HOLY IN CHRIST
By Andrew Murray
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Holy in Christ
Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy
'I am holy: ye shall be holy.'
F L E M I N G H . R E V E L L C O M P A N Y ,
CHICAGO, NEW YORK, TORONTO,
PREFACE.
THERE is not in Scripture a word more distinctly Divine in its origin and meaning than the
word holy. There is not a word that leads us higher into the mystery of Deity, nor deeper
into the privilege and the blessedness of God's children. And yet it is a word that many a
Christian has never studied or understood.
There are not a few who can praise God that during the past twenty years the
watchword BE HOLY has been taken up in many a church and Christian circle with greater
earnestness than before. In books and magazines, in conventions and conferences, in the
testimonies and the lives of believers, we have abundant tokens that what is called the
Holinessmovement is a reality.
And yet how much is still wanting! What multitudes of believing Christians there
are who have none but the very vaguest thoughts of what holiness is! And of those who
are seeking after it how many who have hardly learnt what it is to come to God's Word
and to God Himself for the teaching that can alone reveal this part of the mystery of
Christ and of God! To many, holiness has simply been a general expression for the
Christian life in its more earnest form, without much thought of what the term really
means.
In writing this little book, my object has been to discover in what sense God uses the
word, that so it may mean to us what it means to Him. I have sought to trace the word
through some of the most important passages of Holy Scripture where it occurs, there to
learn what God's holiness is, what ours is to be, and what the way by which we attain it. I
have been specially anxious to point out how many and various the elements are that go
to make up true holiness as the Divine expression of the Christian life in all its fulness
and perfection. I have at the same time striven continually to keep in mind the wonderful
unity and simplicity there is in it, as centred in the person of Jesus. As I proceeded in my
work, I felt ever more deeply how high the task was I had undertaken in offering to guide
others even into the outer courts of the Holy Place of the Most High. And yet the very
difficulty of the task convinced me of how needful it was.
I fear there are some to whom the book may be a disappointment. They have heard
that the entrance to the life of holiness is often but a step. They have heard of or seen
believers who could tell of the blessed change that has come over their lives since they
found the wonderful secret of holiness by faith. And now they are seeking for this secret.
They cannot understand that the secret comes to those who seek it not, but only seek
Jesus. They might fain have a book in which all they need to know of Holiness and the
way to it is gathered into a few simple lessons, easy to learn, to remember, and to
practise. This they will not find. There is such a thing as a Pentecost still to the disciples
of Jesus; but it comes to him who has forsaken all to follow Jesus only, and in following
fully has allowed the Master to reprove and instruct him. There are often very blessed
revelations of Christ, as a Saviour from sin, both in the secret chamber and in the
meetings of the saints; but these are given to those for whom they have been prepared,
and who have been prepared to receive. Let all learn to trust in Jesus, and rejoice in Him,
even though their experience be not what they would wish. He will make us holy. But
whether we have entered the blessed life of faith in Jesus as our sanctification, or are still
longing for it from afar, we all need one thing, the simple, believing, and obedient
acceptance of each word that our God has spoken. It has been my earnest desire that I
might be a helper of the faith of my brethren in seeking to trace with them the wondrous
revelation of God's Holiness through the ages as recorded in His blessed Word. It has
been my continual prayer that God might use what is written to increase in His children
the conviction that we must be holy, the knowledge of how we are to be holy, the joy that
we may be holy, the faith that we can be holy. And may He stir us all to cry day and night
to Him for a visitation of the Spirit and the Power of Holiness upon all His people, that
the name of Christian and of saint may be synonymous, and every believer be a vessel
made holy and meet for the Master's use.
A. M.
WELLINGTON, 16th November 1887.
CONTENTS.
F I R S T D A Y .
HOLY IN CHRIST.
'Like as He which called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living; because it is
written, Ye shall be holy, for I am holy.' - 1 PET. i. 15, 16.
HE call of God is the manifestation in time of the purpose of eternity: 'Whom He
predestinated, them He also called.' Believers are 'the called according to His
purpose.' In His call He reveals to us what His thoughts and His will concerning us
are, and what the life to which He invites us. In His call He makes clear to us what the
hope of our calling is; as we spiritually apprehend and enter into this, our life on earth
will be the reflection of His purpose in eternity.
Holy Scripture uses more than one word to indicate the object or aim of our calling,
but none more frequently than what Peter speaks of here - God has called us to be holy as
He is holy. Paul addresses believers twice as 'called to be holy' (Rom. i. 7; 1 Cor. i. 2).
'God called us', he says, 'not for uncleanness, but in sanctification' (1 Thess. iv. 7).
When he writes, 'The God of peace sanctify you wholly,' he adds, 'Faithful is He which
calleth you, who also will do it' (1 Thess. v. 24). The calling itself is spoken of as 'a holy
calling.' The eternal purpose of which the calling is the outcome, is continually also
connected with holiness as its aim. 'He hath chosen us in Him, that we should be holy
and without blame' (Eph. i. 4). 'Whom God chose from the beginning unto salvation in
sanctification' (2 Thess. ii. 12). 'Elect according to the foreknowledge of the Father,
through sanctification of the Spirit' (1 Pet. i. 2). The call is the unveiling of the purpose
that the Father from eternity had set His heart upon: that we should be holy.
It needs no proof that it is of infinite importance to know aright what God has called
us to. A misunderstanding here may have fatal results. You may have heard that God
calls you to salvation or to happiness, to receive pardon or to obtain heaven, and never
noticed that all these were subordinate. It was to 'salvation in sanctification,' it was to
Holiness in the first place, as the element in which salvation and heaven are to be found.
The complaints of many Christians as to lack of joy and strength, as to failure and want
of growth, are simply owing to this - the place God gave Holiness in His call they have
not given it in their response. God and they have never yet come to an agreement on this.
No wonder that Paul, in the DAY in which he had spoken to the Ephesians of their
being 'chosen to be holy' prays for the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge
of God to be given to believers, that they might know 'the hope of their calling' (i. 17,
18). Let all of us, who feel that we have too little realized that we are called to Holiness,
pray this prayer. It is just what we need. Let us ask God to show us how, as He who hath
called us is Himself holy, so we are to be holy too; our calling is a holy calling, a calling
before and above everything, to Holiness. Let us ask Him to show us what Holiness is,
His Holiness first, and then our Holiness; to show us how He has set His heart upon it as
the one thing He wants to see in us, as being His own image and likeness; to show us too
the unutterable blessedness and glory of sharing with Christ in His Holiness. Oh! that
God by His Spirit would teach us what it means that we are called to be holy as He is
holy. We can easily conceive what a mighty influence it would exert.
