Chapter IX: Part 9

1. How wonderful the revelation in the Epistle to the Hebrews of
the holiness and the holy making power of suffering, as seen in
the Son of God! 'He _learned obedience_ by the things which He
suffered.' 'It became God to make the Author of our salvation
_perfect_ through suffering, for both He that sanctifieth and
they who are sanctified are all of one.' 'In that He Himself
hath suffered, He is _able to succour_.' 'We behold Jesus,
because of the suffering of death, _crowned with glory_ and
honour.' Suffering is the way of the rent veil, the new and
living way Jesus walked in and opened for us. Let all sufferers
study this. Let all who are 'holy in Christ' here learn to know
the Christ _in whom_ they are holy, and the way in which He
sanctified Himself and sanctifies us.

2. If we begin by realizing the sympathy of Jesus with us in our
suffering, it will lead us on to what is more: sympathy with
Jesus in His suffering, fellowship with Him to suffer even as
He did.

3. Let suffering and holiness be inseparably linked, as in God's
mind and in Christ's person, so in your life through the
Spirit. 'It became God to make Him perfect through suffering;
for both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are
all of one.' Let _every trial_, small or great, be the touch of
God's hand, laying hold on you, to lead you to holiness. Give
yourself into that hand.

4. 'Insomuch as ye are partakers of _Christ's sufferings_,
rejoice; for _the Spirit of glory_ and of God resteth on you.'

Thirtieth Day.

HOLY IN CHRIST.

The Unction from the Holy One.

'And ye have _an anointing from the Holy One_, and ye know all
things. And as for you, the anointing which ye received of Him
abideth in you, and ye need not that any one teach you; but as His
anointing teacheth you concerning all things, and is true, and is
no lie, and even as it taught you, ye abide in Him.'--1 John ii.
20, 27.

In the revelation by Moses of God's Holiness and His way of making holy, the priests, and specially the high priests, were the chief expression of God's Holiness in man. In the priests themselves, the holy anointing oil was the one great symbol of the grace that made holy. Moses was to make an holy anointing oil: 'And thou shalt take of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it upon Aaron and upon his sons, and he shall be hallowed, and his sons with him.' 'This shall be an holy anointing oil unto me. Upon man's flesh shall it not be poured; neither shall ye make any other like it; it is holy, it shall be holy unto you' (Exod. xxix. 21, xxx. 25-32). With this the priests, and specially the high priests, were to be anointed and consecrated: 'He that is the high priest among you, upon whose head the anointing oil was poured, shall not go out of the holy place, nor profane the holy place of his God; for _the crown of the anointing oil of his God_ is upon him' (Lev. xxi. 10, 12). And even so it is said of David, as type of the Messiah, 'Our king is _of the Holy One of Israel_. I have found David, my servant; with my _holy oil_ have I anointed him.'

We know how the Hebrew name _Messiah_, and the Greek _Christ_, has reference to this. So, in the passage just quoted, the Hebrew is, 'with my holy oil I have _messiahed_ him.' And so in a passage like Acts x. 38: 'Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, whom God _christed_ with the Holy Ghost and with power.' Or Ps. xlv.: 'God hath _messiahed_ thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows;' in Heb. i. 9, 'Thy God hath _christed_ thee with the oil of gladness.' And so (as one of our Reformed Catechisms, the Heidelberg, has it, in answer to the question, Why art thou called a Christian?) we are called Christians, because we are fellow-partakers with Him of His christing, His anointing. This is the anointing of which John speaks, the chrisma or christing of the Holy One. The Holy Spirit is the holy anointing which every believer receives: what God did to His Son to make Him the Christ, He does to me to make me a Christian. 'Ye have the anointing of the Holy One.'

1. _Ye have an anointing from the Holy One._ It is as the Holy One that the Father gives the anointing: that wherewith He anoints is called the oil of holiness, the Holy Spirit. Holiness is indeed a Divine ointment. Just as there is nothing so subtle and penetrating as the odour with which the ointment fills a house, so holiness is an indescribable, all-pervading breath of heavenliness which pervades the man on whom the anointing rests. Holiness does not consist in certain actions: this is righteousness. Holiness is the unseen and yet manifest presence of the Holy One resting on His anointed. Direct from the Holy One, the anointing is alone received, or rather, only in the abiding fellowship with Him in Christ, who is the Holy One of God.

And who receives it? Only he who has given himself entirely to be holy as God is holy. It was the priest, who was separated to be holy to the Lord, who received the anointing: upon other men's flesh it was not to be poured. How many would fain have the precious ointment for the sake of its perfume to themselves! No, only he who is wholly consecrated to the service of the Holy One, to the work of the sanctuary, may receive it. If any one had said: I would fain have the anointing, but not be made a priest; I am not ready to go and always be at the call of sinners seeking their God, he could have no share in it. Holiness is the energy that only lives to make holy, and to bless in so doing: the anointing of the Holy One is for the priest, the servant of God Most High. It is only in the intensity of a soul truly roused and given up to God's glory, God's kingdom, God's work, that holiness becomes a reality. The holy garments were only prepared for priests and their service. In all our seekings after holiness, let us remember this. As we beware of the error of thinking that work for Christ will make holy, let us also watch against the other, the straining after holiness without work. It is the priest who is set apart for the service of the holy place and the Holy One, it is the believer who is ready to live and die that the Holiness of God may triumph among men around him, who will receive the anointing.

