Holy In Christ.

Holy In Christ.

1. Holiness is not something I can see or admire in myself: it is covering myself, losing myself, in the Holiness of Jesus. How wonderfully this is typified in Aaron and the holy crown. And the more I see and have apprehended [p88] of the Holiness of Jesus, the less shall I see or seek of holiness in myself.

2. He will make me holy: my tempers and dispositions will be renewed; my heart and mind cleansed and sanctified; holiness will be a new nature; and yet there will be all along the consciousness, humbling and yet full of joy: it is not I; Christ liveth in me.

3. Let us lie very low and tender before God, that the Holy Spirit may reveal to us what it is to be holy in the Holiness of Another, in the Holiness of Jesus, that is, in the Holiness of God.

4. Do not trouble or weary too much to grasp this with the intellect. Just believe it, and look in simplicity and trust to Jesus to make it all right for you.

5. Holy in Christ. In childlike faith I take Christ’s holiness afresh as my covering before God. In loving obedience I take it into my will and life. I trust and I follow Jesus: this is the path of holiness.

6. If we gather up the lessons we have found in the Word from Paradise downward, we see that the elements of holiness in us are these, each corresponding to some special aspect of God’s holiness: deep Restfulness (

), humble Reverence (

), entire Surrender (

), joyful Adoration (

), simple Obedience (

). These all prepare for the Divine Indwelling (

), and this again we have through the Abiding in Jesus with the Crown of Holiness on His head.

[p89]

Tenth Day.

HOLY IN CHRIST.

‘I am the Lord your God, which have separated you from other people. And ye shall be holy unto me, for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from other people that ye should be Mine.’—Lev. xx. 24, 26.

‘Until the days be fulfilled, in the which he separateth himself unto the Lord, he shall be holy…. All the days of his separation he is holy unto the Lord.’—Num. vi. 5, 8.

‘Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people through His own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us therefore go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach.’—Heb. xiii. 12, 13.

Separation is not holiness, but is the way to it. Though there can be no holiness without separation, there can be separation that does not lead to holiness. It is of deep importance to understand both the difference and the connection, that we may be kept from the right-hand error of counting separation alone as holiness, as well as the left-hand error of seeking holiness without separation.

The Hebrew word for holiness possibly comes from a root that means to separate. But where we [p90] have in our translation ‘separate’ or ‘sever’ or ‘set apart,’ we have quite different words.

But separation is essential to holiness. ‘I have separated you from other people, and ye shall be holy.’ Until I have chosen out and separated a vessel from those around it, and, if need be, cleansed it, I cannot fill or use it. I must have it in my hand, full and exclusive command of it for the time being, or I will not pour into it the precious milk or wine. And just so God separated His people when He brought them up out of Egypt, separated them unto Himself when He gave them His covenant and His law, that He might have them under His control and power, to work out His purpose of making them holy. This He could not do until He had them apart, and had wakened in them the consciousness that they were His peculiar people, wholly and only His, until He had so taught them also to separate themselves to Him. Separation is essential to holiness.

The institution of the Nazarite will confirm this, and will also bring out very clearly what separation means. Israel was meant to be a holy nation. Its holiness was specially typified in its priests. With [p92] regard to the individual Israelite, we nowhere read in the books of Moses of his being holy. But there were ordinances through which the Israelite, who would fain prove his desire to be entirely holy, could do so. He might separate himself from the ordinary life of the nation around him, and live the life of a Nazarite, a separated one. This separation was accepted, in those days of shadow and type, as holiness. ‘All the days of his separation he is holy unto the Lord.’

The separation consisted specially in three things—temperance, in abstinence from the fruit of the vine; humiliation, in not cutting or shaving his hair (‘it is a shame for a man if he have long hair’); self-sacrifice, in not defiling himself for even father or mother, on their death. What we must specially note is that the separation was not from things unlawful, but things lawful. There was nothing sinful in itself in Abraham living in his father’s house, or in Israel dwelling in Egypt. It is in giving up, not only what can be proved to be sin, but all that may hinder the full intensity of our surrender into God’s hands to make us holy, that the spirit of separation is manifested.

Let us learn the lessons this truth suggests. We must know the need for separation. It is no arbitrary demand of God, but has its ground in the very nature of things. To separate a thing is to set it free for one special use or purpose, that it may with undivided power fulfil the will of him who chose it, and so realize its destiny. It is the principle [p93] that lies at the root of all division of labour; complete separation to one branch of study or labour is the way to success and perfection. I have before me an oak forest with the trees all shooting up straight and close to each other. On the outskirts there is one tree separated from his fellows; its heavy trunk and wide-spreading branches prove how its being separated, and having a large piece of ground separated to its own use, over which roots and branches can spread, is the secret of growth and greatness. Our human powers are limited; if God is to take full possession, if we are fully to enjoy Him, separation to Him is nothing but the simple, natural, indispensable requisite. God wants us all to Himself, that He may give Himself all to us.

We must know the purpose of separation. It is to be found in what God has said, ‘Ye shall be holy unto me, for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from the people, that ye should be Mine.’ God has separated us for Himself in the deepest sense of the word; that He might enter into us, and show forth Himself in us. His holiness is the sum and the centre of all His perfections; it is that He may make us holy like Himself that He has separated us. Separation never has any value in itself; it may become most wrong or hurtful; everything depends upon the object proposed. It is as God gets and takes full possession of us, as the eternal life in Christ has the mastery of our whole being, as the Holy Spirit flows fully and freely through us, [p94] so that we dwell in God, and God in us, that separation will be, not a thing of ordinances and observances, but a spiritual reality. And it is as this purpose of God is seen and accepted and followed after, that difficult questions as to what we must be separated from, and how much sacrifice separation demands, will find an easy answer. God separates from all that does not lead us into His holiness and fellowship.

We need, above all, to know the power of separation, the power that leads us into it in the spirit of desire and of joy, of liberty and of love. The great separating word in human language is the word Mine. In this we have the great spring of effort and of happiness: in the child with its toys, in labour with its gains and rewards, in the patriot who dies for his country, it is this Mine that lays its hand on what it sets apart from all else. It is the great word that love uses. Be it the child that says to its mother, My own mamma, and calls forth the response, My own child; the bridegroom who draws the daughter from her beloved home and parents to become his; or the Holy God who speaks: ‘I have separated you from the people, that ye should be Mine;’ it is always with that Mine that love exerts its mighty power, and draws from all else to itself. God Himself knows no mightier argument, can put forth no more powerful attraction than this, ‘that ye should be Mine.’ And the power of separation will come to us, and work in us, just as we yield ourselves to study and realize that holy purpose, to listen to and appropriate that [p95] wondrous Mine, to be apprehended and possessed of that Almighty Love.

Let us study step by step the wondrous path in which Divine Love does it separating work. In redemption it prepares the way. Israel is separated from Egypt by the blood of the Lamb and the guiding pillar of fire. In its command, ‘Come out and be separate,’ it wakens man to action; in its promises, ‘I will be your God,’ it stirs desire and strengthens faith. In all the holy saints and servants of God, and at last in Him who was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, it points the way. In the power of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Holiness, it seals the separation by the Presence of the Indwelling God. This is indeed the power of separation. The separating power of the Presence of God; this it is we need to know. ‘Wherein now shall it be known that I have found grace in Thy sight, I and Thy people?’ said Moses: ‘is it not in that Thou goest with us? so shall we be separated, I and Thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.’ It is the consciousness of God’s Indwelling Presence, making and keeping us His very own, that works the true separateness from the world and its spirit, from ourselves and our own will. And it is as this separation is accepted and prized and persevered in by us, that the holiness of God will enter in and take possession. And we shall realize that to be the Lord’s property, a people of His own, is infinitely more than merely to be accounted or acknowledged as [p96] His, that it means nothing less than that God, in the power and indwelling of the Holy Ghost, fills our being, our affections, and our will with His own life and holiness. He separates us for Himself, and sanctifies us to be His dwelling. He comes Himself to take personal possession by the indwelling of Christ in the heart. And we are then truly separate, and kept separate, by the presence of God within us.

Be ye Holy, for I am holy.

O my God! who hast separated me for Thyself, I beseech Thee, by Thy mighty power, to make this Divine separation deed and truth to me. May within, in the depths of my own spirit, and without, in all my intercourse, the crown of separation of my God be upon me.

I pray Thee especially, O my God, to perfect in power the separation from self! Let Thy Presence in the indwelling of my Lord Jesus be the power that banishes self from the throne. I have turned from it with abhorrence; oh, my Father, reveal Thy Son fully in me! it is His enthronement in my heart can keep me as Thy own, as Himself takes the place of myself.

And give me grace, Lord, in my outward life to wait for a Divine wisdom, that I may know to witness, for Thy glory and for what Thy people need, to the blessedness of an entire giving up of everything for God, a separation that holds back nothing, to be His and His alone.

[p97]

Holy Lord God! visit Thy people. Oh, withdraw Thou them from the world and conformity to it. Separate, Lord, separate Thine own for Thyself. Separate, Lord, the wheat from the chaff; separate, as by fire, the gold from the dross; that it may be seen who are the Lord’s, even His holy ones. Amen.

1. Love separates effectually. With what jealousy a husband claims his wife, a mother her children, a miser his possessions! Pray that the Holy Spirit may show how God brought you to Himself, that you should be His. ‘He is a holy God; He is a Jealous God.’ God’s love shed abroad in the heart makes separation easy.

2. Death separates effectually. If I reckon myself to be indeed dead in Christ, I am separated from self by the power of Christ’s death. Life separates still more mightily. As I say, ‘Not I, but Christ liveth in me,’ I am lifted up out of the life of self.

3. Separation must be manifest; it is meant as a witness to others and ourselves; it must find expression in the external, if internally it is to be real and strong. It is the characteristic of a symbolic action that it not merely expresses a feeling, but nourishes and strengthens the feeling to which it corresponds. When the soul enters the fellowship of God, it feels the need of external separation, sometimes even from what appears to others harmless. If animated by the spirit of lowly consecration to God, the external may be a great strengthening of the true separateness.

4. Separation to God and appropriation by Him go together. This has been the blessing that has come to martyrs, confessors, missionaries,—all who have given distinct expression to the forsaking all.

5. Separation begins in love, and ends in love. The spirit of separation is the spirit of self-sacrifice, of surrender to the love of God; the truly separate one will be the most loving and love-winning, given up to serve God and man. Is not what separates, what distinguishes Jesus from all others, His self-sacrificing love? This is His separateness, in which we are to be made like Him.

6. God’s holiness is His separateness; let us enter into His separateness from the world; that will be our holiness. Unite thyself to God. Then art thou separate and holy. God separates for Himself, not by an act from without, but as His Will and Presence take possession of us.

[p98]

Eleventh Day.

HOLY IN CHRIST.

‘I am the Lord that brought you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God; ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy. I the Lord which make you holy, am holy.’—Lev. xi. 45, xxi. 8.

‘I am the Lord Thy God, the Holy One of Israel, Thy Saviour. Thus saith the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King.’—Isa. xliii. 3, 14, 15.

In the book of Exodus we found God making provision for the Holiness of His people. In the holy times and holy places, holy persons, holy things, and holy services, He had taught His people that everything around Him, that all that would come near Him, must be holy. He would only dwell in the midst of holiness; His people must be a holy people. But there is no direct mention of God Himself as holy. In the book of Leviticus we are led on a step further. Here first we have God speaking of His own holiness, and making it the plea for the holiness of His people, as well as its pledge and power. Without this the revelation of [p99] holiness were incomplete, and the call to holiness powerless. True holiness will come to us as we learn that God Himself alone is holy. It is He alone makes holy; it is as we come to Himself, and in obedience and love are linked to Himself, that His Holiness can rest on us.

