CHAPTER 2
A SANCTIFIED SPIRIT
Having seen the source and meaning of sanctification, let us next trace its
sphere and extent. “I pray God to sanctify you through and through” is the
meaning of this verse. And then Paul specifies the threefold division of
our human nature, the spirit, the soul, and the body as respectively the
subjects of this work of grace. The Divine Trinity has its counterpart in
human nature, at least in some feeble measure. Man has been called a trichotomy
or a triplex nature, and there seems good ground to claim that this division
is recognized in the Scriptures. In the original account of man’s creation
the body is first distinctly mentioned—”the Lord God formed man out
of the dust of the ground.” Then we have the soul and spirit clearly
distinguished in the words which follow, “God breathed into man the breath
of life and man became a living soul.” We have first the breath of spirit
of the Almighty imparted into man’s higher being and then the physical principle
constituting him a living soul.
Again in the account of our Lord’s child we have the same division. “The
child grew,” His physical life; “waxed strong in spirit,” His spiritual;
“filled with wisdom,” His intellectual or soul life. Again in I Cor. 2, the
apostle Paul very clearly distinguishes between the soul and the spirit in
man. The psychical man, that is, the soul man, he tells us, “receiveth not
the things of the Spirit of God neither can he know them for they are spiritually
discerned, but he that is spiritual discerneth all things.” The psychical
man, therefore, is the man of the soul, the spiritual man is the man of quickened
spirit. It will be noticed that in this passage he begins with the spirit
and gradually descends to the soul and body as the subjects of sanctification.
This is quite instructive and significant.
The other day in speaking to our builders, they remarked, “We always work
from the top story downward and end with the basement, and so we never go
back over our finished work, or need to soil the floors that have been cleansed
and completed.” And so in God’s great house, He works from the top downward.
So it is in the growth of the tree. Let it add a thousand layers, you will
find that not one is laid on from the outside but each of them has a separate
growth from the innermost pith of the tree. The tree’s life is from within,
outward. So in the tabernacle, the great symbol of spiritual truth, in the
account given us in the book of Exodus, we find Jehovah beginning in the
Holy of Holies in the Ark of the Covenant, and traveling outward until He
has traversed the sanctuary with all its sacred vessels, and reached the
external court, with its laver and altar of sacrifice.
Beautiful type of the work of sanctifying grace; the holy Shekinah of the
divine spirit and the indwelling Christ in the innermost chamber of the spirit,
and spreading their heavenly life and influence abroad through every part
until they penetrate every faculty of the soul and every organ of the physical
being with their transforming and consecrating power.
I. WHAT IS THE SPIRIT?
In a word it may be said that it is the divine element in man, or perhaps
more correctly, that which is cognizant of God. It is not the intellectual
or mental or aesthetic or sensational part of man but the spiritual, the
higher nature, that which recognizes and holds converse with the heavenly
and divine.
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It is that in us which knows God, which directly and immediately is conscious
of the divine presence and can hold fellowship with Him, hearing His voice,
beholding His glory, receiving intuitively the impression of His touch and
the conviction of His will, understanding and worshipping His character and
attributes, speaking to Him in the spirit and language of prayer and praise
and heavenly communion. It is, also, directly conscious of the other world
of evil spirits, and knows the touch of the enemy as well as the voice of
the Shepherd.
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The spirit is that which recognizes the difference between right and wrong,
which loves the right and thinks, discerns, chooses in harmony with
righteousness. It is the moral element in human nature. It is the region
in which conscience speaks and reigns. It is the seat of righteousness and
purity and sanctity, it is that which resembles God, the new man created
in righteousness and true holiness after His image. Every one must be conscious
of such an element in his being and feel that it is essentially different
from the mere faculties of the understanding or the feelings of the heart.
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The spirit is that which chooses, purposes, determines and thus practically
decides the whole question of our action and obedience. In short, it is the
region of the will, that mightiest impulse of human nature, that almost divine
prerogative which God has shared with man, His child, that very helm of life
on whose decision hang the whole issues of character and destiny. What a
momentous force it is, and how essential that it be wholly sanctified. As
it is, or is not, sanctified, the life is one of obedience or disobedience,
and when the will is right, and the choice is fixed, and the eye is single,
God recognizes the heart as true and pure. “If there be a willing mind it
is accepted according to what a man hath and not according to what he hath
not.”
