THE SPIRIT OF HOLINESS
by A.B. Simpson
"Elect according to the foreknowledge of God
the Father,
through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and
sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ" 1 Peter i:
2.
It would throw a flood of light on the perplexing doctrine
of election if we would remember, when thinking of this subject,
that we are elected by God, not unto salvation unconditionally
and absolutely, but unto holiness. We are predestined to be
conformed to the image of His Son. It is idle and unscriptural,
therefore, to talk about being elected to salvation irrespective
of our faith or obedience. We are elected to obedience and
sprinkling of the blood of Christ, and are summoned, therefore,
to make our calling and election sure, by pressing on into
the fullness of the grace of Christ. This work of sanctification
is especially the work of the Holy Spirit. Let us look carefully
at the principles that lie at the foundation of it, and its
connection with the person and work of the Holy Ghost.
1. The holiness to which we are called, and into which we
are introduced by the Holy Spirit, is not the restoration
of Adamic perfection, or the recovery of the nature we lost
by the fall. It is a higher holiness, even the very nature
of God Himself, and the indwelling of Jesus Christ, the second
Adam, to whose perfect likeness we shall be restored through
the work of redemption. We are predestined to be conformed
to the image of His Son. This will determine all our subsequent
conclusions in the consideration of this subject. Sanctification
is not the perfection of human character, but the impartation
of the divine nature, and the union of the human soul with
the person of Christ, the new Head of redeemed humanity.
2. Our sanctification has been purchased for us through
the redemption of Christ. By one offering He has perfected
forever all them that are sanctified. When He came He said,
"Lo! I come to do thy will, 0 God; yea, thy law is in my heart,
by which will we are sanctified through the offering of the
body of Jesus Christ once for all."
Our sanctification, therefore, as well as our justification,
was included in the finished work of Christ, and it is a free
gift of His grace to every ransomed soul that accepts it,
in accordance with His word and will. It is one of our redemption
rights in Christ, and we may claim it by faith as freely as
our forgiveness. "For He gave Himself for us that He might
redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar
people, zealous of good works."
3. It is the office of the Holy Spirit to lead us into the
full redemption of Jesus Christ, and therefore, into holiness.
In pursuance of this heavenly calling, the Holy Spirit leads
us first to see our need of sanctification. This He does by
a two-fold revelation. First, He shows us the divine will
for our sanctification, and the necessity for our becoming
holy if we could please God. By nature and tradition many
persons are prone to take a very different view of this subject,
and to regard the experience of holiness as a sort of exceptional
life for a few distinguished Christians, but not expected
of all the disciples of Christ. But the awakened and startled
mind discovers, in the light of Scripture and of the Holy
Spirit, the falseness of this delusion, and the inflexible
terms in which God's Word requires that all His people should
be holy in heart and life. In the searching light of truth
it trembles as it reads, "Without holiness no man shall see
the Lord." "Into heaven there entereth nothing that defileth,
nor worketh abomination, nor maketh a lie." "Blessed are they
that wash their robes that they may have right to the Tree
of Life and may enter in through the gates into the city."
"He that walketh uprightly and worketh righteousness shall
see the King in His beauty and behold the land that is very
far off." "Who shall ascend unto the hill of the Lord or stand
in His holy place? He that hath clean hands and a pure heart."
"Be ye holy even as I am holy; be ye therefore perfect even
as your Father in heaven is perfect." "These things have I
written unto you that ye sin not. He that abideth in Him sinneth
not; he that sinneth hath not seen Him neither known Him."
At this point the soul is compelled to face a very solemn
crisis; either it must accept the Word of God literally and
implicitly, or it must turn it aside by human tradition, and
explain away its most plain and emphatic teachings, and render
it of no effect in any of its promises or commands, and so
enter upon a course which must end in practical infidelity.
The latter alternative is taken by many; they content themselves
with saying such a standard is impossible, nobody has ever
reached it, and God does not actually mean it or require it.
The result is that henceforth the Word of God becomes uncertain
to them in all its messages, a practical faith ceases to be
possible. But the other alternative drives the soul, if honestly
faced, to self-despair; it can find no such holiness in itself,
and no power to produce it.
The first effect, it is true, generally is to stir up the
awakened heart to attempt a better life and try to work out
a holiness such as God requires. Resolutions, outward amendments,
perhaps many inward exercises, self-examinations, purposes
of righteousness, and holiness, are the result. But in a little
while there is a certain issue of failure and disappointment;
perhaps the man becomes a Pharisee and deludes himself into
the idea that he is complying with the divine standard. But,
if the Holy Ghost is doing His office work thoroughly, he
will soon become disgusted with his own righteousness, and
find his utter inability even to reach his own standard. Some
crucial test will come which he cannot meet, some command
which strikes at the roots of his natural inclinations and
requires the sacrifice of his dearest idols, and the poor
heart will break down, and the will will shrink or rebel.