From the books of Moses onwards we shall find that the name of God as holy is found but seldom in the inspired writings, until we come to Isaiah, the evangelist prophet. There it occurs twenty-six times, and has its true meaning opened up in the way in which it is linked with the name of Saviour and Redeemer. The sentiments of joy and trust and praise, with which a redeemed people would look upon their Deliverer, are all mentioned in connection with the name of the Holy One. ‘Cry [p100] aloud and shout, thou inhabitant of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.’ ‘The poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.’ ‘Thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel.’ In Paradise we saw that God the Creator was God the Sanctifier, perfecting the work of His hands. In Israel we saw that God the Redeemer was ever God the Sanctifier, making holy the people He had chosen for Himself. Here in Isaiah we see how it is God the Sanctifier, the Holy One, who is to bring about the great redemption of the New Testament: as the Holy One, He is the Redeemer. God redeems because He is holy, and loves to make holy: Holiness will be Redemption perfected. Redemption and Holiness together are to be found in the personal relation to God. The key to the secret of holiness is offered to each believer in that word: ‘Thus saith the Lord, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord, your Holy One.’ To come near, to know, to possess the Holy One, and be possessed of Him, is Holiness.

If God’s Holiness is thus the only hope for ours, it is right that we seek to know what that Holiness is. And though we may find it indeed to be something that passeth knowledge, it will not be in vain to gather up what has been revealed in the Word concerning it. Let us do so in the spirit of holy fear and worship, trusting to the Holy Spirit to be our teacher.

And let us first notice how this Holiness of God, though it is often mentioned as one of the Divine [p101] attributes, can hardly be counted such, on a level with the others. The other attributes all refer to some special aspect or characteristic of the Divine Nature; Holiness appears to express what is the very essence or perfection of the Divine Being Himself. None of the attributes can be predicated of all that belongs to God; but Scripture speaks of His Holy Name, His Holy Day, His Holy Habitation, His Holy Word. In the word Holy we have the nearest possible approach to a summary of all the Divine perfections, the description of what Divinity is. We speak of the other attributes as Divine perfections, but in this we have the only human expression for the Divine Perfection itself. It is for this reason that theologians have found such difficulty in framing a definition that can express all the word means.

The original Hebrew word, whether derived from a root signifying to separate, or another with the idea of shining, expressed the idea of something distinguished from others, separate from them by superior excellence. God is Separate and different from all that is created, keeps Himself separate from all that is not God; as the Holy One He maintains His Divine glory and perfection against whatever might interfere with it: ‘There is none holy, but the Lord;’ ‘To whom will you liken me? or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One.’ As Holy, God is indeed the Incomparable One; Holiness [p102] is His alone; there is nothing like it in heaven or earth, except when He gives it. And so our holiness will consist, not in a human separation in which we attempt to imitate God’s,—no, but in entering into His separateness; belonging entirely to Him; set apart by Him and for Himself.

Closely connected with this is the idea of Exaltation: ‘Thus saith the High and Holy One, whose name is Holy.’ It was the Holy One who was seen sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, the object of the worship of the seraphim. In Psalm xcix. God’s Holiness is specially spoken of in connection with His exaltation. For this reason, too, His Holiness is so often connected with His Glory and Majesty (see ‘

If we inquire more closely wherein the infinite excellence of this Separateness and Exaltation consists, we are led to think of the Divine Purity, and that not only in its negative aspect—as hatred of sin—but with the more positive element of perfect beauty. Because we are sinners, and the revelation of God’s Holiness is in a world of sin, it is natural, it is right and meet, that the first, that the abiding impression of God’s Holiness should be that of an Infinite Purity that cannot look upon sin, in whose Presence it becomes the sinner to hide his face and tremble. The Righteousness of God, forbidding and condemning and punishing sin, has its [p103] root in His Holiness, is one of its two elements—the devouring and destroying power of the consuming fire. ‘God the Holy One is sanctified in righteousness’ (Isa. v. 16); in righteousness the Holiness of the Holy One is maintained and revealed. But Light not only discovers what is impure, that it may be purified, but is in itself a thing of infinite beauty. And so some of our holiest men have not hesitated to speak of God’s Holiness as the infinite Pulchritude or Beauty of the Divine Being, the Perfect Purity and Beauty of that Light in which God dwelleth. And if the Holiness of God is to become ours, to rest upon us, and enter into us, there must be, without ceasing, the holy fear that trembles at the thought of grieving the infinite sensitiveness of this Holy One by our sins, and yet side by side, and in perfect harmony with it, the deep longing to behold the Beauty of the Lord, an admiration of its Divine glory, and a joyful surrender to be His alone.

We must go one step further. When God says, ‘I am holy: I make holy,’ we see that one of the chief elements of His Holiness is this, that it seeks to communicate itself, to make partaker of its own perfection and blessedness. This is nought but Love. In the wonderful revelation in Isaiah of what the Holy One is to His people, we must beware of misreading God’s precious Word. It is not said, that though God is the Holy One, and hates sin, and ought to punish and destroy, that notwithstanding this He will save. By no means. [p104] But we are taught that as the Holy One, just because He is the Holy One, who delights to make holy, He will be the Deliverer of His people. (See Hos. xi. 9.) It is Holiness above everything else that we are invited to look to, to trust in, to rejoice in. The Holy One is the Holy-making One: He redeems and saves that He may win our confidence for Himself, that He may draw us to Himself as the Holy One, that in the personal attachment to Himself we may learn to obey, to become of one mind with Him, to be holy as He is holy.

The Divine Holiness is thus that infinite Perfection of Divinity in which Righteousness and Love are in perfect harmony, out of which they proceed, and which together they reveal. It is that Energy of the Divine life in the power of which God not only keeps Himself free from all creature weakness or sin, but unceasingly seeks to lift the creature into union with Himself and the full participation of His own purity and perfection. The glory of God as God, as the God of Creation and Redemption, is His Holiness. It is in this that the Separateness and Exaltation of God, even above all thought of man, really consists. ‘God is Light;’ in His infinite Purity He reveals all darkness, and yet has no fellowship with it. He judges and condemns it; He saves out of it, and lifts up into the fellowship of His own purity and blessedness. This is the Holy One of Israel.

It is this God who speaks to us, ‘I am the Lord your God: I am holy: I make holy.’ It is [p105] in the adoring contemplation of His Holiness, in the trustful surrender to it, in the loving fellowship with Himself, the Holy One, that we can be made holy. My brother! would you be holy? listen again, and let, in the deep silence of trust, God’s words sink into your heart—‘Your Holy One.’ Come to Himself and claim Him as your God, and claim all that He, as the Holy One who makes holy, can do for you. Just remember that Holiness is Himself. Come to Him; worship Him; give Him the glory. Seek not, even from Him, holiness in yourself; let self be abased, and be content that the Holiness is His. As His presence fills your heart, as His Holiness and Glory are your one desire, as His holy Will and Love are your delight,—as the Holy One becomes all in all to you,—you will be holy with the holiness He loves to see. And as, to the end, you see nothing to admire in self, and only Beauty in Him, you will know that He has laid of His glory on you; and your holiness will be found in the song, There is none holy, but the Lord.

Be ye holy, as I am holy.

O God! we have again heard the wonderful revelation of Thyself, ‘I am holy.’ And as we felt how infinitely exalted above all our conceptions Thy Holiness is, we heard Thy call, almost still more wonderful, ‘Be ye holy, as I am holy.’ And as every thought of how we were to be holy, as Thou art holy, failed us, we heard Thy voice once again, [p106] in this most wonderful word of all, ‘I make you holy.’ I am ‘your Holy One.’

Most Holy God! we do beseech Thee, give us in some due measure to realize how unholy we are, and so to take the place that becomes us in Thy presence. Oh that the sinfulness of our nature, and all that is of self, may be so discovered to us, that it may be no longer possible to live in it! May the Light that reveals this, reveal too, how Thy Holiness is our only hope, our sure refuge, our complete deliverance. O Lord! speak into our souls the word, ‘The Holy One, your Redeemer,’ ‘Your Holy One,’ with such power by Thy Spirit, that our faith may grow into the assured confidence that we can be holy as Thou art holy.

Holy Lord God! we wait for Thee. Reveal Thyself in power within us, and fit us to be the messengers of Thy Holiness, to tell Thy people how holy Thou art, and how holy we must be, and how holy Thou dost make us. Amen.

1. This Holy One is God Almighty. Before He revealed Himself to Israel as the Holy One, He made Himself known to Abraham as the Almighty, ‘who quickeneth the dead.’ In all your dealings with God for holiness, remember He is the Almighty One, who can do wonders in you. Say often, ‘Glory to Him who is mighty to do exceeding abundantly above all we ask or think.’

2. This Holy One is the Righteous God, a consuming fire. Cast yourself into it, that all that is sinful may be destroyed. As you lay yourself upon the altar, expect the fire. ‘And yield your members unto God as instruments of Righteousness.’

3. This Holy One is the God of Love. He is your Father; yield yourself to let the Holy Spirit cry in you, Abba Father! that is, to let Him shed abroad and fill your heart with God’s father-love. God’s Holiness is His fatherliness; our holiness is childlikeness. Be simple, loving, trustful.

4. This Holy One is God. Let Him be God to you; ruling all, filling all, working all. Worship Him, come near to Him, live with and in and for Him: He will be your holiness.

‘I am the Lord that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy’ (Lev. xi. 45).

‘Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy’ (Lev. xix. 2).

‘Make holy yourselves therefore, and be ye holy, for I am the Lord your God; ye shall keep my statutes and do them: I am the Lord which make you holy’ (Lev. xx. 7, 8).

‘Ye shall be holy unto me, for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from other people, that ye should be mine’ (Lev. xx. 26).

‘The priest shall be holy unto thee, for I the Lord which make you holy, am holy’ (Lev. xxi. 8).

‘I will be hallowed among the children of Israel; I am the Lord which make you holy’ (Lev. xxii. 32).

‘I am the Lord which make them holy’ (Lev. xxi. 15, 23; xxii. 9, 16).

[p107]

Twelfth Day.

HOLY IN CHRIST.

‘I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up. Above Him stood the seraphim. And one cried to another, and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory.’—Isa. vi. 1–3.

‘And the four living creatures, they have no rest day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, which was, and which is, and which is to come.’—Rev. iv. 8.

It is not only on earth, but in heaven too, that the Holiness of God is His chief and most glorious attribute. It is not only on earth, but in heaven too, that the highest inspiration of adoration and praise makes mention of His Holiness. The brightest of living beings, they who are ever before and around and above the throne, find their glory in adoring and proclaiming the Holiness of God: surely there can be for us no higher honour than to study and to know, to worship and adore, to proclaim and show forth the glory of the Thrice Holy One.

After Moses, as we know, Isaiah was the chief [p108] messenger of the Holiness of God. Each had a special preparation for his commission to make known the Holy One. Moses saw the Holy One in the fire, and hid his face and feared to look upon God, and so was prepared for being His messenger, and for praising Him as ‘glorious in holiness.’ Isaiah, as he heard the song of the seraphim, and saw the fire on the altar, and the house filled with the smoke, cried out, ‘Woe is me.’ It was not till, in the deep sense of the need of cleansing, he had received the touch of the fire and the purging of his sin, that he might bear to Israel the Gospel of the Holy One as its Redeemer. May it be in the spirit of fear and lowly worship that we listen to the song of the seraphim, and seek to know and worship the Thrice Holy One. And may ours too be the cleansing with the fire, that we may be found fit to tell God’s people that He is the Holy One of Israel, their Redeemer.

