Some Helpful Thoughts on Consecration
The experience of sanctification is obtained upon the conditions of
definite consecration and faith. In every consecration the soul reaches
a point where it must either go through to the death, or else go back
and lose the grace of God entirely. The Holy Spirit will make it plain
what this death implies, and at last the dying soul goes through its
last struggle and yields up its last treasure. When this point is
reached and passed, the Holy Spirit will bear witness that the demands
of God are now fully met. When Moses had completed the work of building
the tabernacle and had placed everything in its proper order, as God
commanded him, it is said that "Moses finished the work." So it can be
said of us and so each of us can personally testify by the witness of
the Spirit bearing witness with our spirit in this absolute and definite
consecration, that we have "finished the work." Every doubt as to the
completion of this consecration is banished, and has no room to exist in
our hearts, for we know that it is complete. We can so sweetly and
willingly say, "Thy will be done," with a most delightful consciousness
that all the past, present, and future, of all that pertains to our
life, is yielded up to his blessed will. Nothing on earth is held half
so sweet and precious as his will.
We can realize down deep in our souls what Jesus meant when he gave
himself to sanctify us and said, "I come to do thy will." We can enter
into the fellowship of his sufferings and death, for all that we have
and are, and all that we expect to be in the future, and all that we
know and ever expect to know, are now forever and eternally yielded up
to that precious will of God. It required the will of Jesus to be
yielded up to death to do the will of the Father that we might be
sanctified, and it equally requires our will to be yielded up to death
and the loss of all things, that we might be sanctified. It required his
will even to the death to obtain it for us, and it requires our will
even to death to receive it from him. Yes, dear reader, a real death; so
real that it includes everything, and it can only be said of us as it
was said of the Colossian saints, "Ye are dead, and your life is hid
with Christ in God."
This death consecration is beautifully typified in the consecration and
sanctification of the priests of the Old Testament dispensation. In Lev.
8 we read that Moses was commanded of the Lord to take Aaron and his
sons and three animals with him. The blood of one of these animals was
to be shed for the sin-offering; one for the "burnt offering," and one
for the "consecration" offering. The blood of each was shed and applied
separately for a special purpose. Each finds its antitype in the
precious blood of Jesus, who offered himself without spot to God that he
might sanctify the church. The blood of the sin-offering provides for
that part of our nature which would naturally reach out and cling to
those things which are sinful. In every justified heart which is not yet
wholly sanctified there exists such a principle which in itself is
depraved and sinful, and were it permitted to respond to the sinful
things without, it would bring the believers into transgression. This is
the "body of sin," or "our old man," which according to the law of the
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus, must be destroyed and cleansed out. This
existing in the heart, if unrestrained, is the fruitful soil out of
which grows every evil work. We can see its productions in many
different aspects in the religious world today. Every sect on earth is a
production of this body of sin. Every manifestation of carnal division
is some of its evil fruits. Everything that is in the least degree
contrary to the pure word of God, whether it be word or deed, is but the
outgrowth of this evil thing, which was created and planted into the
hearts of Adam and Eve by the devil, and has become the dominating
characteristic of depraved humanity. Justification does not cleanse this
out of the heart. It only takes away the guilt and trespasses of the
sinner, and brings him into the favor of God, who gave his Son a
"trespass-offering" for the world. But Jesus gave himself a
"sin-offering" for the church, and when the heart has yielded up to the
death for the destruction of this depravity it can truly be said of such
an one that we are dead to sin, for the blood of Jesus in this
sin-offering will most certainly effect this cleansing.
But a true Bible consecration includes something more than a yielding up
of the heart for the cleansing out of this sin principle. In the type,
we see there was another animal sacrificed in this consecration service.
It was the one for the "burnt offering." The blood of this sacrifice
corresponds with the sacrifice of the blood of Jesus which also provides
for the cleansing of that part of our nature that clings to the things
of life which in themselves are not sinful but are God-given blessings.
Our unsanctified affections must also become purified from every taint
of depravity. That this may be accomplished, it becomes necessary that
the heart yield up to the death every cherished object, even though it
be a God-given blessing; it must be yielded up and laid upon the altar
as a "burnt offering." The affections cannot be purified until the
object of the affections is yielded. We cannot perfectly obey the first
and great commandment, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy
strength," until every affection is fully taken off from every object of
earth and placed upon God exclusively. This means that we willingly lay
upon the altar our loved ones, no matter how sacred or precious they may
be--father, mother, brother, sister, husband, wife, children, home,
property, reputation, and everything within the scope of our earthly
existence. All henceforth and forever yielded up to God, no more to be
ours, as really and as perfectly as though we were breathing our last
upon our death-bed, and then in due time we were laid into our coffin,
the lid fastened down, and lowered into the grave, the grave filled up
and nothing left but a mound to mark where our earthly remains lie. Or,
to view the subject from another standpoint, this yielding up must be
as real as though our loved ones and every cherished treasure of earth
were laid upon the altar, to be offered up a burnt sacrifice. In due
time the fire will be kindled, and our cherished objects will one by one
be consumed into smoke and finally all will disappear, a consumed
sacrifice unto the Lord.
A quarter of a century ago my own precious mother was brought to this
consecration. She was shown by the Holy Spirit that she did not have her
children perfectly yielded up to the Lord. She was praying for their
conversion. At last she became willing to lay them upon the altar and
she did it thoroughly. She gave them to the Lord a living sacrifice. In
a short time her four oldest were converted, and in due time the two
others as they grew up were also brought into the fold of Christ. She
rejoiced and praised God for this and often expressed herself that her
children were not her own, they were the Lord's, for his service or
sacrifice, just as he should see proper. At last this consecration was
brought to the test. The Lord began to kindle the fire to consume the
"burnt offering." He laid his hand upon one and took her home to heaven.