'Like as He which called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy'. How this call of
God shows us the true motive to Holiness. 'Be ye holy, for I am holy.' It is as if God said,
Holiness is my blessedness and my glory: without this you cannot, in the very nature of
things, see me or enjoy me. Holiness is my blessedness and my glory: there is nothing
higher to be conceived; I invite you to share with me in it, I invite you to likeness to
myself: 'Be ye holy, for I am holy.' Is it not enough, has it no attraction, does it not move
and draw you mightily, the hope of being with me, partakers of my Holiness? I have
nothing better to offer - I offer you myself: 'Be holy, for I am holy.' Shall we not cry
earnestly to God to show us the glory of His Holiness, that our souls may be made willing
to give everything in response to this wondrous call?
As we listen to the call, it shows also the nature of true Holiness. 'Like as He is
holy, so be ye also holy.' To be holy is to be Godlike, to have a disposition, a will, a
character like God. The thought almost looks like blasphemy, until we listen again, 'He
hath chosen us in Christ to be holy.' In Christ the Holiness of God appeared in a human
life: in Christ's example, in His mind and Spirit, we have the Holiness of the Invisible
One translated into the forms of human life and conduct. To be Christlike is to be
Godlike; to be Christlike is to be holy as God is holy.
The call equally reveals the power of Holiness. 'There is none holy but the Lord;'
there is no Holiness but what He has, or rather what He is, and gives. Holiness is not
something we do or attain: it is the communication of the Divine life, the inbreathing of
the Divine nature, the power of the Divine Presence resting on us. And our power to
become holy is to be found in the call of God: the Holy One calls us to Himself, that He
may make us holy in possessing Himself. He not only says 'I am holy,' but 'I am the
Lord, who make holy.' It is because the call to Holiness comes from the God of infinite
Power and Love that we may have the confidence: we can be holy.
The call no less reveals the standard of Holiness. 'Like as He is holy, so ye also
yourselves,' or (as in margin, R.V.), 'Like the Holy One, which calleth you, be ye
yourselves also holy.' There is not one standard of Holiness for God and another for man.
The nature of light is the same, whether we see it in the sun or in a candle: the nature of
Holiness remains unchanged, whether it be God or man in whom it dwells. The Lord
Jesus could say nothing less than, 'Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect.'
When God calls us to Holiness, He calls us to Himself and His own life: the more
carefully we listen to the voice, and let it sink into our hearts, the more will all human
standards fall away, and only the words be heard, Holy, as I am holy.
And the call shows us the path to Holiness. The calling of God is one of mighty
efficacy, an effectual calling. Oh! let us but listen to it, let us but listen to Him, and the
call will with Divine power work what it offers. He calleth the things that are not as
though they were: His call gives life to the dead, and holiness to those whom He has
made alive. He calls us to listen as He speaks of His Holiness, and of our holiness like
His. He calls us to Himself, to study, to fear, to love, to claim His Holiness. He calls us to
Christ, in whom Divine Holiness became human Holiness, to see and admire, to desire
and accept what is all for us. He calls us to the indwelling and the teaching of the Spirit of
Holiness, to yield ourselves that He may bring home to us and breathe within us what is
ours in Christ. Christian! listen to God calling thee to Holiness. Come and learn what His
Holiness is, and what thine is and must be.
Yes, be very silent and listen. When God called Abraham, he answered, Here am I.
When God called Moses from the bush, he answered, Here am I, and he hid his face, for
he was afraid to look upon God. God is calling thee to Holiness, to Himself the Holy
One, that He may make thee holy. Let thy whole soul answer, Here am I, Lord! Speak,
Lord! Show Thyself, Lord! Here am I. As you listen, the voice will sound ever deeper
and ever stiller: Be holy, as I am holy. Be holy, for I am holy. You will hear a voice
coming out of the great eternity, from the councilchamber
of redemption, and as you
catch its distant whisper, it will be, Be holy, I am holy. You will hear a voice from
Paradise, the Creator making the seventh day holy for man whom He had created, and
saying, Be holy. You will hear the voice from Sinai, amid thunderings and lightnings, and
still it is, Be holy, as I am holy. You will hear a voice from Calvary, and there above all it
is, Be holy, for I am holy.
Child of God, have you ever realized it, our Father is calling us to Himself, to be
holy as He is holy? Must we not confess that happiness has been to us more than
holiness, salvation than sanctification? Oh! it is not too late to redeem the error. Let us
now band ourselves together to listen to the voice that calls, to draw nigh, and find out
and know what Holiness is, or rather, find out and know Himself the Holy One. And if
the first approach to Him fill us with shame and confusion, make us fear and shrink back,
let us still listen to the Voice and the Call, 'Be holy, as I am holy.' 'Faithful is He which
calleth, who also will do it.' All our fears and questions will be met by the Holy One who
has revealed His Holiness, with this one purpose in view, that we might share it with
Him. As we yield ourselves in deep stillness of soul to listen to the Holy Voice that calls
us, it will waken within us new desire and strong faith, and the most precious of all
promises will be to us this word of Divine command:
BE HOLY, FOR I AM HOLY.
O Lord! the alone Holy One, Thou hast called us to be holy, even as Thou art holy.
Lord! how can we, unless Thou reveal to us Thy Holiness. Show us, we pray Thee, how
Thou art holy, how holy Thou art, what Thy holiness is, that we may know how we are to
be holy, how holy we are to be. And when the sight of Thy Holiness only shows us the
more how unholy we are, teach us that Thou makest partakers of Thy own Holiness those
who come to Thee for it.
O God! we come to Thee, the Holy One. It is in knowing and finding and having
Thyself, that the soul finds Holiness. We do beseech Thee, as we now come to Thee,
establish it in the thoughts of our heart, that the one object of Thy calling us, and of our
coming to Thee, is Holiness. Thou wouldst have us like Thyself, partakers of Thy
Holiness. If ever our heart becomes afraid, as if it were too high, or rests content with a
salvation less than Holiness, Blessed God! let us hear Thy voice calling again, Be holy, I
am holy. Let that call be our motive and our strength, because faithful is He that calleth,
who also will do it. Let that call mark our standard and our path; oh! let our life be such
as Thou art able to make it.