The threefold repetition of the Holy has at all times by the Church of Christ been connected with the Holy Trinity. The song of the living creatures around the throne (Rev. iv.) is evidence of the truth of this thought. We there find it followed by the adoration of Him who was, and is, and is to come, the Almighty: the Eternal Source, the present manifestation in the Son, the future perfecting of the revelation of God in the Spirit’s work in His Church. The truth of the Holy Trinity is often regarded as an abstract doctrine, with little direct bearing on practical life. So far is this from being [p109] the case, that a living faith must root in it: some spiritual insight into the relation and the operation of each of the Three, and the reality of their living Oneness, is an essential element of true growth in knowledge and spiritual understanding.

The Trinity teaches us that God has revealed Himself in two ways. The Son is the Form of God, His manifestation as He shows Himself to man, the Image in which His unseen glory is embodied, and to which man is to be conformed. The Spirit is the Power of God, working in man, and leading him up to that Image. In Jesus, He who had been in the form of God took the form of man; and the Divine Holiness was literally manifested in the [p110] form of a human life and the members of a human body. A new holy human nature was formed in Christ, to be communicated to us. In His death His own personal holiness was perfected as human obedience, and so the power of sin conquered and broken. Therefore in the resurrection, through the Spirit of Holiness, He was declared to be the Son of God with power to impart His life to us. There the Spirit of Holiness was set free from the veil of the flesh, the trammels that hindered it, and obtained power to enter and dwell in man. The Holy Spirit was poured out as the fruit of Resurrection and Ascension. And the Spirit is now the Power of God in us, working upwards towards Christ, to reproduce His life and Holiness in us, to fit us for fully receiving and showing forth Him in our lives. Christ from above comes to us as the embodiment of the Unseen Holiness of God: the Spirit from within lifts us up to meet Him, and fits us to receive and make our own all that is in Him.

The Triune God whom we adore is the Thrice Holy One: the mystery of the Trinity is the mystery of Holiness: the Glory and the Power of the Trinity is the Glory and Power of God who makes us holy. There is God dwelling in light inaccessible, a consuming fire of Holy Love, destroying all that resists, glorifying into its own purity all that yields. There is the Son, casting Himself into that consuming fire, whether in its eternal blessedness in heaven, or its angry wrath on earth, a willing sacrifice, to be its food and its satisfaction, [p111] as well as the revelation of its power to destroy and to save. And there is the Spirit of Holiness, the flames of that mighty fire spreading on every side, convicting and judging as the Spirit of Burning, and then transforming into its own brightness and holiness all that it can reach. All the relations of the Three Persons to each other and to us have their root and their meaning in the revelation of God as the Holy One. As we know and partake of Him, we shall know and partake of Holiness.

And how shall we know Him? Let us learn to know the Holiness of God as the seraphs do: in the worship of the Thrice Holy One. Let us with veiled faces join in the ceaseless song of adoration: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.’ Each time we meditate on the Word, each prayer to the Holy God, each act of faith in Christ the Holy One, each exercise of waiting dependence on the Holy Spirit, let it be in the spirit of worship: Holy, holy, holy. Let us learn to know the Holiness of God as Isaiah did. He was to be the chosen messenger to reveal and interpret to the people the name, the Holy One of Israel. His preparation was the vision that made him cry out, ‘Woe is me! for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.’ Let us bow in silence before the Holy One, until our comeliness too be turned into corruption. And then let us believe in the cleansing fire from the altar, the touch of the live coals of the burning holiness, which not only consumes, but purges lips and heart to say, ‘Here am I, send me.’ Yes, let us worship, [p112] whether like the adoring seraphim, or like the trembling prophet, until we know that our service too is accepted, to tell forth the praise of the Thrice Holy One.

Holy, holy, holy: if we are indeed to be the messengers of the Holy One, let us seek to enter fully into what this Thrice Holy means. Holy, the Father, God above us, High and Lifted up, whom no man hath seen or can see, whose Holiness none dare approach, but who doth Himself in His Holiness draw nigh to make holy. Holy, the Son, God with us, revealing Divine Holiness in human life, maintaining it amid the suffering of death for us, and preparing a holy life and nature for His people. Holy, the Spirit, God in us, the Power of Holiness within us, reaching out to and embracing Christ, and transforming our inner life into the union and communion of Him in whom we are holy. Holy, holy, holy! it is all holiness. It is only holiness—perfect holiness. This is Divine holiness: holiness hidden and unapproachable; holiness manifested and maintained in human nature; holiness communicated and made our very own.

The mystery of the Holy Trinity is the mystery of the Christian life, the mystery of Holiness. The Three are One, and we need to enter ever more deeply into the truth that neither of the Three ever works separate or independent of the other. The Son reveals the Father, and the Father reveals the Son. The Father gives not Himself, but the Spirit: the Spirit speaks not of Himself, but cries [p113] Abba Father! The Son is our Sanctification, our Life, our All: the fulness is in Him. And yet we have ever to bow our knees to the Father for Him to reveal Christ in us, for Him to establish us in Christ. And the Father does not this without the Spirit: so that we have to ask to be strengthened mightily by the Spirit, that Christ may dwell in us. Christ gives the Spirit to them that believe and love and obey; the Spirit again gives Christ, formed within and dwelling in the heart. And so in each act of worship, and each step of growth, and each blessed experience of grace, all the Three Persons are actively engaged: the One is ever Three, the Three are ever One.

Would you apply this in the life of holiness, let faith in the Holy Trinity be a living practical reality. In every prayer to the Father to sanctify you, take up your position in Christ, and do it in the power of the Spirit within you. In every exercise of faith in Christ as your Sanctification, let your posture be that of prayer to the Father and trust in Him as He delights to honour the Son, and of quiet expectancy of the Spirit’s working, through whom the Father glorifies the Son. In every surrender of the soul to the sanctification of the Spirit, to His leading as the Spirit of Holiness, look to the Father who grants His mighty working, and who sanctifies through faith in the Son, and expect the Spirit’s power to manifest itself in showing the will of God, and Jesus as your Sanctification. If for a time this appears at variance with the simplicity of [p114] childlike faith and prayer, be assured that as God has thus revealed Himself, He will teach you so to worship and believe. And so the Holy, holy, holy will become the deep undertone of all our worship and all our life.

Children of God! called to be holy as He is holy, oh, come let us bow down and worship in His holy presence! Come and veil the face: withdraw eye and mind from gazing on what passes knowledge, and let the soul be gathered into that inner stillness, in which the worship of the heavenly Sanctuary alone can be heard. Come and cover the feet: withdraw from the rush of work and haste, be it worldly or religious, and learn to worship. Come, and as you fall down in self-abasement, the glory of the Holy One will shine upon you. And as you hear and take up and sing the song, Holy, Holy, Holy, you will find how in such knowledge and worship of the Thrice Holy One is the power that makes you holy.

Be holy, for I am holy.

Holy, holy, holy, the Lord God Almighty! which wast, and art, and art to come! I worship Thee as the Triune God. With face veiled and feet covered, I would bow in deep humility and silence, till Thy mercy lift me as on eagles’ wings to behold Thy glory.

Most merciful God! who hast called me to be [p115] holy as Thou art holy, oh, reveal to me somewhat of Thy Holiness! As it shines upon me and strikes death into the creature and the flesh, may even the most involuntary taint of sin, and its slightest movement, become unbearable. As it shines and revives the hope of being partaker of Thy Holiness, may the confidence grow strong that Thou Thyself art making me holy, wilt even make me a messenger of Thy Holiness.

Thrice Holy God! I worship Thee as my God. Holy! the Father; holy and making holy; making holy His own Son and sending Him into the world, that we might behold the very glory of God in a human face, the face of Jesus Christ. Holy! the Son; the Holy One of God, fulfilling the will of the Father, and so making holy Himself that He might be our holiness. Holy! the Spirit; the Spirit of Holiness, dwelling within us, making the Son and His Holiness our own, and so making us partakers of the Holiness of God. O my God! I bow down, and worship, and adore.

May even now the worship of heaven that rests not day or night be the worship my soul renders Thee without ceasing. May its song be, down in the depths of the heart, the keynote of my life: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty! which wast, and art, and art to come. Amen.

1. Thought always needs to distinguish and separate: in life alone there is perfect unity. The more we know the living God, the more we shall realize how truly the Three are One. In each act of One Person the other Two are present. There is not a prayer rises but the Presence of the Holy Three is needed through Christ, in the Spirit, we speak to the Father.

2. In faith to apprehend this is to have the secret of holiness. The Holy [p116] God above us, ever giving and working; the Holy One of God, the living gift, who has possession of us, in whom we are; the Holy Spirit, God within us, through whom the Father works, and the Son is revealed: this is the God who says, I am holy, I make holy. In the perfect unity of the work of the Three, holiness is found.

3. No wonder that the love of the Father and the grace of the Son do not accomplish more, when the fellowship of the Holy Spirit is little understood or sought or accepted. The Holy Spirit is the fruit and crown of the Divine Revelation, through whom the Son and the Father come to us. If you would know God, if you would be holy, you must be taught and led of the Spirit.

4. As often as you worship the Thrice Holy One, hearken if no voice be heard: Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Let the answer rise, Here am I, send me, and offer yourself to be a messenger of the holiness of God to those around you.

5. When in meditation and worship you have sought to take in and express what God’s word has taught, then comes the time for confessing how you know nothing, and for waiting on God to reveal Himself.

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Thirteenth Day.

HOLY IN CHRIST.

‘Thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the High and Holy place, with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.’—Isa. lvii. 15.

Very wonderful is the revelation we have in Isaiah of God, the Holy One, as the Redeemer and the Saviour of His people. In the midst of the people whom He created and formed for Himself, He will as the Holy One dwell, showing forth His power and His glory, filling them with joy and gladness. All these promises have, however, reference to the people as a whole. Our text to-day reveals a new and specially beautiful feature of the Divine Holiness in its relation to the individual. The High and Lofty One, whose name is Holy, and whose only fit dwelling-place is eternity, He looks to the man who is of a humble and contrite heart; with him will He dwell. God’s Holiness is His condescending Love. As it is a [p118] consuming fire against all who exalt themselves before Him, it is to the spirit of the humble like the shining of the sun, heart-reviving and life-giving.

The deep significance of this promise comes out clearly when we connect it with the other promises of New Testament times. The great feature of the New Covenant, in its superiority to the old, is this, that whereas in the law and its institution all was external, in the New the kingdom of God would be within. God’s laws given and written into the heart, a new spirit put within us, God’s own Spirit given to dwell within our spirit, and so the heart and the inner life fitted to be the temple and home of God; it is this constitutes the peculiar privilege of the ministration of the Spirit. Our text is perhaps the only one in the Old Testament in which this indwelling of the Holy One, not among the people only, but in the heart of the individual believer, is clearly brought out. In this the two aspects of the Divine Holiness would reach their full manifestation: I dwell in the High and Holy place, and with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit. In His heaven above, the high and lofty place, and in our heart, contrite and humble, God has His home. God’s Holiness is His glory that separates Him by an infinite distance, not only from sin, but even from the creature, lifting Him high above it. God’s Holiness is His Love, drawing Him down to the sinner, that He may lift him into His fellowship and likeness, and make him holy as He is holy. The Holy One seeks the humble; the [p119] humble find the Holy One: such are the two lessons we have to learn to-day.

