THE SECOND BLESSING by Andrew Murray

IN the life of the believer there sometimes comes a crisis, as clearly marked as his conversion, in which he passes out of a life of continual feebleness and failure to one of strength, and victory, and abiding rest. The transition has been called the Second Blessing. Many have objected to the phrase, as being unscriptural, or as tending to make a rule for all, what was only a mode of experience in some. Others have used it as helping to express clearly in human words what ought to be taught to believers as a possible deliverance from the ordinary life of the Christian, to one of abiding fellowship with God, and entire devotion to His service. In introducing it. into the title of this book, I have indicated my belief that, rightly understood, the words express a scriptural truth, and may be a help to believers in putting clearly before them what they may expect from God. Let me try and make clear how I think we ought to understand it. I have connected the expression with the two Covenants. Why was it that God made two Covenants-not one, and not three? Because there were two parties concerned. In the First Covenant man was to prove what he could do, and what he was. In the Second, God would show what He would do. The former was the time of needed preparation; the latter, the time of Divine fulfilment. The same necessity as there was for this in the race, exists in the individual too. Conversion makes of a sinner a child of God, full of ignorance and weakness, without any conception of what the whole-hearted devotion is that God asks of him, or the full possession God is ready to take of him. In some cases the transition from the elementary stage is by a gradual growth and enlightenment. But experiences teaches, that in the great majority of cases this healthy growth is not found. To those who have never found the secret of a healthy growth, of victory over sin and perfect rest in God, and have possibly despaired of ever finding it, because all their efforts have been failures, it has often been a wonderful help to learn that it is possible by a single decisive step, bringing them into a right relationship to Christ, His Spirit, and His strength, to enter upon an entirely new life.

What is needed to help a man to take that step is very simple. He must see and confess the wrongness, the sin, of the life he is living, not in harmony with God's will. He must see and believe in the life which Scripture holds out, which Christ Jesus promises to work and maintain in him. As he sees that his failure has been owing to his striving in his own strength, and believes that our Lord Jesus will actually work all in him in Divine power, he takes courage, and dares surrender himself to Christ anew. Confessing and giving up all that is of self and sin, yielding himself wholly to Christ and His service, he believes and receives a new power to live his life by the faith of the Son of God. The change is in many cases as clear, as marked, as wonderful, as conversion. For lack of a better name, that of A Second Blessing came most naturally.

When once it is seen how greatly this change is needed in the life of most Christians, and how entirely it rests on faith in Christ and His power, as revealed in the Word, all doubt as to its scripturalness will be removed. And when once its truth is seen, we shall be surprised to find how, throughout Scripture, in history and teaching, we find what illustrates and confirms it.

Take the twofold passage of Israel through water, first out of Egypt, then into Canaan. The wilderness journey was the result of unbelief and disobedience, allowed by God to humble them, and prove them, and show what was in their heart. When this purpose had been accomplished, a second blessing led them through Jordan as mightily into Canaan, as the first had brought them through the Red Sea out of Egypt.

Or take the Holy Place and the Holiest of All, as types of the life in the two covenants, and equally in the two stages of Christian experience. In the former, very real access to God and fellowship with Him, but always with a veil between. In the latter, the full access, through a rent veil, into the immediate presence of. God, and the full experience of the power of the heavenly life. As the eyes are opened to see how terribly the average Christian life comes short of God's purpose, and how truly the mingled life can be expelled by the power of a new revelation of what God waits to do, the types of Scripture will shine with a new meaning.

Or look to the teachings of the New Testament. In Romans, Paul contrasts the life of the Christian under the law with that under grace, the spirit of bondage with the Spirit of adoption. What does this mean but that Christians may still be living under the law and its bondage, that they need to come out of this into the full life of grace and liberty through the Holy Spirit, and that, when first they see the difference, nothing is needed but the surrender of faith, to accept and experience what grace will do by the Holy Spirit.

To the Corinthians, Paul writes of some being carnal, and still babes, walking as men after the flesh; others being spiritual, with spiritual discernment and character. To the Galatians, he speaks of the liberty with which Christ, by the Spirit, makes free from the law, in contrast to those who sought to perfect in the flesh, what was begun in the Spirit, and who gloried in the flesh; -all to call them to recognise the danger of the carnal, divided life, and to come at once to the life of faith, the life in the Spirit, which alone is according to God's will.

