shutting you out from God. And this leads us to a second point of the
utmost possible importance: viz., that now, in the midst of the struggle,
and during the time of imperfection, in Christ Jesus we are free from all
condemnation. If, as we pursue our course, we were to be condemned for
all the sin of which we are guilty in either omission or commission, in
either thought, word, or act, there could be no peace or hope in our
struggle. I am not surprised that poor people who do not know the Gospel
go to priests for absolution, or resort to any other man-made expedient
in order to endeavour to escape from the misery of the perpetual
exclusion from God of which they must be conscious. But in Christ Jesus
you need nothing of the kind, for ‘there is now no condemnation for them
that are in Christ Jesus.’ Observe the force of the ‘now’ in contrast
with the ‘shall’ of the twenty-fourth verse of the seventh chapter. The
complete deliverance is future: so he said, ‘Who _shall_ deliver me?’
But the perfect freedom from all condemnation is present: and therefore
he says, ‘There is _now_ no condemnation.’ The ‘therefore now’ of that
verse depends on the sixth verse of the seventh chapter, the intermediate
passage being a parenthesis, so that the connexion is as follows: ‘Now we
are delivered from the law, . . . there is therefore now no
condemnation.’ The battle is not over, and you have still to fight a
hard fight with sin; but now that sin cannot cut you off from God, for
you are no longer under the law: you are in Christ Jesus, and He has
satisfied the law in your behalf. Your sin undoubtedly deserves
condemnation, and you have not a word to say in its defence: but He has
already borne that condemnation, so that in Him you are free; and nothing
can separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus the Lord.
Now, think for one moment of the unspeakable blessedness of this most
precious truth. You may review all that has occurred through the
day,—your prayers, your praises, your wandering thoughts, your
conversation, your motives, and your heart’s desires,—and oh, how far
they will all fall short of the holiness of God! If you are not in
Christ Jesus, the thought of them must fill you with anxiety, doubt, and
a sense of distance from God; but if you are enabled by His grace to take
home to your heart the blessed truth, that _now_, even _now_, before you
have gained the victory, there is no condemnation,—then that sin does not
separate you from Him. It humbles you, it is true, and deeply grieves
you; but it cannot cut you off from God: you are sheltered in the
covenant of Grace. ‘The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth you
from all sin,’ and you may kneel before Him in the peaceful enjoyment of
a true and uninterrupted fellowship with God. In the spirit of adoption
you may cry Abba, Father; and with the happy trust of a child in its
father’s arms, you may say, ‘I will lay me down in peace, and sleep; for
thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.’
III. But that is not all; for besides this we have the unspeakable
privilege of the unceasing leading of God the Holy Ghost. If we were
left to ourselves to fight out our battle with sin, to rely on our own
judgment, and to overcome by our own powers, we should be overcome before
we had struck a single blow. But not only is there a final victory
promised to us in the future, and a complete freedom from all
condemnation in the present, but there is also another most sacred gift
at once enjoyed by all who are in Christ Jesus: viz., the present
indwelling of God the Holy Ghost within the soul. This belongs not to
the future, but to the present: it is not connected with the ‘shall’ of
verse twenty-four, but with the ‘now’ of verse one. ‘There is now no
condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk,’ or who are
walking, ‘not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.’ So, in verse
fourteen, we read of a present leading as the privilege of a present
sonship: ‘As many as are led,’ or being led, ‘by the Spirit of God, they
are the sons of God.’ It is impossible to attempt to unfold all the
blessings which follow from this most sacred privilege: it conveys to us
all that is connected both with companionship and power. Companionship,
because He is not one afar off to be reached only occasionally, and that
after special efforts: but dwelling within the soul as a Leader, a
Comforter, a Witness, an Advocate, a Friend. And a power: for He is not
like a mighty arm afar off, omnipotent if we could but reach it; but a
very present help: one that knows our weakness better than we do, and
perceives our danger before we know it ourselves. One that, dwelling
within, can so act on the conscience, and so move the secret springs of
the will, that He does not merely make use of us as machines, but
constrains us to hate sin and to love holiness; while He Himself imparts
a power to shake off our fetters, and as free men to walk with God.