Then another, and sent him thousands of miles away to preach the gospel
in regions beyond. Then another, and sent him far distant in another
direction to labor in the gospel vineyard. Then another, and sent her
still another direction to publish the word of God; and as these
cherished objects thus vanished out of her sight she could say, "They
are the Lord's, not mine." In one of her letters she wrote me these
words: "Well, my dear boy, I truly realized what it meant years ago to
lay my dear children upon the altar of the Lord: but now I realize what
it means to see them consumed into smoke."
Dear brother and sister, this is what a burnt offering means, and how
good our heavenly Father is to require this sacrifice of us! Oh, how
many sad heartaches it saves us! How many bitter tears of anguish and
sorrow! I have stood at the open grave where a poor grief-stricken
mother wrung her hands and cried out, "Oh, I cannot, I cannot give up my
precious darling. Let me be buried with it--I cannot be parted from it!"
I have also stood at another grave, where the form of a consecrated
loved one was sinking out of human sight. The mother stood gazing at
the object of earth as it was laid back to dust, then with her eyes
turned toward heaven she said, "Dear Lord, thou hast only taken thine
own to thyself; my heart feels the parting pangs, but I say willingly,
'Thy will be done.'"
Ah, what a contrast! The one mother knew nothing of this blessed
consecration, the other did. The one had but little grace to sustain her
in her bereavement, the other had the abounding grace, for she had
already yielded up her sacred treasures to the Lord. The one buried all
her comfort and hope in the grave, the other simply buried a lifeless
form of clay; though sacred and precious to her heart, yet she had
consecrated it to the Lord, and now in seeing it vanish out of her
sight, she could feel that it was not her own. The one returned to her
empty home with her heart full of sorrow, the other returned in the
comfort of Him who comforteth us in all our tribulations. She had paid
the price of =her all=, and now she enjoys the blessing of =Jesus'
all=--the abiding of his glorious presence, which comforts her heart
and home, and fills the emptiness with himself and his bountiful grace.
Oh, how beautiful and reasonable to consecrate everything that our
affections have held sacred and dear, to him. We all know very well that
all these treasures of earth are of no enduring substance. No matter how
much they may be to us, they in due time will either vanish out of our
sight, or else we will have to leave them. How much better, and how much
more satisfactory it is to yield them all up to Jesus, to whom they
rightly belong, and who has only loaned them to us in the first place.
He is justly entitled to all of our affections, for what has he not
yielded up that was due to himself, that he might purchase this glorious
grace for us? Now he wants the supremacy in our hearts' affections, so
that he can fashion us according to himself through and through, and
impart his own nature into our affections, that we may henceforth love
with his love, those sacred treasures around which our affections have
so entwined, and claimed as ours. Before our consecration we loved him,
but these other objects of our love were between us and him. They
hindered our love towards him, and equally hindered his love from
perfectly flowing into our hearts. We loved him, and realized that he
loved us, but it was not perfect; there were objects in our way, and
there were objects in his way. These objects were our sacred treasures.
Depravity had affected our affections so that we could not hold these
treasures as we should. But now what a satisfactory change! We yielded
all these objects to him, and took him in their stead. Now he occupies
the place. He owns our treasures, and we own him. But what of our
treasures? We have them all back again, through him. Before our
consecration, they were between us and him. Now he is between us and
them, and with him he freely gives us all things. He can use all of
these things according to his own good pleasure, making any disposition
of them which might seem good in his sight, for they are his, not ours.
If he should place us over them as his stewards, then we hold them in
trust for him and do with them just as he orders, and when, one by one,
they consume away on the altar of his service, or, if according to his
sovereign will, he shall remove them out of our sight, we can say,
"Amen, Lord, thy will be done."
Now, in the act of Bible consecration, the believer may not realize all
of this, and the utmost depth of the cleansing that has been wrought in
the heart and affections, or the difference between the sin-offering and
the burnt offering, but it will not be long afterward, until the
knowledge of this cleansing shall begin to dawn upon us and our soul
becomes more and more enraptured in this glorious experience of
sanctification. But we see in the type still another animal to be
slain--the consecration offering. The blood of this animal was applied
to the body of Aaron and his sons. First it was put upon the tips of
their right ears, the thumbs of their right hands, and the great toes of
their right feet. Then afterwards it was sprinkled with the anointing
oil upon Aaron and his garments too, and upon his sons and their
garments. This ceremonial process was the completion of their
sanctification. The blood of this consecration offering corresponds with
the blood of Jesus which provides for the sanctification of our body. In
this consecration we not only offer up our hearts and affections to
Jesus, but we also present our bodies a living sacrifice. This includes
our all, spirit, soul and body. Our ears, hands, and feet, our entire
physical being, is dedicated henceforth to his service, to labor and
suffer hardships, to be used in sacrifice, or service, either at the
martyrs' stake or on the gospel altar, any way, and every way, in which
he may order it for his own honor and glory. These eyes shall see, this
tongue shall speak, this mind shall think, these ears shall hear, these
hands shall labor, these feet shall run, this strength and these
energies, this heart shall beat, every faculty, organ, and appetite
shall be used only for him, who has so freely given himself for us; and
thus this body becomes the temple, and the earthly dwelling-place of the
Holy Ghost, his own exclusive dedicated property. While it is not
possible that we could itemize these things in the consecration of our
bodies, there is a yielding up of our all which sweeps the scope and
brings the witness of the Spirit that our consecration is complete and
we have "finished the work." We are now upon believing grounds, and
faith can appropriate the power of the all-cleansing blood.
"By faith I venture on his word,
My doubts are o'er, the vict'ry won,
He said the altar sanctifies,
I just believe him and 'tis done."