This was the experience of the apostle Paul; for the time
he thought that he had attained unto the righteousness of
the law, but when the commandment came, sin revived, and he
died. The Lord said "Thou shalt not covet," and instantly
his throbbing heart awoke with all the intensity of its natural
life, to a thousand evil desires, all the stronger because
they were forbidden, until in despair he cried out "I know
that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal." "0 wretched man
that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?"
Ah! this is the very preparation for sanctification. He is
just on the verge of deliverance. He has found at length his
helplessness. He has got down to the bottom of the ladder
of self-renunciation. It is to such a soul that the Master
is saying, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is
the kingdom of heaven." "Blessed are they that hunger and
thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled."
So of old, God came to Job in the revelation of his own
worthlessness until he cried, "I abhor myself." So He came
to Isaiah, just before his cleansing, until the prophet smote
upon his breast and cried, "Woe is me! for I am a man of unclean
lips." Happy the heart that can see itself at its worst, without,
on the one hand attempting to excuse its failure, or on the
other, giving up in despair. For such a soul the Holy Spirit
waits to bring the next stage of His blessed work of sanctification
namely:
4. The revelation of Jesus Christ Himself as our sanctification.
It is the purpose of God that the person of Jesus shall be
to us the embodiment of all that there is in God and salvation.
Therefore, sanctification is not a mere human experience or
state, but is the reception of the person of Christ as the
very substance of our spiritual life. For He "is made unto
us of God, wisdom, righteousness, sanctification, redemption."
It is not a wealthy friend advancing us the money to pay our
debts, but it is the friend coming into our business and assuming
it Himself, with all its burdens and liabilities, while we
simply become subordinate and receive all our needs henceforth
from Him. This was the glad cry which Paul sent back the moment
he had reached the depths of self-despair: "I thank God through
Jesus Christ our Lord." It is the Holy Spirit's function to
reveal Him. "He shall take of the things of Christ and show
them to us."
And so in the light of His revealing we behold Christ, the
perfect One, who walked in sinless perfection through the
world in His incarnation, waiting to come and enter our hearts,
and dwell in us, and walk in us, as the very substance of
our new life, while we simply abide in Him, and walk in His
very steppings. It is not merely imitating an example, but
it is living in the very life of another. It is to have the
very person of Christ possessing our being; the thoughts of
Christ, the desires of Christ, the will of Christ, the faith
of Christ, the purity of Christ, the love of Christ, the unselfishness
of Christ, the single aim of Christ, the obedience of Christ,
the humility of Christ, the submission of Christ, the meekness
of Christ, the patience of Christ, the gentleness of Christ,
the zeal of Christ, the works of Christ, manifest in our mortal
flesh, so that we shall say, "I live, yet not I, but Christ
liveth in me." When the Holy Spirit thus reveals Him to the
heart we can surely say, as a saint once said after such a
vision, "I have had such a sight of Christ that I never can
be discouraged again."
5. But the Spirit not only reveals Christ, but He actually
brings him to occupy and abide in the heart. It is not enough
to see, we must receive Him and become personally united to
Him through the Holy Ghost. In order to do this there must
be, on our part, a complete surrender and self -renunciation,
followed by a definite act of appropriating faith. By it we
receive the Lord Jesus Christ, and become filled with the
Holy Ghost. In both of these we are led and enabled by the
Holy Spirit. Through His gracious influence we present our
bodies a living sacrifice, yield ourselves unto God in unreserved
consecration, hand over to Him the old life of self and sin
to be slain and buried forever, and offer ourselves to His
absolute ownership, possession, and disposition, unconditionally
and irrevocably. The more definite and thorough this act of
surrender, then the more complete and permanent will be the
result. It is true that, at the best, it will be an imperfect
consecration, and will need His merits to make it acceptable,
but He will accept a sincere and single desire, and will add
His own perfect consecration to our imperfect act, thus making
it acceptable to the Father through His grace.
It is most blessed to know that in the very first act of
a consecrated life we are not alone, but He Himself becomes
our consecration, as He will afterwards become our obedience,
and our strength step by step to the end. Having thus surrendered
ourselves to Him for His sanctifying grace, we must next accept
Him in His fullness that He does become to us henceforth all
that we take Him for, and that we are now owned, accepted,
possessed, cleansed and sanctified by His indwelling, and
that He is saying to us, and, recording our glad amen, without
reserve, to every word of it. "Now are ye clean through the
word that I have spoken unto you." "The blood of Jesus Christ
cleanseth us from all sin."