2. '_The anointing teacheth you._' The new man is created in _knowledge_, as well as in righteousness and holiness. Christ is made to us _wisdom_, as well as righteousness and sanctification. God's service and our holiness are above all to be a free and full, an intelligent and most willing, approval of His blessed will. And so the anointing, to fit us for the service of the sanctuary, teaches us to know all things. Just as the perfume of the ointment is the most subtle essence, something that has never yet been found or felt, except as it is smelt, so the spiritual faculty which the anointing gives is the most subtle there can be. It makes 'quick of scent in the fear of the Lord:' it teaches us by a Divine instinct, by which the anointed one recognises what has the heavenly fragrance in it, and what is of earth. It is the anointing that makes the Word and the name of Jesus in the Word to be indeed as ointment poured forth.

The great mark of the anointing is thus, teachableness. It is the great mark of Christ, the Holy One of God, the Anointed One, that He listens: 'I speak not of myself; as I hear, so I speak.' And so it is of the Holy Spirit too: 'He shall not speak out of Himself: whatsoever He shall hear, that shall He speak.' It cannot be otherwise: one anointed with the anointing of this Christ, with this Holy Spirit, will be teachable, will listen to be taught. 'The anointing teacheth.' 'And ye need not that any one teach you: but the anointing teacheth you concerning all things.' 'They shall be all taught of God,' includes every believer. The secret of true holiness is a very direct and personal relation to the Holy One: all the teaching through the word or men made entirely dependent on and subordinate to the personal teaching of the Holy Ghost. The teaching comes through the anointing. Not, in the first place, in the thoughts or feelings, but in that all-pervading fragrance which comes from the fresh oil having penetrated the whole inner man.

3. '_And the anointing abideth in you._' '_In you._' In the spiritual life it is of deep importance ever to maintain the harmony between the objective and the subjective: God in Christ above me, God in the Spirit within me. In us, not as in a locality, but _in us_, as one with us, entering into the most secret part of our being, and pervading all, dwelling in our very body, the anointing abideth _in us_, forming part of our very selves. And this just in proportion as we know it and yield ourselves to it, as we wait and are still to let the secret fragrance permeate our whole being. And this, again, not interruptedly, but as a continuous and unvarying experience. Above circumstances and feelings, 'the anointing abideth.' Not, indeed, as a fixed state or as something in our own possession; but, according to the law of the new life, in the dependence of faith on the Holy One, and in the fellowship of Jesus. 'I am anointed with fresh oil,'--this is the objective side; every new morning the believer waits for the renewal of the Divine gift from the Father. 'The anointing abideth in you,'--this is the subjective side; the holy life, the life of faith and fellowship, the anointing, is always, from moment to moment, a spiritual reality. The holy anointing oil, always fresh, the anointing abiding always, is the secret of holiness.

4. '_And even as it taught you, ye abide in Him._' Here we have again the Holy Trinity: the Holy One, from whom the holy anointing comes; the Holy Spirit, who is Himself the anointing; and Christ, the Holy One of God, in whom the anointing teaches us to abide. In Christ the unseen holiness of God was set before us, and brought nigh: it became human, vested in a human nature, that it might be communicated to us. Within us dwells and works the Holy Spirit, drawing us out to the Christ of God, uniting us in heart and will to Him, revealing Him, forming Him within us, so that His likeness and mind are embodied in us. It is thus we abide in Christ: the holy anointing of the Holy One teacheth it to us. It is this that is the test of the true anointing: abiding in Christ, as He meant it, becomes truth in us. Here is the life of holiness as the Thrice Holy gives it: the Father, the first, the Holy One, making holy; the Son, the second, His Holy One, in whom we are; the Spirit, the third, who dwells in us, and through whom we abide in Christ, and Christ in us. Thus it is that the Thrice Holy makes us holy.

Let us study the Divine anointing. It comes from the Holy One. There is no other like it. It is God's way of making us holy--His holy priests. It is God's way of making us partakers of holiness in Christ. The anointing, received of Him day by day, abiding in us, teaching us all things, especially teaching us to abide in Christ, must be on us every day. Its subtle, all-pervading power must go through our whole life: the odour of the ointment must fill the house. Blessed be God, it can do so! The anointing that abideth makes the abiding in Christ a reality and a certainty; and God Himself, the Holy One, makes the abiding anointing a reality and a certainty too. To His Holy Name be the praise!

BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.

O Thou, who art the Holy One, I come to Thee now for the renewed anointing. O Father! this is the one gift Thy child may most surely count on--the gift of Thy Holy Spirit. Grant me now to sing, 'Thou anointest my head;' 'I am anointed with fresh oil.'