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The spirit is that which trusts. Confidence is one of its attributes and
exercises. It is the filial quality in the child of God which looks in the
Father’s face without a cloud, which lies upon His bosom without a fear and
puts its hand in His with the abandonment of childlike simplicity.
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The spirit is that which loves God. It is not now the human emotional love
of which we speak, for that belongs to the lower nature of the soul and may
be most fully developed in one whose spirit is still dead to God in trespasses
and sins; but it is that divine love which is the direct gift of the Holy
Spirit and the true spring of all holiness and obedience. It is nothing less
than the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit, and its
appropriate sphere is the human heart.
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The spirit is that which glorifies God, which makes His will and honor its
supreme aim and loses itself in His glory. The very conception of such an
aim is foreign to the human mind and can be only received by a spirit which
has been born again and created in the divine image.
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The spirit is that which enjoys God, which hungers for His presence and
fellowship and finds its nourishment, its portion, its satisfaction, its
inheritance in Himself as its all and in all.
This wonderful element of our human nature is subject to all the sensibilities
and susceptibilities which we find in a coarser form in our physical life.
There are spiritual senses and organs just as real and intense as those of
our physical frame. We find them distinctly recognized in the Scriptures.
There is the sense of spiritual hearing, “He that hath an ear let him hear
what the Spirit saith to the churches,” “Blessed are your ears, for they
hear,” “My sheep hear my voice and they follow me.” There is the sense of
vision, “Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty and the land that is
very far off,” “Looking unto Jesus,” “Beholding as in a glass the glory of
the Lord,” “Having eyes they see not,” “He hath sent me to open the blind
eyes and turn them from darkness unto light and the power of Satan unto
God.” There is the sense of spiritual touch, “That I may apprehend, (or,
grasp with my hand) that for which I am apprehended of Christ Jesus,” “Who
touched me,” “As many as touched him were made perfectly whole.” There is
the sense of taste, “He that eateth me shall live by me,” “Oh, taste and
see that the Lord is good,” “He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and
he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” There is the sense of smell.
Very definitely is it referred to in the 11th of Isaiah, “The Spirit of the
Lord shall rest upon him and shall make him of quick smell in the fear of
the Lord.” The spirit is a real subsistence, and when separated from the
body after death, it will have the same consciousness as when in life, and
perhaps intense powers of feeling, action and enjoyment.
Such is a brief view of this supreme endowment of our humanity, this upper
chamber of the house of God, this higher nature received from our Creator,
and lost, or, at least, degraded, defiled and buried through our sin and
fall.
II. WHAT IS IT FOR THE SPIRIT TO BE SANCTIFIED?
It is indispensable, first of all, that it be quickened into life. Naturally
it is dead, and the work of regeneration quickens it into vitality as a new-born
life, breathed, given from heaven as unto us in the first creation, as from
the very lips of God. So, in one sense, the unregenerate soul is not spiritually
alive. Its faculties are alive, its animal life is active, but its spiritual
vitality is suspended. It is true there is a kind of spiritual life in the
corpse that is buried in yonder tomb, given over to the horrible forms of
life which prey upon it. And so the spirit of the ungodly is alive, but it
is possessed with the demon spirits of evil, and alive unto sin and Satan,
as the regenerate soul is alive unto God.
But now what is a sanctified spirit?
1. It is a spirit separated.
Have you ever looked upon the dark, cold ground in early spring, through
which if you drew your hand, it would chill and defile your fingers and perhaps
it was mixed with the manure of the barnyard and the crawling earth worms
that burrowed in it? Yet, have you never seen, growing out of that dark soil,
a little plant or flower, with roots white as the driven snow, and leaf as
delicate and petals as pure as a baby’s dimpled cheek, separated by its own
nature and purity from the dirty soil that was all around it and could not
even stain it? So the spirit born of God is separated in its own divine nature
from its own self and the sinful heart, and the very first step of sanctification
is to recognize this separation and count ourselves no longer the same person,
but partakers of the divine nature and alive unto God as those who have been
raised from the dead. And as such we are to separate our spirit from all
that is not of God; not only from sin but from the world and from self and
our whole old natural life. All our spiritual instincts, senses and organs
are to be separated from evil and intuitively to turn away from even the
touch and approach of temptation. We are to refuse to hear with our inward
ear the stranger’s voice, to see with the spirit’s eye the fascinating vision
of temptation, to touch in spiritual contact any unclean thing, to taste
even the forbidden joy, and by the quick sense of smell at once recognize
and turn from the unwholesome atmosphere, and as evil of any kind is revealed
to the spirit, it is to renounce it and to ask God to separate it from it
and to put the gulf of His presence between the soul and the sin.