Holy Father! I bow in lowly worship and silence before Thee. Let now Thine own
voice sound in the depths of my heart calling me, Be holy, as I am holy. Amen.
1. Let me press it upon every reader of this little book, that if it is to help him in the pursuit of
Holiness, he must begin with God Himself. You must go to Him who calls you. It is only in the
personal revelation of God to you, as He speaks, I am holy, that the command, Be ye holy, can
have life or power.
2. Remember, as a believer, you have already accepted God's call, even though you did not
fully understand it. Let it be a settled matter, that whatever you see to be the meaning of the call,
you will at once accept and carry out. If God calls me to be holy, holy I will be.
3. Take fast hold of the word: 'The God of peace sanctify you wholly: faithful is He which
calleth you, who also will do it.' In that faith listen to God calling you.
4. Do be still now, and listen to your Father calling you. Ask for and count upon the Holy Spirit,
the Spirit of Holiness, to open your heart to understand this holy calling. And then speak out the
answer you have to give to this call.
SECOND DAY
HOLY IN CHRIST.
'To those that are made holy in Christ Jesus, called to be holy.' - 1 COR. i. 2.
'To all the holy ones in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi. Salute every holy one in Christ Jesus.'1
- PHIL. i. 1, iv. 21.
HOLY! IN CHRIST! In these two expressions we have perhaps the most wonderful
words of all the Bible.
HOLY! the word of unfathomable meaning, which the Seraphs utter with veiled faces.
HOLY! the word in which all God's perfections centre, and of which His glory is but the
streaming forth. HOLY! the word which reveals the purpose with which God from eternity
thought of man, and tells what man's highest glory in the coming eternity is to be; to be
partaker of His Holiness!
IN CHRIST! the word in which all the wisdom and love of God are unveiled! The
Father giving His Son to be one with us! the Son dying on the cross to make us one with
Himself! the Holy Spirit of the Father dwelling in us to establish and maintain that union!
IN CHRIST! what a summary of what redemption has done, and of the inconceivably
blessed life in which the child of God is permitted to dwell. IN CHRIST! the one lesson we
have to study on earth. God's one answer to all our needs and prayers. IN CHRIST! the
guarantee and the foretaste of eternal glory.
What wealth of meaning and blessing in the two words combined: HOLY IN CHRIST!
Here is God's provision for our holiness, God's response to our question, How to be
holy? Often and often as we hear the call, Be ye holy, even as I am holy, it is as if there is
and ever must be a great gulf between the holiness of God and man. IN CHRIST! is the
bridge that crosses the gulf; nay rather, His fulness has filled it up. IN CHRIST! God and
man meet; IN CHRIST! the Holiness of God has found us, and made us its own; has become
human, and can indeed become our very own. To the anxious cries and the heartyearnings
of thousands of thirsty souls who have believed in Jesus and yet know not how
to be holy, here is God's answer: YE ARE HOLY IN CHRIST JESUS. Would they but hearken,
and believe; would they but take these Divine words, and say them over, if need be, a
thousand times, how God's light would shine, and fill their hearts with joy and love as
they echo them back: Yes, now I see it. Holy in Christ! Made holy in Christ Jesus!
As we set ourselves to study these wondrous words, let us remember that it is only
God Himself who can reveal to us what Holiness truly is. Let us fear our own thoughts,
and crucify our own wisdom. Let us give up ourselves to receive, in the power of the life
of God Himself, working in us by the Holy Spirit, that which is deeper and truer than
human thought, Christ Himself as our Holiness. In this dependence upon the teaching of
the Spirit of Holiness, let us seek simply to accept what Holy Scripture sets before us; as
the revelation of the Holy One of old was a very slow and gradual one, so let us be
content patiently to follow step by step the path of the shining light through the Word; it
will shine more and more unto the perfect day.
We shall first have to study the word Holy in the Old Testament. In Israel as the
holy people, the type of us who now are holy in Christ, we shall see with what fulness of
symbol God sought to work into the very constitution of the people some apprehension of
what He would have them be. In the law we shall see how HOLY is the great keyword of
the redemption which it was meant to serve and prepare for. In the prophets we shall hear
how the Holiness of God is revealed as the source whence the coming redemption should
spring: it is not so much Holiness as the Holy One they speak of, who would, in
redeeming love and saving righteousness, make Himself known as the God of His people.
And when the meaning of the word has been somewhat opened up, and the deep
need of the blessing made manifest in the Old Testament, we shall come to the New to
find how that need was fulfilled. In Christ, the Holy One of God, Divine Holiness will be
found in human life and human nature; a truly human will being made perfect and
growing up through obedience into complete union with all the Holy Will of God. In the
sacrifice of Himself on the cross, that holy nature gave itself up to the death, that, like the
seedcorn, it might through death live again and reproduce itself in us. In the gift from the
throne of the Spirit of God's Holiness, representing and revealing and communicating the
unseen Christ, the holy life of Christ descends and takes possession of His people, and
they become one with Him. As the Old Testament had no higher word than that HOLY, the
New has none deeper than this, IN CHRIST. The being in Him, the abiding in Him, the
being rooted in Him, the growing up in Him and into Him in all things, are the Divine
expressions in which the wonderful and complete oneness between us and our Saviour
are brought as near us as human language can do.
And when Old and New Testament have each given their message, the one in
teaching us what Holy, the other what in Christ means, we have in the word of God, that
unites the two, the most complete summary of the Great Redemption that God's love has
provided. The everlasting certainty, the wonderful sufficiency, the infinite efficacy of the
Holiness that God has prepared for us in His Son, are all revealed in this blessed, HOLY IN
CHRIST.
'The Holy Ones in Christ Jesus!' Such is the name, beloved fellowbelievers,
which we bear in Holy Scripture, in the language of the Holy Spirit. It is no mere statement of
doctrine, that we are holy in Christ: it is no deep theological discussion to which we are
invited; but out of the depths of God's loving heart, there comes a voice thus addressing
His beloved children. It is the name by which the Father calls His children. That name
tells us of God's provision for our being holy. It is the revelation of what God has given
us, and what we already are; of what God waits to work in us, and what can be ours in
personal practical possession. That name, gratefully accepted, joyfully confessed,
trustfully pleaded, will be the pledge and the power of our attainment of the Holiness to
which we have been called.