I desire to confess with deep shame that Thy Spirit has been sorely grieved and dishonoured. How often the fleshly mind has usurped His place in Thy worship! How much the fleshly will has sought to do His work! O my Father! let Thy light shine through me to convince me very deeply of this. Let Thy judgment come on all that there is of human willing and running.

Blessed Father! grant me, according to the riches of Thy glory, even now to be strengthened with might by Thy Spirit in the inner man. Strengthen my faith to believe in Christ for a full share in His anointing. Oh, teach me day by day to wait for and receive the anointing with fresh oil!

O my Father! draw me and all Thy children to see that for the abiding in Christ we need the abiding anointing. Father! we would walk humbly, in the dependence of faith, counting upon the inner and ever-abiding anointing. May we so be a sweet savour of Christ to all. Amen.

1. I think I know now the reason why at times we fail in the
abiding. We think and read, we listen and pray, we try to
believe and strive to look to Jesus only, and yet we fail. What
was wanting was this: 'His anointing teacheth you; _even as_ it
taught you, ye abide in him;' so far, and no farther.

2. The washing always precedes the anointing: we cannot have the
anointing if we fail in the cleansing. When cleansed and
anointed we are fit for use.

3. Would you have the abiding anointing? Yield yourself wholly
to be sanctified and made meet for the Master's use: dwell in
the Holiest of all, in God's presence: accept every
chastisement as a fellowship in the way of the rent flesh: be
sure the anointing will flow in union with Jesus. 'It is like
the precious ointment upon the head of Aaron, that went down to
the skirts of his garments.'

4. The anointing is the Divine eye-salve, opening the eyes of the
heart to know Jesus. So it teaches to abide in Him. I am sure
most Christians have no conception of the danger and
deceitfulness of a thought religion, with sweet and precious
thoughts coming to us in books and preaching, and little power.
The teaching of the Holy Spirit is in the heart first; man's
teaching in the mind. Let all our thinking ever lead us to
cease from thought, and to open the heart and will to the
Spirit to teach there in His own Divine way, deeper than
thought and feeling. Unseen, within the veil, the Holy Spirit
abideth. Be silent and still, believe and expect, and cling to
Jesus.

5. Oh that God would visit His Church, and teach His children what
it is to wait for, and receive, and walk in the full anointing,
the anointing that abideth and teacheth to abide! Oh that the
truth of the personal leading of the Holy Spirit in every
believer were restored in the Church! He is doing it; He will
do it.

Thirty-first Day.

HOLY IN CHRIST.

Holiness and Heaven.

'Seeing that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of
men ought ye to be in all _holy_ living and godliness?'--2 Pet.
iii. 11.

'Follow after _the sanctification_ without which no man shall see
the Lord.'--Heb. xii. 14.

'He that is _holy_, let him be made _holy_ still.... The grace of
the Lord Jesus be with the _holy ones_. Amen.'--Rev. xxii. 11, 21.

O my brother, we are on our way to see God. We have been invited to meet the Holy One face to face. The infinite mystery of holiness, the glory of the Invisible God, before which the seraphim veil their faces, is to be unveiled, to be revealed to us. And that not as a thing we are to look upon and to study. But we are to see the Thrice Holy One, the Living God Himself. God, the Holy One, will show Himself to us: we are to see God. Oh, the infinite grace, the inconceivable blessedness! we are to see God.

We are to see God, the Holy One. And all our schooling here in the life of holiness is simply the preparation for that meeting and that vision. 'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' 'Follow after the sanctification, without which no man shall see the Lord.' Since the time when God said to Israel, 'Be ye holy, as I am holy,' Holiness was revealed as the only meeting-place between God and His people. To be holy was to be the common ground on which they were to stand with Him; the one attribute in which they were to be like God; the one thing that was to prepare them for the glorious time when He would no longer need to keep them away, but would admit them to the full fellowship of His glory, to have the word fulfilled in them: 'He that is holy, let him be made yet more holy.'

In his second epistle, Peter reminds believers that the coming of the day of the Lord is to be preceded and accompanied by the most tremendous catastrophe--the dissolution of the heavens and the earth. He makes it a plea with them to give diligence that they may be found without spot and blameless in His sight. And he asks them to think and say, under the deep sense of what the coming of the day of God would be and would bring, what the life of those ought to be who look for such things: 'What manner of person ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness?' Holiness must be its one, its universal characteristic. At the close of our meditations on God's call to Holiness, we may take Peter's question, and in the light of all that God has revealed of His Holiness, and all that waits still to be revealed, ask ourselves, 'What manner of men ought we to be in all holy living and godliness?'

