2. This experience, this acquaintance with God, was
_maintained_ and deepened and broadened in obedience to
God's teaching, or truth, or doctrine.
3. They patiently yet urgently _taught others_ what they
themselves had learned, and declared, so far as they saw it, the
whole counsel of God.
They were abreast of the deepest experiences and fullest
revelations God had yet made to men. They were leaders, not
laggards. They were not in the rear of the procession of God's
warriors and saints; they were in the forefront.
Here we discover the importance of the doctrine and experience of
holiness through the baptism of the Holy Spirit to Salvation Army
leaders. We are to know God and glorify Him and reveal Him to
men. We are to finish the work of Jesus, and "fill up that which
is behind of the sufferings of Christ" (Col. i. 24). We are to
rescue the slaves of sin, to make a people, to fashion them into
a holy nation, and inspire and lead them forth to save the world.
How can we do this? Only by being in the forefront of God's
spiritual hosts; not in name and in titles only, but in reality;
by being in glad possession of the deepest experiences God gives,
and the fullest revelations He makes to men.
The astonishing military and naval successes of the Japanese are
said to be due to their profound study, clear understanding, and
firm grasp of the theory, the principles, the doctrines of war;
their careful and minute preparation of every detail of their
campaigns; the scientific accuracy and precision with which they
carry out all their plans, and their splendid and utter personal
devotion to their cause.
Our war is far more complex and desperate than theirs, and its
issues are infinitely more far-reaching, and we must equip
ourselves for it; and nothing is so vital to our cause as a
mastery of the doctrine and an assured and joyous possession of
the Pentecostal experience of holiness through the indwelling
Spirit.
I. _The Doctrine._--What is the teaching of God's word about
holiness?
1. If we carefully study God's word, we find that He wants His
people to be holy, and the making of a holy people, after the
pattern of Jesus, is the crowning work of the Holy Spirit. He
commands us to "cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the
flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord" (2
Cor. vii. 1). It is prayed that we may "increase and abound in
love one toward another, and toward all men... to the end He may
stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God" (1
Thess. iii. 12, 13). He says: "As He which hath called you is
holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is
written, Be ye holy, for I am holy" (1 Peter i. 15, 16). And in
the most earnest manner we are exhorted to "follow peace with all
men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord"
(Hebrews xii. 14).
2. As we further study the word, we discover that holiness is
more than simple freedom from condemnation for wrong-doing. A
helpless invalid lying on his bed of sickness, unable to do
anything wrong, may be free from the condemnation of actual
wrong-doing, and yet it may be in his heart to do all manner of
evil. Holiness on its negative side is a state of heart purity;
it is heart cleanness--cleanness of thought and temper and
disposition, cleanness of intention and purpose and wish; it is a
state of freedom from all sin, both inward and outward (Romans
vi. 18). On the positive side it is a state of union with God in
Christ, in which the whole man becomes a temple of God and filled
with the fruit of the Spirit, which is "love, joy, peace,
long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." It
is moral and spiritual sympathy and harmony with God in the
holiness of His nature.
We must not, however, confound purity with maturity. Purity is a
matter of the heart, and is secured by an instantaneous act of
the Holy Spirit; maturity is largely a matter of the head and
results from growth in knowledge and experience. In one, the
heart is made clean, and is filled with love; in the other, the
head is gradually corrected and filled with light, and so the
heart is enlarged and more firmly established in faith;
consequently, the experience deepens and becomes stronger and
more robust in every way. It is for this reason that we need
teachers after we are sanctified, and to this end we are exhorted
to humbleness of mind.
Importance of the Doctrine.
With a heart full of sympathy and love for his father my little
boy may voluntarily go into the garden to weed the vegetables;
but, being yet ignorant, lacking light in his head, he pulls up
my sweet corn with the grass and weeds. His little heart glows
with pleasure and pride in the thought that he is "helping papa,"
and yet he is doing the very thing I don't want him to do. But if
I am a wise and patient father, I shall be pleased with him; for
what is the loss of my few stalks of corn compared to the
expression and development of his love and loyalty? And I shall
commend him for the love and faithful purpose of his little
heart, while I patiently set to work to enlighten the darkness of
his little head. His heart is pure toward his father, but he is
not yet mature. In this matter of light and maturity holy people
often widely differ, and this causes much perplexity and needless
and unwise anxiety. In the fourteenth chapter of Romans, Paul
discusses and illustrates the principle underlying this
distinction between purity and maturity.
3. As we continue to study the word under the illumination of the
Spirit, who is given to lead us into all truth, we further learn
that holiness is not a state which we reach in conversion. The
Apostles were converted, they had forsaken all to follow Jesus
(Matthew xix. 27-29), their names were written in Heaven (Luke x.
20), and yet they were not holy. They doubted and feared, and
again and again were they rebuked for the slowness and littleness
of their faith. They were bigoted, and wanted to call down fire
from Heaven to consume those who would not receive Jesus (Luke
ix. 51-56); they were frequently contending among themselves as
to which should be the greatest, and when the supreme test came
they all forsook Him and fled. Certainly, they were not only
afflicted with darkness in their heads, but, far worse, carnality
in their hearts; they were His, and they were very dear to Him,
but they were not yet holy, they were yet impure of heart.
Paul makes this point very clear in his Epistle to the
Corinthians. He tells them plainly that they were yet only babes
in Christ, because they were carnal and contentious (I Cor. iii.
I). They were in Christ, they had been converted, but they were
not holy.
It is of great importance that we keep this truth well in mind
that men may be truly converted, may be babes in Christ, and yet
not be pure in heart; we shall then sympathise more fully with
them, and see the more clearly how to help them and guide their
feet into the way of holiness and peace.
Those who hold that we are sanctified wholly in conversion will
meet with much to perplex them in their converts, and are not
intelligently equipped to bless and help God's little children.
4. A continued study of God's teaching on this subject will
clearly reveal to us that purity of heart is obtained after we
are converted. Peter makes this very plain in his address to the
Council in Jerusalem, where he recounts the outpouring of the
Holy Spirit upon Cornelius and his household. After mentioning
the gift of the Holy Ghost, he adds, "and put no difference
between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith" (Acts xv.
9). Among other things, then, the baptism of the Holy Ghost
purifies the heart; but the disciples were converted before they
received this Pentecostal experience, so we see that heart
purity, or holiness, is a work wrought in us after conversion.
Again, we notice that Peter says, "purifying their hearts by
faith." If it is by faith, then it is not by growth, nor by
works, nor by death, nor by purgatory after death. It is God's
work. He purifies the heart, and He does it for those, and only
those who, devoting all their possessions and powers to Him, seek
Him by simple, prayerful, obedient, expectant, unwavering faith
through His Son our Saviour.
Unless we grasp these truths, and hold them firmly, we shall not
be able to "rightly divide the word of truth," we shall hardly be
"workmen that need not be ashamed, approved unto God" (2 Tim. ii.
15). Some one has written that "the searcher in science knows
that if he but stumble in his hypothesis--that if he but let
himself be betrayed into prejudice or undue leaning toward a pet
theory, or anything but absolute uprightness of mind--his whole
work will be stultified and he will fail ignominiously. To get
anywhere in science he must follow truth with absolute rectitude."