And it must be separated ever from the spirits of others, and, indeed, from
any human spirit that could control it apart from the will of God. All the
aspects of the spirit which we have already referred to must be separated.
The higher consciousness that knows God must be separated from all other
gods but Him. The moral senses that know right must separate from all wrong.
The will must be separated from the choice or inclination of all but His
will. The power of trust must be voluntarily separated from every thought
of unbelief or distrust. The power to love must be wholly separated from
forbidden love. The aim and motive must be separated from all that is not
for His glory, the source of its pleasure must be purified and the spirit
separated from all joy that is not in harmony with the joy of the Lord. Beloved,
is your spirit thus separated, cleansed, and detached from everything that
could defile or distract you from the will of God and life of holiness?
2. A sanctified spirit is a dedicated spirit.
Its powers of apprehension are dedicated to know God and to count all things
but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus. His Word is
the object of its deepest study and meditation, and His attributes and His
glory the theme of its most delightful contemplation. To know God and to
be filled with His Spirit and to be ever in His presence is its highest aim.
Its will is dedicated to God. It chooses Him deliberately as its portion
and its sovereign Lord, and delights to abandon itself to His entire possession
and to His perfect will. It is this element of a single heart and a supreme
choice of God which constitutes what the Scriptures call a perfect heart,
and which they affirm of many a Christian whose steps were not always perfect.
Every moral sense in the sanctified spirit is dedicated to God. It chooses
His standards of right and wrong and desires above all things to bear His
image and be conformed to His nature.
Its power of trusting is dedicated. It is determined to trust God under any
circumstances and in spite of all feelings, as an act of will that chooses
to believe His Word notwithstanding every discouragement and temptation.
A spirit that thus chooses God will be sustained by the very faith of God
Himself imparted to it.
Its love is dedicated and its power of loving. It chooses to love God supremely
and to love all as God would have us to love, regarding every human being
in the light of God and His will, and adjusting itself to every relationship
in such a manner as to please God. It is dedicated to the glory of God. It
accepts this and not the applause of men nor its own pleasing as the true
end and purpose of life and lays itself a living sacrifice on His altar.
And, further, it is dedicated to enjoy God. It chooses Him as its portion,
its happiness, all and in all, and consents to find all its satisfaction
in Him and Him alone, whether it be in the loss of every other channel of
happiness or by His filling all the springs of life with Himself.
A dedicated spirit is thus wholly given to God, to know Him, to choose His
will, to resemble His character, to trust His Word, to love Him supremely,
to glorify Him only, to enjoy Him wholly and to belong to Him utterly,
unreservedly, and forever. All its senses, susceptibilities and capacities
are dedicated to Him. It yields itself to Him to be made by Him all that
He would have it to be and to have His perfect will wrought out by it forever.
It chooses to hear only what He would speak, to see only what He would have
it behold, to touch only at His bidding and to use every power and capability
in and for Him only. It regards itself henceforth as His property, subject
to His disposal and existing for His great purpose regarding it. It is
consecrated not so much to the works, or truth, or the cause, or the church
as to the Lord. And this is done gladly, freely, without fear or reservation,
but as a great privilege and honor to be permitted thus to belong to so great
and good a Master, and have Him undertake so uncongenial a task as our
sanctification and exaltation.
This dedication of our spirit can be made in the very first moment of
consecration and before we have a single conscious experience or feeling
answering to the dedication we make. As empty vessels, as bare possibilities
with nothing in us yet but the entire consent of our will to be all that
the Lord would have us, we yield ourselves to God according to His will.
This act of dedication should be made once for all, and then recognized as
done and as including every subsequent act which we may ever renew as we
receive more light in detail respecting His will concerning us.
It is possible for us, once for all and not knowing perhaps one thousandth
part of all that it means, to give ourselves to God for all that He understands
it to mean, and to know henceforth that we are utterly and eternally the
Lord’s as certainly as we shall know that we are the Lord’s after we have
been a million years in glory.