Note first the meaning of the question. In the original Greek, the words living and godliness are plural. Alford says, '_In holy behaviours and pieties_; the plurals mark the holy behaviour and piety _in all its forms and examples_.' Peter would plead for a life of holiness pervading the whole man: our behaviours towards men, and our pieties towards God. True holiness cannot be found in anything less. Holiness must be the one, the universal characteristic of our Christian life. In God we have seen that holiness is the central attribute, the comprehensive expression for Divine perfection, the attribute of all the attributes, the all-including epithet by which He Himself, as Redeemer and Father, His Son and His Spirit, His Day, His House, His Law, His Servants, His People, His Name, are marked and known. Always and in everything, in Judgment as in Mercy, in His Exaltation and His Condescension, in His Hiddenness and His Revelation, always and in everything, God is the Holy One. And the Word would teach us that the reign of Holiness, to be true and pleasing to God, must be supreme, must be in all holy living and godliness. There must not be a moment of the day, nor a relation in life; there must be nothing in the outer conduct, nor in the inmost recesses of the heart; there must be nothing belonging to us, whether in worship or in business, that is not holy. The Holiness of Jesus, the Holiness which comes of the Spirit's anointing, must cover and pervade all. Nothing, nothing may be excluded, if we are to be holy; it must be as Peter said when he spoke of God's call--holy in all manner of living; it must be as he says here--'in all holy living and godliness.' To use the significant language of the Holy Spirit: Everything must be done, 'worthily of the holy ones,' 'as becometh holy ones' (Rom. xvi. 3; Eph. v. 3).

Note, too, the force of the question. Peter says, 'Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for these things.' Yes, let us think what that means. We have been studying, down through the course of Revelation, the wondrous grace and patience with which God has made known and made partaker of His holiness, all in preparation for what is to come. We have heard God, the Holy One, calling us, pleading with us, commanding us to be holy, as He is holy. And we expect to meet Him, and to dwell through eternity in His Light, holy as He is holy. It is not a dream; it is a living reality; we are looking forward to it, as the only one thing that makes life worth living. We are looking forward to Love to welcome us, as with the confidence of childlike love we come as His holy ones to cry, Holy Father!

We have learnt to know Jesus, the Holy One of God, our Sanctification. We are living in Him, day by day, as those who are holy in Christ Jesus. We are drawing on His Holiness without ceasing. We are walking in that will of God which He did, and which He enables us to do. And we are looking forward to meet Him with great joy, 'when He shall come to be glorified in the holy ones, and to be admired in all them that believe.' We have within us the Holy Spirit, the Holiness of God in Christ come down to be at home within us, as the earnest of our inheritance. He, the Spirit of Holiness, is secretly transforming us within, sanctifying our spirit, soul, and body, to be blameless at His coming, and making us meet for the inheritance of the holy ones in light. We are looking forward to the time when He shall have completed His work, when the body of Christ shall be perfected, and the bride, all filled and streaming with the life and glory of the Spirit within her, shall be set with Him on His throne, even as He sat with the Father on His throne. We hope through eternity to worship and adore the mystery of the Thrice Holy One. Even here it fills our souls with trembling joy and wonder: when God's work of making holy is complete, how we shall join in the song, 'Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which wast, and art, and art to come!'

In preparation for all this the most wonderful events are to take place. The Lord Jesus Himself is to appear, the power of sin and the world is to be destroyed; this visible system of things is to be broken up; the power of the Spirit is to triumph through all creation; there is to be a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. And holiness is then to be unfolded in ever-growing blessedness and glory in the fellowship of the Thrice Holy: 'He that is holy, let him be holy yet more.' Surely it but needs the question to be put for each believer to feel and acknowledge its force: 'Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look for these things, what manner of men ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness?'

And note now the need and the point of the question. 'What manner of persons ought ye to be?' But is such a question needed? Can it be that God's holy ones, made holy in Christ Jesus, with the very spirit of holiness dwelling with them, on the way to meet the Holy One in His Glory and Love, can it be that they need the question? Alas! alas! it was so in the time of Peter; it is but too much so in our days too. Alas! how many Christians there are to whom the very word Holy, though it be the name by which the Father, in His New Testament, loves to call His children more than any other, is strange and unintelligible. And again, alas! for how many Christians there are for whom, when the word is heard, it has but little attraction, because it has never yet been shown to them as a life that is indeed possible, and unutterably blessed. And yet again, alas! for how many are there not, even workers in the Master's service, to whom the 'all holy living and godliness' is yet a secret and a burden, because they have not yet consented to give up all, both their will and their work, for the Holy One to take and fill with His Holy Spirit. And yet once more, alas! as the cry comes, even from those who do know the power of a holy life, lamenting their unfaithfulness and unbelief, as they see how much richer their entrance into the Holy Life might have been, and how much fuller the blessing they still feel so feeble to communicate to others. Oh, the question is needed! Shall not each of us take it, and keep it, and answer it by the Holy Spirit through whom it came, and then pass it on to our brethren, that we and they may help each other in faith, and live in joy and hope to give the answer our God would have?

'Seeing that these things are, then, all to be dissolved, what manner of persons ought we to be in all holy living and godliness?' Brethren! the time is short. The world is passing away. The heathen are perishing. Christians are sleeping. Satan is active and mighty. God's holy ones are the hope of the Church and the world. It is they their Lord can use. 'What manner of persons shall we be in all holy living and godliness!' Shall we not seek to be such as the Father commands, 'Holy, as He is holy'? Shall we not yield ourselves afresh and undividedly to Him who is our Sanctification, and to His Blessed Spirit, to make us holy in all behaviours and pieties? Oh! shall we not, in thought of the love of our Lord Jesus, in thought of the coming glory, in view of the coming end, of the need of the Church and the world, give ourselves to be holy as He is holy, that we may have power to bless each believer we meet with the message of what God will do, and that in concert with them we may be a light and a blessing to this perishing world?