The Holy One seeks the humble. There is nothing that has such an attraction for God, that has such affinity with holiness, as a contrite and humble spirit. The reason is evident. There is no law in the natural and the spiritual world more simple, than that two bodies cannot at the same moment occupy the same space. Only so much as the new occupant can expel of what the space was filled with can it really possess. In man, self has possession, and self-will the mastery, and there is no room for God. It is simply impossible for God to dwell or rule when self is on the throne. As long as, through the blinding influence of sin and self-love, even the believer is not truly conscious of the extent to which this self-will reigns, there can be no true contrition or humility. But as it is discovered by God’s Spirit, and the soul sees how it has just been self that has been secretly keeping out God, with what shame it is broken down, and how it longs to break utterly away from self, that God may have His place! It is this brokenness, and continued breaking down, that is expressed by the word contrition. And as the soul sees what folly and guilt it has been, by its secret honouring of self, to keep the Holy One from the place which He alone has a right to, and which He would so blessedly have filled, it casts itself down in utter self-abasement, with the one desire to be nothing, and to give God the place and the praise that is His due.

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Such breaking down and humiliation is painful. Its intense reality consists in this, that the soul can see nothing in itself to trust or hope in. And least of all can it imagine that it should be an object of Divine complacency, or a fit vessel for the Divine blessing. And yet just this is the message which the Word of the Lord brings to our faith. It tells us that the Holy One, who dwells in the High and Lofty place, is seeking and preparing for Himself a dwelling here on this earth. It tells us, just what the truly contrite and humble never could imagine, and even now can hardly believe, that it is even, that it is only, with such that He will dwell. These are they in whom God can be glorified, in whom there is room for Him to take the place of self and to fill the emptied place with Himself. The Holy One seeks the humble. Just when we see that there is nothing in us to admire or rest in, God sees in us everything to admire and to rest in, because there is room for Himself. The lowly one is the home of the Holy One.

The humble find the Holy One. Just when the consciousness of sin and weakness, and the discovery of how much of self there is, makes you fear that you can never be holy, the Holy One gives Himself. Not as you look at self, and seek to know whether now you are contrite and humble enough—no, but when no longer looking at self, because you have given up all hope of seeing anything in it but sin, you look up to the Holy One, you will see how His promise is your only hope. It is in faith that [p121] the Holy One is revealed to the contrite soul. Faith is ever the opposite of what we see and feel; it looks to God alone. And it believes that in its deepest consciousness of unholiness, and its fear that it never can be holy, God, the Holy One, who makes holy, is near as Redeemer and Saviour. And it is content to be low, in the consciousness of unworthiness and emptiness, and yet to rejoice in the assurance that God Himself does take possession and revive the heart of the contrite one. Happy the soul who is willing at once to learn the lesson that, all along, it is going to be the simultaneous experience of weakness and power, of emptiness and filling, of deep, real humiliation, and the as real and most wonderful indwelling of the Holy One.

This is indeed the deep mystery of the Divine life. To human reason it is a paradox. When Paul says of himself, ‘as dying, and behold we live; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as having nothing, yet possessing all things,’ he only gives expression to the law of the kingdom, that as self is displaced and man becomes nothing, God will become all. Side by side with deepest sense of nothingness and weakness, the sense of infinite riches and the joy unspeakable can fill the heart. However deep and blessed the experience becomes of the nearness, the blessing, the love, the actual indwelling of the Holy One, it is never an indwelling in the old self; it is ever a Divine Presence humbling self to make place for God alone to be exalted. The power of Christ’s death, the fellowship of His cross, works each [p122] moment side by side with the power and the joy of His resurrection. ‘He that humbleth himself shall be exalted;’ in the blessed life of faith the humiliation and the exaltation are simultaneous, each dependent on the other.

The humble find the Holy One; and when they have found, the possession only humbles all the more. Not that there is no danger or temptation of the flesh exalting itself in the possession, but, once knowing the danger, the humble soul seeks for grace to fear continually, with a fear that only clings more firmly to God alone. Never for a moment imagine that you attain a state in which self or the flesh are absolutely dead. No; by faith you enter into and abide in a fellowship with Jesus, in whom they are crucified; abiding in Him, you are free from their power, but only as you believe, and, in believing, have gone out of self and dwell in Jesus. Therefore, the more abundant God’s grace becomes, and the more blessed the indwelling of the Holy One, keep so much the lower. Your danger is greater, but your Help is now nearer: be content in trembling to confess the danger, it will make you bold in faith to claim the victory.

Believers, who profess to be nothing, and to trust in grace alone, I pray you, do listen to the wondrous message. The High and Lofty One, whose name is Holy, and who dwells in the Holy Place, and who can dwell nowhere but in a Holy Place, seeks a dwelling here on earth. Will you give it Him? Will you not fall down in the dust, that He may [p123] find in you the humble heart He loves to dwell in? Will you not now believe that even in you, however low and broken you feel, He doth delight to make His dwelling? ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the Kingdom;’ with them the King dwells. Oh, this is the path to holiness! be humble, and the holy nearness and presence of God in you will be your holiness. As you hear the command, Be holy, as I am holy, let faith claim the promise, and answer, I will be holy, O Most Holy God! if Thou, the Holy One, wilt dwell with me.

Be holy, as I am holy.

O Lord! Thou art the High and Lofty One, whose Name is Holy. And yet Thou speakest, ‘I dwell in the high and holy place, and with him that is of a contrite and humble spirit.’ Yes, Lord! when the soul takes the low place, and has low thoughts of itself, that it feels it is nothing, Thou dost love to come and comfort, to dwell with it and revive it.

O my God! my creature nothingness humbles me; my many transgressions humble me; my innate sinfulness humbles me; but this humbles me most of all, Thine infinite condescension, and the ineffable indwelling Thou dost vouchsafe. It is Thy Holiness, in Christ bearing our sin, Thy Holy Love bearing with our sin, and consenting to dwell in us; O God! it is this love that passeth knowledge that humbles me. I do beseech Thee, let it do its work, until self hides its head and flees away at the presence of Thy glory, and Thou alone art all.

Holy Lord God! I pray Thee to humble me. [p124] Didst Thou not of old meet Thy servants, and show Thyself unto them until they fell upon their faces and feared? Thou knowest, my God! I have no humility which I can bring Thee. In my blessed Saviour, who humbled Himself in the form of a servant, and unto the death of the cross, I hide myself. In Him, in His spirit and likeness, I would live before Thee. Work Thou it in me, by the Holy Spirit dwelling in me, and as I am dead to self in Him, and His cross makes me nothing, let Thy holy indwelling revive and quicken me. Amen.

1. Lowliness and holiness. Keep fast hold of the intimate connection. Lowliness is taking the place that becomes me; holiness, giving God the place that becomes Him. If I be nothing before Him, and God be all to me, I am in the sure path of holiness. Lowliness is holiness, because it gives all the glory to God.

2. ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ These first words of the Master when He opened His lips to proclaim the Kingdom, are often the last in the hearts of His disciples. ‘The Kingdom is in the Holy Ghost:’ to the poor in spirit, those who know they have nothing that is really spiritual, the Holy Spirit comes to be their life. The poor in spirit are the Kingdom of the Saints: in them the Holy Spirit reveals the King.

3. Many strive hard to be humble with God, but with men they maintain their rights, and nourish self. Remember that the great school of humility before God, is to accept the humbling of man. Christ sanctified Himself in accepting the humiliation and injustice which evil men laid upon Him.

4. Humility never sees its own beauty, because it refuses to look to itself: It only wonders at the condescension of the Holy God, and rejoices in the humility of Jesus, God’s Holy One, our Holy One.

5. The link between holiness and humility is indwelling. The Lofty One, whose name is Holy, dwells with the contrite one. And where He dwells is the Holy Place.

[p125]

Fourteenth Day.

HOLY IN CHRIST.

‘Therefore also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.’—Luke i. 35.

‘We have believed and know that Thou art the Holy One of God.’—John vi. 69.

‘The holy one of the Lord’—only once (Ps. cvi. 16) the expression is found in the Old Testament. It is spoken of Aaron, in whom holiness, as far as it could then be revealed, had found its most complete embodiment. The title waited for its fulfilment in Him who alone, in His own person, could perfectly show forth the holiness of God on earth—Jesus the Son of the Father. In Him we see holiness, as Divine, as human, as our very own.

1. In Him we see wherein that Incomparable Excellence of the Divine Nature consists. ‘Thou lovest righteousness, and hatest iniquity, therefore God, even Thy God, hath anointed Thee with the oil of gladness above Thy fellows.’ God’s infinite hatred of sin, and His maintenance of the Right, might appear to have little moral worth, as being a [p126] necessity of His nature. In the Son we see Divine Holiness tested. He is tried and tempted. He suffers, being tempted. He proves that Holiness has indeed a moral worth: it is ready to make any sacrifice, yea to give up life and cease to be, rather than consent to sin. In giving Himself to die, rather than yield to the temptation of sin; in giving Himself to die, that the Father’s righteous judgment may be honoured; Jesus proved how Righteousness is an element of the Divine Holiness, and how the Holy One is sanctified in Righteousness.

But this is only one side of Holiness. The fire that consumes also purifies: it makes partakers of its own beautiful Light-nature all that is capable of assimilation. So Divine Holiness not only maintains its own purity; it communicates it too. Herein was Jesus indeed seen to be the Holy One of God, that He never said, ‘Stand by, for I am holier than thou.’ His holiness proved itself to be the very incarnation of Him who had spoken, ‘Thus saith the High and Lofty One, whose Name is Holy: I dwell in the High and Holy place, and with him who is of a contrite spirit.’ In Him was seen the affinity holiness has for all that is lost and helpless and sinful. He proved that holiness is not only the energy which in holy anger separates itself from all that is impure, but which in holy love separates to itself even what is most sinful, to save and to bless. In Him we see how the Divine Holiness is the harmony of Infinite Righteousness with Infinite Love.

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2. Such is the Divine aspect of the character of Christ, as He shows in human form what God’s Holiness is. But there is another aspect, to us no less interesting and important. We not only want to know how God is holy, but how man must act to be holy as God is holy. Jesus came to teach us that it is possible to be men, and yet to have the life of God dwelling in us. We ordinarily think that the glory and the infinite Perfection of Deity are the proper setting in which the beauty of holiness is to be seen: Jesus proved the perfect adaptation and suitability of human nature for showing forth that which is the essential glory of Deity. He showed us how, in choosing and doing the will of God, and making it his own will, man may truly be holy as God is holy.

The value of this aspect of the Incarnation depends upon our realizing intensely the true humanity of our Lord. The awful separating and purifying process that is ever being carried on in the fiery furnace of the Divine Holiness, ever consuming and ever assimilating, we expect to see in Him in the struggles of a truly human will. Holiness, to be truly human, must not only be a gift, but an acquirement. Coming from God, it must be accepted and personally appropriated, in the voluntary surrender of all that is not in accordance with it. In Jesus, as He distinctly gave up His own will, and did and suffered the Father’s will, we have the revelation of what human holiness is, and how truly man, [p128] through the unity of will, can be holy as God is holy.

3. But what avails that we have seen in Jesus that a man can be holy? His example were indeed a mockery if He show us not the way, and give us not the power, to become like Himself. To bring us this, was indeed the supreme object of the Incarnation. The Divine nature of Christ did not simply make His humanity partaker of its holiness, leaving Him still nothing more than an individual man. His Divinity gave the human holiness He wrought out, the holy human nature which He perfected, an infinite value and power of communication. With Him a new life, the Eternal Life, was grafted into the stem of humanity. For all who believe in Him, He sanctified Himself, that they themselves might also be sanctified in truth. Because His death was the great triumph of His obedience to the will of the Father, it broke for ever the dominion of sin, it atoned for our guilt, and won for Him from the Father the power to make His people partakers of His own life and holiness. In His Resurrection and Ascension the power of the New Life, and its right to universal dominion, were made manifest, and He is now in full truth the Holy One of God, holding in Himself as Head the power of a Holiness, at once Divine and human, to communicate to every member of His body.