And so we shall find that as we go along, all our study and all God's teaching will
be comprised in three great lessons. The first a revelation, 'I am holy;' the second a
command, 'Be ye holy;' the third a gift, the link between the two, 'Ye are holy in Christ.'
First comes the revelation, 'I am holy.' Our study must be on bended knee, in the
spirit of worship and deep humility. God must reveal Himself to us, if we are to know
what Holy is. The deep unholiness of our nature and all that is of nature must be shown
us; with Moses and Isaiah, when the Holy One revealed Himself to them, we must fear
and tremble, and confess how utterly unfit we are for the revelation or the fellowship,
without the cleansing of fire. In the consciousness of the utter impotence of our own
wisdom or understanding to know God, our souls must in contrition, brokenness from
ourselves and our power or efforts, yield to God's Spirit, the Spirit of Holiness, to reveal
God as the Holy One. And as we begin to know Him in His infinite righteousness, in His
fiery burning zeal against all that is sin, and His infinite selfsacrificing
love to free the sinner from his sin, and to bring him to His own perfection, we shall learn to wonder at
and worship this glorious God, to feel and deplore our terrible unlikeness to Him, to long
and cry for some share in the Divine beauty and blessedness of this Holiness.
And then will come with new meaning the command, 'Be holy, as I am holy.' Oh,
my brethren! ye who profess to obey the commands of your God, do give this allsurpassing
and allincluding command that first place in your heart and life which it
claims. Do be holy with the likeness of God's Holiness. Do be holy as He is holy. And if
you find that the more you meditate and study, the less you can grasp this infinite
holiness; that the more you at moments grasp of it, the more you despair of a holiness so
Divine; remember that such breaking down and such despair is just what the command
was meant to work. Learn to cease from your own wisdom as well as your own goodness;
draw near in poverty of spirit to let the Holy One show you how utterly above human
knowledge or human power is the holiness He demands; to the soul that ceases from self,
and has no confidence in the flesh, He will show and give the holiness He calls us to.
It is to such that the great gift of Holiness in Christ becomes intelligible and
acceptable. Christ brings the Holiness of God nigh by showing it in human conduct and
intercourse. He brings it nigh by removing the barrier between it and us, between God
and us. He brings it nigh, because He makes us one with Himself. 'Holy in Christ:' our
holiness is a Divine bestowment, held for us, communicated to us, working mightily in us
because we are in Him. 'In Christ!' oh, that wonderful in! our very life rooted in the life
of Christ. That holy Son and Servant of the Father, beautiful in His life of love and
obedience on earth, sanctifying Himself for us - that life of Christ, the ground in which I
am planted and rooted, the soil from which I draw as my nourishment its every quality
and its very nature. How that word sheds its light both on the revelation, 'I am holy,' and
on the command, 'Be ye holy, as I am,' and binds them in one! In Christ I see what God's
Holiness is, and what my holiness is. In Him both are one, and both are mine. In Him I
am holy; abiding and growing up in Him, I can be holy in all manner of living, as God is
holy.
O Most Holy God! we do beseech Thee, reveal Thou to Thy children what it
meaneth that Thou hast not only called them to holiness, but even called them by this
name, 'the holy ones in Christ Jesus.' Oh that every child of Thine might know that He
bears this name, might know what it means, and what power there is in it to make Him
what it calls him. Holy Lord God! oh that the time of Thy visitation might speedily come,
and each child of Thine on earth be known as a holy one!
To this end we pray Thee to reveal to Thy saints what Thy Holiness is. Teach us to
worship and to wait until Thou hast spoken unto our souls with Divine Power Thy word,
'I am holy.' Oh that it may search out and convict us of our unholiness!
And reveal to us, we pray Thee, that as holy as Thou art, even a consuming fire, so
holy is Thy command in its determined and uncompromising purpose to have us holy. O
God! let Thy voice sound through the depth of our being, with a power from which there
is no escape: Be holy, be holy.
And let us thus, between Thine infinite Holiness on the one hand and our unholiness
on the other, be driven and be drawn to accept of Christ as our sanctification, to abide in
Him as our life and our power to be what Thou wouldst have us - 'Holy in Christ Jesus.'
O Father! let Thy Spirit make this precious word life and truth within us. Amen.
1. You are entering anew on the study of a Divine mystery. 'Trust not to your own
understanding;' wait for the teaching of the Spirit of truth.
2. In Christ. A commentator says, 'The phrase denotes two moral facts - first, the act of faith
whereby a man lays hold of Christ; second, the community of life with Him contracted by means of
this faith.' There is still another fact, the greatest of all: that it is by an act of Divine power that I am
in Christ and am kept in Him. It is this I want to realize: the Divineness of my position in Jesus.
3. Grasp the two sides of the truth. You are holy in Christ with a Divine holiness. In the faith of
that, you are to be holy, to become holy with a human holiness, the Divine Holiness manifest in
all the conduct of a human life.
4. This Christ is a Living Person, a Loving Saviour: how He will delight to get complete
possession, and do all the work in you! Keep hold of this all along as we go on: you have a claim
on Christ, on His Love and Power, to make you holy. As His redeemed one, you are at this
moment, whatever and wherever you be, in Him. His Holy Presence and Love are around you. You
are in Him, in the enclosure of that tender love, which ever encircles you with His Holy Presence.
In that Presence, accepted and realized, is your holiness.
1 There is one disadvantage in English in our having synonyms of which some are derived from
Saxon and others from Latin. Ordinary readers are apt to forget that in our translation of the
Bible we may use two different words for what in the original is expressed by one term. This is
the case with the words holy, holiness, keep holy, hallow, saint, sanctify, and sanctification.
When God or Christ is called the Holy One, the word in Hebrew and Greek is exactly the same
that is used when the believer is called a saint: he too is a holy one. So the three words hallow,
keep holy, sanctify, all represent but one term in the original, of which the real meaning is to
make holy, as it is in Dutch, heiliging (holying), and heiligmaking (holymaking).
THIRD DAY
HOLY IN CHRIST.
'And God blessed the Sabbath day, and sanctified it, because that in it He had rested from all the
work which God created and made.' - GEN. ii. 3.