I close with the closing words of God's Blessed Book, 'He which testifieth these things saith, Yea, I come quickly. Amen: Come, Lord Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with the holy ones. Amen.'

BE YE HOLY, AS I AM HOLY.

Most Holy God! who hast called us to be holy, we have heard Thy voice asking, What manner of persons we ought to be in all holy living and godliness? With our whole soul we answer in deep contrition and humility: Holy Father! we ought to be so different from what we have been. In faith and love, in zeal and devotion, in Christlike humility and holiness, O Father! we have not been, before Thee and the world, what we ought to be, what we could be. Holy Father! we now pray for all who unite with us in this prayer, and implore of Thee to grant a great revival of True Holiness in us and in all Thy Church. Visit, we beseech Thee, visit all ministers of Thy word, that in view of Thy coming they may take up and sound abroad the question, What manner of persons ought ye to be? Lay upon them, and all Thy people, such a burden under surrounding unholiness and worldliness, that they may not cease to cry to Thee. Grant them such a vision of the highway of holiness, the new and living way in Christ, that they may preach Christ our Sanctification in the power and the joy of the Holy Ghost, with the confident and triumphant voice of witnesses who rejoice in what Thou dost for them. O God! roll away the reproach of Thy people, that their profession does not make them humbler or holier, more loving, and more heavenly than others.

O Holy God! give Thou Thyself the answer to Thy question, and teach us and the world what manner of persons Thy people can be, in the day of Thy power, in the beauty of holiness. We bow our knee to Thee, O Father, that Thou wouldst grant us, according to the riches of Thy glory, to be mightily strengthened in the inner man by the Spirit of Holiness. Amen.

1. What manner of men ought ye to be in all the holy living? This
is a question God has written down for us. Might it not help us
if we were to write down the answer, and say how holy we think
we ought to be? The clearer and more distinct our views are of
what God wishes, of what He has made possible, of what in
reality _ought_ to be, the more definite our acts of
confession, of surrender, and of faith can become.

2. Let every believer, who longs to be holy, join in the daily
prayer that God would visit His people with a great outpouring
of the Spirit of Holiness. Pray without ceasing that every
believer may live as a holy one.

3. 'Seeing that _ye look for_ these things.' Our life depends, in
more than one sense, upon what we look at. 'We look not at the
things which are seen.' It is only as we look at the Invisible
and Spiritual, and come under its power, that we shall be what
we ought to be in all holy living and godliness.

4. _Holy in Christ._ Let this be our parting word. However
strong the branch becomes, however far away it reaches round
the home, out of sight of the vine, all its beauty and all its
fruitfulness ever depend upon that one point of contact where
it grows out of the vine. So be it with us too. All the outer
circumference of my life has its centre in the ego--the living,
conscious I myself, in which my being roots. And this I is
rooted in Christ. Down in the depths of my inner life, there is
Christ holding, bearing, guiding, quickening me into holiness
and fruitfulness. In Him I am, In Him I will abide. His will
and commands will I keep; His Love and Power will I trust. And
I will daily seek to praise God that I am Holy in Christ.

NOTES.

NOTE A.

Holiness as Proprietorship.

In a little book--_Holiness, as understood by the Writers of the Bible; A Bible Study by Joseph Agar Beet_--the thought that by Holiness is meant our relation to God, and the claim He has upon us, has been very carefully worked out. Holy ground was such because 'it stood in _special relation_ to Himself.' The first-born 'were to stand _in a special relation to God as His property_.' So with the entire nation; when God declares that they shall be holy, He means 'that they shall render to Him the devotion He requires.' 'All holy objects stand in a special relation to God as His property.' The priests are said to sanctify themselves; they did this 'by formally placing themselves at God's disposal, or by separating themselves from whatever was inconsistent with the service of God.' 'When God declares He is holy, the word must represent the same idea in the hundreds of passages in which it is predicated of men and things.' 'Holiness is _God's claim to the ownership_ of men and things; and the objects claimed were called holy. Now, _God's claim_ was a new and wondrous revelation of His nature. To Aaron God was now the Great Being who had claimed from him a lifelong and exclusive service. _This claim_ was a new era, not only in his everyday life, but in his conception of God. Consequently the word _holy_, which expressed _Aaron's relation to God_, was suitably used to express _God's relation to Aaron_. In other words, to Aaron and Israel God was holy in the sense that He claimed the exclusive ownership of the entire nation. When men yielded to God the devotion He claimed, they were said to sanctify God.' 'Jehovah and Israel stood in special relation to each other; therefore Jehovah was _the Holy One of Israel_, and Israel was _Holy to Jehovah_. This mutual relation rested upon God's claim that Israel should specially be His; and this claim implied that in a special manner He would belong to Israel. This claim was a manifestation of the nature of God.' 'The peculiar relation arises from God's own claim, in consequence of which they stand in a new and solemn relation to Him. This may be called objective holiness. This is the most common sense of the word. In this sense God sanctified these objects for Himself. But since some of these objects were intelligent beings, and the others were in control of such, the word sanctify denotes these ones' formal surrender of themselves and their possessions to God. This may be called subjective holiness. From the word holy predicated of God, we learn that God's claim was not merely occasional, but an outflow of His Essence. As the one Being who claims unlimited and absolute ownership and supreme devotion, God is the Holy One.'