The Holy One of God! in a fulness of meaning that passeth knowledge, in spirit and in truth, Jesus [p129] now bears this title. He is now the One Holy One whom God sees, of such an infinite compass and power of holiness, that He can be holiness to each of His brethren. And even as He is to God the Holy One, in whom He delights, and for whose sake He delights in all who are in Him, so Christ may now be to us too the One Holy One in whom we delight, in whom the Holiness of God is become ours. ‘We have believed and know that Thou art the Holy One of God,’—blessed they who can say this, and know themselves to be holy in Christ.

In speaking of the mystery of the Holy Trinity, we saw how Christ stands midway between the Father and the Spirit, as the point of union in which they meet. In the Son, ‘the very image of His substance’ (Heb. i. 3), we have the objective revelation of Deity, the Divine Holiness embodied and brought nigh. In the Holy Spirit we have the same revelation subjectively, the Divine Holiness entering our inmost being and revealing itself there. The work of the Holy Spirit is to reveal and glorify Christ as the Holy One of God, as He takes of His Holiness and makes it ours. He shows us how all is in Christ; how Christ is all for us; how we are in Christ; and how, as a living Saviour, Christ through His Spirit takes and keeps charge of us and our life of holiness. He makes Christ indeed to be to us the Holy One of God.

My Brother! wouldst thou be holy, wouldst thou know God’s way of holiness—learn to know Christ [p130] as the Holy One of God. Thou art in Him, ‘holy in Christ.’ Thou hast been placed, by an act of Divine Power, in Christ, and that same Power keeps thee there, planted and rooted in that Divine fulness of life and holiness which there is in Him. His Holy Presence, and the power of His eternal life, surround thee: let the Holy Spirit reveal this to thee. The Holy Spirit is within thee as the power of Christ and His life. Secretly, silently, but mightily, if thou wilt look to the Father for His working, will He strengthen the faith that thou art in Christ, and that the Divine life, which thus encircles thee on every side, will enter in and take possession of thee. Study and pray to believe and realize that it is in Christ as the Holy One of God, in Christ in whom the Holiness of God is prepared for thee as a holy nature and holy living, that thou art, and that thou mayest abide.

And then remember, also, that this Christ is thy Saviour, the most patient and compassionate of teachers. Study holiness in the light of His countenance, looking up into His face. He came from heaven for the very purpose of making thee holy. His love and power are more than thy slowness and sinfulness. Do learn to think of holiness as the inheritance prepared for thee, as the power of a new life which Jesus waits and lives to dispense. Just think of it as all in Him, and of its possession as being dependent upon the possession of Himself. And as the disciples, though they scarce understood what they confessed, or knew whither the Lord was [p131] leading them, became His saints, His holy ones, in virtue of their intense attachment to Him, so wilt thou find that to love Jesus fervently, and obey Him simply, is the sure path to holiness and the fulness of the Holy Spirit.

Be ye holy, as I am holy.

Most Holy Lord God! I do bless Thee that Thy beloved Son, whom Thou didst sanctify and send into the world, is now to us the Holy One of God. I beseech Thee that my inner life may so be enlightened by the Spirit that I may in faith fully know what this means.

May I know Him as the revelation of Thy Holiness, the incarnation in human nature, even unto the death, of Thine infinite and unconquerable hatred of sin, as of Thy amazing love to the sinner. May my soul be filled with great fear and trust of Thee.

May I know Him as the exhibition of the Holiness in which we are now to walk before Thee. He lived in Thy holy will. May I know Him as He wrought out that holiness, to be communicated to us in a new human nature, making it possible for us to live a holy life.

May I know Him as Thou hast placed me in Him in heaven, holy in Christ, and as I may abide in Him by faith.

May I know Him, as He dwells in me, the Holy One of God on the throne of my heart, breathing [p132] His Holy Spirit and maintaining His holy rule. So shall I live holy in Christ.

O my Father! it pleased Thee that in Thy Son should all the fulness dwell. In Him are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge; in Him dwell the unsearchable riches of grace and holiness. I beseech Thee, reveal Him to me, reveal Him in me, that I may not have to satisfy myself with thoughts and desires, without the reality, but that in the power of an endless life I may know Him, and be known of Him, the Holy One of God. Amen.

1. In the holiness of Jesus we see what ours must be: righteousness, that hates sin and gives everything to have it destroyed; love, that seeks the sinner and gives everything to have him saved. ‘Whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother.’

2. It is a solemn thought that we may be studying earnestly to know what holiness is, and yet have little of it, because we have little of Jesus. It is a blessed thought that a man may directly be little occupied with the thought of holiness, and yet have much of it, because he is full of Jesus.

3. We need the whole of what God teaches in His Word in regard to holiness in all its different aspects. We need still more to be ever returning to the living centre where God imparts holiness. Jesus is the Holy One of God: to have Him truly, to love Him fervently, to trust and obey Him, to be in Him—this makes us holy.

4. Your holiness is thus treasured up in this Divine, Almighty, and most gentle Saviour—surely there need to be no fear that He will not be ready or able to make you holy.

5. With such a Sanctifier, how comes it that so many seekers after holiness fail so sadly, and know so little of the joy of a holy life?

I am sure it is with very many this one thing: they seek to grasp and hold this Christ in their own strength, and know not how it is the Holy Spirit within them who must be waited for to reveal this Divine Being, the Holy One of God, in their hearts.

[p133]

Fifteenth Day.

HOLY IN CHRIST.

‘But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believed on Him were to receive: for the Holy Spirit was not yet: because Jesus was not yet glorified.’—John vii. 39.

‘The Comforter, even the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, He shall teach you all things.’—John xiv. 26.

‘God chose you to salvation in sanctification of the Spirit, and belief of the truth.’—2 Thess. ii. 13. (See 1 Pet. i. 2.)

It has sometimes been said, that while the Holiness of God stands out more prominently in the Old Testament, in the New it has to give way to the revelation of His love. The remark could hardly be made if it were fully realized that the Spirit is God, and that when He takes up the epithet Holy as His own proper name, it is to teach us that now the Holiness of God is to come nearer than ever, and to be specially revealed as the power that makes us holy. In the Holy Spirit, God the Holy One of Israel, and He who was the Holy One of God, come nigh for the fulfilment of the promise, ‘I am the Lord that make you holy.’ The unseen [p134] and unapproachable holiness of God had been revealed and brought near in the life of Christ Jesus; all that hindered our participation in it had been removed by His death. The name of Holy Spirit teaches us that it is specially the Spirit’s work to impart it to us and make it our own.

Try and realize the meaning of this; the epithet that through the whole Old Testament has belonged to the Holy God, is now appropriated to that Spirit which is within you. The Holiness of God in Christ becomes holiness in you, because this Spirit is in you. The words, and the Divine realities the words express, Holy and Spirit, are now inseparably and eternally united. You can only have as much of the Spirit as you are willing to have of holiness. You can only have as much holiness as you have of the indwelling Spirit.

There are some who pray for the Spirit because they long to have His light and joy and strength. And yet their prayers bring little increase of blessing or power. It is because they do not rightly know or desire Him as the Holy Spirit. His burning purity, His searching and convicting light, His making dead of the deeds of the body, of self with its will and its power, His leading into the fellowship of Jesus as He gave up His will and His life to the Father,—of all this they have not thought. The Spirit cannot work in power in them because they receive Him not as the Holy Spirit, in sanctification of the Spirit. At times, in seasons of revival, as among the Corinthians and Galatians, He may indeed come with His gifts and mighty workings, [p135] while His sanctifying power is but little manifest. (1 Cor. xiv. 4, xiii. 8, iii. 1–3; Gal. iii. 3, v. 15–26.) But unless that sanctifying power be acknowledged and accepted, His gifts will be lost. His gifts coming on us are but meant to prepare the way for the sanctifying power within us. We must take the lesson to heart; we can have as much of the Spirit as we are willing to have of His Holiness. Be full of the Spirit, must mean to us, Be fully holy.

The converse is equally true. We can only have so much holiness as we have of the Spirit. Some souls do very earnestly seek to be holy, but it is very much in their own strength. They will read books and listen to addresses most earnestly; they will use every effort to lay hold of every thought, and act out every advice. And yet they must confess that they are still very much strangers to the true, deep rest and joy and power of abiding in Christ, and being holy in Him. They sought for holiness more than for the Spirit. They must learn how even all the holiness which is so near and clear in Christ, is beyond our reach, except as the Holy Spirit dwells within and imparts it. They must learn to pray for Him and His mighty strengthening (Eph. iii. 16), to believe for Him (John iv. 14, vii. 37), in faith to yield to Him as indwelling (1 Cor. iii. 14, vi. 19). They must learn to cease from self-effort in thinking and believing, in willing and in running; to hope in God, and wait patiently for Him. He will by His Holy Spirit make us holy. Be holy means, Be filled with the Spirit.

If we inquire more closely how it is that this [p136] Holy Spirit makes holy, the answer is,—He reveals and imparts the Holiness of Christ. Scripture tells us: Christ is made unto us sanctification. He sanctified Himself for us, that we ourselves might also be sanctified in truth. We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. We are sanctified in Christ Jesus. The whole living Christ is just a treasury of holiness for man. In His life on earth He exchanged the Divine Holiness He possessed into the current coin needed for this human earthly life, obedience to the Father, and humility, and love, and zeal. As God, He has a sufficiency of it for every moment of the life of every believer.

And yet, it is all beyond our reach, except as the Holy Spirit brings it to us and inwardly communicates it. But this is the very work for which He bears the Divine Name, the Holy Spirit, to glorify Jesus, the Holy One of God, within us, and so make us partakers of His Holiness. He does it by revealing Christ, so that we begin to see what is in Him. He does it by discovering the deep unholiness of our nature (Rom. vii. 14–23). He does it by mightily strengthening us to believe, to receive Jesus Himself as our life. He does it by leading us to utter despair of self, to absolute surrender of obedience to Jesus as Lord, to the assured confidence of faith in the power of an indwelling Christ. He does it by, in the secret silent depths of the heart and life, imparting the dispositions and graces of Christ, so that from the inner centre of our life, which has been renewed and sanctified in Christ, [p137] holiness should flow out and pervade all to the utmost circumference. Where the desire has once been awakened, and the delight in the law of God after the inward man been created, there, as the Spirit of this life in Christ Jesus, He makes free from the law of sin and death in the members, he leads into the glorious liberty of the sons of God. As God within us, He communicates what God in Christ has prepared.

And if we ask once more how the working of this Holy Spirit, who thus makes holy, is to be secured, the answer is very simple and clear. He is the Spirit of the Holy Father, and of Christ, the Holy One of God: from them He must be received. ‘He showed me a river of water of life proceeding out of the throne of God and the Lamb.’ Jesus speaks of ‘the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my Name.’ He taught us to ask the Father. Paul prays for the Ephesians: ‘I bow my knees to the Father, that He may grant unto you, according to the riches of His glory, that ye may be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man.’ It is as we look to God in His Holiness, and all its revelation from Creation downward, and see how the Spirit now flows out from the throne of His Holiness as the water of life, that our hope will be awakened that God will give Him to work mightily in us. And as we then see Jesus revealing that holiness in human nature, rending the veil in His atoning death, that the Spirit from the Holiest of all may come forth and, as the Holy Spirit, be His representative, making [p138] Him present within us, we shall become confident that faith in Jesus will bring the fulness of the Spirit. As He told us to ask the Father, He told us to believe in Himself. ‘He that believeth in me, rivers of living water shall flow out of him.’ Let us bow to the Father in the name of Christ, His Son; let us believe very simply in the Son as Him in whom we are well-pleasing to the Father, and through whom the Father’s love and blessing reach us, and we may be sure the Spirit, who is already within us, will, as the Holy Spirit, do His work in ever-increasing power. The mystery of holiness is the mystery of the Trinity: as we bow to the Father, believing in the Son, the Holy Spirit will work. And we shall see the true meaning of what God spake in Israel: ‘I am holy,’ thus speaks the Father; ‘Be holy,’ as my Son and in my Son; ‘I make holy,’ through the Spirit of my Son dwelling in you. Let our souls worship and cry out, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts.’

