12 - Holiness: Yes, But How?

Holiness: Yes, But How?

NOTE With this chapter we reach the innermost question of these studies: To what degree may our moral nature be restored in this present life? That very word, "degree", of course, is obnoxious to the ultraistic theories of holiness which dichotomise our inner being into "old man" versus "new man" and then insist that sanctification is the eradication of the old. The early Methodist preachers used to partition believers into (1) justified but not sanctified, (2) justified and also sanctified. That grew out of their eradication theory. There are no degrees in eradication. We have seen, however, that the eradication theory is untenable.

There can be holiness in degree because in our one, indivisible nature there are both the higher reaches and the lower. These coexist inside the one nature, but we must never think of them as two natures. In our Lord Jesus there was a duality of natures—the divine and the human in one Person. But that must never be thought of as a parallel with the conflicting opposites which coexist in our human nature. Fallen man is indeed internally at odds with himself, but it is not a war of two selves. The big, precious, vital truth which has been too long obscured, but which we must grasp again with a new gratitude to our dear Saviour, is that our nature itself may be renewed and refined by the Holy Spirit, so that in greater or lesser degree all that is highest and purest and most God-like may be developed into radiant ascendancy.

J.S.B. we have made our way, at length, to what may be regarded as the positive objective of these studies. It forms itself into two closely related questions:

1. How can we be holy? (i.e. the means).

2. How holy can we be? (i.e. the extent).

Let this be axiomatic to all our thinking about holiness, that whatever spiritual change is wrought within us is the work of the Holy Spirit. Many Christians assume, and many preachers have fondly taught, that at death we Christian believers suddenly become sinless at last, on being freed from the mortal body—as though there were some sin-extirpating power in death itself. They are wrong. Whether in this present life or in the Beyond, any such change in our moral nature is exclusively the work of the Holy Spirit. Others, who teach the earnest and attractive "identification" theory tell us, "As you ’reckon’ yourself to be crucified with Christ, and dead in Him to sin, you find that the reckoning makes it real." Let that sincere error also be put away. Neither death nor any suppositionary uni-crucifixion has any power to effect actual change in our moral being. The be­getting of holy disposition and experience within us is exclusively the work of the Holy Spirit. Of course, in the profound mystery of the divine triunity, the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit are so one that the ministry of the Holy Spirit within us may be with truth ascribed both to the Father (as in Php 2:13) and to the Son (as in Colossians 1:21). Indeed, in the climactic last paragraph of Ephesians 3:1-21, the Spirit and the Son and the Father are referred to as together infilling the sanctified believer (Ephesians 3:16-19). Nevertheless, as all of us must surely realise, whenever the Father and the Son are spoken of as dwelling or moving within us, we are meant to understand that they do so by the Holy Spirit. Distinctively He is the Executive of the God­head in the regeneration and sanctification of the believer. With that in mind, we may find it helpful at this point to draw certain definite lines of differentiation between the work of Christ and the work of the Holy Spirit in relation to Christian believers. In order to become eternally saved, we sinful human beings needed certain big things done for us, and certain vital changes wrought in us. By way of general differentiation we may say: it is God the Son who has effected all that needed doing forus; it is the Holy Spirit who effects all that needs doing in us. Our Lord’s work for us covers all the judicial aspects of our salvation. The Holy Spirit’s work inus covers all the experiential aspects of it. Through the atoning work of the Son we have justification and reconciliation (positional aspects). Through the interior work of the Holy Spirit we have regeneration and sanctification (moral and spiritual aspects). Our Lord’s work forus especially concerns our Godward relation; the Holy Spirit’s work inus especially concerns our inward renewal. Our Lord’s work for us has distinctively to do with our standing or position; the Holy Spirit’s work in us has distinctively to do with our state or condition. Through our Lord’s Calvary work we have righteousness imputed (legal aspect); through the Holy Spirit’s regenerative work we have holiness imparted (vital aspect). To this it is well to add that our Lord’s atoning work for us is a finished achievement marked by absolute finality, whereas the Holy Spirit’s work in us is a character-development having no limit of finality.