In the New Testament the Spirit of God claims the epithet holy 'as being in a very special manner the source and influence of which God is the one and only aim.' Here 'our conception of the holiness of God increases with our increasing perception of the greatness of His claim upon us, and that this claim springs from the very essence of God. In the incarnate Son of God we see the full development and realization of the Biblical idea of holiness. We find Him standing in a special relation to God, and living a life of which the one and only aim is to advance the purposes of God.' We see in Him 'holiness in its highest degree, _i.e._ the highest conceivable devotion to God and to the advancement of His kingdom.' 'In virtue of His intelligent, hearty, continued appropriation of the Father's purpose, and in virtue of its realization in all the details of the Saviour's life, He was called _the Holy One of God_.'

'The word _saint_ is very appropriate as a designation of the followers of Christ; for it declares what God requires them to be. By calling His people _saints_, God declares His will that we live a life of which He is the one and only aim. This is the objective holiness of the Church of Christ. In some passages holiness is set before the people of God as a standard for their attainment. In these passages _holy_ denotes a realization in man of God's purpose that he live a life of which God is the one and only aim. This is the subjective holiness of God's people.

'Holiness is God's claim that His creatures use all their powers and opportunities to work out His purposes. Holiness, thus understood, is an attribute of God. For His claim springs from His nature, even from that love which is the very essence of God. His love to us moves Him to claim our devotion; for only by absolute devotion to Him can we attain our highest happiness.'

'Though without purity we cannot be subjectively holy, yet holiness is much more than purity. Purity is a mere negative excellence; holiness implies the most intense mental and bodily activity of which we are capable. For it is the employment of all our powers and opportunities to advance God's purposes.'

The question 'How we become holy,' is answered thus: 'Our devotion to God is a result of inward spiritual contact with Him who once lived a human life on earth, and now lives a glorified human life on the throne, simply and only to work out the Father's purposes. We live for God because Christ does so, and because Christ lives in us, and we in Him: the Spirit of Christ is the Agent of the spiritual contact with Christ which imparts to us His life, and reproduces in us His life. He is the bearer of the power as well as of the holiness of Christ.'

'That God claims from His people unreserved devotion to Himself, and that what He claims He works in all who believe it, by His own power operating through the inward presence of the Holy Spirit, placing us in spiritual contact with Christ, is the great doctrine of sanctification by faith.'

The same view, that holiness is a relation, had previously been worked out very elaborately by Diestel. In what has been said on redemption and proprietorship as related to holiness (see 'Sixth Day'), we have seen what truth there is in the thought. But holiness is something more. What is holy is not only God-devoted, but God-accepted, God-appropriated, God-possessed. God not only possesses the heart, but absolutely occupies and fills it with His life. It is this makes it holy.

However much truth there be in the above exposition, it hardly meets our desire for an insight into what is one of the highest attributes of the very Being of God. When the seraphs worship Him as the Holy One, and in their Thrice Holy reflect something of the deepest mystery of Godhead, it surely means more than merely the expression of God's claim as Sovereign Proprietor of all.

The mistake appears to originate in taking first the meaning of the word _holy_ from earthly objects, and then from that deducing that holiness in God cannot mean more than it does when applied to men. The Scriptures point to the opposite way. When Old and New Testaments say, 'Be ye holy, for I am holy, I make holy,' they point to God's Holiness as the first, both the reason and the source of ours. We ought first to discover what holiness in God is. When we read at creation of God's _sanctifying_ the Sabbath day, we have to do, not with a thought or word of Moses as to what God had done, but with a Divine revelation of a Power in God greater and more wonderful than creation, the Power which is later on revealed as the deepest mystery of the Divine Being.

This Holiness in God, as it appears to me, cannot be a mere relation. To indicate a relation, tells me nothing positively about the personal character or worth of the related parties. To say that when God sanctifies men He claims them as His own, does not say what the nature is of the work He does for them and in them, or what the Power by which He does it. And yet that word ought to reveal to me what it is that God bestows. To say that that claim has its root in His very nature, and in His love, and that holiness is therefore an attribute, makes it an attribute, not like love or wisdom, immanent in the Divine Being, ere creatures were, but simply an effect of Love, moving God to claim His creatures as His special possession. We should then have no attribute expressive of God's moral perfection. Nor would the word holy of the Son and the Spirit any longer indicate that deep and mysterious communication of the very nature and life of God in which sanctification has its glory. In the Divine holiness we have the highest and inconceivably glorious revelation of the very essence of the Divine Being; in the holiness of the saints the deepest revelation of the change by which their inmost nature is renewed into the likeness of God.

