Chapter II: POWER. But here lies the difficulty. You really wish to be holy,

but you are not; you have endeavoured to overcome your temper, but it is still there; you have striven against wandering thoughts in prayer, but they still interfere most mournfully with your most sacred acts of worship; you wish, and you mean to be, unselfish, but you find selfishness continually cropping up, to your sorrow and vexation of spirit. Now, the question is,—How is this to be overcome? Your resolves will not do it, for you have made hundreds, and failed in them all; and no man on earth can do it for you, for the evil lies far too deep for the reach of man. What then is to be done? We may turn back to our text, and there learn the secret, for in those words, ‘In Christ Jesus,’ we are taught the power.

We learned, in studying the first act of separation, that it was the work of God the Holy Ghost: here it is said to be in Christ Jesus. Some people dwell more on the distinction than I am myself disposed to do: there is such a perfect oneness in the infinite God, that I confess I have but little heart for these refined distinctions. As the Father and the Son are one, so God the Son and God the Holy Ghost are one; and when the Lord Jesus saves the sinner, it is the Holy Ghost that applies that salvation to the soul. Without stopping, therefore, to study any such distinction, let us rather hasten to the practical lesson that sanctification, or consecration, here described, is a sanctification in Jesus Christ. You may look thus to your covenant union with Him, and trust Him by the in-breathing of His own Spirit to make you holy. You may remember that He came to save you from your sins, and not merely from their curse; and that holiness is just as much a gift of the covenant as pardon.

You remember those words, 1 Cor. i. 30: ‘But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.’ They teach us that the Lord Jesus is the source of all practical wisdom and holiness, just as much as of imputed righteousness and redemption. The passage is clearly not speaking of an imputed wisdom, and we have no right to apply it to an imputed sanctification. It refers to the practical wisdom and personal holiness of the man who by God’s grace is wise and holy; and teaches that both one and the other are found exclusively in Christ Jesus.

You may, therefore, trust the Lord Jesus Christ for your sanctification just as much as for your justification; for your personal holiness in daily life, as well as for your safety in the great day of judgment. Look carefully then unto your covenant union with Christ, and think on Him as your covenant Head: then spread out all your difficulties and temptations before Him as your Head. Acknowledge before Him how you have dishonoured His headship by your evil thoughts, your evil words, and your constant failures; and trust Him, as your Head, to form in you His image, and by His own most Holy Spirit to give you the victory. Do not stand at a distance, thinking it your duty to doubt your union, for by so doing you will never overcome. Without that union you will never know what victory means. I am assuming now that in the secret of your own souls you have been verily engrafted into Christ. I know you were sacramentally in baptism, but I am looking deeper than that, for many who are baptized are never saved, and I am speaking now of the real saving union of your soul with Christ Himself. Now, if that is yours through His wonderful grace, accept it, act upon it, trust Him as your living Head; and you will find, as time goes on, that though you cannot overcome, He can; and that He will finally present you, ‘holy and unblameable before Him at His coming.’ But here we are brought to the old difficulty,—that you have no real evidence in your soul of the existence of such a union with Christ. You know there is your baptismal union, but still you cannot feel safe, and you greatly doubt whether you are amongst those who have been ‘Sanctified in Christ Jesus: called to be saints.’ This is the reason why many of you cannot come to the sacred feast of the Supper of the Lord, and why many others, who do come, come with a heavy heart. Would to God we might see those absent ones brought near, and those heavy hearts gladdened by the Lord! But in order to that you must grapple at once with the great question of your own personal salvation,—your separation unto God. Till that is settled you will be powerless against yourself. Till you are in Christ, and sanctified in Christ Jesus, you will never be sanctified at all. If you really desire to be really holy, for the sake of that holiness begin at the beginning, and never rest till you are safe. Your safety must come before your holiness, or you will wait for it for ever. Begin therefore with the prayer, ‘Lord, save me: I perish.’ Throw yourself into His hand for pardon, for acceptance, for life. Never rest till you can appropriate the language of St. Paul: ‘Who hath saved me, and called me with an holy calling.’ And, when that is given, you may go on to those other words of the same Apostle, and say, ‘According as He hath chosen us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love.’

PROGRESS.

‘But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the
Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by
the Spirit of the Lord.’—2 COR. iii. 18.

THE subject of personal holiness is one of overwhelming interest to all those who really desire to walk with God; it is also one which requires our most careful study, for in it lies the chief difficulty of the daily Christian life of the greater number of true believers. They know the truth, and love it; they prize their Saviour far above all that the world can give; they are ready either to live or die in His service; but yet they are so conscious of the power of indwelling sin that sometimes they are led almost to doubt the reality of their Christianity, and begin to question whether they really love their Lord at all. For the help of such persons it seems clearly a duty to look carefully into the subject, and I pray God that He may help us to do so this morning.

This text will supply us with so much instruction that we will not attempt to examine other passages, but will endeavour to gather from it the standard, the progress, the means, and the power of Christian holiness. May God so bless His word, as to make us holy by His Spirit!

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