The Oberlin Evangelist
HOLINESS OF CHRISTIANS IN THE PRESENT LIFE.--No. 8.
April 12, 1843
WHAT ATTAINMENTS CHRISTIANS MAY REASONABLY
EXPECT TO MAKE IN THIS LIFE.
Modernized by Cliff
Collins
“Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely; and may your whole spirit, soul, and body be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.” (1 Thess 5:23-24)
In this lecture I will consider,
I. What is sanctification?
II. What doesn’t sanctification mean?
III. What does sanctification mean?
IV. What is the definition the sanctification of
body, soul, and spirit?
V. What doesn’t the sanctification of body, soul,
and spirit mean?
VI. What does the sanctification of body, soul, and
spirit mean?
VII. What shouldn’t Christians expect to attain in
this life?
VIII. What can Christians reasonably expect to
attain in this life?
I. What is Sanctification?
1. To sanctify means to make holy, to set apart, or
to consecrate. This is how both the Old
and the New Testaments use the word sanctification. For God to sanctify us is for Him to get us to consecrate ourselves
to Him. To sanctify our selves is to
consecrate our selves completely to Him.
2. Therefore, sanctification is holiness, purity, or
pure unselfish love. True love, as I
have shared in previous lectures, is willing the good of God and the good of
our neighbor. This unselfish love is the
ultimate intention of our mind. In
other words, godly love is obedience to the requirements of the law of
God. This is what the Bible means by
love. The Bible declares that love
fulfills the law.
II. What doesn’t sanctification mean?
1. Sanctification does not mean that God has to
change our constitution.
2. Sanctification does not mean
that there has to be such a change in our temper, our disposition, or in the
state of our mind that it places us beyond the possibility of sinning. It is absurd to believe this. The angels that kept not their first estate
were certainly sanctified, but they still sinned. The same was true with Adam.
3. Nor does sanctification mean that it’s no longer
possible for us to sin. Sanctification
does not mean that once we are sanctified, we can no longer sin.
4. Nor does sanctification mean that we will not sin
immediately as soon as we loose the support and help of the Spirit of God. There is no evidence that even the saints in
heaven, would continue obeying God if the Holy Spirit withdraws from them.
5. Nor does sanctification imply that a sanctified
soul has no more battles with temptation.
I showed, in my lecture on Christian warfare, that warfare would still
exist even if Adam and the human race never fell, and warfare will exist forever,
in one form or another.
6. Sanctification does not imply that growth in
grace stops. We all agree that the Lord
Jesus Christ was sanctified, but He still grew in grace. And we will grow in grace, not only in this
world, but also throughout eternity.
7. Nor does sanctification imply that we will be
free from errors in our judgment or our opinions will always be correct. I don’t know how anyone can show, from
either the Bible, or the nature of the situation, that sanctification implies
that we will never make a wrong judgment or have a wrong opinion. Even the saints in heaven will not be beyond
the possibility of making a wrong judgment or having a wrong opinion.
8. Nor does sanctification imply that our emotions
will always stay the same. Christ’s
emotions were not always the same. He
had His sorrows and He had His joys, and, from the very nature of His soul, His
feelings had to change as His circumstances changed.
9. Nor does sanctification imply that your emotional
excitement will always be strong and constant.
The idea that a sanctified person must always have strong emotions has
come from a serious error concerning the nature of religion. Many believe that the love required by the
law of God, consists in the highest emotional state possible. Now, if this is true, or if it is true that
our emotions constitute any part of religion, then Christ was often in sin, for
He did not exhibit any more emotional excitement than anybody else did. Therefore, those who believe this overlook
the fact that religion consists in unselfish love for God and our neighbor, and
emotion is not a necessary part of that love.
10. Sanctification does not imply the same degree or
strength of love that we might have exercised if we never had sinned. There is not one saint in heaven who does
this, and the law does not require us to do this. The law only requires us to exercise all the strength we have.
11. Sanctification does not require constant mental strain.
12. Nor does sanctification imply a state of mind
that goes beyond anything we know. We
can never be sure about the state of mind we are in. It would be a strange law indeed, which would require a
mysterious, intangible state of mind like that. The truth is, it is naturally impossible that any intelligent law
would require that kind of state of mind.
Indeed, how could one repent, or know he repented even if he did, under
that kind of requirement, or how could he perform any other duty?