Now the crucial question is: When the Holy Spirit effects experiential sanctification within us, what is it that He does? That is the point at which blurred thinking is easiest, and needs to be clearest. Those who have called this deeper spiritual experience the "second blessing" have always insisted that in it something is done to the very nature of the now-consecrated believer. We do well to take careful note of that, for the following reason. Many persons think they can easily dispose of "this second blessing idea" (as they call it) by such remarks as, "Oh, those who talk about the ’second blessing’ only mean what we mean by full consecration to Christ." Or perhaps they say, "This so-called ’second blessing’ is just a case of reckoning yourself to be ’dead indeed unto sin’ without actually being so." Those who thus misconstrue it, however, other than truly explaining it, have not even begun to understand "second blessing" doctrine. They think there is nothing more to it than the merely human side, i.e. "consecrating" or "reckoning" or "claiming", whereas advocates of the "second blessing" have always testified that holiness is a deeper work of the Spirit Himself in which He actually does something to the believer’s nature.

Perhaps that needs saying all the more clearly in these days when in much popular evangelism even conversion to Christ tends to be represented as merely becoming "committed" or "decided" rather than as a regenerating divine miracle inside the human personality. So, let it be realized once for all: "second blessing" doctrine is, that a sanctifying transformation really happens in the consecrated soul. Surely any teaching of holiness which carefully adheres to the New Testament must teach the same.

What, then, is this transfused sanctification? Some will at once reply: Imparted holiness consists in being filled with the Holy Spirit. For, inasmuch as He is the Holy Spirit, that which He fills becomes holy too. As to that, let me utter my heart with deepest reverence, remembering of whom we speak. On such a sacredly sensitive point the last impression one would wish to give is that of dialectic hair-splitting. But there is a real difference between my being filled with the Holy Spirit, and my having a holiness which is inwrought by Him in my own nature. The Holy Spirit "came upon" and indeed overpowered the hireling soothsayer, Balaam, causing him to prophesy exaltedly; but that double-minded man was not changed thereby in his moral nature. Similarly, the Holy Spirit came upon the "seventy elders" in the camp of Israel, with supernatural afflatus, but there is not a wisp of suggestion that they were thus renewed in all their propensities. In the Acts of the Apostles it would seem that there were recurrent "fillings" by the Holy Spirit for successive exigencies (Acts 4:8, Acts 4:31, Acts 13:9), and it seems inferable that most believers who comprised those churches of the first days had some experience of the Spirit’s enveloping them about the time of their conversion (Acts 10:44, Ephesians 1:13-14); yet those fillings and tokens are distinguished from the Spirit’s deeper work in the sanctifying of character. Believers who had known in vivid experience the "earnest" (Ephesians 1:14) of the Spirit are urged, all over the Epistles, to seek the Spirit’s further and more pene­trating ministry of inward renewal and transfiguration.

Blessedly wonderful though it is, that this unworthy heart of mine may be infilled by the divine Spirit, yet so long as there is no more than that, the holiness remains His, not mine. The great truth is, that He comes not only to infill me, but to change me (Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 3:18, Ephesians 4:23). To What Degree? As to how and in what degree the Holy Spirit renews our moral nature into holiness, we are handicapped by the seeming lack of any illustration which really illustrates it. I remember being greatly impressed, in my youth, by the illustration of the pebble and the stream. The pebble lies dirty amid the silt near the stream. Then it is picked up and held right in the flow of the water. All the uncleanness is thereby washed away. So long as the pebble remains in the stream it remains clean. Take it out of the stream, and it soon becomes soiled again on the bank. The illustration is good as far as it goes, but it fails in three respects. The pebble was unclean only on the outside. It was cleansed only on the outside. The pebble itself remains altogether unchanged.