The Holy Spirit. All true knowledge of the Father in His adorable Holiness, and of the Son in His, which is meant to be ours, and all participation of it, depend upon our life in the Spirit, upon our knowing and owning Him as abiding in us as our Life. Oh, what can it be that, with such a Thrice Holy God, His Holiness does not more cover His Church and children? The Holy Spirit is among us, is in us: it must be we grieve and resist Him. If you would not do so, at once bow the knee to the Father, that He may grant you the Spirit’s [p139] mighty workings in the inner man. Believe that the Holy Spirit, bearer to you of all the Holiness of God and of Jesus, is indeed in you. Let Him take the place of self, with its thoughts and efforts. Set your soul still before God in holy silence, for Him to give you wisdom; rest, in emptiness and poverty of spirit, in the faith that He will work in His own way. As Divine as is the holiness that Jesus brings, so Divine is the power in which the Holy Spirit communicates it. Yield yourself day by day in growing dependence and obedience, to wait on and be led of Him. Let the fear of the Holy One be on you: sanctify the Lord God in your heart: let Him be your fear and dread. Fear not only sin: fear above all self, as it thrusts itself in before God with its service. Let self die, in refusing and denying its work: let the Holy Spirit, in quietness, and dependence, in the surrender of obedience and trust, have the rule, the free disposal of every faculty. Wait for Him—He can, He will in power reveal and impart the Holiness of the Father and the Son.

Be holy, as I am holy.

Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of hosts! the whole earth is full of Thy glory! Let that glory fill the [p140] heart of Thy child, as he bows before Thee. I come now to drink of the river of the water of life that flows from under the throne of God and of the Lamb. Glory be to God and to the Lamb for the gift that hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive—the gift of the Holy indwelling Spirit.

O my Father! in the name of Jesus I ask Thee that I may be strengthened with might by Thy Spirit in the inner man. Teach me, I pray Thee, to believe that Thou hast given Him, to accept and expect Him to fill and rule my whole inner being. Teach me to give up to Him; not to will or to run, not to think or to work in my strength, but in quiet confidence to wait and to know that He works in me. Teach me what it is to have no confidence in the flesh, and to serve Thee in the Spirit. Teach me what it is in all things to be led by Thy Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Thy Holiness.

And grant, gracious Father, that through Him I may hear Thee speak and reveal Thyself to me in power: I am holy. May He glorify to me and in me, Jesus, in whom Thy command ‘Be holy’ hath been so blessedly fulfilled on my behalf. And let the Holy Spirit give me the anointing and the sealing which bring the perfect assurance that in Him Thy promise is being gloriously fulfilled, ‘I make you holy.’ Amen.

1. It it universally admitted that the Holy Spirit has not, in the teaching of the Church or the faith of believers, that place of honour and power, which becomes Him as the Revealer of the Father and the Son. Seek a deep conviction [p141] that without the Holy Spirit the clearest teaching on holiness, the most fervent desires, the most blessed experiences even, will only be temporary, will produce no permanent result, will bring no abiding rest.

2. The Holy Spirit dwells within, and works within, in the hidden deep of your nature. Seek above everything the clear and habitual assurance that He is within you, doing His work.

3. To this end, deny self and its work in serving God. Your own power to think and pray and believe and strive—lay it all down expressly and distinctly in God’s presence; claim, accept, and believe in the hidden workings of the indwelling Spirit.

4. As the Son ever spake of the Father, so the Spirit ever points to Christ. The soul that yields itself to the Spirit will of Him learn to know how Christ is our holiness, how we can always abide in Christ our Sanctification. What a vain effort it has often been without the Spirit! ‘As the anointing taught you, ye abide in Him.’

5. In the temple of thine heart, beloved believer, there is a secret place, within the veil, where dwells, often all unknown, the Spirit of God. Do bow in deep reverence before the Father, and ask that He may work mightily. Expect the Spirit to do His work: He will make Thy inner man a fit home, Thy heart a throne, for Jesus, and reveal Him there.

[p142]

Sixteenth Day.

HOLY IN CHRIST.

‘Make them holy in the Truth: Thy word is Truth.’—John xvii. 17.

‘God chose you unto salvation in sanctification and belief of the Truth.’—2 Thess. ii. 12.

The chief means of sanctification that God uses is His word. And yet how much there is of reading and studying, of teaching and preaching the word, that has almost no effect in making men holy. It is not the word that sanctifies; it is God Himself who alone can sanctify. Nor is it simply through the word that God does it, but through the Truth which is in the word. As a means the word is of unspeakable value, as the vessel which contains the truth, if God use it; as a means it is of no value, if God does not use it. Let us strive to connect God’s Holy Word with the Holy God Himself. God sanctifies in the Truth through His word.

Jesus had just said, ‘The words which Thou gavest me, I have given them.’ Let us try and [p143] realize what that means. Think of that great transaction in eternity: the Infinite Being, whom we call God, giving His words to His Son; in His words opening up His heart, communicating His mind and will, revealing Himself and all His purpose and love. In a Divine power and reality passing all conception, God gave Christ His words. In the same living power Christ gave them to His disciples, all full of a Divine life and energy to work in their hearts, as they were able to receive them. And just as in the words of a man on earth we expect to find all the wisdom or all the goodness there is in him, so the word of the Thrice Holy One is all alive with the Holiness of God. All the holy fire, alike of His burning zeal and His burning love, dwells in His words.

And yet men can handle these words, and study them, and speak them, and be entire strangers to their holiness, or their power to make holy. It is God Himself, the Holy One, who must make holy through the word. Every seed, in which the life of a tree is contained, has around it a husk or shell, which protects and hides the inner life. Only where the seed finds a place in congenial soil, and the husk is burst and removed, can the seed germinate and grow up. And it is only where there is a heart in harmony with God’s Holiness, longing for it, yielding itself to it, that the word will really make holy. It is the heart that is not content with the word, but seeks the Living, Holy One in the word, to which He will reveal the truth, and in it Himself. [p144] It is the word given to us by Christ as God gave it Him, and received by us as it was by Him, to rule and fill our life, which has power to make holy.

But we must notice very specially how our Saviour says, Sanctify them, not in the word, but in the truth. Just as in man there is body, soul, and spirit, so in truth too. There is first word-truth; a man may have the correct form of words while he does not really apprehend the truth they contain. Then there is thought-truth; there may be a clear intellectual apprehension of truth without the experience of its power. The Bible speaks of truth as a living reality: this is the life-truth, in which the very Spirit of the truth we profess has entered and possessed our inner being. Christ calls Himself the Truth: He is said to be full of grace and truth. The Divine life and grace are in Him as an actually substantial existence and reality. He not only acts upon us by thoughts and motives, but communicates, as a reality, the eternal life He brought for us from the Father. The Holy Spirit is called the Spirit of Truth; what He imparts is all real and actual, the very substance of unseen things; He guides into the Truth, not thought-truth or doctrine only, but life-truth, the personal possession of the Truth as it is in Jesus. As the Spirit of Truth He is the Spirit of Holiness; the life of God, which is His Holiness, He brings to us as an actual possession.

It is now of this living Truth, which dwells in the word, as the seed-life dwells in the husk, that Jesus says, ‘Make them holy in the Truth: Thy word is Truth.’ He would have us mark the intimate [p145] connection, as well as the wide difference, between the word and the truth. The connection is one willed by God and meant to be inseparable. ‘Thy word is truth;’ with God they are one. But not with man. Just as there were men in close contact and continual intercourse with Jesus, to whom He was only a man, and nothing more, so there are Christians who know and understand the word, and yet are strangers to its true spiritual power. They have the letter but not the spirit; the Truth comes to them in word but not in power. The word does not make them holy, because they hold it not in Spirit and in Truth. To others, on the contrary, who know what it is to receive the truth in the love of it, who yield themselves, in all their dealings with the word, to the Spirit of Truth who dwells in it and in them too, the word comes indeed as Truth, as a Divine reality, communicating and working what it speaks of. And it is of such a use of the word that the Saviour says, ‘Make them holy in the truth: Thy word is truth.’ As the words, which God gave Him, were all in the power of the eternal Life and Love and Will of God, the revelation and communication of the Father’s purpose, as God’s word was Truth to Him and in Him, so it can be in us. And as we thus receive it, we are made holy in the Truth.

And what now are the lessons we have to learn here for the path of Holiness? The first is: Let us see to it that in all our intercourse with God’s Blessed Word we rest content with nothing short of [p146] the experience of it, as truth of God, as spirit and as power. Jesus said, ‘If ye abide in my word, ye shall know the truth.’ No analysis can ever find or prove the life of a seed: plant it in its proper soil, and the growth will testify to the life. It is only as the word of God is received in the love of it, as it grows and works in us, that we can know its truth, can know that it is the Truth of God. It is as we live in the words of Jesus, in love and obedience, keeping and doing them, that the Truth from heaven, the Power of the Divine Life which there is in them, will unfold itself to us. Christ is the Truth; in Him the love and grace, the very life of God, has come to earth as a substantial existence, a Living, Mighty Power, something new that was never on earth before (John i. 17); let us yield ourselves to the Living Christ to possess us and to rule us as the Living Truth, then will God’s word be Truth to us and in us.

The Spirit of Christ is the Spirit of Truth; that actual heavenly reality of Divine life and love in Christ, the Truth, has a Spirit, who comes to communicate and impart it. Let us beware of trying to study or understand or take possession of God’s word without that Spirit through whom the word was spoken of old; we shall find only the husk, the truth or thought and sentiment, very beautiful perhaps, but with no power to make us holy. We must have the Spirit of the Truth within us. He will lead us into the Truth; when we are in the Truth, God makes us holy in it and by it. The Truth must be in us, and we in it. God desires truth in the inward [p147] parts: we must be of the people of whom Christ says, ‘If ye were of the truth,’ ‘he that is of the truth knoweth me.’ In the lower sphere of daily life and conduct, of thought and action, there must be an intense love of truth, and a willingness to sacrifice everything for it; in the spiritual life, a deep hungering to have all our religion every day, every moment, stand fully in the truth of God. It is to the simple, humble, childlike spirit that the truth of the word will be unsealed and revealed. In such the Spirit of truth comes to dwell. In such, as they daily wait before the Holy One in silence and emptiness, in reverence and holy fear, His Holy Spirit works and gives the truth within. In thus imparting Christ as revealed in the word, in His Divine life and love, as their own life, He makes them holy with the holiness of Christ.

There is another lesson. Listen to that prayer, the earthly echo of the prayer which He ever liveth to pray, ‘Holy Father! make them holy in the truth.’ Would you be holy, child of God? cast yourself into that mighty current of intercession ever flowing into, ever reaching, the Father’s bosom. Let yourself be borne upon it until your whole soul cries, with the unutterable groanings, too deep and too intense for human speech, ‘Holy Father! make me holy in the truth.’ As you trust in Christ as the truth, the reality of what you long for, and in His all-prevailing intercession; as you wait for the Spirit within as the Spirit of truth; look up to the Father, and expect His own direct and almighty working to make you holy. The mystery [p148] of holiness is the mystery of the Triune One. The deeper entrance into the holy life rests in the fellowship of the Three in One. It is the Father who establishes us in Christ, who gives, in a daily fresh giving, the Holy Spirit; it is to the Father, the Holy Father, the soul must look up continually in the prayer, ‘Make me holy in the truth.’