III. What does sanctification mean?
1. Sanctification means that we are currently
obeying the law of God. In other words,
sanctification implies willfully loving God and our neighbor. This unselfish willful love consists in
regarding and treating every interest that we are aware of according to the
value that we feel it has; and as I shared in an earlier lecture, this
unselfish willful love is a unit. It is
a simple choice. Loving God and our
neighbor is choosing what is best for them for its own sake.
2. We have also seen that our will directs and
controls our physical or bodily actions, so that willing automatically produces
corresponding physical actions.
Therefore, sanctification means that we demonstrate an outward
obedience. It implies that we live a
correct life. We have also seen that
our will indirectly connects to and controls our emotions, our desires, and our
thoughts. Therefore, sanctification
implies that our thoughts, desires, and feelings will correspond to the state
of our will, as long as our will can regulate those thoughts, desires, and
feelings. Now, some people have less
control over their attention, and, as a result, they have less control over
their thoughts and emotions, than other people, but if something is possible to
do, that person can do it by willing, and God never requires anything more than
this.
3. Sanctification implies an honest intention to
promote the glory of God and the highest good of everything that exists, to the
best of our ability. Such an intention
will automatically embrace the following elements.
(1) This intention does not have selfish
interests. This intention chooses what
is best for everything that exists for its own sake.
(2) This intention is impartial concerning all
interests, whether this intention involves friends or foes, rich or poor, bond
or free; that is, we treat every interest according to how important we
honestly think it is.
(3) This intention looks into the future as well as
the present.
(4) This intention is supreme to God, because His
happiness is the supreme good.
(5) This intention is equal towards the entire human
race.
Now if you drop any one of these five elements, it
is no longer virtue.
4. I have already mentioned that intention, or the
choice of a goal, must adopt or use the appropriate means in order to
accomplish this goal. Therefore,
sanctification implies choosing whatever appropriate means are necessary to accomplish
the universal good of everything that exists.
5. Sanctification means we will make judgments based
on a willful unselfish active love.
These are the natural results of true love. When you see someone making severe and harsh judgments, you have good
reason to be afraid that he is not sanctified.
6. Sanctification means that we will have peace of
mind. Christ says, “Peace I leave with
you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you.” (John 14:27)
7. Sanctification means that we will rejoice in
God. God will be our joy.
8. Sanctification means that there will be no
condemnation. “There is therefore now
no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to
the flesh, but according to the Spirit.”
(Romans 8:1)
9. Sanctification means that we will have implicit
faith. The sanctified soul really
believes, as far as he understands the truth of God.
10. Sanctification means that we will delight in all
the ordinances and duties of religion as far as we understand them.
11. Sanctification means that we will be
compassionate, and whenever we notice someone who does not have this spirit, we
can know that they are not sanctified.
12. Sanctification means that we will no longer be
selfish. Any degree of selfishness is
inconsistent with sanctification.
13. Sanctification means that we will rely on
Christ, completely and totally, for support and aid. You cannot remain obedient any longer than you remember where
your strength is.
14. Sanctification means that we will hold
everything we are and have completely at God’s disposal.
So sanctification must include everything that I’ve
just mentioned, according to how much light each one of us has.
IV. What does the sanctification of body, soul, and
spirit mean?
1. The words, ‘body, soul, and spirit’, refer to our
whole being, and what is meant here is that we perfectly subject all our
appetites and tendencies to the complete control of God’s will. Some of these appetites and tendencies
originate in our body, and some originate in our mind; but our love for God and
our neighbor must control all of these tendencies.
2. The sanctification of the body, soul, and spirit
suggests that our body, soul, and spirit will be in so much harmony, that we
will respond to all the truths and relations that we perceive. In my sermon, on Christian warfare, I spoke
about the monstrous development of our souls, and the influence that this
development has to pull our will in whatever direction our soul is going. In that message, I mentioned that a perfect
balance of all our appetites, passions, and tendencies, would greatly reduce
the force of temptation. Everyone knows
how powerfully our appetites and passions wake up and clamor for indulgence. Now, although neither holiness, nor sin, belong
to our appetites and passions all by themselves, yet it would be vastly
favorable to virtue, if our appetites and passions were all brought into
harmony with each other and we made them serve the law of our reason. Let me say here that the Holy Spirit, to
change our emotions, does not exert any physical influences on our mind or our
body. For example, physical influences
cannot bring the mother, whose emotions have become so developed because of the
loss of her child, into a state where her reason controls her emotions. She does not need any physical influence to
bring her appetites and passions under the control of her reason. Simply let sinners see the love of Christ in
its true relationship to them, and it will directly enkindle their
emotions. It is the Holy Spirit’s job
to take the things of Christ, and show these things to sinners; and thus secure
the harmonious development of their body, soul, and spirit. The Holy Spirit actually does this in
Christians. Therefore, to be sanctified
is to have, not only our will consecrated to God, but also our emotions brought
into harmony under the control of our will.