There is the apt illustration of the iron and the refining fire. You have a bar of unrefined gold. There is dirt on the outside which perhaps you can remove by soap and water. But suppose there is impurity inside the metal itself: what then? The gold must go through the fire, and the fire must go through the gold, and thus the inside as well as the outside is purified. The illustration is excellent except that it, too, is inadequate; for although the very condition of the gold is changed by the fire, that bar of metal is non-sentient; it does not think, desire, choose, will, and keep pro­ducing new impurities within itself. The nearest and truest simile is that of health in relation to the body. Our very word "holy", comes from the old English, halig, which means healthy or whole. Christian holiness is not even spiritual maturity, as many mistakenly suppose. It is a state of health, not a stage of growth.

Let me amplify my simile a little. Here is a man with ailing health and diseased body; anaemic and toxic blood, symptoms of tuberculosis in the lungs, enfeeblement of limbs, fits of languor through nervous exhaustion, pallid face and pasty-looking skin. He dwells in a dank, unhealthy slum. His daily diet not only lacks the required freshness, proteins, vitamins, minerals, but consists of debilitating substitutes. He dodders round, an abject specimen of inanition and emaciation. Then, one day, owing to a sudden turn of circumstance, he is transplanted from that malodorous hovel to a lovely villa on a high hilly slope, with glorious mountains stretching away in the rear, and the wide rolling ocean away in front. The purest air in the world begins to fill those shrunken lungs. The best of nourishing food is now supplied to those starved organs; fresh fruits, rich milk, honey, good bread and butter, plenty of vital vegetables, lean meats and well-prepared fish-meals; and all this week after week. Soon, what a change in our man! There is new vigour. He now climbs those hills, and exercises on that beach. As he now breathes deeply, the invigorating air of sea and mountains expands those lungs. The pallor gives place to rosy countenance and ruddy physique. Inertness of limb gives place to normal mobility, then to develop­ing muscle and sinew and exuberant energy. Some time later, a medical examination reports, "Thoroughly healthy." Is it the same body? There are new corpuscles, new membranes, new nerve-cells, new tissues and tendons, new blood, new proto­plasm, new lungs, new reflexes, new co-ordination and organic functioning. It is the same body; yet decidedly not the same. New life has invaded and permeated that body, through oxygenation, rich nutrition, and regenerative metabolism. The new energy has interpenetrated every part of the organism, transforming disease into fulness of health. Can we say, then, that through this metabasis the body now has absolute health? No, for there is no such reality as "absolute health" on earth. What we can say is, that this body now has HEALTH ABOUNDING.

Yes, "health abounding"; and, by parallel, that indeed is what holiness is in our moral being. HOLINESS IS MORAL AND SPIRITUAL HEALTH ABOUNDING. It is not absolute sinlessness or moral perfection, for there is no such reality as "absolute holiness" on earth. Holiness is the life of the Holy Spirit transfused and interpenetrating every part of my moral and spiritual being, transforming diseased impulses and responses, impure desire and inclination, unholy thought, motive, purpose, temper, imagination, into fulness of moral health; so that hatred becomes love; anger becomes kindness; impure desire becomes holy aspiration; selfishness becomes Christlike otherism; jealousy becomes sincere affection; perverted motive and purpose change into earnest ambition to fulfil only the will of God; evil temper and carnal imagination give place to equanimity and spiritual-mindedness; pride becomes humility; egocentricity becomes Christocentricity. The whole inner life becomes pure, gracious, healthful.

I emphasize again that this fulness of moral and spiritual health which comes to us via the "second blessing", or (if you still dislike that term) by the infilling of the Holy Spirit, is "health abounding". The new Testament says so. It is the "love of God shed in [or flooding] our hearts by the Holy Spirit" (Romans 5:5). It is a being "immersed in the Holy Spirit" (Acts 1:5); a being "full" of spiritual "wisdom" (Acts 6:3), and spiritual "joy" (Acts 15:32). It is the "perfect love" which "casteth out fear" (1 John 4:18); the "peace which passeth all understanding" (Php 4:7); the "love which worketh no evil" (Romans 13:10), which "abounds yet more and more in knowledge and in all discernment" (Php 1:9), which "never envies", "never seeks its own", and "never fails" (1 Corinthians 13:1-13). It is, indeed, the life "abundant" (John 10:10). At our con­version, when we became "born from above", there was a trans­fusion of new spiritual life into our being. That regeneratingtransfusionis meant to become an entiresuffusionof our moral nature; and it isthatwhich works the lovely miracle of inwrought holiness. Oh, that all of us were living in the experience of it! At this point, though, a further question may arise in some minds. If such a renewal is effectively wrought in our moral nature, what happens if the infilling of the Holy Spirit is for some reason withdrawn? Does the renewing work remain?—or does one’s moral condition immediately revert to what it was before? Such a question may well be asked, for there seem to be elusive problems involved (how could it be otherwise with an intangible, complex integer such as the human mind?). I remember how the question was first forced upon my own mind, years ago, when I still believed in the "two natures" theory, and was wrestling with early misgivings about the Wesleyan eradication doctrine. If we are to have a true answer we must stay close to actual human experience in the matter, and try to interpret that experience as exactly as possible in the light of Scripture.