6. The Holy Spirit next seals this act of union by His own
manifested presence, and He makes us know that we have the
abiding of Jesus by the witness of His presence, and the baptism
of His love and power. Before, however, we can expect to receive
this, we must simply believe the promise of Christ, resting
in the certainty of our acceptance and consecration, and begin
to act by implicit faith in Him as already in our hearts.
When we do so, the Holy Ghost will not withhold the conscious
witness of our blessing a moment longer than is really necessary
for the testing and establishing of our faith.
He will become to us a most blessed and personal reality,
and it shall be true of us, as the Master Himself promised,
after the Comforter has come, "at that day ye shall know that
I am in the Father, and ye in me, and I in you." The soul
will be filled with the delightful consciousness of the presence
of God, sometimes as the Spirit of ineffable rest and holy
serenity, sometimes as the Spirit of unutterable holiness,
filling the heart as with the searching and consuming fire
of divine purity. Sometimes the consciousness will be that
of an intense hatred of sin, and a spirit of self -renunciation
and holy vigilance. Sometimes it will be a spirit of love,
an intense consciousness of the divine approval, and of God's
delight in us and love to us, until the heart is melted with
the sense of His tenderness. Sometimes it is a Spirit of unspeakable
joy and rapture, continuing for days together, until the very
tides of God's bosom seem to swell within the heart with unutterable
glory. Sometimes it is a very quiet, simple consciousness,
prompting one rather to walk by faith moment by moment, and
abide in Christ in great simplicity for every instant's need;
and there is no transcendent emotion, but simply a satisfying
consciousness of Christ sufficient for our practical life.
But in every case it is really satisfaction, and we know that
the Lord has come to abide with us forever, and be our all-sufficiency,
and our everlasting portion.
7. The Holy Spirit now begins to lead us in the steppings
of a holy life. We find it is to be maintained by the moment.
We have no crystalized and stereotyped condition of self-centred
life, but we have Christ for the present moment, and must
abide in Him by the moment. We must walk in the Spirit, and
we shall not fulfill the lusts of the flesh. We must be filled
with the Spirit, and we shall have no room for sin. It is
now that we find the importance of walking in the Spirit,
and maintaining steadfastly the habit of obedience and fellowship
with Him as the essential condition of the life of holiness.
One of the first and most important lessons is to hearken
to His voice. The minding of the Spirit is life and peace,
but the minding of the flesh is death. The Spirit is given,
we are distinctly told, to them that obey Him; and the disobedient
and inattentive heart will find His fellowship constantly
liable to be interrupted and suspended. The life of holiness
is not a mere abstract state, but a mosaic, made up of a thousand
minute details of life and action.
A Christian lady, while thinking of the subject of sanctification,
found herself suddenly absorbed in a sort of waking vision,
in which she seemed to see a builder erecting an edifice of
stone. First, she saw a deep excavation, and at the bottom
of it a solid rock on which the house was to be planted. Across
this rock was written the name of Christ, with the words,
"Other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid,
which is Jesus Christ." Then a derrick swung before her eyes
and a stone was deposited in the rear of the building. It
was a very plain looking block of granite, with no decorations
whatever on its face, and as it was deposited, in an obscure
portion of the wall was the word "Humility." Next, the derrick
swung around to the front of the wall and planted another
foundation stone on the principal corner, and the name of
this was "Faith." The walls now rose rapidly; block after
block of enduring granite was planted and cemented, and at
length was fashioned into a magnificent arch surrounded by
a beautiful cornerstone, the most lonely stone in all the
building, and across it was written the name, "Love" Between
these principal stones the interstices were filled up with
innumerable small pieces of every size and shape, and these
were variously named by the qualities of the Christian character,
such as meekness, gentleness, temperance, forbearance, patience,
considerateness, serenity, courtesy, cheerfulness, etc., and
then the whole facade was spanned by one glowing word in golden
letters, "Sanctification." The prejudices of a lifetime were
at once removed, and she saw the loveliness of a holy life
and character, and the true meaning of the word that she had
so long misconceived and disliked.
This, then, is the Holy Spirit's work in the life, and holiness;
it is much more than a mere blank sheet of spotless white;
it is the living portrait wrought out upon that sheet in all
the lineaments of holy loveliness, and all the positive qualities
of a practical and beautiful Christian life. "The fruit of
the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness,
meekness, temperance, and faith," and "whatsoever things are
just, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report, if there be any virtue,
and if there be any praise, think on these things."
