is a trumpet call. It
costs something to have the joy of the Lord.
Salvation, with its joy, is a free gift, but the
joy of the Lord is to be had only by enter-
ing into fellowship with the Lord in His life
plan; to be, in the measure of our capacity,
Christ’s in the world; to get with Him into
the joy of suffering; into the joy of the great
sweet will of God ; into the expectation of the
things to come.
It was a great thing for humanity when
that strange being, Peter the Hermit, went
through Europe preaching the Crusades. It
was a call to those barons and knights to cease
petty neighborhood wars; to come away from
their pompous and empty way of life; from
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tilting in the castle yard, and feasting in the
castle hall, to go forth to do an unselfish thing.
Is not the sorrow and pain of human life a
call to a perpetual crusade, a call up out of
the petty things in which our lives are frittered
away, into sympathy and helpfulness ? And is
not the sin of the world a call to go out upon
Christ’s own great enterprise of salvation into
the uttermost parts of the earth? It seems to
me there is something in this that ought to lay
hold of the noble side of us, that ought to re-
deem us from the meanness of self-pleasing
and to lift us up into a glad participation in
our Lord’s sufferings and also in His unspeak-
able joy.
VIII
The Consecration
Text: "And the priests brought in the ark of the covenant
of the Lord unto his place, into the oracle of the house, to
the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubims.
For the cherubims spread forth their two wings over the place
of the ark, and the cherubims covered the ark and the staves
thereof above. And they drew out the staves, that the ends
of the staves were seen out in the holy place before the ora-
cle, and they were not seen without; and there they are unto
this day. There was nothing in the ark save the two tables
of stone, which Moses put there at Horeb, when the Lord
made a covenant with the children of Israel, when they came
out of the land of Egypt. And it came to pass, when the
priests were come out of the holy place, that the cloud filled
the house of the Lord." — 1Ki 8:6-11.
I WISH to begin a study of the subject of
Consecration. I believe it to be, in the
common apprehension of believers, great-
ly encumbered with misconceptions. Is con-
secration God’s act or man’s act ? Is it partly
man’s act and partly God’s act? If so, what is
man’s part in it?
Beyond doubt the subject is vaguely felt
to be important. The religious literature of
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the time insists upon this importance, and very
rarely do Christians come together in conven-
tions, or in any large gathering, without ap-
pointing hours for "consecration meetings."
And, in fact, there is a great deal of so-called
"consecrating" done. The Christian Endeavor
societies appoint monthly consecration meet-
ings, and so, in a certain sense, there is a
PERPETUAL CONSECRATION
work going on. There is a great deal of prayer
about consecration, and a great deal of talk
about it, and a great many directions how to
do it, and a great deal of doubt, I believe, at
the end, whether it has been done after all —
the doubt, of course, growing out of the fact
that so many people are continually "reconse-
crating" themselves.
Now, is consecration something that requires
to be done over and over again? If it is, we
ought to know it. We ought to know what
degree of frequency there should be in the act
of consecration, so that we may be very sure
that we keep consecrated all of the time.
I am the more surprised by this confusion,
THE CONSECRATION 87
because God has, so to speak, prepared the
subject for our study. He has put into the
Bible
TWO GREAT TYPICAL ILLUSTRATIONS
of consecration, one in the consecration of the
temple, and the other in the consecration of the
priesthood. And you know that both of these
types converge upon us, the believers of this
dispensation, for we are called both "temples"
and "priests."
"For ye are the temple of the living God"
(2Co 6:16) . "What? know ye not that your
body is the temple of the Holy Ghost?"
(1Co 6:19). "Ye are a chosen generation, a
royal priesthood" (1Pe 2:9). "Unto him
that loved us, and washed us from our sins in
his own blood, and hath made us kings and
priests unto God" (Rev 1:5, 6).
The temple was for the possession, the abid-
ing place of God ; the priesthood, for the serv-
ice of God ; and for each there was an act —
consecration. The shekinah did not take pos-
session of the temple until the act of consecra-
tion was complete: nor could a priest, though
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born to the priesthood, enter upon his serv-
ice until duly consecrated.
My purpose, then, is to study the Temple-
type of Consecration.
1. Now, first of all, consider what a won-
derful structural analogy there is between that
old typical temple, and these living temples
which we are.