Take the case of a Christian woman whom we knew years ago. She had formerly been an awful drunkard and a liar, and had been known among the police for her demoniacal temper—on one occasion she broke three fingers of a policeman as she struggled against arrest. After her conversion to Christ, her growth in grace was wonderful to watch. She attended meetings in our town where the deeper truths of Scriptural holiness were jubilantly expounded. She longed for the blessing of complete inward renewal, of entire victory over sin, and of being "filled with the Spirit". She sought and she found. There was no doubt about it. The lovely evidences became visible in her character and conduct. And so it continued month after month, for two or three years, until, through a complexity of circumstances which I need not here detail, she fell away from prayer, began to compromise, lost the blessing, and slid into reverse. The old appetites began to reassert themselves, the tongue began wagging wickedly again, the fierce glint came back into the eyes, and there were suggestions of the old vehemence. I do not mean that she fully backslid. No, she recovered herself from Satan’s snare, and re-entered her spiritual Canaan. Her lapse, however, was long enough to show, or certainly seem to show, that the harsh old proclivities had not been quite so refined away as had been assumed. This "reversion to type", as we may call it, is a far bigger problem to the eradicationist. John Wesley found it so in his day. In the question-and-answer catechesis of the 1759 Methodist Conference, one of the questions was: "But if two perfect Christians [That is, two fully consecrated believers, "entirely sanctified," with the old nature (supposedly) "eradicated", and the heart now filled with "perfect love".] had children, how could they [their children] be born in sin, since there was none in the parents?" Wesley’s reply was: "It is a possible but not a probable case. I doubt whether it ever was or ever will be. But waiving this, I answer: Sin is entailed upon me, not by immediate generation [i.e. not from my own father and mother only] but by my first parent. In Adam all died; by the disobedience of one all men were made sinners. . . . We have a remarkable case of this in gardening. Grafts on a crab stalk bear excellent fruit, but sow the kernels of this fruit, and what will be the event? They produce as mere crabs as ever were eaten." It was an apt illustration, but it certainly was no reply; for if those two "perfect Christians" (hypothetically) are now completely minus the "old nature" and are "dead indeed unto sin", how can generic sin find any passage through them to their offspring? The misguided eradication doctrine simply has no reply to such a conundrum, nor to the reappearance of obvious sins in those who have professedly been ridded of the sin-bent. Is there, then, a satisfactory explanation? Yes, I think there is, provided we keep closely to the truth that holiness is health—not sinlessness through surgery, or (supposedly) a sinless "new nature" counteracting an unchanged "old nature" which can do nothing but sin. When once we grasp firmly the positive truth that inwrought holiness is the infilling Spirit of God renewing our whole moral nature to fullness of health, then we begin to see that the problem of those sin-traits which reassert themselves even in the sanctified has a coherent solution.