It has been well said that in the word Holy we have the central thought of the high-priestly prayer. As the Father’s attribute (John xvii. 11), as the Son’s work for Himself and us (ver. 19), as the direct work of the Father through the Spirit (vers. 17, 20), it is the revelation of the glory of God in Himself and in us. Let us enter into the Holiest of all, and as we bow with our Great High Priest, let the deep, unceasing cry go up for all the Church of God, ‘Holy Father! make them holy in the truth: Thy word is truth.’ The word in which God makes holy is summed up in this, Holy in Christ. May God make it truth in us!

Be ye holy, as I am holy.

Blessed Father! to Israel Thou didst say, I the Lord am holy and make holy. But it is only in Thy beloved Son that the full glory of Thy Holiness, as making us holy, has been revealed. Thou art our Holy Father, who makest us holy in Thy truth.

We thank Thee that Thy Son hath given us the words Thou gavest Him, and that as He received them from Thee in life and power, we may receive them too. O Father! with our whole heart we do [p149] receive them; let the Spirit make them truth and life within us. So shall we know Thee as the Holy One, consuming the sin, renewing the sinner.

We bless Thee most for Thy Blessed Son, the Holy One of God, the Living Word in whom the Truth dwelleth. We thank Thee that in His never-ceasing intercession, this cry ever reacheth Thee, ‘Father, sanctify them in Thy truth,’ and that the answer is ever streaming forth from Thy glory. Holy Father! make us holy in Thy truth, in Thy wonderful revelation of Thyself in Him who is the truth. Let Thy Holy Spirit so have dominion in our hearts that Thy Holy Child Jesus, sanctifying Himself for us that we may be sanctified in the truth, may be to us the Way, the Truth, and the Life. May we know that we are in Him in Thy presence, and that Thy one word in answer to our prayer to make us holy is—Holy in Christ. Amen.

1. God is the God of truth—not truth in speaking only, or truth of doctrine—but truth of existence, or life in its Divine reality. And Christ is the truth; the actual embodiment of this Divine life. And there is a kingdom of truth, of Divine Spiritual realities, of which Christ is King. And of all this truth of God in Christ, the very essence is, the Spirit. He is the Spirit of truth: He leads us into it, so that we are of the truth and walk in it. Of the truth, the reality there is in God, Holiness, is the deepest root; the Spirit of truth is the Holy Spirit.

2. It is the work of the Father to make us holy in the truth: let us bow very low in childlike trust as we breathe the prayer: ‘Holy Father! make us holy in the truth.’ He will do it.

3. It is the intercession of the Son that asks and obtains this blessing: let us take our place in Him, and rejoice in the assurance of an answer.

4. It is the Spirit of truth through whom the Father does this work, so that we dwell in the truth, and the truth in us. Let us yield very freely and very fully to the leading of the Spirit, in our intercourse with God’s Word, that, as the Son prays, the Father may make us holy in the truth.

5. Let us, in the light of this work of the Three-One, never read the Word but with this aim: to be made holy in the truth by God.

[p150]

Seventeenth Day.

HOLY IN CHRIST.

‘For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.’—John xvii. 19.

‘He said, Lo, I am come to do Thy will. In which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus once for all. For by one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.’—Heb. x. 9, 10, 14.

It was in His High-priestly prayer, on His way to Gethsemane and Calvary, that Jesus thus spake to the Father: ‘I sanctify myself.’ He had not long before spoken of Himself as ‘the Son whom the Father hath sanctified and sent into the world.’ From the language of Holy Scripture we are familiar with the thought that, what God has sanctified, man has to sanctify too. The work of the Father, in sanctifying the Son, is the basis and groundwork of the work of the Son in sanctifying Himself. If His Holiness as man was to be a free and personal possession, accepted and assimilated in voluntary and conscious self-determination, it was not enough that the Father sanctify Him: He must sanctify Himself too.

[p151]

This self-sanctifying of our Lord found place through His whole life, but culminates and comes out in special distinctness in His crucifixion. Wherein it consists is made clear by the words from the Epistle to the Hebrews. The Messiah spake: ‘Lo, I come to do Thy will.’ And then it is added, ‘In the which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Christ.’ It was the offering of the body of Christ that was the will of God: in doing that will He sanctified us. It was of the doing that will in the offering His body that He spake, ‘I sanctify myself, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.’ The giving up of His will to God’s will in the agony of Gethsemane, and then the doing of that will in the obedience unto death, this was Christ’s sanctifying Himself and us too. Let us try and understand this.

The Holiness of God is revealed in His will. Holiness even in the Divine Being has no moral value except as it is freely willed. In speaking of the Trinity, theologians have pointed out how, as the Father represents the absolute necessity of Everlasting Goodness, the Son proves its liberty: within the Divine Being it is willed in love. And this now was the work of the Son on earth, amid the trials and temptations of a human life, to accept and hold fast at any sacrifice, with His whole heart to will, the will of the Father. ‘Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience in that He suffered.’ In Gethsemane the conflict between the will of human nature and the Divine will reached its [p152] height: it manifests itself in language which almost makes us tremble for His sinlessness, as He speaks of His will in antithesis to God’s will. But the struggle is a victory, because in presence of the clearest consciousness of what it means to have His own will, He gives it up, and says, ‘Thy will be done.’ To enter into the will of God He gives up His very life. In His crucifixion He thus reveals the law of sanctification. Holiness is the full entrance of our will into God’s will. Or rather, Holiness is the entrance of God’s will to be the death of our will. The only end of our will and deliverance from it, is death to it under the righteous judgment of God. It was in the surrender to the death of the cross that Christ sanctified Himself, and sanctified us, that we also might be sanctified in truth.

And now, just as the Father sanctified Him, and He in virtue thereof appropriated it and sanctified Himself, so we, whom He has sanctified, have to appropriate it to ourselves. In no other way than crucifixion, the giving up of Himself to the death, could Christ realize the sanctification He had from the Father. And in no other way can we realize the sanctification we have in Him. His own and our sanctification bears the common stamp of the cross. We have seen before that obedience is the path to holiness. In Christ we see that the path to perfect holiness is perfect obedience. And that is obedience unto death, even to the giving up of life, even the death of the cross. As the sanctification which Christ wrought out for us, even unto the offering of His body, bears the death mark, we [p153] cannot partake of it, we cannot enter it, except as we die to self and its will. Crucifixion is the path to sanctification.

This lesson is in harmony with all we have seen. The first revelation of God’s Holiness to Moses was accompanied with the command, Put off. God’s praise, as Glorious in Holiness, Fearful in Praises, was sounded over the dead bodies of the Egyptians. When Moses on Sinai was commanded to sanctify the Mount, it was said, ‘If any touch it, man or beast, it shall not live.’ The Holiness of God is death to all that is in contact with sin. Only through death, through blood-shedding, was there access to the Holiest of all. Christ chose death, even death as a curse, that He might sanctify Himself for us, and open to us the path to Holiness, to the Holiest of all, to the Holy One. And so it is still. No man can see God and live. It is only in death, the death of self and of nature, that we can draw near and behold God. Christ led the way. No man can see God and live. ‘Then let me die, Lord,’ one has cried, ‘but see Thee I must.’ Yes, blessed be God, so real is our interest in Christ and our union to Him, that we may live in His death; as day by day self is kept in the place of death, the life and the holiness of Christ can be ours.

And where is the place of death? And how can the crucifixion which leads to Holiness and to God be accomplished in us? Thank God! it is no work of our own, no weary process of self-crucifixion. The crucifixion that is to sanctify us is an [p154] accomplished fact. The cross bears the banner, ‘It is finished.’ On it Christ sanctified Himself for us, that we might be sanctified in truth. Our crucifixion, as our sanctification, is something that in Christ has been completely and perfectly finished. ‘We have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.’ ‘By one offering He hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified.’ In that fulness, which it is the Father’s good pleasure should dwell in Christ, the crucifixion of our old man, of the flesh, of the world, of ourselves, is all a spiritual reality; he that desires and knows and accepts Christ, fully receives all this in Him. And as the Christ, who had previously been known more in His pardoning, quickening, and saving grace, is again sought after as a real deliverer from the power of sin, as a sanctifier, He comes and takes up the soul into the fellowship of the sacrifice of His will. ‘He put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself,’ must become true of us as it is of Him. He reveals how it is a part of His salvation to make us partakers of a will entirely given up to the will of God, of a life that had yielded itself to the death, and had then been given back from the dead by the power of God, a life of which the crucifixion of self-will was the spirit and the power. He reveals this, and the soul that sees it, and consents to it, and yields its will and its life, and believes in Jesus as its death and its life, and in His crucifixion as its possession and its inheritance, enters into the enjoyment and experience of it. The language is now, ‘I died that I might [p155] live: I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I that live, but Christ that liveth in me.’ And the life it now lives is by the faith on the Son of God, the daily acceptance in faith of Him who lives within us in the power of a death that has been passed through and for ever finished.

‘I sanctify myself for them, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.’ ‘I come to do Thy will, O God. In the which will,’ the will of God accomplished by Christ, ‘we have been sanctified through the one offering of the body of Christ.’ Let us understand and hold it fast: Christ’s giving up His will in Gethsemane and accepting God’s will in dying; Christ’s doing that will in the obedience to the death of the cross, this is His sanctifying Himself, and this is our being sanctified in truth. ‘In the which will we have been sanctified.’ The death to self, the utter and most absolute giving up of our own life, with its will and its power and its aims, to the cross, and into the crucifixion of Christ, the daily bearing the cross—not a cross on which we are yet to be crucified, but the cross of the crucified Christ in its power to kill and make dead—this is the secret of the life of holiness—this is true sanctification.

Believer! is this the holiness which you are seeking? Have you seen and consented that God alone is holy, that self is all unholy, and that there is no way to be made holy but for the fire of the Divine Holiness to come in and be the death of self? ‘Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested [p156] in our mortal body’—is the pathway for each one who seeks to be sanctified in truth, even as He sanctified Himself; sanctified just like Jesus.

He sanctified Himself for us, that we ourselves also might be sanctified in truth. Yes, our sanctification rests and roots in His, in Himself. And we are in Him. The secret roots of our being are planted into Jesus: deeper down than we can see or feel, there is He our Vine, bearing and quickening us. Let us by faith understand that, in a manner and a measure which are far beyond our comprehension, intensely Divine and real, we are in Him who sanctified Himself for us. Let us dwell there, where we have been placed of God. And let us bow our knees to the Father, that He would grant us to be mightily strengthened by His Spirit, that Christ as our Sanctification may dwell in our hearts, that the power of His death and His life may be revealed in us, and God’s will be done in us as it was in Him.

Be holy, for I am holy.

Holy Father! I do bless Thee for this precious blessed word, for this precious blessed work of Thy beloved Son. In His never-ceasing intercession Thou ever hearest the wonderful prayer, ‘I sanctify myself for them, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.’

Blessed Father! I beseech Thee to strengthen me mightily by Thy Spirit, that in living faith I may [p157] be able to accept and live the holiness prepared for me in my Lord Jesus. Give me spiritual understanding to know what it means that He sanctified Himself, that my sanctification is secured in His, that as by faith I abide in Him, its power will cover my whole life. Let His sanctification indeed be the law as it is the life of mine. Let His surrender to Thy fatherly will, His continual dependence and obedience, be its root and its strength. Let His death to the world and to sin be its daily rule. Above all, let Himself, O my Father! let Himself, as sanctified for me, the living Jesus, be my only trust and stay. He sanctified Himself for me, that I myself also may be sanctified in truth.