Surely, then, we may understand the apparent contradiction in the
Apostle’s words, and see why it was that he was thanking God, although he
called himself a wretched man. He called himself a wretched man, because
there was that in his ruined nature which kept him back from the exalted
holiness at which he aimed: but he could still thank God, for he was sure
that before long he would be transformed into the likeness of Christ
Himself; and, more than that, he knew that even now, in the days of his
conflict, there was a freedom from all condemnation for his failures, and
the sacred assurance of the Holy Ghost abiding in his soul to lead him on
to victory. Therefore it was that he could give thanks. And, dear
brethren, if you are in Christ Jesus, may not you do the same? Is there
not the same hope for you? Are not you equally free from condemnation?
Is not the indwelling Spirit equally effectual for you? How is it then
that your whole souls are not filled with bright hope, and profound
thanksgiving? How is it that we do not all unite more heartily and
unreservedly in the spirit of the text, ‘I thank God through Jesus Christ
our Lord?’
HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.
‘And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by
faith.’—ACTS, xv. 9.
I FEAR that I may have almost wearied some of you by dwelling so long as
I have on the subject of sanctification, or Christian holiness; but it is
one of such overwhelming practical importance, and so intimately
connected with the glory of God, that I am persuaded we ought none to
grudge any time spent on the study of it. I must ask your attention,
therefore, to a phrase which has lately become familiar to some of you,
viz. ‘holiness through faith.’ I like the expression thoroughly, and
believe it to be full of truth; for there can be no true holiness except
by faith, and no real faith that does not lead to holiness. If we are
holy at all we may be perfectly certain that the holiness will be through
faith; and if we are real believers we may be equally sure that we shall
be holy; therefore it is that in this passage, when the Apostle is
speaking of the sacred work of divine purity wrought in the soul by the
Holy Ghost, he described Him as ‘purifying the heart by faith.’ This
then shall be our subject for this morning, and I hope we may learn two
great truths: first, that holiness is not known by faith; and next, that
faith is the power by which it pleases God to produce holiness in the
soul.
I. Holiness is not known by faith. This seems so obvious that it may be
scarcely thought to require consideration, but from what I have read
lately, I am inclined to think it does. Let us then bear well in mind
that faith is entirely occupied with things future or unseen. ‘Faith is
the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’ The
moment that we can see anything, that thing ceases to be an object of
faith. There is an old saying, that ‘seeing is believing;’ but that is
the creed of the materialist, who says he can only believe what he sees;
but it will not do for the Christian, or even for the philosopher, for
sight supersedes faith, and the very essence of faith is to believe when
we cannot see. So our Lord said to Thomas, ‘Blessed are they which have
not seen, and yet have believed.’ You believe that the Lord Jesus is now
at the right hand of the Father, and will shortly come again; but when
you stand before Him and behold Him on His throne, it will no longer be a
matter of faith, but of sight. So our justification through imputed
righteousness is a matter of faith: it is a divine act of the hidden mind
of God, and perfectly invisible to the eye of man. You cannot see your
name in the book of life; you cannot see the counsel of God blotting out
your sin because of the finished sacrifice, or accounting you righteous
in Christ Jesus even at the very time that you know yourself to be a
ruined sinner. You cannot see it, for the whole transaction is out of
sight: it takes place in heaven, not on earth; in the council-chamber of
God, and not within the reach of human vision. This, therefore, is an
object of faith, and can only be known by faith. You cannot hope to see
your justification, or the imputation of righteousness to your soul; all
that you can do is to trust God for it. He has declared in His Word that
He has ‘made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made
the righteousness of God in Him.’ So that we may trust in His assurance,
and believe that, the Lord Jesus having been made sin for us, we are
accounted righteous in Him, even with the righteousness of God. Yes: and
thanks be to God! we may believe it at once, for the Covenant of God is
as perfect now as it can be if we wait a hundred years. There is
nothing, therefore, to prevent a present and immediate faith in the
finished Work, and perfect Word, of a Blessed Saviour. Believe Him, and
there is peace; and believe Him now.
But it is not so with sanctification, or holiness. The seat of holiness,
or sanctification, is in our own souls. It is not like the name written
in the Book of Life which no man can see; for it is the law written by
the Holy Ghost upon the fleshy tables of the heart, and therefore within
view of conscience. God has placed a conscience within every one of us:
an eye that looks inward, and can see all that is passing within the
soul. Are there bad acts, bad words, or bad thoughts? Conscience may
see them all. Is there a deep desire to walk with God, and do His Will?