And yet, after this one comprehensive act of dedication it is quite proper
for us, as new light comes to us and we become conscious of new powers or
possibilities we can lay at Hits feet, to say our glad “yes” to His claim
as often as it is renewed. Yet this is only the working out in detail of
the all-inclusive consecration that we made at first.
Beloved, have you thus dedicated yourself and your spirit to God, and will
you henceforth dare to reckon yourself all the Lord’s, and as each new chamber
of your higher nature opens to your consciousness, will you gladly put the
key of it in His gracious hand and recognize him as its Owner and Guest?
3. The sanctified spirit is a spirit filled with the presence and the Spirit
of the Lord.
What it gives to him is only a possibility. It is His presence that makes
it a reality. Even when dedicated it is but a vessel, empty and meet for
the Master’s use. It is He who fills it and pours it out for the supply of
the needs of others or to satisfy the desire of his own heart. Even the
consecration which we make to God, the very act of dedication itself, has
to be made perfect by His grace. We cannot even yield ourselves to Him in
a manner that is without imperfection, but we can choose to be His, and then
He will come into our dedicated will and make the living sacrifice worthy
of His holy altar.
We can lie down upon that altar in full surrender and then He, the great
Burnt-Offering, will lie down by our side and offer Himself in us to God
as a sacrifice of sweet-smelling savor. This was, really, the meaning of
the Burnt-Offering of old. The offerer did not offer himself, but touched
the spotless lamb and it became the perfect offering. So with our hand upon
the head of Christ, our consecration is accepted in Him, and He comes into
our will and our spirit, and so unites Himself with us that the sacrifice
is acceptable and complete.
And so, again, our knowledge of God and fellowship with Him are dependent
upon His own grace to be made effectual. We dedicate our spirit to God, and
then He reveals Himself to us, opening the eyes of our understanding, showing
us the person of Christ, unfolding His truth to our spiritual apprehension,
and making us to see light in His own light.
It is wonderful how the untutored mind will thus often, in a short time,
by the simple touch of the Holy Spirit, be filled with the most profound
and scriptural teaching of God and the plan of salvation through Christ.
We once knew a poor girl, saved from a life of infamy and but little educated,
in a few days rise to the most extraordinary acquaintance with the Scriptures
and the whole plan of redemption through the simple anointing of the Holy
Spirit. We simply give to Him our spirit that it may know Him and He fills
it with His light and revelation.
So, again, we choose to be transformed to His image, but we cannot create
that image by our own morality or struggles after righteousness. We must
be created anew in His likeness by His own Spirit, and stamped with His
resemblance by His heavenly seal impressed directly upon our heart from His
hand. And thus He does become to us our holiness, for Christ is made unto
us our sanctification, and we are made the righteousness of God in Him. We
turn from the sin, choose to be holy, and God fills our proffered hand with
His own spotless righteousness.
So, again, our faith is but the filling of His Spirit and the imparting of
the faith of God. We choose to trust and He makes that choice good by enabling
us to believe, and to continue in the faith grounded and settled, and so
living by the faith of the Son of God. Our love is but a purpose on our part,
the power is His; for when we choose to love He sheds abroad that love within
us and imparts to us His own Spirit and nature which is love. All our struggles
will not work up one throb of genuine love to God, but He will breathe His
own perfect love into any heart that chooses to make Him the one object of
affection. We cannot love our enemies but we can choose to love them, and
God will make us to love them. Often have we known consecrated characters
placed in circumstances where they were obliged to come in contact with
uncongenial companions whom they could not love; but, choosing at His bidding
to act in the spirit of love, God has so inbreathed His very heart, that
without a struggle they could adjust themselves to this relationship and
meet the uncongenial associate, or even enemy, with quietness, and even
tenderness, and a holy desire for his highest good.
So, again, it is with His joy in us. And so, likewise, the power to glorify
Him is nothing more nor less than simply this, to let God Himself be manifested
in us and so glorify Himself, as others see Him reflected through us.
Sanctification is thus God’s own life in the spirit that is yielded up to
Him to be His dwelling place and the instrument of His power and will. So
also of our spiritual senses of which we have spoken. They are sanctified
when they become the organs of God’s operation, when our spiritual ear is
quickened by His Spirit, our spiritual eyes opened by His touch, our spiritual
taste, and touch, and smell, made alive by His own quickening life within
us.
Now, beloved, have you ever learned this wonderful secret of regenerated
spirit and God’s Spirit, the Guest and Occupant of that consecrated abode?