Go back for a moment to our simile of the emaciated slum-dweller whose sickly weakness became transformed to buoyant health through transplantation to that hillside villa with its invigorating sea and mountain air, its plentiful nourishment and its inducements to recreational exercise. Was something really effected in the very blood and bone and tissue of that physical organism? Was there an actual change wrought in the quality of that responding constitution? The answer is, Yes; and the body gave evidence of its renewal to fulness of health by functioning healthily in arteries, blood-vessels, limb and muscle. But now, take our man away from that environment, and confine him again to the squalid slum, with its lice-breeding putridity, its impure air and malnutrition. Does he immediately revert back to his former vitiation and consumptiveness? No; for his system certainly did experience a basic transmutation to health. Those physical organs are still different from what they were before, so there is not a sudden relapse. Yet if his imprisonment in that wretched surround continues, health then gradually gives way to the former malaise and physical degeneration. The illustration may not be perfect, but it is a near parable of those lapses which are sometimes observable in Christian believers who have truly known the experience of "entire sanctification". There is no sudden or general declension. The believer’s inward renewal cannot be all-at-once voided, for the Holy Spirit has indeed effected a deep and blessed change in the believer’s moral nature itself. Moreover, the godly soul usually recovers the partly forfeited blessing. If, however, there is continued failure, through prayerlessness, compromise, or other such contrary factors, then the moral and spiritual condition gradually deteriorates to what it was before.

If I may be permitted to make passing reference to my own experience in the matter, that is the very process which I have discerned at different times in my own inner life. To the dear Saviour’s praise let me say it, I have known something of this blessedly wonderful inwrought renewal. The weary, unequal struggle against hereditary depravity has given place to what has seemed like a cleansing right down at the very springs of sub­conscious impulse, so that thought and desire and motive and response have become spontaneously gracious, and fellowship with God has been an exhilarating wonder. I have known and felt and proved the inwrought renewal. Nor has it been in any way merely transient, for even when, alas, I have lost the fuller experience of it through foolishly busy prayerlessness, the work which the Holy Spirit has effected in my moral and spiritual being has largely remained, being evidenced in purified concepts, longings, aims, and choices.

Earnestly, then, do I covet to make this truth perspicuously plain, that inwrought holiness is moral and spiritual FULNESS OF HEALTH. As there can be degrees of health in the body, so there can be degrees of holiness in the soul. As there can be fulness of health in the body, so there can be fulness of holiness in the soul.

Yes, it is verily possible. Inwrought holiness is a reality. In the words of Ephesians 4:23, we may be "renewed" in the very "spirit" of our "mind". Is not that a penetration to the very core of one’s moral and spiritual nature, to the inmost spring of one’s thought-life? It is, and it means that we may have, as Charles Wesley hymns it, A heart in every thought renewed, And filled with love divine. This entire renewal of mind and spirit, of desires, motives, impulses, soon begins to affect the functioning and condition of the body. We can the more readily appreciate this in these days when medical science demonstrates as never before the influence of the mind over the body. A true experience of holiness in younger years can powerfully normalise overstrong animal appetites, and in later years preserve the nervous system from all-too-common later disorders. Of course, not even "entire sanctification" in the mind can exempt the body from either functional or organic disease if at the same time the system is weakened by improper feeding, unsanitary habits, or lack of exercise and fresh air; but granted that habits are as they should be, there is nothing like holiness of mind for promoting healthiness of body. I have known persons whose whole health has noticeably improved from the time of their experiencing the deeper work of the Holy Spirit.

Albeit, there is another side which we dare not ignore. This penetrating inward renewal does not necessarily mean that all bodily inclinations, cravings, urges and pullings at once subside into docile servants of sanctification. Often the story is far otherwise. Problematical physical peculiarities may persist, like obstinate bad tenants resisting eviction, or like sleek panthers hiddenly watching for the opportune instant to spring into savage action, e.g. the former drunkard’s inhering thirst for liquor, or, in others, the overcharged animalistic urge, or in still others a constitutional physical sluggishness which easily hampers watch­fulness in prayer or activity in Christian service. This touches upon the mystery of "psycho-physical-parallelism" —the exquisitely intricate inter-reaction of mind and body. We know well enough that the body itself, being non-sentient matter, can neither know nor feel, can neither think nor act. As soon as it is vacated by the soul it becomes absolutely insensible. Yet, just as truly, different human bodies act in different ways upon the living persons united to them. An athlete is not just athletic in his mind; he has an athletic body. Many another who has a strong mental urge to sports never becomes an athlete because of union with a body which does not have the required kind of reflexes. It is all very mysterious, but this big fact stands out: not only does the mind greatly affect the body; the body powerfully reacts upon the mind.