The temple, as you remember, was in three
parts : the court, or outer enclosure, which was
public and obvious, and into which any might
enter; the holy place, coming next to the
court, which was the ordinary place of wor-
ship, as the court was of sacrifice; and then,
opening out of the holy place, the holy of
holies, into which the high priest only — type
of Christ, our High Priest — might enter, and
which was filled with the glory of the presence
of God.
Just so, the living temple is in three parts —
the body, outward, obvious and answering to
the outer court, in which sacrifice was offered
(for remember, Christ "bore our sins in his
own body"), the soul, or "heart," the seat of
affections, desires, and of the will (and, there-
THE CONSECRATION 89
fore, the sphere of worship, for worship is lov-
ing adoration and praise) and, lastly, con-
nected with the soul most intimately in some
way which we do not precisely understand, but
yet distinct from it, the spirit, the highest part
of man, the seat of the reason, the understand-
ing, the imagination — in a word, the mind.
And, just as the body answers to the temple
court, and the soul to the holy place, so the
spirit is, in these living temples, the holy of
holies.
2. Recur now to the passage which is our
text, and which describes the act by which the
temple was consecrated, and we shall see how
the type helps us to understand what our con-
secration must be if it is to have any real mean-
ing.
I think I am, most of all, struck by the
exceeding simplicity of that act. The priests
simply put the ark of the covenant into the
holy of holies, and then withdrew 7 . God did
the rest.
And the significance of the act is as simple
as the act itself. That ark was, perhaps, the
most important, the most all-inclusive of all
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the types of Christ. When God was showing
to Moses the patterns in the mount, the first
of them all was the ark. In a very real sense,
the tabernacle was built around that ark. That
ark with its shadowing cherubim and radiant
SHEKINAH GLORY
was the center of Israel’s worship and service,
and, sprinkled with atoning blood, was Israel’s
mercy-seat. And, just as the temple was, as to
the human side, consecrated when the ark was
installed in its inmost apartment, so, when we,
by a deliberate, definite act, have surrendered
to Him for His exclusive habitation and pos-
session, our whole being, body, soul and spirit,
are consecrated.
It is when we come to consider the temple-
type in its several parts that we may with cer-
tainty know not only how to proceed, but that
the act is, indeed, complete. Remember, with
the divine part of consecration we have no con-
cern. God may safely be trusted to do His
part.
First, then, the priests carried the ark in.
God did not send an angel to do that, nor in
THE CONSECRATION 91
any way assist by supernatural means. It was
an action entirely upon the human side. It
was the voluntary, deliberate act of the priests.
Secondly. They carried it into the holy of
holies. They did not stop in the court, nor
even in the holy place. They kept no part of
the temple for themselves. Into its innermost
recesses, into that most secret room, made
beautiful and costly with gold and precious
marbles, and cunning work of the engraver —
the very place where pride might most eas-
ily entrench itself — they carried the ark.
Thirdly. They drew out the staves. That
was an act of exceeding symbolical beauty.
You know what the staves were: they were
the wooden rods by which the ark was carried
from place to place, and there was an express
command that during the wilderness wander-
ings the staves should not be taken out. You
see the significance of the action? It was a
finality! They did not intend to do that again.
They had surrendered the holy of holies to
Jehovah for an everlasting possession. Israel
had many recurring ceremonials, but "reconse-
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cration" was not one of them. They meant
it. It was once for all.
Fourthly. They went out. They did not
remain to share the holy of holies with Je-
hovah. And you observe, it was "when the
priests were come out of the holy place, the
cloud filled the house of the Lord." I am
well persuaded that the cloud would never have
filled the house if the priests had remained
within. They went out.
Observe, the surrender of the holy of holies
was in itself the surrender of the temple. To
reach it the ark passed through the court;
passed through the holy place. There was
no pause,
NO PIECEMEAL SURRENDER,
no separate ceremony for these outer parts of
the edifice. To surrender the holy of holies
was to surrender the court and the holy place.
It is as if some conqueror, taking possession
of a surrendered fortress, should pass through
the outer defenses, through the inner defenses,
and then into the inner citadel and there plant
THE CONSECRATION 93,
his imperial banner in sign of undisputed occu-
pancy of the whole.