Everywhere we see in Scripture, what the state of the Church at the present day confirms, that conversion is only the gate that leads into the path of life, and that within that gate there is still great danger of mistaking the path, of turning aside, or turning back, and that where this has taken place we are called at once, and with our whole heart, to turn and give ourselves to nothing less than all that Christ is willing to work in us. Just as there are many who have always thought that conversion must be slow, and gradual, and uncertain, and cannot understand how it can be sudden and final, because they only take man's powers into account, so many cannot see how the revelation of the true life of holiness, and the entrance on it by faith out of a life of self effort and failure, may be immediate and permanent. They look too much to man's efforts, and know not how the second blessing is nothing more nor less than a new vision of what Christ is willing to work in us, and the surrender of faith that yields all to Him.

I would fain hope that what I have written in this book may help some to see that the second blessing is just what they need, is what God by His Spirit will work in them, is nothing but the acceptance of Christ in all His saving power as our strength and life, and is what will bring them into, and fit them for, that full life in the New Covenant, in which God works all in all.

Let me close this note with a quotation from the introduction to a little book just published, Dying to Self: A Golden Dialogue, by William Law, with notes by A. M.: "A great deal has been said against the use of the terms, the Higher Life, the Second Blessing. In Law one finds nothing of such language, but of the deep truth of which they are the, perhaps defective, expression, his book is full. The points on which so much stress is laid in what is called Keswick teaching, stand prominently out in his whole argument. The low state of the average life of believers, the cause of all failure as coming from self-confidence, the need of an entire surrender of the whole being to the operation of God, the call to turn to Christ as the One and Sure Deliverer from the power of self, the Divine certainty of a better life for all who will in self-despair trust Christ for it, and the heavenly joy of a life in which the Spirit of Love fills the heart-these truths are common to both. What makes Law's putting of the truth of special value is the way in which he shows how humility and utter self-despair, with the resignation to God's mighty working in simple faith, is the infallible way to be delivered from self, and have the Spirit of Love born in the heart."

-------- Taken from “The Two Covenants” by Andrew Murray (1828-1917)

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Jade

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Jade

This is very interesting so I find. Will need to go through my Christiany timeline. To see if I find the inferred crises.

P.S: Yes, I personally believe I am doing a post "Second blessing" cross-walk now.

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Kervin

This was opened up to be me through the testimony on Duncan Campbell. It's on Sermonindex if you would like to listen to it.

http://ia802802.us.archive.org/9/items/SERMONINDEX_SID0560/SID0560.mp3

It wasn't long before I discovered powers resident within me that were fighting against my desire for godliness
and holiness -- a power well entrenched in my nature. A power that battled my best endeavors. And with the
Apostle Paul I frequently cried, "Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from this body of death? The
good that I would, I cannot do, the evil that I hate, that I do." Yet, in the midst of it all, I knew that I had entered
into a saving and covenant relationship with God, and that He had entered into a saving and covenant relationship
with me. I knew that. And yet -- oh, the law of the spirit of life fighting the law of the spirit of death!

However, the day came when that was changed, and changed under very strange circumstances. I found myself
severely wounded in a cavalry charge outside of Amiens -- The last cavalry charge of the British army, April 12,
1918. It is a terrible thing to be in a cavalry charge when machine guns are leveled at you, firing five and six
hundred rounds-a-minute. That was what we had to face on that fearful morning. I lay wounded on the battlefield;
the blood was flowing freely; I believed I was dying. I was very conscious of my unfitness to appear before the
judge of all the earth. Two things troubled me: I felt so unpure, and I knew that I hadn't helped any soul to find the
Saviour. We had often sung on the farm: Must I empty-handed go? Must I meet my Saviour so? Not one soul with
which to greet Him? Must I empty-handed go? Could I but recall them now, Oh, the years of sin I've wasted! I
would give them to my Saviour To His will I'd gladly bow

But I was dying, I thought. And then, a miraculous thing happened. The Canadian horses were called out to
second charge. They charged over that bloody battlefield toward the enemy in a body. Men were dying; men were
lying wounded; the whole field was littered with men and horses in distress. As it happened, a horse's hoof struck
me in the spine. The mark is still there, and I must have groaned. In the providence of God, that groan registered
in the mind of a Canadian trooper. He might have said to himself, "There's a cowardly man of the Scotch Grays.
He's still alive."

After the charge, again in the providence of God, that trooper came right to the place where I lay and saw that I
was bleeding profusely. He lifted as gently as he could placed me on the horse's back, dug the stirrup right into the
horses side; and that steed galloped with fury toward the casualty clearing station. Would I be alive to reach the
casualty clearing station? Would my soul be in eternity before my body was lifted from the horse? These were the
thoughts that coursed through my mind.

As I lay on that horse's back, I remembered a prayer Father frequently offered at family worship. The prayer came
from my heart, "Oh, God, I'm dying. Will you make me as holy as a saved man can be?" It was McCheyne's
prayer, frequently uttered by Father, "Make me as holy as a saved sinner can be." God the Holy Ghost fell upon
me on that horse's back. You needn't say, "There isn't such a thing as a definite experience of the Holy Ghost
subsequent to conversion. My confession was real; my regeneration was wonderful; but it paled before the
revelation of Jesus that came to me on that horse's back.