Often the wonderful experience of moral victory which accom­panies inwrought holiness is despite some persisting uncooperat-iveness of the body. It would seem as though in some ways this has to be so, for purposes of character-building. Sometimes, in the glad crisis of the Second Blessing, long-pestering bodily appetites are completely expelled or else they immediately seem to wither, while other equally troublesome propensities are allowed to linger on, wringing many a baffled "Why?" from the sanctified soul which now, more than ever, detests every such proneness. In a slummy part of Glasgow, Scotland, about sixty years ago, much trouble was caused by a gang of young fellows who drank and gambled, fought and thieved, and became so dangerous that even the police had to go round in pairs or trios. Among other things they decided to smash up a revival which had started at a local mission hall superintended by Mr. J. Wakefield MacGill. Contrary to expectations, most of them became truly converted. Thirty years passed. Then, by a sheer coincidence, two of them who had never seen each other during all those years, attended a meeting in Edinburgh and recognised each other. With unrestrainable eagerness they got to each other as soon as the meeting was over. "Charlie!"—"Jim!"—"Fancy seeing you again after all these years!" Then Charlie said, "Yes, praise the Lord, I’m still going on in the Christian life; and from the day of my conversion nearly thirty years ago until this minute I’ve never once had any further taste for the wretched drink!" Jim’s face clouded a bit at this, and a tear glistened in his eyes. "Well, Charlie," he said, "I’m afraid I canna’ say that. I only wish I could. There’s never been one single day through all these years that I haven’t had the thirst for drink." And then he quickly added, "But, thank God, I’ve never touched it from that day to this!" Which of the two had experienced the bigger victory? Which of our Lord’s methods with those two men strengthened character the more? The point is, our Lord Jesus is not only the omnipotent Saviour, He is the omniscient Psychiatrist and the inerrant Pathologist. He who can pluck out the most innate distemper from our constitution, if He so wills, may wisely leave some such pro­vocation more or less undislodged, for the purpose of developing watchfulness and prayerfulness; or as a means of teaching con­tinuous victory through continuous union with Himself; or as a way of developing character-strength out of some constitutional weakness. Was the Apostle Paul filled with the Holy Spirit and entirely sanctified? Yes. Did he have some sort of a "thorn in the flesh"? Yes. Did he suffer by it? Yes. Did he plead with Christ to remove it? Yes. Was it removed? No. Did it impair his sanctification, or lessen the filling of his heart with heavenly love and joy? No; he hoists his banner and leaps forward, saying, "Most gladly therefore will I glory in my weaknesses that the power of Christ may rest upon [lit. overspread} me." This leads to a further observation. No teaching of holiness can be strictly true to the New Testament which excludes human effort. Although the most strenuous human effort is utterly powerless to effect inward holiness; and although the Holy Spirit alone can renew our moral nature; yet the Holy Spirit never sanctifies the mind and heart in suchwise as to render human cooperation superfluous. Furthermore, although human effort is equally powerless in itself to maintain inwrought holiness after the Holy Spirit has wrought the lovely miracle within us, yet human co­operation is all the while necessary in resisting encroachments of evil upon the sanctified territory, in cultivating prayerful responsiveness to the Holy Spirit, and in carefully culturing those conditions which are required for a continuing experience of holiness. The Holy Spirit never restores holiness to the human mind in the way that we repair the inner mechanism of a machine. The mind never is (it never can be) made holy in a way which "fixes it" to remain so.

One of the subtler blunders in much holiness teaching has been to play off faith and works as mutually antagonistic. Many have preached that sanctification is exclusively "by faith". Others, in dogged disapproval, have insisted that it is "by works". Both are right or wrong according to aspect. In every spiritual transaction there is an interplay of the divine and the human. Inasmuch as, on the divine side, sanctification is a work which God alone can effect, it must be appropriated "by faith". On the human side there must be self-separation from all controllable wrong in the life; complete self-yielding to Christ; obedience to the written Word of God; and a prayerful determination to live only to His glory. Sanctification is not real unless it expresses itself in obedience to the divine law—and obedience means "works".