Precisely in this way is consecration pre-
sented in the New Testament. "Present your
bodies a living sacrifice" — the court. "Let the
peace of God rule in your hearts" — the holy
place. "Casting down imaginations, and ev-
ery high thing that exalteth itself against the
knowledge of God, and bringing into captiv-
ity every thought to the obedience of Christ"
— the mind, the holy of holies.
3. Now let us make all of this personal.
Perhaps we shall be ready to agree, first of
all, that
OUR CONCEPTION OF CONSECRATION
has been poor and inadequate. We have been
thinking of service, simply, and that in con-
nection with the body; "take my hands, take
my lips, take my feet," and so on, in a kind of
sentimental, anatomical way. We have not
thought of this temple-type and what it sig-
nifies; of being God-filled, God-possessed,
quite apart from considerations of service. I
grow very weary of the perpetual spurring of
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God’s dear people to service, service, as if any
father ever did care so much to have his chil-
dren toiling for him, as loving and trusting
him. And the more so as the God-possessed
Christian invariably does serve. No. There
is a higher thought: the enthronement of Jesus
as Lord of all.
How is it with us, beloved? Have we, by
a definite act of the will, heartily, joyfully,
brought Jesus into His own, saying as we
passed through the court, "This body, O Lord,
is thine; rule it as thou wilt; choose thou its
service?" As we passed through the holy
place, "Rule thou in my heart, thou Peace of
God," and as we came into the spirit: "Here
abide, adorable Jesus; subject my reason to
the authority of thy word ; set my imagination
at holy work;
SHINE INTO MY SPIRIT
the radiant glory of thine own, and from this
innermost place rule all the temple"?
Then, have we drawn out the staves? You
know what that means — it is not to be done
over again. I know what you are thinking:
THE CONSECRATION 95
"Perhaps I did not do it well." I dare say
not. The priests may have moved very awk-
wardly ; their feelings may not have heen what
they ought to have been; their conception of
the meaning of what they were doing may have
been imperfect. But this they did — they took
the ark in and drew out the staves.
And again: When you brought Christ in
did you retire? Or, did you stay in with Him?
Has not that been the trouble?
I remember once hearing a rather excitable
young lady testify in a meeting in New Eng-
land. She said over and over again: "It is
Jesus and I." A dear brother, who sat on the
platform with me, whispered: "I have known
that girl eight or nine years, in fact, I was
her pastor, and that is just the trouble with
her. It is Jesus and the girl. If she can ever
get where she will say: ’It is Jesus only,’ she
will have a more even experience."
4. Lastlv, one word as to the divine side
of consecration. The priests went out and left
God in possession. It was then that the di-
vine part of consecration was performed, and
not till then. The shekinah of God filled the
96 THE NEW LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS
house with a glory-cloud which always abode
between the wings of the cherubim over the
mercy seat, and which spread and increased
until all the holy place and the very courts
were filled with the radiance. That was God’s
act.
GOD ACCEPTED THE CONSECRATION
when the priests had put Him where He be-
longed and when there was no door shut to
Him anywhere. There was no shining when
He was in the court. There was no shining
when He was in holy place, nor even when
He was put in the most holy place; nor even
when the staves were drawn out; it was not
until the priests went out, setting themselves
aside, disowning all lordship over the place,
and left that building to God that the place
was filled with glory. And till that was done,
nothing was done.
You know that what the shekinah was to the
temple of old, the Holy Spirit is to these tem-
ples which we are.
"In whom ye also are builded together for
an habitation of God through the Spirit"
THE CONSECRATION 97
(Eph 2:22) . "What ? know ye not that your
body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which
is in yon?" (1Co 6:19).
This, then, is the tremendous typical sig-
nificance of this type of the divine side of con-
secration — it is the filling of the Holy Spirit.
Think of it! The answer of God to the heart-
felt, sincere surrender of the whole being to the
possession of Jesus Christ is the filling of the
whole man, spirit, soul and body; with the
Holy Spirit. How insignificant in compari-
son the human side, and yet how unspeakably
important, since the fullness of the Spirit’s
presence depends upon it.
Friends, we walk by faith, not by sight. The
priests of old could see the glory — with which
GOD FILLED THE HOUSE
— we must believe He is there. All! just there is
the fatal gap with so many. Multitudes in all
sincerity surrender the three-fold being to
Jesus; and then, because they do not feel the
Spirit in fuller manifestation, doubt — and re-
peat the process again and again. Remember,
It is not "consecration to service," nor power for
98 THE NEW LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS
service which is before us in the Temple-type ;
that will be considered when the Priest-type
is before us. It is consecration unto posses-
sion.