V. What doesn’t the sanctification of our body,
soul, and spirit mean?
1. The sanctification of our body, soul, and spirit
does not mean that our constitutional appetites, passions, and tendencies
become extinct. They certainly do not
become extinct in the Lord Jesus Christ’s situation, and whoever believes that
it is necessary to do away with our appetites and passions in order to achieve
sanctification, has not really thought about sanctification very
seriously. We need the existence of our
constitutional appetites, passions, and tendencies to continue because we need
to be able to act morally. We need to
be able to do good and avoid evil.
2. Sanctification of our body, soul, and spirit does
not imply that our nature is changed so much, that our will automatically obeys
the law of our reason. God created us
with a nature that seeks an appropriate object for its own sake: for example,
our appetite for food looks for food, not for the glory of God, but for its own
sake. The same is true with every other
appetite and desire of our soul. Each
appetite or desire is blind to everything else other than its own object, and
it seeks its own object for its own sake.
Therefore, to say that our appetites and desires must be so changed that
it will impel our mind only in the right direction, is to say that the very
nature of our appetites and desires must be changed. Each appetite and desire naturally encourages our will to seek
the object of our appetite or desire for its own sake. It is the purpose of our reason to give
direction to each blind appetite and desire, and it is the purpose of our will
to keep our appetites and desires in strict submission to the law our reason prescribes.
3. The sanctification of our body, soul, and spirit
does not mean that our bodies, souls, and spirits are suppressed or annihilated
so much, that temptations can no longer affect them. This was not true with Eve, because she fell under the temptation
that her appetite for food presented to her.
Never expect to enter into any kind of state where our bodies or souls
become completely suppressed or annihilated.
VI. What does the sanctification of body, soul, and
spirit mean?
1. The sanctification of body, soul, and spirit
means that the tendencies of our body, soul, and spirit are all harmoniously
developed according to the light that we, or the amount of knowledge we have.
2. The sanctification of body, soul, and spirit
means our will now controls our body, soul, and spirit, just like Christ’s will
controlled His life.
VII. What shouldn’t Christians expect to attain in
this life?
1. Christians shouldn’t expect to rise above what
Christ was. It is enough for the servant
to be as his Master.
2. Of course, Christians can never reasonably expect
to advance beyond a state of Christian warfare. Christ had battles. His
battle was not with sin, nor with His conscience, because it would be silly to
call this Christian warfare, but this battle was with temptation, and no one
will deny that Christ was completely sanctified. And here, I want to point out a unique fact to you. Those who deny this doctrine say that if
Christians were perfect, they wouldn’t have any more battles. But, where do they get that idea? Certainly, not from the Bible, for there is
not one single passage that I know of in the Bible, which teaches any such
thing.
3. Christians can never expect to advance beyond
their need and ability to grow in grace.
Now, I am talking about growth in degree, not in kind. There is no doubt that we will grow in grace
throughout all eternity. The Bible says
that Christ grew in favor with God; that is, He grew in grace; and so will
every Christian.
4. Christians can never expect to advance beyond the
possibility of sinning. To do this, you
would also have to advance beyond the possibility of obedience. If one could advance beyond the possibility
of obedience, they would no longer be a moral agent.
5. Nor, can Christians expect to advance so far that
they won’t need the means of grace that the Holy Spirit provides. They will always need the assistance of the
Holy Spirit, of God’s laws, of prayer, and of the Sabbath. To deny this is ridiculous. As long as human nature remains what it is,
we need the means of grace as much as we need food, or light, or anything else
that is indispensable to our best interests.
God never makes us holy by physically forcing us to be holy; however,
God uses means, and therefore, means will always be necessary. Did not Christ use means to accomplish His
goal, His purpose in life?
VIII. What can Christians reasonably expect to
attain in this life?
1. God does not, and cannot reasonably require
Christians to do anything that is impossible.
2. It is reasonable to think that we can do whatever
God requires us to do, and we should expect that we can do it. Our ability to comply with God’s
requirements is strongly implied in the command itself. If our ability to comply with His
requirements is not implied in the command itself, we cannot be required to
obey it.