IN Genesis we have the Book of Beginnings. To its first three DAY s we are specially
indebted for a Divine light shining on the many questions to which human wisdom
never could find an answer. In our search after Holiness, we are led thither too. In the
whole book of Genesis the word Holy occurs but once. But that once in such a
connection as to open to us the secret spring whence flows all that the Bible has to teach
or to give us of this heavenly blessing. The full meaning of the precious word we want to
master, of the priceless blessing we want to get possession of, 'Sanctified in Christ,' takes
its rise in what is here written of that wondrous act of God, by which He closed His
creation work, and revealed how wonderfully it would be continued and perfected. When
God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it, He lifted it above the other days, and set it
apart to a work and a revelation of Himself, excelling in glory all that had preceded. In
this simple expression, Scripture reveals to us the character of God as the Holy One, who
makes holy; the way in which He makes holy, by entering in and resting; and the power
of blessing with which God's making holy is ever accompanied. These three lessons we
shall find it of the deepest importance to study well, as containing the rootprinciples
of all the Scripture will have to teach us in our pursuit of Holiness.
1. God sanctified the Sabbath day. Of the previous six days the keyword was, from
the first calling into existence of the heaven and the earth, down to the making of man:
God created. All at once a new word and a new work of God, is introduced: God
sanctified. Something higher than creation, that for which creation is to exist, is now to be
revealed; God Almighty is now to be known as God Most Holy. And just as the work of
creation shows His Power, without that Power being mentioned, so His making holy the
seventh day reveals His character as the Holy One. As Omnipotence is the chief of His
natural, so Holiness is the first of His moral attributes. And just as He alone is Creator, so
He alone is Sanctifier; to make holy is His work as truly and exclusively as to create.
Blessed is the child of God who truly and fully believes this!
God sanctified the Sabbath day. The word can teach us what the nature is of the
work God does when He makes holy. Sanctification in Paradise cannot be essentially
different from Sanctification in Redemption. God had pronounced all His works, and man
the chief of them, very good. And yet they were not holy. The six days' work had nought
of defilement or sin, and yet it was not holy. The seventh day needed to be specially
made holy, for the great work of making holy man, who was already very good. In
Exodus, God says distinctly that He sanctified the Sabbath day, with a view to man's
sanctification. 'That ye may know that I am the Lord that doth sanctify you.' Goodness,
innocence, purity, freedom from sin, is not Holiness. Goodness is the work of
omnipotence, an attribute of nature, as God creates it: holiness is something infinitely
higher. We speak of the holiness of God as His infinite moral perfection; man's moral
perfection could only come in the use of his will, consenting freely to and abiding in the
will of God. Thus alone could he become holy. The seventh day was made holy by God
as a pledge that He would make man holy. In the ages that preceded the seventh day, the
Creation period, God's Power, Wisdom, and Goodness had been displayed. The age to
come, in the seventh day period, is to be the dispensation of holiness: God made holy the
seventh day.
2. God sanctified the Sabbath day, because in it He rested from all His work. This
rest was something real. In Creation, God had, as it were, gone out of Himself to bring
forth something new: in resting He now returns from His creating work into Himself, to
rejoice in His love over the man He has created, and communicate Himself to him. This
opens up to us the way in which God makes holy. The connection between the resting
and making holy was no arbitrary one; the making holy was no afterthought;
in the very nature of things it could not be otherwise: He sanctified because He rested in it; He
sanctified by resting. As He regards His finished work, more especially man, rejoices in
it, and, as we have it in Exodus, 'is refreshed,' this time of His Divine rest is the time in
which He will carry on unto perfection what He has begun, and make man, created in His
image, in very deed partaker of His highest glory, His Holiness.
Where God rests in complacency and love, He makes holy. The Presence of God
revealing itself, entering in, and taking possession, is what constitutes true Holiness. As
we go down the ages, studying the progressive unfolding of what Holiness is, this truth
will continually meet us. In God's indwelling in heaven, in His temple on earth, in His
beloved Son, in the person of the believer through the Holy Spirit, we shall everywhere
find that Holiness is not something that man is or does, but that it always comes where
God comes. In the deepest meaning of the words: where God enters to rest, there He
sanctifies. And when we come to study the New Testament revelation of the way in
which we are to be holy, we shall find in this one of our earliest and deepest lessons. It is
as we enter into the rest of God that we become partakers of His Holiness. 'We which
have believed do enter into that rest;' 'He that hath entered into his rest hath himself also
rested from his works, as God did from His.' It is as the soul ceases from its own efforts,
and rests in Him who has finished all for us, and will finish all in us, as the soul yields
itself in the quiet confidence of true faith to rest in God, that it will know what true
Holiness is. Where the soul enters into the Sabbath stillness of perfect trust, God comes
to keep His Sabbath holy; and the soul where He rests He sanctifies. Whether we speak
of His own day, 'He sanctified it,' or His own people 'sanctified in Christ,' the secret of
Holiness is ever the same: 'He sanctified because he rested.'
3. And then we read, 'He blessed and sanctified it.' As used in the first DAY and
throughout the book of Genesis, the word 'God blessed' is one of great significance. 'Be
fruitful and multiply' was, as to Adam, so later to Noah and Abraham, the Divine
exposition of its meaning. The blessing with which God blessed Adam and Noah and
Abraham was that of fruitfulness and increase, the power to reproduce and multiply.
When God blessed the seventh day, He filled it so with the living power of His Holiness,
that in it that Holiness might increase and reproduce itself in those who, like Him, seek to
enter into its rest and sanctify it. The seventh day is that in which we are still living. Of
each of the creation days it is written, up to the last, 'There was evening, and there was
morning, the sixth day.' Of the seventh the record has not yet been made; we are living in
it now, God's own day of rest and holiness and blessing. Entering into it in a very special
manner, and taking possession of it, as the time for His rejoicing in His creature, and
manifesting the fulness of His love in sanctifying him, He has made the dispensation we
now live in one of Divine and mighty blessing. And He has at the same time taught us
what the blessing is. Holiness is blessedness. Fellowship with God in His holy rest is
blessedness. And as all God's blessings in Christ have but one fountain, God's Holiness,
so they all have but one aim, making us partakers of that Holiness. God created, and
blessed; with the creation blessing. God sanctified, and blessed; with the Sabbath
blessing of His rest. The Creation blessing, of goodness and fruitfulness and dominion, is
to be crowned by the Sabbath blessing of rest in God and holiness in fellowship with
Him.