After all, can anything be simpler than real,
biblical consecration. It is only putting God
in His place, giving Him access everywhere,
and then going out and leaving Him to the
control of that which has been given to Him.
Then God will do His part. He will take pos-
session.
Now, just a few questions. Have we, as
believers, ever definitely brought Jesus into
the temple at all ? Have we not regarded Him
as an external Master, to whom we gave some-
thing which He might use, just as I might take
that pencil and write with it? Have we
brought Him within? Has that been the
thought of our consecration? Have we given
Him, by a definite act, the outer court — our
bodies? If we have done that, have we, each
one, brought Him into the holy place — our
hearts — and said: "Now reign here, reign
over me, over my desires and over my affec-
tions"? If we have done that, have we sev-
THE CONSECRATION 99
erally brought Him, by a definite act, once for
all, into our spirits, and said, "Reign over my
reason,
TAKE MY IMAGINATION
and set it to picturing the glories of heaven
and the beautiful things of God, and redeem
it from the things it is too much occupied
with"? And have we said: "Take this intel-
lectual pride of mine, Lord Jesus ; I am a poor
fool; just come in, and do my thinking for
me"?
Then, have we drawn out the staves? Have
we said: "Lord, now you are brought in once
for all and I draw out the staves; I am not
going to do this again next month; I do it
now"? And then, having said that, have we
not gone out ourselves?
How is it with us? Are we living as if this
whole wonderful temple — body, soul and spirit
— were no longer ours? It was ours, but we
moved out and God moved in, and now it is
His. Just when it is that way, I am very sure
the glory of God will fill the house.
IX
Defilement and Cleansing
Text: "Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved,
let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and
spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God." — 2Co 7:1.
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive
us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." —
1Jn 1:9.
"Peter saith unto him, Thou shalt never wash my feet.
Jesus answered him, If I wash thee not, thou hast no part
with me."— John 13:8.
We ARE now to consider Defilement
and Cleansing as connected with Con-
secration. You remember that we
have been looking at the subject of consecra-
tion, first through the Temple-type ; secondly,
through the Priest-type. We, as believers, are
both temples and priests ; and we found in the
consecration of the temple for the abiding pres-
ence of God, and the consecration of the priests
for the service of God, a two-fold type which
instructed us concerning our own consecration.
Now, while it is true that neither temple nor
priest was ever reconsecrated, it is, alas, true
100
DEFILEMENT AND CLEAN8ING 101
also that both were frequently defiled, and
whenever that occurred, cleansing from that
defilement was imperative. A defiled priest
was still a priest ; indeed, he was born a priest,
and consecration was but the ceremony which
inducted him into his priesthood, into the ex-
ercise of its functions, just as coronation puts
into rulership one who is born a prince, born
with a royal right. We are priests by the new
birth, and consecration but opens the door to
our service as such. Defilement suspends this
privilege of service. A priest defiled was
sternly
FORBIDDEN TO SERVE
in the things of God until cleansed, but the
method of cleansing was not reconsecration,
that was never done again.
Without doubt, it occurred oftentimes, when
there was a low spiritual state in Israel, that
the priests, w T ho really in God’s sight, and ac-
cording to the Book of God, were defiled, still
served at the altar. But nothing could have
been more displeasing to God than for them
to persist in serving Him with unclean hands;
102 THE NEW LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS
it was, as we might say, a wanton insult. It
was shocking that one of God’s priests should
be defiled; it was insolent for him, with that
defilement upon him, to presume to continue
in the service of God. I might quote from
the New Testament in this connection to show
that God will have no service from a defiled
servant. He has made abundant provision for
INSTANT CLEANSING
from defilement, but this He insists upon.
"They that bear the vessels of the Lord must
have clean hands." I am persuaded that one
reason why there is so little fruit from very
much of the service of those who unquestion-
ably are God’s children, is that they persist in
service, or the forms of service, while living
upon a low level.
Now I want to take up briefly these two
things: defilement and cleansing as connected
with consecration.