These things the Holy Spirit comes to transcribe in our
hearts and to reflect in our lives, and yet these qualities
are not our own, in any sense in which we could claim them
as the result of our own goodness, or rest in them as permanent,
personal attributes. They are rather to be regarded as the
grace of Christ, supplied to us from His own indwelling Spirit
moment by moment. "And of His fullness have all we received,
and grace for grace." This is the grace to produce in us all
the varied graces of the Christian life. As Peter expresses
it, "We are called to show forth the excellencies of Christ,"
rather than our own, "who hath called us out of darkness into
His marvelous light." These are the bridal robes which are
granted to the Lamb's wife, "that she should be arrayed in
raiment clean and white." These are like Rebecca's ornaments
and veil, which are not woven by her hands, but brought her
by Eleazar from Isaac himself, and which. she had simply to
put on and wear as his gifts.
So, the Holy Ghost, typified by Abraham's servant, brings
to us the wedding robe, and supplies to us day by day the
special garment that fits us for each new situation and emergency,
and we simply put on the Lord Jesus and walk in Him as our
all-sufficiency for every place of duty and trial. The Spirit
is ever present to reveal Him to us in every new aspect of
grace and fullness; and every new need or failure is but an
invitation to take Him in greater fullness, and prove in a
higher sense that He is indeed able to save unto the uttermost,
and to keep unto the end. Not only does the Holy Spirit thus
lead us into the positive graces of the Christian life, but
He also keeps us perpetually cleansed from all the stains
of spiritual defilement, and even from the effects of temptation
and evil suggestion. If sin should touch the heart but for
a moment, He is there to reveal instantly the evil and in
the same flash of light to present and apply a remedy. "And,
if we walk in the light as He is in the light, the blood of
Jesus Christ keeps cleansing us from all sin."
Thus the soul, like the pebble in the stream, lets in the
perpetual cleansing of His life. Indeed, we may walk so close
to Him that before the sin is even admitted, before the temptation
has reached the citadel of the will and becomes our own act,
it is repelled at the entrance, and does not become our sin.
He has promised to keep us as the apple of His eye, and, even
as the eyelash is so constructed in the delicate organism
of the human body that the very approach of the smallest particle
of dust causes it instantly to close and repel the intruding
substance, so the gentle Holy Ghost instinctively guards the
heart and conscience from willful sin. There is something,
however, even in the presence of temptation, and the surrounding
atmosphere of a sin-defiled world, that spreads a certain
contagion around us, like the air in the infected hospital.
And it is necessary, therefore, that even this should be constantly
cleansed, even as the falling showers wash away the dust from
the pavements and the trees, and purify the summer air. This
the Holy Spirit is constantly doing, and diffusing through
the sanctified heart the freshness and sweetness of the heavenly
atmosphere.
We find, therefore, in the Old Testament types, a beautiful
provision for the cleansing of the people, even from the touch
of the dead, through the water of separation. Num. xix. This
beautiful ordinance was a type of the Holy Spirit applying
to us the atonement of Christ, and cleansing us habitually
from the very breath, and even the indirect contagion of surrounding
evil. Even if our old, dead carnal nature touches us, or the
atmosphere of sin is around us, we have constantly this water
of separation, and the moment we are sprinkled with it every
effect is removed and the spirit is quickened into freshness
and sweetness, even as the waters that revive the famished
earth, and cause the desert to blossom as the rose.
We must ever bear in mind, in tracing the Holy Spirit's
work in the believer's heart, the distinction between purity
of heart and maturity of character. From the moment that the
soul is yielded to Christ in full surrender, and He is received
as its divine and indwelling life, we have His purity, and
the old, sinful self is reckoned dead, and in no sense recognized
as our true self. There is a complete and eternal divorce,
and the old heart is henceforth treated as if it were not,
and Christ recognized as the true I, and, of course, a life
that is essentially pure and divine. But, although wholly
separated from the old, sinful life, is the new spirit yet
in its infancy, and before it lie boundless stages of progress
and development. The acorn is as complete in its parts as
the oak of a thousand years, but not as fully developed. And
so the soul which has just received Christ as its abiding
life and sanctification, is as wholly sanctified, and as completely
one with Him as Enoch or John is today, but not as mature.
This is the meaning of Christian growth; we do not grow into
holiness, we receive holiness in Christ as a complete, divine
life; complete in all its parts from the beginning, and divine,
as Christ is. But it is like the infant Christ on Mary's bosom,
and it has to grow up into all the fullness of the stature
of perfect manhood in Christ.
This is the work of the Holy Ghost, as the mother and the
nurse, the teacher, educator, cherisher of our spiritual life,
and it is in this connection that we must learn to walk in
the Spirit, and rise with Him into "all the good pleasure
of His goodness, and the work of faith with power," until
we shall have reached the fullness of His own prayer for us.
"Now the God of peace that brought again from the dead the
Lord Jesus Christ, great Shepherd of the sheep, through the
blood of the everlasting covenant, make you perfect in every
good work to do His will, working in you that which is pleasing
in His sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be glory forever
and ever. Amen."
