Chapter I: HOPE it has been made clear that the original meaning of the word ‘to

sanctify,’ was ‘to set apart as a holy thing unto God,’ and that the Levitical meaning of sanctification through blood was the cleansing from all legal impurity. It is obvious that both these divine acts clearly involve personal holiness.

That which is set apart by the call of God, and cleansed from all guilt, should clearly be kept holy and undefiled from the pollution both of the heart and of the world. Such persons should be like the vessels of the sanctuary: ‘sanctified and meet for the Master’s use.’

This leads us to that which is the ordinary meaning of the term in religious books: viz. personal holiness. By personal holiness is meant the sacred work of God the Holy Ghost within the soul; the reflection of the character of our Blessed Lord; the law put into the inward part, and written on the heart by the Spirit of God. This is the meaning of such texts as 1 Thess. v. 23: ‘The very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ The separation is a past act, for if we are in Christ Jesus, we have been already separated unto God; but this is an abiding condition, for real holiness is a present matter of daily life. Now both these parts of sanctification are brought out in the words which I have read as our text, for it is addressed ‘to them that are,’ or have been, ‘sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints.’ The first clause refers to the past act, and represents those believers as having been set apart unto God, or separated as a peculiar people unto Himself; the second describes their present condition as inseparable from their high calling; for, having been set apart, they are now called to be the saints of God. I need not stop to point out that the word ‘saints,’ is not limited in Sacred Scripture to those who are in heaven. Still less has it to do with the canonization of Rome, or the seclusion of a monastery. It describes the personal holiness of the Christian in common life, the habitual character of the man walking with God; as in those words of the Apostle Peter (1 Pet. i. 15): ‘Be ye holy;’ or be ye saints, ‘in all manner of conversation.’ So that our text means the same as if it had been written, ‘To them that have been set apart unto God in Christ Jesus their Saviour, and who, as the result of that sacred call, are now leading holy lives in His presence.’

My object this morning will be simply to trace the connexion between these two steps of God’s sacred work: the past separation unto Him, and the present personal holiness of character. And all I can say is, may the Lord help us in our own experience to understand both of them, and then we shall have no difficulty in perceiving how they are bound together in the work of Salvation!

We shall find them connected by a principle and a power.