NOTE B.

On the Word for Holiness.

The proper meaning of the Hebrew word for holy, _kadosh_, is matter of uncertainty. It may come from a root signifying to shine. (So Gesenius, Oehler, Fürst, and formerly Delitzsch, on Heb. ii. 11.) Or from another denoting new and bright (Diestel), or an Arabic form meaning to cut, to separate. (So Delitzsch now, on Ps. xxii. 4.) Whatever the root be, the chief idea appears to be not only separate or set apart, for which the Hebrew has entirely different words, but that by which a thing that is separated from others for its worth is distinguished above them. It indicates not only separation as an act or fact, but the superiority or excellence in virtue of which, either as already possessed or sought after, the separation takes place.

In his _Lexicon of New Testament Greek_, Cremer has an exhaustive article on the Greek _hagios_, pointing out how holiness is an entirely Biblical idea, and 'how the scriptural conceptions of God's Holiness, notwithstanding the original affinity, is diametrically opposite to all the Greek notions; and how, whereas these very views of holiness exclude from the gods all possibility of love, the scriptural conception of holiness unfolds itself only when in closest connection with Divine love.' It is a most suggestive thought that we owe both the word and the thought distinctly to revelation. Every other attribute of God has some notion to correspond with it in the human mind: the thought of holiness is distinctly Divine. Is not this the reason that, though God has so distinctly in the New Testament called His people holy ones, the word _holy_ has so little entered into the daily language and life of the Christian Church?

NOTE C.

The Holiness of God.

There is not a word so exclusively scriptural, so distinctly Divine, as the word holy in its revelation and its meaning. As a consequence of this its Divine origin, it is a word of inexhaustible significance. There is not one of the attributes of God which theologians have found it so difficult to define, or concerning which they differ so much. A short survey of the various views that have been taken may teach us how little the idea of the Divine Holiness can be comprehended or exhausted by human definition, and how it is only in the life of fellowship and adoration that the holiness which passes all understanding can, as a truth and a reality, be apprehended.

1. The most external view, in which the ethical was very much lost sight of, is that in which holiness is identified with God's Separateness from the creation, and elevation above it. Holiness was defined as the incomparable Glory of God, His exclusive adorableness, His infinite Majesty. Sufficient attention was not paid to the fact that though all these thoughts are closely connected with God's Holiness, they are but a formal definition of the results and surroundings of the Holiness, but do not lead us to the apprehension of that wherein its real essence consists.

2. Another view, which also commences from the external, and makes that the basis of its interpretation, regards holiness simply as the expression of a relation. Because what was set apart for God's service was called holy, the idea of separation, of consecration, of ownership, is taken as the starting-point. And so, because we are said to be holy, as belonging to God, God is holy as claiming us and belonging to us too. Instead of regarding holiness as a positive reality in the Divine nature, from which our holiness is to be derived, our holiness is made the starting-point for expounding the Holiness of God. 'God is holy as being, within the covenant, not only the Proprietor, but the Property of His people, their highest good and their only rule' (Diestel). Of this view mention has already been made in the note to 'Sixth Day,' on Holiness as Proprietorship.

3. Passing over to the views of those who regard holiness as being a moral attribute, the most common one is that of purity, freedom from sin. 'Holiness is a general term for the moral excellence of God. There is none holy as the Lord: no other being absolutely pure and free from all limitations in His moral perfection. Holiness, on the one hand, implies entire freedom from moral evil; and, upon the other, absolute moral perfection.' (Hodge, _Syst. Theol._) The idea of holiness as the infinite Purity which is free from all sin, which hates and punishes it, is what in the popular conception is the most prominent idea. The negative stands more in the foreground than the positive. The view has its truth and its value from the fact that in our sinful state the first impression the Holiness of God must make is that of fear and dread in the consciousness of our sinfulness and unholiness. But it does not tell us wherein this moral excellence or perfection of God really consists.

4. It is an advance on this view when the attempt is made to define what this perfection of God is. A thing is perfect when it is in everything as it ought to be. It is easy thus to define perfection, but not so easy to define what the perfection of any special object is: this needs the knowledge of what its nature is. And we have to rest content with very general terms defining God's Holiness as the essential and absolute good. 'Holiness is the free, deliberate, calm, and immutable affirmation of Himself, who is goodness, or of goodness, which is Himself' (Godet _on John_ xvii. 11). 'Holiness is that attribute in virtue of which Jehovah makes Himself the absolute standard of Himself, of His being and revelation.' (Kubel.)