Conscience discovers it. So says the Apostle John (1 John, iii. 20, 21):
‘If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all
things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence
towards God.’ Conscience therefore must decide as to the existence of
sanctification, or personal holiness. Justification, or imputed
righteousness, is known by faith, not sight: sanctification, or inwrought
righteousness, is known by sight, not faith. We should be acting in
unbelief if we were to doubt the perfection of imputed righteousness
because we cannot see it, for faith is concerned with the unseen; but we
should be putting faith into altogether a false position if we were to
presume to believe in the perfection of our holiness so long as
conscience convinces us that sin is still abiding in the heart. If we
are conscious of indwelling sin, and find it ready to break out like a
fire at any moment, it is not the office of faith to reckon it dead. No,
dear brethren: true holiness is a practical change of heart wrought in us
by the Holy Ghost, and perceptible; it is a new character wrought in us
by a new power, and springing from new principles. It is not an
invisible change, but one known by its results; it is not a matter of
faith, but of experience; and so St. John says in his Epistle (1 John,
iii. 24): ‘Hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He
hath given us.’
II. But, though holiness is not known by faith, faith is the power by
which it pleases God to produce it, and therefore it is well called
‘Holiness through faith.’ Some people seem to speak of this subject as
if they had made a great religious discovery. I often wonder what books
they had read, or what sermons they had heard, before they discovered it.
They could not have been those of the great divines of the Church of
England,—such as Hooker, Bishop Reynolds, or Archbishop Leighton; nor of
the great Evangelical Fathers in the Church of England,—such as Venn,
Cecil, and Simeon; for holiness through faith is the keynote of all their
writings. Over and over again have sermons been preached and books
written on such great, full, plain texts as this: ‘Put no difference
between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.’
But, leaving such discussions, let us consider the office of faith in
producing holiness, and examine in what way it pleases God to purify the
heart through faith.
We shall find that He does it in two ways.
(1.) By the introduction of new motives and principles. He does not
deal with us as though we were without mind, but by the use of the mind
which He Himself has given. The refiner refines the silver, but the
silver has no voice in the transaction: it is simply acted upon as
lifeless matter. But it is not so with the soul: the soul can think, can
feel, can sorrow, can rejoice, can love; and when God refines it He calls
into activity all its faculties. In purifying the heart He makes use of
its powers, and so consecrates them to His most sacred service. For
example, there is no greater power in the whole mind of man than love.
People will make any sacrifices under the influence of a powerful
affection; God therefore takes that faculty of love, and so consecrates
it to His own sacred service, that the people of God may say, ‘The love
of Christ constraineth us.’ And now you see in a moment the office of
faith. How is that love to grow up within the soul if there be no faith
preceding it? If you have no trust in His reconciling grace,—if it is
all a matter of uncertainty to you whether He is loving you as a child,
or about to cast you as a condemned criminal into hell,—I cannot see what
there is to call forth any love within your heart. St. John says, ‘We
love Him because He first loved us;’ so that if there is no trust in His
first love the motive is gone, and there is no power by which love in us
can be produced. But when, on the other hand, we can believe His
boundless grace,—believe that He gave Himself to be sin for us with as
little doubt as if we actually saw Him on the cross,—believe that we are
already forgiven through His blood, and, though so unworthy, made the
righteousness of God in Him,—believe, in short, that He is fulfilling to
us that most precious promise in Hosea, ‘I will love them freely, for
mine anger is turned away from him,’ and all because the Son of God was
content in our place to die,—then there is something to call forth love
in the hardest heart that ever beat; something that must make sin in all
its forms inexpressibly hateful; something to produce those sacred
results of constraining love described by St. Paul, when he said, ‘That
they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him
that died for them, and rose again.’
If therefore you earnestly desire holiness, remember it must be holiness
through faith. Do not fall into the common error of supposing it must be
faith through holiness; but keep close to what is taught you in the text:
viz., that God purifies the heart through faith. First, get a fast hold
on His love to you. Realise that, and you may safely leave your love to
Him to follow. But, till you know that, you will never be really holy,
for you can never be under the power of the great governing principle of
love.