1. And, first, unpleasant as the matter is,
look at defilement. Let us turn in our Bibles
to the eighth chapter of Ezekiel. It may be
we shall not need to go beyond that chapter,
DEFILEMENT AND CLEANSING 108
or, at most, to look at one or two other pas-
sages which may serve to bring before our
minds the biblical idea of defilement.
"And it came to pass in the sixth year, in
the sixth month, in the fifth day of the month,
as I sat in mine house, and the elders of Judah
sat before me, that the hand of the Lord God
fell there upon me. Then I beheld, and lo,
a likeness as the appearance of fire: from the
appearance of his loins even downward, fire;
and from his loins even upward, as the ap-
pearance of brightness, as the color of amber.
And he put forth the form of a hand, and took
me by a lock of mine head; and the spirit lifted
me up between the earth and the heaven, and
brought me in the
VISIONS OF GOD
to Jerusalem, to the door of the inner gate that
looketh toward the north; where was the seat
of the image of jealousy, which provoketh to
jealousy."
Let me say a word here. This "image of
jealousy" was simply an idol. Ezekiel goes
104 THE NEW LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS
in the spirit into the temple, and looking
through the gate northward, right toward the
altar, he found an idol set up in the very court
of that temple, which had once been conse-
crated to God.
"And, behold, the glory of the God of Israel
was there."
That was not the proper place for the glory.
The proper place for the shekinah was in the
holy of holies over the ark, between the cheru-
bim. We shall see presently why the glory
had withdrawn from the holy of holies of the
temple, and was abiding there; probably in-
visible to the eyes of apostate Israel, but visi-
ble to the faithful prophet.
"Then said he unto me, Son of man, lift up
thine eyes now the way toward the north. So
I lifted up mine eyes the way toward the north,
and behold northward at the gate of the altar,
this
IMAGE OF JEALOUSY
in the entry. He said furthermore unto me,
Son of man, seest thou what they do? even the
great abominations that the house of Israel
DEFILEMEXT AND CLEAXSIXG 105
committeth here, that I should go far off from
my sanctuary?"
God, as it were, had withdrawn from the
inner room, from the place of His enthrone-
ment, but still standing by the altar that spake
of sacrifice. The higher blessings withdrawn,
there was still the brazen altar for a point of
meeting with God. Justification remains,
blessed be God, even when His people have no
heart for holiness.
"But turn thee yet again, and thou shalt
see greater abominations. And he brought
me to the door of the court; and when I looked,
behold a hole in the wall. Then said he unto
me, Son of man, dig now in the wall : and when
I had digged in the wall, behold a door. And
he said unto me, Go in, and behold the wicked
abominations that they do here. So I went
in and saw; and behold every form of creep-
ing things, and abominable beasts, and all the
idols of the house of Israel, portrayed upon
the wall round about."
There was defilement with a vengeance.
They were not going in by the usual way
through the veil; they had made themselves
106 THE NEW LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS
A SECRET WAY
into the holy of holies. They had actually
gone into the inner abiding place of God, which
He had taken possession of at the consecration
of that temple by the shining cloud of His
glory, and had painted those golden walls with
all the abominations of lust and idolatry!
"And there stood before them seventy men
of the ancients of the house of Israel, and in
the midst of them stood Jaazaniah the son of
Shaphan, with every man his censer in his
hand; and a thick cloud of incense went up."
They had dispossessed God, so to speak,
from the holy of holies, and there they had
pictured their idols, which were too filthy and
obscene for the world to see. And, in secret,
getting in by a hole in the wall, they were of-
fering incense to those unspeakable things. Out
in the outer court, where every one could see,
the priests were still going through the form of
the regular ritual of Israel; the lamb smoking
on the altar every morning and every night,
and by it stood the priest in the sacred gar-
ments of priesthood! And there, just there,
DEFILEMENT AND CLEANSING 107
invisible to the defiled eyes of His priest, aw-
ful in His nearness, was the God of the altar
— cast out of the holy of holies, which was
painted with abominations.
"Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast
thou seen what the ancients of the house of
Israel do in the dark, every man in the cham-
bers of his imagery?"
Surely, exposition is not needed here. In
the court an idol. Within the holy place an
idol. Within the holy of holies,
ALL CONCEALED
from the eyes of man, unspeakable abomina-
tions upon the painted walls, and the elders
of Israel secretly offering incense.