God's finished work of Creation was marred by sin, and our fellowship with Him in
the blessing of His holy rest cut off. The finished work of redemption opened for us a
truer rest and a surer entrance into the Holiness of God. As He rested in His holy day, so
He now rests in His Holy Son. In Him we now can enter fully into the rest of God. 'Made
holy in Christ,' let us rest in Him. Let us rest, because we see that as wonderfully as God
by His mighty power finished His work of Creation, will He complete and perfect His
work of sanctification. Let us yield ourselves to God in Christ, to rest where He rested, to
be made holy with His own holiness, and to be blessed with God's own blessing. God the
Sanctifier is the name now inscribed upon the throne of God the Creator. At the threshold
of the history of the human race there shines this word of infinite promise and hope: 'God
blessed and sanctified the seventh day because in it He rested.'
Blessed Lord God! I bow before Thee in lowly worship. I adore Thee as God the
Creator, and God the Sanctifier. Thou hast revealed Thyself as God Almighty and God
Most Holy. I beseech Thee, teach me to know and to trust Thee as such.
I humbly ask Thee for grace to learn and hold fast the deep spiritual truths Thou hast
revealed in making holy the Sabbath day. Thy purpose in man's creation is to show forth
Thy Holiness, and make him partaker of it. Oh, teach me to believe in Thee as God my
Creator and Sanctifier, to believe with my whole heart that the same Almighty power
which gave the sixthday
blessing of creation, secures to us the seventhday
blessing of
sanctification. Thy will is our sanctification.
And teach me, Lord, to understand better how this blessing comes. It is where Thou
enterest to rest, to refresh and reveal Thyself, that Thou makest holy. O my God! may my
heart be Thy restingplace.
I would, in the stillness and confidence of a restful faith, rest
in Thee, believing that Thou doest all in me. Let such fellowship with Thee, and Thy
love, and Thy will be to me the secret of a life of holiness. I ask it in the name of our
Lord Jesus, in whom Thou hast sanctified us. Amen.
1. God the Creator is God the Sanctifier. The Omnipotence that did the first work does the
second too. I can trust God Almighty to make me holy. God is holy: if God is everything to me, His
presence will be my holiness.
2. Rest is ceasing from work, not to work no more, but to begin a new work. God rests and
begins at once to make holy that in which He rests. He created by the word of His power; He rests
in His love. Creation was the building of the temple; sanctification is the entering in and taking
possession. Oh, that wonderful entering into human nature!
3. God rests only in what is restful, wholly at His disposal. It is in the restfulness of faith that
we must look to God the Sanctifier; He will come in and keep His holy Sabbath in the restful soul.
We rest in God's rest; God rests in our rest.
4. The God that rests in man whom He made, and in resting sanctifies, and in sanctifying
blesses: this is our God; praise and worship Him. And trust Him to do His work.
5. Rest! what a simple word. The Rest of God! what an inconceivable fulness of Life and Love
in that word. Let us meditate on it and worship before Him, until it overshadow us and we enter into
it - the Rest of God. Rest belongeth unto God: He alone can give it, by making us share His own.
FOURTH DAY
HOLY IN CHRIST.
'And when the Lord saw that Moses turned aside to see, He called unto him out of the midst of the
bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I. And He said, Draw not nigh hither; put off thy shoes
from thy feet, for the place where thou standest is holy ground. And Moses hid his face, for He was afraid to
look upon God.' - EX. iii. 4–6.
AND why was it holy ground? Because God had come there and occupied it. Where
God is, there is holiness; it is the presence of God makes holy. This is the truth we
met with in Paradise when man was just created; here, where Scripture uses the
word Holy for the second time, it is repeated and enforced. A careful study of the word in
the light of the burning bush will further open its deep significance. Let us see what the
sacred history, what the revelation of God, and what Moses teaches us of this holy
ground.
1. Note the place this first direct revelation of God to man as the Holy One takes in
sacred history. In Paradise we found the word Holy used of the seventh day. Since that
time twentyfive
centuries have elapsed. We found in God's sanctifying the day of rest a
promise of a new dispensation - the revelation of the Almighty Creator to be followed by
that of the Holy One making holy. And yet throughout the book of Genesis the word
never occurs again; it is as if God's Holiness is in abeyance; only in Exodus, with the
calling of Moses, does it make its appearance again. This is a fact of deep import. Just as
a parent or teacher seeks, in early childhood, to impress one lesson at a time, so God
deals in the education of the human race. After having in the flood exhibited His
righteous judgment against sin, He calls Abraham to be the father of a chosen people.
And as the foundation of all His dealings with that people, He teaches him and his seed
first of all the lesson of childlike trust - trust in Him as the Almighty, with whom nothing
is too wonderful, and trust in Him as the Faithful One, whose oath could not be broken.
With the growth of Israel to a people we see the revelation advancing to a new stage. The
simplicity of childhood gives way to the waywardness of youth, and God must now
interfere with the discipline and restriction of law. Having gained a right to a place in
their confidence as the God of their fathers, He prepares them for a further revelation. Of
the God of Abraham the chief attribute was that He was the Almighty One; of the God of
Israel, Jehovah, that He is the Holy One.
And what is to be the special mark of the new period that is now about to be
inaugurated, and which is introduced by the word holy? God tells Moses that He is now
about to reveal Himself in a new character. He had been known to Abraham as God
Almighty, the God of Promise (Ex. vi. 3). He would now manifest Himself as Jehovah,
the God of Fulfilment, especially in the redemption and deliverance of His people from
the oppression He had foretold to Abraham. God Almighty is the God of Creation:
Abraham believed in God, 'who quickeneth the dead, and calleth the things that are not
as though they were.' Jehovah is the God of Redemption and of Holiness. With Abraham
there was not a word of sin or guilt, and therefore not of redemption or holiness. To Israel
the law is to be given, to convince of sin and prepare the way for holiness; it is Jehovah,
the Holy One of Israel, the Redeemer, who now appears. And it is the presence of this
Holy One that makes the holy ground.