Then the horse stood at the casualty clearing station. Loving hands lifted me and laid me down on a stretcher. The
place was crowded with wounded and dying, mostly Canadians. I couldn't speak English. But I tried to sing in
Gaelic, and what I sang was a psalm: "Oh, thou my soul, bless God the Lord; and all that in me is, be stirred up.
His holy name, I will magnify and bless." Oh, I was weak. My voice wasn't strong. But God swept in.

Mark you, there wasn't a man there who could understand me. To them it was a strange language. But within that
hour seven Canadians were saved. Revival, a miniature revival, swept into the casualty clearing station! One
young lad said, "Trooper, can you not speak to us in English? We are seeking Jesus." Men with little thought of
God, here they were, moved by the Spirit, God, the personality of Jesus, making His impact upon sinners. That's
why I constantly say that to me the power of the Holy Ghost in its final analysis is the revelation of Jesus.

It was testimony of my fellow Scot, that open up to a deeper work of the Spirit, God later confirmed to me through a book called Holiness the Key to revival.

In my journey I have met only one man that claims to have got it all at conversion, all others that I have met and say they walk in Holiness say the got it as additional work done by the Holy Spirit.

Looking at scripture I see that we can be born again by God's Spirit, be filled with the Spirit and operate in the gifts but yet be Carnal.

So if you notice I have said two blessing of the Spirit all already.

1. Born Again by God's Spirit
2. Filled with the Spirit and operate in the gifts.

However carnality can and does remain.

Carnal what do I mean?

The word “carnal” is translated from the Greek word sarkikos, which literally means “fleshly.”

This word is seen in the context of Christians in 1 Corinthians 3:1-3. In this passage, the apostle Paul is addressing the readers as “brethren,” a term he uses to refer to other Christians; he then goes on to describe them as “carnal.” Therefore, we can conclude that Christians can be carnal.

However Paul goes on to say to these Christian's "earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way".

He then goes on to say "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love - I am nothing"

This is Paul opening up to the Corinthian's what Duncan Campbell testifies happen to him on the battlefield in 1918.

Duncan Campbell - "My confession was real; my regeneration was wonderful; but it paled before the revelation of Jesus that came to me on that horse's back".

I don't get hung up on the words second blessing, or entire sanctification, a more excellent way, as in our carnality will begin to argue over these terms and it causes division. For me these are all but words used to describe the a work of Spirit, that is promised in the New Covenant.

What we need is to fully understand what's available in the New Covenant, that takes a work of the Spirit to open up that truth which is another "blessing of the Spirit" in and of it self but once the scripture is opened up to us we must believe what God say he will do.

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Colin Murray

What a wonderful testimony which I have not heard before now. This stood out for me, "Make me as holy as a saved sinner can be." It was the same prayer that I sent up one day, and God answered in a profound way.

No such thing as a saved sinner though I found out later, though you can understand why he said it that way, and I saw it that way too.

Saved means being saved to the uttermost from sin. You are either a saint or a sinner. The Bible is wonderful is showing things in black and white - the two trees in Eden, inside or outside the ark, on or off the cross, heaven or hell, in Christ or not in Christ.

THE CONNECTION BETWEEN GOD'S AND MAN'S WORKING IN SANCTIFICATION
By Andrew Murray

A second lesson suggested is the connection between God's and man's working in sanctification. To Moses the Lord speaks, 'Sanctify unto me all the first-born.' He afterwards says, 'I sanctified all the first-born for myself.' What God does He does to be carried out and appropriated through us. When He tells us that we are made holy in Christ Jesus, that we are His holy ones, He speaks not only of His purpose, but of what He has really done; we have been sanctified in the one offering of Christ, and in our being created anew in Him. But this work has a human side. To us comes the call to be holy, to follow after holiness, to perfect holiness. God has made us His own, and allows us to say that we are His: but He waits for us now to yield Him an enlarged entrance into the secret places of our inner being, for Him to fill it all with His fulness. Holiness is not something we bring to God or do for Him. Holiness is what there is of God in us. God has made us His own in redemption, that He might make Himself our own in sanctification. And our work in becoming holy is the bringing our whole life, and every part of it, into subjection to the rule of this holy God, putting every member and every power upon His altar.