(2.) But this is not all, for true holiness is a Divine gift as much as
pardon. It is not an uncommon thing to find a kind of vague idea that we
are to find the holiness, and God the pardon; the certain result of which
is that there is no progress in the one, and no joy in the other. But
that is not the teaching of the Gospel. According to the Sacred
Scripture all the Three Persons of the one Godhead are engaged in our
sanctification. In this passage, _e.g._, it is ascribed to God the
Father, as its author, and God the Holy Ghost as the agent; in the first
Epistle to the Corinthians, our Lord and Saviour is said to be ‘made unto
us sanctification:’ so that He bears the very title of Jesus, because it
is His office to ‘save His people from their sins.’ If, therefore, we
are made holy, it is by the power of the Holy Ghost carrying out the
purpose of the Father, and dwelling within the soul through the mediation
of the Son; it is the sacred act of Divine power carrying into effect the
Divine Covenant through the mediatorial work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
And here you see in a moment the office of faith. Faith is the act of
the soul casting itself on the Covenant, and on the Lord Jesus Christ
revealed in Scripture as the Mediator of the Covenant. If you fight your
own battle for holiness you may struggle hard, and struggle long, but you
are sure to fail. You may try any expedient you please,—rules of life,
books of self-examination, anything; but it won’t do. The old sin of
your fallen heart will keep cropping up just as strong as ever; and you
will find yourself a year hence no nearer to the mark than you are now,
for the holiness at which you are aiming is not holiness through faith.
If you thirst for holiness, you must throw yourself into the arms of the
Son of God, that He, by the mighty power of the Holy Ghost, may do that
which you cannot do,—make you holy; or, according to the text, purify
your heart by faith. There is a great danger of our being partial in our
trust: of trusting Him for pardon, but not for holiness. But He teaches
us to trust Him equally for both. The promise, ‘I will put my law into
their inward parts, and write it in their hearts,’ is just as much a
promise of the Covenant as that other promise, ‘I will forgive their
iniquities, and I will remember their sins no more.’ You may therefore
trust Him to write His law on your heart just as much as you may trust
Him for the forgiveness of your sin.
It does not follow from this that the two gifts will be completed at the
same time, or in the same way: the writing of the law on the heart is
through a gradual process of Divine education; the blotting out of sin,
an immediate act complete at once in the mind of God: but both are acts
of the great Deliverer, and for both equally it is the joy of our hearts
to trust Him. Trust Him, therefore, to work out a holiness in your soul
just as you trust Him to have given you the forgiveness of your sin. If
you are trusting Him for imputed righteousness,—that is, trusting Him for
having wrought out such a work in your behalf that you are already ‘made
the righteousness of God in Him,’—trust Him also for personal holiness;
that by the power of the Holy Ghost your character may be conformed to
your position. There are many powers by which you may gain many
victories, but there is only one by which you can overcome the world:
viz., that described by St. John when he said, ‘This is the victory that
over-cometh the world, even our faith.’ Be sure, then, that that power
is sufficient; so that, trusting Christ, you may rest assured of victory.
You are not condemned to toil on in a condition of disheartening
hopelessness; but you may enter on each day of your life in the happy and
peaceful assurance, not that you are perfect, but that you have
perpetually at hand a loving Lord fully able by His own omnipotence to
overcome in you your besetting sin. So you may go up from the wilderness
leaning on the Beloved, and by God’s grace may walk with Him to victory.
Past failures must teach you your own most terrible corruption; but God’s
truth may assure you of His sufficiency: so that at the very moment of
your own most utter helplessness, when you are ready to cry, ‘Oh,
wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this
death?’ you may reply to your own question in the triumphant language of
the Apostle, ‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’
CONSECRATION.
‘I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye
present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God,
which is your reasonable service.’—ROM. xii. 1.
A GREAT deal has been lately said on the subject of consecration; and we
may all rejoice in having our attention directed to it, as we all require
a much higher standard than we have ever yet known of self-abandoning
dedication to the Lord. We all need to know more fully and more
experimentally the real meaning of such words as these: ‘Whether we live,
we live unto the Lord, or whether we die, we die unto the Lord; whether
we live, therefore, or die, we are the Lord’s.’ It is most important
then that we understand what we mean by consecration. It is clearly
quite distinct from that Divine act of separation in which God, by the
power of the Holy Ghost, separates His own elect, and incorporates them
into Christ. It is also quite distinct from the submission of the soul
when it ceases to go about to establish its own righteousness, and
submits itself unto the righteousness of God, though in the inaccurate
phraseology of some modern writings it sometimes appears to be confounded
with it. To consecrate any thing is to set it apart as a holy gift unto
the Lord; and, therefore, when we speak of consecration, or
self-consecration, we mean that which St. Paul described of the Churches
of Macedonia, when he said, ‘They first gave their own selves to the
Lord.’ It is the voluntary act of the loving and believing heart
yielding itself up to a blessed Saviour, to be henceforth holy unto God.