Throughout the sanctified life, faith and works must go hand in hand. It is another case where we must distinguish between sanctification as a work of God in the soul, and as a life of obedience in the believer. The two must ever be distinguished but can never be separated.

Even in the promised land (which was possessed by "faith") Israel found that faith must express itself in works. There were enemies in plenty—though victory was assured to the "obedience of faith". God fought with them—but never instead of them. Israel must do as well as trust. So, there is a place for "works" on the human side—not to enter the goodly land, but to remain there; even as we read in 2 Corinthians 7:1, "Having therefore these promises [i.e. to faith] beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of the flesh and spirit, completing holiness in the fear of God." But now, after these cautionary observations, a final comment on the main proposition of this chapter, namely, that inwrought holiness is a reality; a proven experience of renewal into moral and spiritual FULNESS OF HEALTH. Away for ever with that counteractionist bogey of an "old man" who, in utterly un­changeable filthiness must foul our moral being to the last day we live on earth! Our "whole spirit and soul and body" may be sanctified! Our whole moral being may be "transformed" into clearer, fuller, lovelier likeness to "the image of Christ".

Let us summarize and clinch this. That which prepares on the human side is a resolute renunciation of all known wrong in thought and behaviour over which our will has control, and an utterly honest yielding of our whole being to Christ. That which occurs from the divine side is the Holy Spirit’s infilling of the yielded believer. That which is thereupon effected is an inwrought moral and spiritual renewal into holiness, issuing in perceivable transfiguration of character. Of this character-transformation we shall speak in our next chapters.

Meanwhile, may I ask: Dear Christian believer, are you living in this experience? If not, do you ask how it can become real in you! Well, have you really yielded everything to Christ? Are you sure? Has the Holy Spirit really an unobstructed monopoly of all you are and have? Are you sure? Is it really holiness you want?— or a gratifying experience of spiritual power or ecstasy? Are you prepared to be thought narrow, peculiar, extreme (not that true holiness ever makes us so)? Do you long for holiness more than for cleverness, position, money, personal advantages, and all mere personal impressiveness? Is your deepest, highest, keenest motive to please and know and reflect and glorify that unspeakably dear Saviour whose outpoured blood on Calvary and outpoured Spirit at Pentecost have made holiness possible?

If so, get alone with Him long enough, and (if He wisely orders it so) often enough in lingering prayer, until you know, as only prayerful consecration can enable you to know, that there is a thorough understanding between you and Christ: an under­standing that you are utterly His for ever. As soon as you really reach that point, you will find (but not before) that quite suddenly yet quite naturally it becomes easy to "claim", to appropriate, what may have seemed elusive hitherto. The promises of the written Word will fairly offer themselves to you for the taking. All are yours when you are all His. You will "ask and receive, that your joy may be full" (John 16:24). What will you ask? Not any more for the (imaginary) crucifixion of some (suppositionary) "old man" which is not really you at all; nor for faith to "reckon" an inward death to sin and temptation which the Word nowhere promises. No; you will ask (1) that your heart may be truly filled by the Holy Spirit, (2) that the infilling Holy Spirit will renew your whole moral being from sinward desire and inclination, (3) that the Holy Spirit will bear unmistakable witness in your deepest consciousness, to His sanctifying work within you. Tarry for that witness; for in the words of Habakkuk 2:3, "Though it tarry, wait for it, because it will surely come." Let this be our heartfelt prayer:

Enduing Spirit from on high, My yielded being sanctify; From Thine infinitude impart Pure life in fulness to my heart.

Now, all I am do Thou possess With mind-renewing holiness, Till every aim from sin is clear, And perfect love expels all fear.

Let innate dross of wrong desire Now disappear in Thy pure fire; And even through my mortal frame May others catch the living flame.

Disperse self-seeking, and instead The love of God within me shed;

Till all my days, on this intent.

Become one life-long sacrament.