Beloved Saviour! how shall I rightly bless and love and glorify Thee for this wondrous grace! Thou didst give Thyself, so that now I am holy in Thee. I give myself, that in Thee I myself may be made holy in truth. Amen. Lord Jesus! Amen.

1. ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.’ Jesus means that our life shall be the exact counterpart of His, including even the crucifixion. The beginning of such a life is the denial of self, to give Christ its place. The Jews would not deny self, but ‘denied the Holy One, and killed the Prince of Life.’ The choice is still between Christ and self. Let us deny the unholy one, and give him to the death.

2. The steps in this path are these: First, the deliberate decision that self shall be given up to the death; then, the surrender to Christ crucified to make us partakers of His crucifixion; then, ‘knowing that our old man is crucified,’ the faith that says, ‘I am crucified with Christ;’ and then, the power to live as a crucified one, to glory in the cross of Christ.

3. This is God’s way of holiness, a Divine mystery, which the Holy Spirit alone can daily maintain in us. Blessed be God, it is the life which a Christian can live, because Christ lives in us.

4. The central thought is: We are in Christ, who gave up His will and did the will of God. By the Holy Spirit the mind that was in Him is in us, the will of self is crucified, and we live in the will of God.

[p158]

Eighteenth Day.

HOLY IN CHRIST.

‘That they may receive remission of sins, and an inheritance among them that are sanctified by faith in me.’—Acts xxvi. 18.

The more we study Scripture in the light of the Holy Spirit, or practise the Christian life in His power, the deeper becomes our conviction of the unique and central place faith has in God’s plan of salvation. And we learn, too, to see that it is meet and right that it should be so: the very nature of things demands it. Because God is a Spiritual and Invisible Being, every revelation of Himself, whether in His works, His word, or His Son, calls for faith. Faith is the spiritual sense of the soul, being to it what the senses are to the body; by it alone we enter into communication and contact with God.

Faith is that meekness of soul which waits in stillness to hear, to understand, to accept what God says; to receive, to retain, to possess what God gives or works. By faith we allow, we welcome God Himself, the Living Person, to enter in to make [p159] His abode with us, to become our very life. However well we think we know it, we always have to learn the truth afresh, for a deeper and fuller application of it, that in the Christian life faith is the first thing, the one thing that pleases God, and brings blessing to us. And because Holiness is God’s highest glory, and the highest blessing He has for us, it is especially in the life of holiness that we need to live by faith alone.

Our Lord speaks here of ‘them that are sanctified by faith in me.’

From this point of view it is evident that faith has a twofold operation. Faith is the evidence of things not seen, though now actually existing, the substance of things hoped for, but not yet present. It deals with the unseen present, as well as with the unseen future. As the evidence of things not seen, it rejoices in Christ our complete sanctification, as a present possession. Through faith I simply look to what Christ is, as revealed in the Word by the Holy Spirit. Claiming all He is as my own, I know that His Holiness, His holy nature and life, are mine; I am a holy one: by faith in Him I have been sanctified. This is the first aspect of sanctification: it looks to what is a complete and finished thing, an absolute reality. As the substance of things hoped for, this faith reaches out in the assurance of hope to the future, to things I do not yet see or experience, and claims, day by day, out of Christ our sanctification, what it needs for practical holiness, ‘to be holy in all manner of living.’ This is the second aspect of sanctification: I depend upon Jesus to supply, in personal experience, gradually [p161] and unceasingly, for the need of each moment, what has been treasured up in His fulness. ‘Of God are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us sanctification.’ Under its first aspect faith says, I know I am in Him, and all His Holiness is mine; in its second aspect it speaks, I trust in Him for the grace and the strength I need each moment to live a holy life.

And yet, it need hardly be said, these two are one. It is one Jesus who is our sanctification, whether we look at it in the light of what He is made for us once for all, or what, as the fruit of that, He becomes to our experience day by day. And so it is one faith which, the more it studies and adores and rejoices in Jesus as made of God unto us sanctification, as Him in whom we have been sanctified, becomes the bolder to expect the fulfilment of every promise for daily life, and the stronger to claim the victory over every sin. Faith in Jesus is the secret of a holy life: all holy conduct, all really holy deeds, are the fruit of faith in Jesus as our holiness.

We know how faith acts, and what its great hindrances are, in the matter of justification. It is well that we remind ourselves that there are the same dangers in the exercise of sanctifying as of justifying faith. Faith in God stands opposed to trust in self: specially to its willing and working. Faith is hindered by every effort to do something ourselves. Faith looks to God working, and yields itself to His strength, as revealed in Christ through [p162] the Spirit; it allows God to work both to will and to do. Faith must work; without works it is dead, by works alone can it be perfected; in Jesus Christ, as Paul says, nothing avails but ‘faith working by love.’ But these works, which faith in God’s working inspires and performs, are very different from the works in which a believer often puts forth his best efforts, only to find that he fails. The true life of holiness, the life of them who are sanctified in Christ, has its root and its strength in an abiding sense of utter impotence, in the deep restfulness which trusts to the working of a Divine power and life, in the entire personal surrender to the loving Saviour, in that faith which consents to be nothing, that He may be all. It may appear impossible to discern or describe the difference between the working that is of self and the working that is of Christ through faith: if we but know that there is such a difference, if we learn to distrust ourselves, and to count on Christ working, the Holy Spirit will lead us into this secret of the Lord too. Faith’s works are Christ’s works.

And as by effort, so faith is also hindered by the desire to see and feel. ‘If thou believest, thou shalt see;’ the Holy Spirit will seal our faith with a Divine experience; we shall see the glory of God. But this is His work: ours is, when all appears dark and cold, in the face of all that nature or experience testifies, still each moment to believe in Jesus as our all-sufficient sanctification, in whom we are perfected before God. Complaints as to [p163] want of feeling, as to weakness or deadness, seldom profit: it is the soul that refuses to occupy itself with itself, either with its own weakness or the strength of the enemy, but only looks to what Jesus is, and has promised to do, to whom progress in holiness will be a joyful march from victory to victory. ‘The Lord Himself doth fight for you;’ this thought, so often repeated in connection with Israel’s possession of the promised land, is the food of faith: in conscious weakness, in presence of mighty enemies, it sings the conqueror’s song. When God appears to be not doing what we trusted Him for, then is just the time for faith to glory in Him.

There is perhaps nothing that more reveals the true character of faith than joy and praise. You give a child the promise of a present to-morrow: at once it says, Thank you, and is glad. The joyful thanks are the proof of how really your promise has entered the heart. You are told by a friend of a rich legacy he has left you in his will: it may not come true for years, but even now it makes you glad. We have already seen what an element of holiness joy is: it is especially an element of holiness by faith. Each time I really see how beautiful and how perfect God’s provision is, by which my holiness is in Jesus, and by which I am to allow Him to work in me, my heart ought to rise up in praise and thanks. Instead of allowing the thought that it is, after all, a life of such difficult attainment and such continual self-denial, this life of holiness through faith, we ought to praise Him exceedingly that He has made it [p164] possible and sure for us: we can be holy, because Jesus the Mighty and the Loving One is our holiness. Praise will express our faith; praise will prove it; praise will strengthen it. ‘Then believed they His words; they sang His praise.’ Praise will commit us to faith: we shall see that we have but one thing to do, to go on in a faith that ever trusts and ever praises. It is in a living, loving attachment to Jesus, that rejoices in Him, and praises Him continually for what He is to us, that faith proves itself, and receives the power of holiness.

‘Sanctified by faith in me.’ Yes, ‘by faith in Me:’ it is the personal living Jesus who offers Himself, Himself in all the riches of His Power and Love, as the object, the strength, the life of our faith. He tells us that if we would be holy, always and in everything holy, we must just see to one thing: to be always and altogether full of faith in Him. Faith is the eye of the soul: the power by which we discern the presence of the Unseen One, as He comes to give Himself to us. Faith not only sees, but appropriates and assimilates: let us set our souls very still for the Holy Spirit who dwells in us, to quicken and strengthen that faith, for which He has been given us. Faith is surrender: yielding ourselves to Jesus to allow Him to do His work in us, giving up ourselves to Him to live out His life and work out His will in us, we shall find Him giving Himself entirely to us, and taking complete possession. So faith will be power: the power of obedience to do God’s will: [p165] ‘our most holy faith,’ ‘the faith delivered to the holy ones.’ And we shall understand how simple, to the single-hearted, is the secret of holiness: just Jesus. We are in Him, our Sanctification: He personally is our Holiness; and the life of faith in Him, that receives and possesses Him, must necessarily be a life of holiness. Jesus says, ‘Sanctified by faith in me.’

Be ye holy, as I am holy.

Beloved Lord! again have I seen, with adoring wonder, what Thou art willing to be to me. It is in Thyself, and a life of living fellowship with Thyself, that I am to become holy. It is in the simple life of personal attachment, of trust and love, of surrender and consecration, that Thou dost become my all, and make me partaker of Thyself and Thy Holiness.

Blessed Lord Jesus! I do believe in Thee, help Thou mine unbelief. I confess what still remains of unbelief, and count on Thy presence to conquer and cast it out. My soul is opening up continually to see more how Thou Thyself art my Life and my Holiness. Thou art enlarging my heart to rejoice in Thyself as my all, and to be assured that Thou dost Thyself take possession and fill the temple of my being with Thy glory. Thou art teaching me to understand that, however feeble and human and disappointing experiences may be, Thy Holy Spirit is the strength of my faith, leading me on to grow up into a stronger and a larger [p166] confidence in Thee in whom I am holy. O my Saviour! I take Thy word this day, ‘Sanctified by faith in me,’ as a new revelation of Thy love and its purpose with me. In Thee Thyself is the Power of my holiness; in Thee is the Power of my faith. Blessed be Thy name that Thou hast given me too a place among them of whom Thou speakest: ‘Sanctified by faith in me.’ Amen.

1. Let us remember that it is not only the faith that is dealing specially with Christ for sanctification, but all living faith, that has the power to sanctify. Anything that casts the soul wholly on Jesus, that calls forth intense and simple trust, be it the trial of faith, or the prayer of faith, or the work of faith, helps to make us holy, because it brings us into living contact with the Holy One.

2. It is only through the Holy Spirit that Christ and His Holiness are day by day revealed and made ours in actual possession. And so the faith which receives Him is of the Spirit too. Yield yourself in simplicity and trust to His working. Do not be afraid, as if you cannot believe: you have ‘the Spirit of faith’ within you: you have the power to believe. And you may ask God to strengthen you mightily by His Spirit in the inner man, for the faith that receives Christ in the indwelling that knows no break.

3. I have only so much of faith as I have of the Spirit. Is not this then what I most need—to live entirely under the influence of the Spirit?

4. Just as the eye in seeing is receptive, and yields to let the object placed before it make its impression, so faith is the impression God makes on the soul when He draws nigh. Was not the faith of Abraham the fruit of God’s drawing near and speaking to him, the impression God made on him? Let us be still to gaze on the Divine mystery of Christ our holiness: His Presence, waited for and worshipped, will work the faith. That is, the Spirit that proceeds from Him into those who cling to Him, will be faith.

5. Holiness by faith in Jesus, not by effort of thine own,

Sin’s dominion crushed and broken by the power of grace alone,—

God’s own holiness within thee, His own beauty on thy brow,—

This shall be thy pilgrim brightness, this thy blessed portion now.

F. R. H.

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