It is in this sense that I am about to speak of it now,—not considering
the word so much as the thing,—and hoping that, by God’s great grace, all
amongst us who know the Lord may be enabled to yield ourselves, as we
have never yet done, to His service.
There are few passages of sacred Scripture which will give us a better
summary of the subject than this verse. It contains four points, to
which I would draw your particular attention.
I. This consecration is a sacrifice. I need not say that it is not a
sacrifice for the blotting out of sin: it cost more to redeem our souls,
so we must let that alone for ever. It is the sacrifice of thanksgiving,
corresponding to the meat-offering in the law of types,—the sacrifice of
the thankful heart presenting its thank-offering to God. Regarding it
then as prefigured by the meat-offering, we may learn two lessons
respecting it.
(1.) It implies complete surrender. Under the ancient law every
sacrifice was wholly given up to God. Whatever was brought to the altar
was given up without reserve. No part of it was taken back to the home
of the offerer. People might give what they pleased, but when it was
given it was no longer their own, but God’s. And so it is with us. If
we have given ourselves to the Lord, we are no longer our own: ‘Whether
we live or die, we are the Lord’s.’ There is, however, this difference
between the Jewish sacrifice and ours. In the case of the ancient
sacrifices, when the sacrifice was a living animal, it was always put to
death, and part of it burned as a sweet savour unto God: but it is not so
with us. According to this text, it is a living sacrifice that we are
called to offer; it is the continued life that we are to surrender. We
are not now called to die for Him, as martyrs and many of our
missionaries have done, but to live for Him in that state of life in
which it has pleased God to call us. The sweet savour that is to rise
from our sacrifice is to be the sweet savour of Christian holiness, the
holy fragrance of Christian character.
(2.) This sacrifice is well pleasing to God. The meat-offering was
described as ‘an offering made by fire of a sweet savour unto the Lord:’
so this sacrifice is said in the text to be ‘acceptable unto God.’ It
does not say that it can fulfil the law, or be perfect before God; for
there is a vast difference between that which can fulfil the law and that
which can please Him. Nothing imperfect can fulfil the law, but the
utterly imperfect service of a loving heart may be well-pleasing in His
sight. Thus it is that He declares our sacrifice to be acceptable to
Himself; and while we seek to yield all we have to Him, and for His sake
‘to do good and to communicate,’ we may have the delight and
encouragement of knowing that ‘with such sacrifices God is well pleased.’
(Heb. xiii. 16.)
II. It is a sacrifice of the whole man. In the first verse the body
only is mentioned: ‘Present your bodies a living sacrifice;’ which
evidently has reference to the Jewish type, and teaches that we are not
to offer the body of a lamb, or a goat, or a heifer, but our own. But
the next verse teaches us that the appeal is not limited to the offering
of the body, for there we read that we are to be ‘transformed by the
renewing of our _mind_, that we may prove what is that good, and
acceptable, and perfect will of God.’ It is clear, therefore, that the
whole man is to be included in the gift. Now I sometimes meet with
subtle distinctions between the soul and the spirit, and the emotions and
the will, and I am quite ready to admit that they may be all correct and
very interesting: but I do not care to stop to distinguish between the
different parts or faculties, for God’s call lays claim to them all.
Whatever they are, and whereinsoever they differ, the desire of our heart
should be that they should all as one whole be given up to Him. In
whatever position He has placed us,—whether that of parents, children,
masters, servants, men of business, men of wealth, tradesmen, labourers,
or clergymen,—that position is to be occupied for Him; and whatever
faculties He has given us,—whether a powerful intellect, a good memory, a
warm heart, a tender conscience, a vigorous body, a good constitution, or
an ample fortune,—all, all belong to Him who has redeemed us by His own
most precious blood. When we give up ourselves we give up
everything,—our wills, and emotions, and powers, and energies, our
hearts, and heads, and hands,—to be yielded up to Him, and employed by
Him and for Him, as He sees best for His own glory.