3. God cannot lie.
Therefore, it is reasonable to expect to receive whatever measure of
grace that God has clearly promised.
You are not trusting in God if you don’t expect such grace.
4. God has commanded us to obey His law; and we must
intend to obey it or we are not Christians.
But we cannot intend to obey God’s law unless we believe that it
possible to obey His law. I appeal to
every one who is listening to me. Can
you really intend to render a hearty obedience to anyone you feel is so strict
that you can’t possibly obey him? We
cannot intend to obey God, unless we believe that it is possible to obey the
spirit of the law. Therefore, we may
reasonably expect to keep the law.
5. The first verse in today’s passage is the prayer
of an inspired Apostle for the sanctification, in this life, of the whole body,
soul, and spirit of Christians, and that they may be preserved in this state,
blameless, until the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, if this is an inspired prayer, it
reveals the will of God on this subject.
This includes everything I’ve said; that is, this includes
sanctification. Please notice that this
passage ends by saying, “He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.” It is reasonable, then, to expect the
fulfillment of this passage.
6. But some people object to this, saying that,
although it is true that this, and similar promises, really promise sufficient
grace to secure sanctification, yet, because these promises are conditioned on
faith, it is unreasonable for us to expect to avail ourselves of them, unless
others have done so before us. And to
confirm this, they point to the great and good men, who have lived in different
periods of Church history, and say that they were never sanctified. For now, let me waive the answer to this objection,
and let me move on so I can make several closing remarks.
REMARKS.
1. Holiness must be an important question! I have been astonished and shocked, that
people have called this doctrine an obsession.
What? Can you call the
fundamental doctrine that we can attain holiness in this life, an
obsession? If so, then this is the
obsession of the universe, and God, and every angel is seriously interested in
successfully attaining eternal holiness.
2. We must hold up some standard. If you tell a sinner to repent, you must
hold up, in front of him, some standard that he should conform to. Even if you deny that others insist on that
standard, you must still insist on that standard. You would insist that it is his duty, whether others insist or
not, and that if he does not repent, he cannot be saved.
3. Christians must aim at some standard, but they
cannot aim at any standard that they believe is impossible to attain. We might as well try to fly by jumping off
buildings. Therefore, it is essential
that we should examine and discover what that true standard is, and hold it up
before them.
In this series of lectures, I repeatedly shared with
you that sin consists in choosing self-gratification as our supreme goal in
life, and that holiness, on the other hand, consists in choosing the glory of
God and the good of His universe as our supreme goal in life. I also said that these two goals cannot
co-exist in the same mind at the same time.
I said that as long as our will or heart is right, that nothing can be
morally wrong, at least for the time being.
On the other hand, as long as our heart is wrong, everything is wrong;
that is, our heart is totally depraved.
The only question then is: can we reasonably expect
to maintain a state of obedience before God?
I mentioned earlier that many believe that you can’t expect to maintain
a state of obedience before God unless you can point out other people as
examples. However, even if no one has
ever availed himself of these promises, this does not mean that no one ever
will. On the other hand, the
progressive state of the world today, and the progressive nature of religion,
warrants and demands that we believe that future generations will make much
higher attainments than the past. The
golden age has not gone by. Those who
think so, have not seriously meditated on this subject very well. If any one will compare the time of the
Apostles with the present time, and take in all the characteristics of both, he
will see, that, overall, the human race has made a lot of progress.
There is a fundamental error in the habit of looking
back, instead of looking forward, for the golden age of Christianity; and the
common idea that this world is deteriorating, is not true. A decided advance in science, art, philosophy,
and civilization marks every successive era; and this agrees with the whole
tenor of prophecy, which warrants and demands us to expect much higher attainments
in the future, than have ever yet been made.
The Temperance Reformation shows that it is now common for alcoholics to
make attainments that were once regarded as almost impossible. Who has not witnessed the Washingtonian
almost working miracles by in pulling alcoholics out of the gutter? And shall we extinguish our hopes concerning
the Church, and make it an exception to the progress of the world?
4. One of the greatest obstacles that prevents the
Church today from both physically and morally improving is the existence of
false opinions and expectations concerning how far God wants to bring the human
race in this world. I have examined Mr.
Miller’s theory, and I am persuaded that what he expects to come after God’s
judgment will come before the judgment.
Read the 65th chapter of Isaiah.