But apply the type. We are, in ourselves,
that which corresponds to the temple, the court,
the holy place, and the holy of holies — the
body, the heart, the mind. Do we know some-
thing of all this? Putting Jesus, by the act
of consecration, into possession of the whole
being, enshrining Him in heart and mind —
and then letting loose the imagination to paint
the walls of that inner chamber with pictures
108 THE NEW LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS
we would not wish the world to see? And
do we like to go in there to see all this while
keeping up our church-going — perhaps
preaching or teaching Sunday-school classes —
living before the world in the profession of be-
ing God’s people? Do we know anything about
that ? Or, if that be not our case, are we put-
ting some idol into the temple,
SOME DARLING THING
that comes between us and God, while all the
time our lips are saying: "Yes, God is su-
preme"; do we know anything of that? It
may be money, or social position, or a habit, or
just self — the ugliest idol of all.
"Then said he unto me, Son of man, hast
thou seen what the ancients of the house of
Israel do in the dark, every man in the cham-
ber of his imagery?"
All this was in the dark. I wonder if we
would be willing to have the pictures which
our imagination paints taken right out and
shown to our fellowmen!
"He said also unto me, Turn thee yet again,
and thou shalt see greater abominations than
DEFILEMENT AND CLEANSING 109
they do. Then he brought me to the door of
the gate of the Lord’s house which was toward
the north; and, behold, there sat women weep-
ing for Tammuz."
Tammuz — sun-god worship. When the sun
went down, they worshipped him by weeping,
as if he had died. And every morning they
greeted the sun as if he were born again. That
was pretty bad for the temple of Jehovah, was
it not?
"Then said he unto me, Hast thou seen this,
O son of man? turn thee yet again, and thou
shalt
SEE GREATER ABOMINATIONS
than these. And lie brought me into the inner
court of the Lord’s house, and, behold, at the
door of the temple of the Lord, between the
porch and the altar, were about five and twenty
men, with their backs toward the temple of the
Lord, and their faces toward the east ; and they
worshipped the sun toward the east."
Now sun worship, in the very essence of it,
is simply nature worship. The sun is the most
glorious object which meets the eye as we look
110 THE NEW LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS
abroad upon nature. It is that on which life
and comfort and all those things depend, and
naturally, therefore, to the heart that has gone
away from God, a kind of center of that wor-
ship which goes out toward the powers of na-
ture.
You may say that I am wasting time to
dwell upon this, that we have nothing like sun
worship in this country, nothing like turning
our backs to the altar of God, and worshipping
the sun. I beg your pardon, we have. This
is precisely
THE MOST SUBTLE ABOMINATION
permitted today in the thoughts and hearts of
Christian people. It finds expression in the
extraordinary deference of the modern church
to so-called science. Multitudes are turning
away from the Bible accounts of creation, and
of the origin of man, to the improved theories
and plausible hypotheses of alleged scientists;
theories which hide God behind phenomena,
and deny the supernatural. Witness the pur-
chase by professed Christians of thousands
upon thousands of volumes of "Natural Law
DEFILEMENT AND CLEANSING 111
in the Spiritual World." Witness the im-
portation by professed Christians of Henry
Drummond to lecture upon the "Ascent of
Man," while they know that their Bibles give
one long testimony to the descent of man.
Never perhaps in all the history of the church
was there such a turning of the back upon the
altar of God and the temple of God to wor-
ship nature, as now, and never were these
things doing such serious harm. To millions
of professed Christians Drummond and Dar-
win are more authoritative than Moses.
Now to sum up for a moment these defile-
ments : The idol in the holy place ; the
INNER CHAMBER PAINTED
with all manner of vileness, and the elders of
Israel loving to be there, while out in the court
men turn their backs upon the altar of God,
too "advanced" to endure a dripping cross,
and aesthetically worship the sun.
Turn now to the New Testament:
"And the Jews’ passover was at hand, and
Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and found in the
temple those that sold oxen and sheep and
112 THE NEW LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS
doves, and the changers of money sitting : and
when he had made a scourge of small cords,
he drove them all out of the temple, and the
sheep, and the oxen ; and poured out the chang-
ers’ money, and overthrew the tables ; and said
unto them that sold doves, Take these things
hence; make not my Father’s house an house
of merchandise" (John 2:13-16).