5. Closely allied to this is the view that holiness is not so much an attribute, but the 'whole complex of that which we are wont to look at and represent singly in the individual attributes of God.' So Bengel looked upon holiness as the Divine nature, in which all the attributes are contained. In the same spirit what Howe says of holiness as the Divine beauty, the result of the perfect harmony of all the attributes, 'Holiness is intellectual beauty. Divine holiness is the most perfect beauty, and the measure of all other. The Divine Holiness is the most perfect pulchritude, the ineffable and immortal pulchritude, that cannot be declared by words, or seen by eyes. This may therefore be called a transcendental attribute that, as it were, runs through the rest, and casts a glory upon every one. It is an attribute of attributes. These are fit predications, _holy_ power, _holy_ love. And so it is the very lustre and glory of His other perfections. He is glorious in holiness.' (Howe in _Whyte's Shorter Catechism_.) This was the aspect of the Divine Holiness on which Jonathan Edwards delighted to dwell. 'The mutual love of the Father and the Son makes the third, the personal Holy Spirit, or the Holiness of God, which is His infinite beauty.' 'By the communication of God's Holiness the creature partakes of God's moral excellence, which is perfection, the beauty of the Divine nature.' 'Holiness comprehends all the true moral excellence of intelligent beings. So the Holiness of God is the same with the moral excellency of the Divine nature, comprehending all His perfections, His righteousness, faithfulness, and goodness. There are two kinds of attributes in God, according to our way of conceiving Him: His _moral_ attributes, which are summed up in His Holiness, and His _natural_, as strength, knowledge, etc., which constitute His greatness. Holy persons, in the exercise of holy affection, love God in the first place for the beauty of His Holiness.' 'The holiness of an intelligent creature is that which gives beauty to all his natural perfections. And so it is in God: holiness is in a peculiar manner the beauty of the Divine being. Hence we often read of the beauty of holiness (Ps. xxix. 2, xcvi. 9, cx. 3). This renders all the other attributes glorious and lovely.' 'Therefore, if the true loveliness of God's perfections arise from the loveliness of His Holiness, the true love of all His perfections will arise from the love of His Holiness. And as the beauty of the Divine nature primarily consists in God's Holiness, so does the beauty of all Divine things.'

6. In speaking of God's Holiness as denoting the essential good, the absolute excellence of His nature, some press very strongly the _ethical_ aspect. The good in God must not be from mere natural impulse only, flowing from the necessity of His nature, without being freely willed by Himself. 'What is naturally good is not the true realization of the good. The actual and living will to be the good He is, must also have its place in God, otherwise God would only be naturally ethical. Only in the will which consciously determines itself, is there the possibility given of the ethical. The ethical has such a power in God that He is the holy Power, who cannot and will not renounce Himself, who must be, and would be thought to be, the holy necessity of the goodness which is Himself,--to be the Holy. The love of God is essentially holy; it desires and preserves the ethically necessary or holy, which God is.' (Dorner, _System_, vol. i.)

7. It was felt in such views that there was not a sufficient acknowledgment of the truth that it is especially as the Holy One that God is called the Redeemer, and that He does the work of love to make holy. This led to the view that holiness and love are, if not identical, at least correlated expressions. 'God is holy, exalted above all the praise of the creature in His incomparable praise-worthiness, on account of His free and loving condescension to the creature, to manifest in it the glory of His love.' 'God is holy, inasmuch as love in Him has restrained and conquered the righteous wrath (as Hosea says, xi. 9), and judgment is exercised only after every way of mercy has been tried. This holiness is disclosed in the New Testament name, as exalted as it is condescending, of Father.' (Stier _on John_ xvii.)

8. The large measure of truth in this view is met by an expression in which the true aspects of the Holiness of God are combined. It is defined as being the harmony of self-preservation and self-communication. As the Holy One, God hates sin, and seeks to destroy it. As the Holy One, He makes the sinner holy, and then takes him up into His love. In maintaining His love, He never for a moment loses His Divine purity and perfection; in maintaining His righteousness, He still communicates Himself to the fallen creature. Holiness is the Divine glory, of which love and righteousness are the two sides, and which in their work on earth they reveal.

'Holiness is the self-preservation of God, whereby He keeps Himself free from the world without Him, and remains consistent with Himself and faithful to His Being, and whereby He, with this view, creates a Divine world that lives for Himself alone in the organization of His Church.' (Lange.)

'The Holiness of God is God's self-preservation, or keeping to Himself, in virtue of which He remains the same in all relationships which exist within His Deity, or into which He enters, never sacrifices what is Divine, or admits what is not Divine. But this is only one aspect. God's Holiness would not be holiness, but exclusiveness, if it did not provide for God's entering into manifold relations, and so revealing and communicating Himself. Holiness is therefore the union and interpretation of God's keeping to Himself and communicating Himself; of His nearness and His distance; of His exclusiveness and His self-revelation; of separateness and fellowship.' (Schmieder.)

'The Divine Holiness is mainly seclusion from the impurity and sinfulness of the creature, or, expressed positively, the cleanness and purity of the Divine nature, which excludes all connection with the wicked. In harmony with this, the Divine Holiness, as an attribute of revelation, is not merely an abstract power, but is the Divine self-representation and self-testimony for the purpose of giving to the world the participation in the Divine life.' (Oehler, _Theol. of O. T._ i. 160.)