And this teaches us the answer to the question as to the connection between the sudden and the gradual in sanctification: between its being a thing once for all complete, and yet imperfect and needing to be perfected. What God sanctifies is holy with a Divine and perfect holiness as His gift: man has to sanctify by acknowledging and maintaining and carrying out that holiness in relation to what God has made holy. God sanctified the Sabbath day: man has to sanctify it, that is, to keep it holy. God sanctified the first-born as His own: Israel had to sanctify them, to treat them and give them up to God as holy. God is holy: we are to sanctify Him in acknowledging and adoring and honouring that holiness. God has sanctified His great name, His name is Holy: we sanctify or hallow that name as we fear and trust and use it as the revelation of His Holiness. God sanctified Christ: Christ sanctified Himself, manifesting in His personal will and action perfect conformity to the Holiness with which God had made Him holy. God has sanctified us in Christ Jesus: we are to be holy by yielding ourselves to the power of that holiness, by acting it out, and manifesting it in all our life and walk. The objective Divine gift, bestowed once for all and completely, must be appropriated as a subjective personal possession; we must cleanse ourselves, perfecting holiness. Redeemed unto holiness: as the two thoughts are linked in the mind and work of God, they must be linked in our heart and life.

------ Taken from “Holy in Christ” by Andrew Murray

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Jade

Quote: You are either a saint or a sinner.

Quote: Saved means being saved to the uttermost from sin.

Nonsense.

What is Saint?

Paul writes that Christ Jesus “became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” 1 Cor 1:30

The word translated “sanctification” (or “holiness”) is part of the same word family as the word for “saint.”

All who are identified with Jesus Christ by faith are given the status of “holy” before God because of what Jesus has done for us.

Making them Saints

What is saved?

John 5:24 | “I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life.

Roms 3:24 | Yet God, in his grace, freely makes us right in his sight.

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You can still be "identified with Jesus Christ by faith" and struggle with Sin.

1 Peter 2:11: Beloved, I beg you as sojourners and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul.

1 Cor 3:3-4 for you are still carnal. For where there are envy, strife, and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men? For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not carnal.

This is the whole idea behind the deeper work of the Spirit that Duncan's speaks about as he said below.

"I discovered powers resident within me that were fighting against my desire for godliness and holiness -- a power well entrenched in my nature. A power that battled my best endeavors."

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Colin Murray

//This is the whole idea behind the deeper work of the Spirit that Duncan's speaks about as he said below.

"I discovered powers resident within me that were fighting against my desire for godliness and holiness -- a power well entrenched in my nature. A power that battled my best endeavors."//

I think you are getting mixed up Colin. It is what I believe in/experienced. Romans 7 as the crisis of a follower of Christ. Unfortunately most think they are saved by the following.

"It is a snare to imagine that God wants to make us perfect specimens of what He can do; God’s purpose is to make us one with Himself. The emphasis of holiness movements is apt to be that God is producing specimens of holiness to put in His museum. If you go off on this idea of personal holiness, the dead-set of your life will not be for God, but for what you call the manifestation of God in your life. “It can never be God’s will that I should be sick,” you say. If it was God’s will to bruise His own Son, why should He not bruise you? The thing that tells for God is not your relevant consistency to an idea of what a saint should be, but your real vital relation to Jesus Christ, and your abandonment to Him whether you are well or ill.

Christian perfection is not, and never can be, human perfection. Christian perfection is the perfection of a relationship to God which shows itself amid the irrelevancies of human life. When you obey the call of Jesus Christ, the first thing that strikes you is the irrelevancy of the things you have to do, and the next thing that strikes you is the fact that other people seem to be living perfectly consistent lives. Such lives are apt to leave you with the idea that God is unnecessary, by human effort and devotion we can reach the standard God wants. In a fallen world this can never be done. I am called to live in perfect relation to God so that my life produces a longing after God in other lives, not admiration for myself. Thoughts about myself hinder my usefulness to God. God is not after perfecting me to be a specimen in His show-room; He is getting me to the place where He can use me. Let Him do what He likes." -Oswald Chambers

No, I am not mixed up, maybe I didn't explain myself correctly or maybe you don't understand.

What I am saying is that after conversion, sin remains. That is what Duncan Campbell testifies to.

"I discovered powers resident within me that were fighting against my desire for godliness and holiness -- a power well entrenched in my nature. A power that battled my best endeavors."

We can clearly see in scripture that Christians struggle with sin. James 1:21, 1 Peter 2:1-2, Hebrews 3:13, Colossians 3:7-9, 1 Peter 4:3.

We are told to, many, many times in scripture "put away" all filthiness, rampant wickedness, malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and all slander etc, etc.

The question we should ask is can we put it away?

My reply is a whole hearty - NO - we can't.

It is impossible to live the Christian life, in our own strength, impossible.

But what is impossible for man - is possible with God.

God has promised -

I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols.

I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes and to carefully observe My ordinances.

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Colin Murray