In this chapter, Isaiah prophesizes that there will be a tremendous
advancement made, there will be the creation of a new heavens and a new
earth. The reason men have so little
idea of what God intends in such prophecies, is that their views of the grace
of God are so puny. If we must convert
the world today using today’s standard, it is true that such prophecies cannot
represent the state of the Church. What
is the Church dreaming about, if it can’t see the need for a higher
standard? Anyone, who can’t see the
need for a higher standard, is as poor a philosopher as he is a Christian. Why, brethren, what good would it do, if the
whole world were converted to today’s standard of religion?
5. Suppose we read this promise to the people, how
can they believe it, if they believe that they cannot expect higher attainments
in the future than what they see today.
Why, they might as well say that the world never will be converted
because it never has been. How would you
reply to that? Suppose one of you stood
up and said that he world will never be converted because the world was not
converted in the days of the Apostles, nor at any time since. Therefore, how can we expect to accomplish
what has never been done? Now suppose
that ministers wasted their time pointing back to the days of the apostles, to
prove that the world can never be converted.
“Why”, they would say, “the Church has never converted the world, and
therefore, it never will convert the world.
You must be full of pride, if you think we will do more than good men
before us have done”. Then, suppose
they do go back, and hunt up all the fanaticism, enthusiasm, and extravagances
of the Crusades, and other attempts to propagate the Christian religion. Then, instead of pointing out these evils
and alerting the Church against similar evils in the future, as they should do,
we find out they were digging all this information up simply to prevent any attempts
to convert the world today. What would
you think of all of this? You probably
would think that what they are doing is ridiculous; and yet this is exactly the
course that multitudes of ministers adopt today concerning the doctrine of
sanctification. The fact that most
professing Christians don’t believe that the promises mean very much, has resulted
in the fact that today’s promises have not been more generally realized in
today’s Christian experience.
6. To say that it is unreasonable to expect the
conversion of the world today is to lay a stumbling block before the
Church. Suppose you should exhort
sinners to repent, and then tell them they can’t repent, neither in their own
strength, nor by any grace received.
Your words would be nothing more than a stumbling block, over which, if
they believed you, they would stumble into hell. In the same way, if you tell Christians that they should be
sanctified and that it is attainable, and yet, that no one can attain it in
this life, you prevent them from attaining it.
If they believe your instruction, it will prevent their spiritual
progress just as certainly as a general outcry against missions would prevent
the conversion of the world.
7. However, if it is unreasonable for us to expect
to be sanctified, then what is reasonable?
What can we expect? How much
higher can we rise? Who can tell? Who will point to some definite standard?
8. Many people doubt the truth of the view I have
mentioned here. Now, where do these
doubts come from?
(1) These doubts come from false teachings on moral
depravity and holiness. When men make
holiness consist in emotions instead of pure unselfish love, they overlook the
very nature of virtue, and they are automatically deluded.
(2) These doubts come from unbelief. Our opinions on such questions must depend
on our faith, and the state of our hearts.
(3) These doubts come from radically defective
Christian experiences, or rather, from only having a legal experience.
(4) These doubts come from overlooking the fullness
of what the Gospel provides for each one of us.
(5) These doubts come from confusing sanctification
with a lawless perfectionism.
(6) These doubts come from false views concerning what constitutes total sanctification. Many say that the Bible suggests that Christian warfare continues until death, and that this warfare consists in battling sin. Now where do they learn this? Certainly not from the Bible. The Bible does represent Christian warfare as continuing until death, but it never represents warfare as consisting in fighting sin. What is sin? Why, sin is a heart, will, or choice that is contrary to the will of God. Therefore, to fight with sin would be to fight with a choice that we have already made. To fight with sin would be to fight with our voluntary state of mind. This choice fights against itself, which is absurd. Christian warfare consists in battling temptation, not sin. These people say that God commands Christians to grow in grace, and once they arrive at perfection, their progress ends. As a result, they set up a man of straw, and then fight him.
9. This is a serious question for all Christians,
and I cannot tell you how I feel, when I hear professing Christians say they
cannot take any time to examine this important topic. A professing Christian said to me not long ago, “I can’t take
time to examine this subject”, and yet he had the strangest opinions concerning
this subject. It is enough to make one
weep tears of blood to see the darkness that prevails, and yet their apathy and
their unwillingness to inquire into the truth of the matter. Beloved, let us know the truth that it may
make us free. Let us give ourselves up
to the teachings of the Holy Spirit, that we may be ‘sanctified completely, and
preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ’.