2. And how does this Presence reveal itself? In the burning bush God makes Himself
known as dwelling in the midst of the fire. Elsewhere in Holy Scripture the connection
between fire and the Holiness of God is clearly expressed: 'The light of Israel shall be for
a fire, and the Holy One for a flame.' The nature of fire may be either beneficent or
destructive. The sun, the great central fire, may give life and fruitfulness, or may scorch
to death. All depends upon occupying the right position, upon the relation in which we
stand to it. And so wherever God the Holy One reveals Himself, we shall find the two
sides together: God's Holiness as judgment against sin, destroying the sinner who
remains in it, and as Mercy freeing His people from it. Judgment and Mercy ever go
together. Of the elements of nature there is none of such spiritual and mighty energy as
Fire: what it consumes it takes and changes into its own spiritual nature, rejecting as
smoke and ashes what cannot be assimilated. And so the Holiness of God is that infinite
Perfection by which He keeps Himself free from all that is not Divine, and yet has
fellowship with the creature, and takes it up into union with Himself, destroying and
casting out all that will not yield itself to Him.
It is thus as One who dwells in the fire, who is a fire, that God reveals Himself at the
opening of this new redemption period. With Abraham and the patriarchs, as we have
said, there had been little teaching about sin or redemption; the nearness and friendship of
God had been revealed. Now the law will be given, sin will be made manifest, the
distance from God will be felt, that man, in learning to know himself and his sinfulness,
may learn to know and long for God to make him holy. In all God's revelation of Himself
we shall find the combination of the two elements, the one repelling, the other attracting.
In His house He will dwell in the midst of Israel, and yet it will be in the awful
unapproachable solitude and darkness of the holiest of all within the veil. He will come
near to them, and yet keep them at a distance. As we study the Holiness of God, we shall
see in increasing clearness how, like fire, it repels and attracts, how it combines into one
His infinite distance and His infinite nearness.
3. But the distance will be that which comes out first and most strongly. This we see
in Moses: he hid his face, for He feared to look upon God. The first impression which
God's Holiness produces is that of fear and awe. Until man, both as a creature and a
sinner, learns how high God is above him, how different and distant he is from God, the
Holiness of God will have little real value or attraction. Moses hiding his face shows us
the effect of the drawing nigh of the Holy One, and the path to His further revelation.
How distinctly this comes out in God's own words: 'Draw not nigh hither; put off
thy shoes from off thy feet.' Yes, God had drawn nigh, but Moses may not. God comes
near: man must stand back. In the same breath God says, Draw nigh, and, Draw not nigh.
There can be no knowledge of God or nearness to Him, where we have not first heard
His, Draw not nigh. The sense of sin, of unfitness for God's presence, is the groundwork
of true knowledge or worship of Him as the Holy One. 'Put off thy shoes from off thy
feet.' The shoes are the means of intercourse with the world, the aids through which the
flesh or nature does its will, moves about and does its work. In standing upon holy
ground, all this must be put away. It is with naked feet, naked and stript of every
covering, that man must bow before a holy God. Our utter unfitness to draw nigh or have
any dealings with the Holy One, is the very first lesson we have to learn, if ever we are to
participate in His Holiness. That Put off! must exercise its condemning power through
our whole being, until we come to realize the full extent of its meaning in the great, 'Put
off the old man; put on the Lord Jesus,' and what 'the putting off of the body of the flesh,
in the circumcision of Christ,' is. Yes, all that is of nature and the flesh, all that is of our
own doing or willing or working - our very life, must be put off and given unto the death,
if God, as the Holy One, is to make Himself known to us.
We have seen before that Holiness is more than goodness or freedom from sin: even
unfallen nature is not holy. Holiness is that awful glory by which Divinity is separated
from all that is created. Therefore even the seraphs veil their faces with their wings when
they sing the Thrice Holy. But oh! when the distance and the difference is not that of the
creature only, but of the sinner, who can express, who can realize, the humiliation, the
fear, the shame with which we ought to bow before the voice of the Holy One? Alas! this
is one of the most terrible effects of sin, that it blinds us. We know not how unholy, how
abominable, sin and the sinful nature are in God's sight. We have lost the power of
recognising the Holiness of God: heathen philosophy had not even the idea of using the
word as expressive of the moral character of its gods. In losing the light of the glory of
God, we have lost the power of knowing what sin is. And now God's first work in
drawing nigh to us is to make us feel that we may not draw nigh as we are; that there will
have to be a very real and a very solemn putting off, and even giving up to the death, of
all that appears most lawful and most needful. Not only our shoes are soiled with contact
with this unholy earth; even our face must be covered and our eyes closed, in token that
the eyes of our heart, all our human wisdom and understanding, are incapable of
beholding the Holy One. The first lesson in the school of personal holiness is, to fear and
hide our face before the Holiness of God. 'Thus saith the High and Lofty One, whose
name is holy, I dwell in the High and Holy Place, and with him that is of a contrite and
humble spirit.' Contrition, brokenness of spirit, fear and trembling are God's first demand
of those who would see His Holiness.
Moses was to be the first preacher of the Holiness of God. Of the full
communication of God's Holiness to us in Christ, His first revelation to Moses was the
type and the pledge. From Moses' lips the people of Israel, from his pen the Church of
Christ, was to receive the message, 'Be holy: I am holy: I make holy.' His preparation for
being the messenger of the Holy One was here, where he hid his face, because he was
afraid to look upon God. It is with the face in the dust, it is in the putting off not only of
the shoes, but of all that has been in contact with the world and self and sin, that the soul
draws nigh to the fire, in which God dwells, and which burns, but does not consume. Oh
that every believer, who seeks to witness for God as the Holy One, might thus learn how
the fulfilment of the type of the Burning Bush is the Crucified Christ, and how, as we die
with Him, we receive that Baptism of Fire, which reveals in each of us what it means: the
Holy One dwelling in a Burning Bush. Only so can we learn what it is to be holy, as He is
holy.
Most Holy God! I have seen Thee, who dwellest in the fire. I have heard Thy voice,
Draw not nigh hither; put thy shoes off from thy feet. And my soul has feared to look
upon God, the Holy One.
And yet, O my God! I must see Thee. Thou didst create me for Thy likeness. Thou
hast taught that this likeness is Thy Holiness: 'Be holy, as I am holy.' O my God! how
shall I know to be holy, unless I may see Thee, the Holy One? To be holy, I must look
upon God.