Perhaps, we are beginning to apply the doc-
trine of this passage to the temples of brick
and stone and wood which we have erected for
the worship of God; but the deeper truth al-
ways lies back of the symbol, and we have here
the thought illustrated for us of the prostitu-
tion of the natural powers of man to the mere
pursuit of gain; the taking of the body and
making
A MONEY-MAKING MACHINE
out of it, or an eating and drinking machine,
nothing else ; that body, which is the temple of
God. Do we know anything of this?
Without going further, we have here cer-
tainly that which ought to search us. We have
the thought of idols coming in between our-
DEFILEMENT AND CLEANSING 118
selves and God, and claiming our affections,
also the thought of the mind polluted, the im-
agination suffered to wander into things that
are unclean and painting the inner chambers
with foul imagery kept very secret; of turning
the back upon the altar of God in mad worship
of nature and nature’s laws.
2. Let us turn now to the provision, alike
sublime, simple and adequate, which God has
made for our cleansing.
First of all, let us look for a moment at one
of the most familiar passages in the word of
God.
"If we confess our sins, he is faithful and
just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us
from all unrighteousness" (1Jn 1:9).
There is something then for us to do in the
matter of cleansing when we have become de-
filed.
"If we confess our sins." That is a very dif-
ferent thing, and far more searching in its im-
port than the mere confession of sinfulness.
We do that very readily. There is not one
of us but what would say: "Yes, I am a sin-
ner.
114 THE NEW LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS
"If we confess our sins," That means just
taking the hateful things up one by one and
showing them to God, saying: "I did this,
and that, and that." Every parent has ob-
served that it is very easy to get a general con-
fession from children that they have been dis-
obedient, but it is not so easy to get them to
tell just what they have been doing that is
wrong.
Confessing our sins is taking a hateful sin
and holding it up before God, and letting Him
look at it. Held up before God, in that white
light, a sin does not look nearly so pretty as
it did when we yielded to the temptation.
That is the human side of cleansing — con-
fession. I need not say that this is a believer’s
privilege. The Christ-rejecter might confess
his sins until he fell into perdition, and his sins
would be just the same as before. "No man
cometh unto the Father, but by me," says
Christ. There is but one way of salvation — the
way of faith. But when we who have believed
have confessed our sins then we may claim the
promise :
"He is faithful and just to forgive us our
DEFILEMENT AND CLEANSING 116
sins, and to cleanse ns from all unrighteous-
ness." First, forgiveness; then cleansing.
How simple this is! Now connect it with
the third text I gave you: Peter saying "Thou
shalt never wash my feet," and Christ saying:
"If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with
me." You see, there is no other resource.
When we have become defiled we must
RUN AWAY TO JESUS
and humbly put the defiled feet in His pierced
hand. But when that has been done faith says :
"Now I am cleansed."
The Christian who has confessed his sins
ought not to go about with a sense of the di-
vine displeasure, nor with the sense of defile-
ment. Faith says: "I have done that which
God requires from me, and now I believe He
is indeed faithful, and has done His part of it.
He has forgiven me, and there is no frown on
His blessed face. He has cleansed me, and I
am clean, and am going forward in His service
with the full assurance that He is abiding
sweetly once more in the very secret chambers
of my being.’
»»
116 THE NEW LIFE IN CHRIST JESUS
We must, as in salvation, take the divine
part of it by faith.
As in consecration we yield ourselves for
it and then believe we are consecrated because
we dare not doubt that God does His part, so,
when that consecration has become defiled, we
confess the thing in all its detail to God, and
we go away happy because we believe God has
again done His part — has forgiven us, has
cleansed us.
After all, it is all by faith. We begin by
faith and we aro on bv faith. That which is
required of us is simple and reasonable and
we do it, and then we believe God has done that
which He promised he would do.
After all, how very simple it is ! I may have
made it very difficult, although it was in my
heart to make it exceedingly simple. First of
all,
THE YIELDING TO GOD
for consecration, followed by a definite act of
faith which says : "God has done it; I am con-
secrated." Then when defilement comes in,
confession, and then again the act of faith,
DEFILEMENT AN I) CLEANSING 117
which says: "God lias cleansed me, and once
more I am clean every whit." Then we go
forward in His service expecting the mani-
festation of His glorious power, and then His
peace garrisons our hearts and minds through
Christ Jesus.
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The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago
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CHRISTIANITY AND ANTI-CHRISTIANITY
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By Rev. Samuel J. Andrews
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