Shall we illustrate this somewhat lofty conception by a simple illustration?
Here is a common leather case which represents the body. Within it is a silver
casket, which stands for the soul. We touch a spring and it opens and discloses
an exquisite golden locket, which we shall consider as the symbol of the
spirit or higher nature, and within that golden locket is a place all set
with precious gems for a single picture.
Is it empty in your spirit or is it filled with some other face, or is it
dedicated to and occupied by your blessed Lord? Is it His shrine and His
home and has He accepted it and made it the seat of His glorious abode and
throne of His blessed kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy
Ghost? Or are there some who read these lines who have not yet even learned
the meaning of their own spirit and do not know whether it has yet been quickened
from the dead and prepared to be the seat of Christ’s indwelling? All that
they know of life consists in the physical organism, their mental faculties
and their human affections. They have a keen, quick, human life, all aglow
with emotion and mental activity, but the spirit, alas, alas! is so dead
and cold that it has not even caught the grasp of these higher thoughts that
we have been contemplating.
Ah, beloved! there is one world that you have not yet entered, and that is
the eternal world to which you are hastening. The life you are living can
never introduce you to the sphere of heavenly beings, for “flesh and blood
cannot inherit eternal life, nor corruption incorruption.” Your physical
life will wither like the flowers of summer, your mental endowments will
rise to the highest human rank, but will not touch the joy of that celestial
realm. You must have another nature before you can enter the kingdom of heaven.
“Except a man be born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.”
Just suppose for a moment a man going to a great musical festival in Germany.
He enters the great Concert Hall but he does not know a single word of the
language spoken nor has the faintest germ of musical taste. To him the words
are unmeaning gutterals, and the notes a jargon of confusing noises. He could
understand a problem in mathematics, he could discourse with them with eloquence
in English on questions of politics or philosophy, but he is out of place,
he does not possess the key to their society or enjoyment.
And so let us suppose the highest intellect of earth entering the society
of heaven. To him their songs and joys would all seem as incomprehensible
as the conversation of a cultivated home circle would be to the little dog
that sits at their feet or the canary that sings in the window. It belongs
to a different race and cannot touch their world. Nor could such a man have
one point of contact with these heavenly beings. It would be another world,
a world unknown, a world as barren as a wilderness; and from its scenes he
would be glad to haste to find some congenial fellowship. He cannot reach
its range because it is a spiritual race of beings, and he has but an
intellectual nature. And, on the other hand, they would save as little interest
in him as his range is infinitely below theirs.
We can imagine the porter of yonder gates asking him what he knows, and he
begins to tell them about the lore of classical culture, the mythologies
of Greece or the monuments of Egypt. The angel smiles with pity and answers,
“Why, these splendid memories of which you speak are not worthy of comparison
with the world in which we dwell. The grandest temple of Egypt would not
make a pedestal for one of the stairs of heaven.” Perhaps he tells them of
astronomy, the distance or magnitude of the stars. “Why,” the angel answers,
“we have no need of these dim and distant calculations here. There is not
one of yonder worlds we have not visited and we could tell you ten thousand
times more of its mysteries than you have ever dreamed of, but the glories
of these cannot be compared with the glory of Him who sits upon the throne,
whom you have not eyes to see, or the sweetness of these redemption songs
which you cannot even hear because you have not ears to hear. One thrill
of the rapture we feel you cannot ever know because your heart has not been
quickened in one heavenly chord. You do not belong here. You live in the
lower realm of mind alone, but this is the Home of God and those who have
received His nature, His Spirit, and are admitted as His children to dwell
in His presence and share His infinite and everlasting joy.
Beloved, this is the high calling which is given to every one of Adam’s race
who has heard the gospel. You may become a son of God, you may receive a
new spirit which can know and enjoy Him, and that spirit can be so sanctified,
so cleansed, so enlarged, so filled with Himself, as to be able to reach
the highest sublimity of His grace and glory and joy. Will you separate it
from all that defiles and dwarfs it? Will you dedicate it to Him to be exalted
to its highest possible destiny and will, henceforth receive Him to be its
life and purity, its satisfaction, its nature, and its ALL and in ALL?
These four short lines of simple poetry express the depth and height of holiness,
namely, as a great need and an infinite supply for that need in God. Beloved,
shall they express, henceforth, your emptiness and your divine filling?
In the heart of man—
A cry;
In the heart of God—
Supply.