I bless Thee for the revelation of Thyself in the flames of the thornbush,
in the fire of the accursed tree. I bow in amazement and deep abasement at the great sight: Thy Son
in the weakness of His human nature, in the fire, burning but not consumed. O my God!
in fear and trembling I have yielded myself as a sinner to die like Him. Oh, let the fire
consume all that is unholy in me! Let me too know Thee as the God that dwelleth in the
fire, to melt down and purge out and destroy what is not of Thee, to save and take up into
Thine own Holiness what is Thine own.
O Holy Lord God! I bow in the dust before this great mystery. Reveal to me Thy
Holiness, that I too may be its witness and its messenger on earth. Amen.
1. Holiness as the fire of God. Praise God that there is a Power that can consume the vile
and the dross, a Power that will not leave it undisturbed. 'The bush burning but not consumed' is
not only the motto of the Church in time of persecution; it is the watchword of every soul in God's
sanctifying work.
2. There is a new Theology, which only speaks of the love of God as seen in the cross. It sees
not the glory of His Righteousness, and His righteous judgment. This is not the God of Scripture.
'Our God is a consuming fire,' is New Testament Theology. To 'offer service with reverence and
awe,' is New Testament religion. In Holiness, Judgment and Mercy meet.
3. Holiness as the fear of God. Hiding the face before God for fear, not daring to look or
speak, - this is the beginning of rest in God. It is not yet the true rest, but on the way to it. May
God give us a deep fear of whatever could grieve or anger Him. May we have a deep fear of
ourselves, and all that is of the old, the condemned nature, lest it rise again. 'The spirit of the fear
of the Lord' is the first manifestation of the spirit of holiness, and prepares the way for the joy of
holiness. 'Walking in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Ghost;' these are the two
sides of the Christian life.
4. The Holiness of God was revealed to Moses that he might be its messenger. The Church
needs nothing so much today
as men and women who can testify for the Holiness of God. Will you
be one?
NOTE .
The connection between the fear of God and holiness is most intimate. There are
some who seek most earnestly for holiness, and yet never exhibit it in a light that will
attract the world or even believers, because this element is wanting. It is the fear of the
Lord that works that meekness and gentleness, that deliverance from selfconfidence
and selfconsciousness, which form the true groundwork of a saintly character. The passages
of God's Word in which the two words are linked together are well worthy of a careful
study. 'Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises?' 'In Thy fear will I
worship towards Thy holy temple.' 'O fear the Lord, ye His holy ones.' 'O worship the
Lord, in the beauty of holiness; fear before Him, all the earth.' 'Let them praise Thy great
and terrible name; holy is He.' 'The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and the
knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.' 'The Lord of hosts, Him shall ye sanctify;
let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread.' 'Perfecting holiness in the fear of the
Lord.' 'Like as He which called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy; and if ye call on
Him as father, pass the time of your sojourning in fear.' And so on through the whole of
Scripture, from the Song of Moses on to the Song of the Lamb: 'Who shall not fear Thee,
O Lord! and glorify Thy name, for Thou only art holy.' If we yield ourselves to the
impression of such passages, we shall feel more deeply that the fear of God, the tender
fear of in any way offending Him, the fear especially of entering into His holy presence
with what is human and carnal, with aught of our own wisdom and effort, is of the very
essence of the holiness we are to follow after. It is this fear of God will make us, like
Moses, fall down and hide our face in God's presence, and wait for His own Holy Spirit
to open in us the eyes, and breathe in us the thoughts and the worship, with which we
draw nigh to Him, the Holy One. It is in this holy fear that that stillness of soul is
wrought which leads it to rest in God, and opens the way for what we saw in Paradise to
be the secret of holiness: God keeping His Sabbath, and sanctifying the soul in which He
rests.
F I F T H D A Y .
HOLY IN CHRIST.
'Sanctify unto me all the firstborn.' - EX. xiii. 2.
'All the firstborn
are mine; for on the day I smote all the firstborn
in the land of Egypt I sanctified
unto me all the firstborn
in Israel: mine they shall be: I am the Lord.' - NUM. iii. 13, viii. 17.
'For I am the Lord your God that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God: ye shall
therefore be holy, for I am holy.' - LEV. xi. 45.
'I have redeemed thee; thou art mine.' - ISA. xliii. 1.
AT Horeb we saw how the first mention of the word holy in the history of fallen man
was connected with the inauguration of a new period in the revelation of God, that
of Redemption. In the passover we have the first manifestation of what Redemption
is; and here the more frequent use of the word holy begins. In the feast of unleavened
bread we have the symbol of the putting off of the old and the putting on of the new, to
which redemption through blood is to lead. Of the seven days we read: 'In the first day
there shall be an holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be an holy
convocation;' the meeting of the redeemed people to commemorate its deliverance is a
holy gathering; they meet under the covering of their Redeemer, the Holy One. As soon
as the people had been redeemed from Egypt, God's very first word to them was,
'Sanctify - make holy unto me all the firstborn:
it is mine.' (See Ex. xiii. 2.) The word
reveals how proprietorship is one of the central thoughts both in redemption and in
sanctification, the link that binds them together. And though the word is here only used of
the firstborn,
they are regarded as the type of the whole people. We know how all
growth and organization commence from a centre, around which in everwidening
circles
the life of the organism spreads. If holiness in the human race is to be true and real, free
as that of God, it must be the result of a selfappropriating
development. And so the firstborn
are sanctified, and afterwards the priests in their place, as the type of what the whole
people is to be as God's firstborn
among the nations, His peculiar treasure, 'an holy
nation.' This idea of proprietorship as related to redemption and sanctification comes out
with especial clearness when God speaks of the exchange of the priests for the firstborn
(Num. iii. 12, 13, viii. 16, 17): 'The Levites are wholly given unto me; instead of the firstborn
have I taken them unto me; for all the firstborn
are mine; in the day that I smote
every firstborn
in the land of Egypt I sanctified them for myself.'
Let us try and realize the relation existing between redemption and holiness. In
Paradise we saw what God's sanctifying the seventh day was: He took possession of it,
He blessed it, He rested in it and refreshed Himself. Where God enters and rests, there is
holiness: the more perfectly the object is fitted for Him to enter and dwell, the more
perfect the holiness. The seventh day was sanctified as the period for man's
sanctification. At the very first step God took to lead him to His Holiness - the command
not to eat of the tree - man fell. God did not give up His plan, but had now to pursue a
different and slower path. After twentyfive
centuries' slow but needful preparation, He
now reveals Himself as the Redeemer. A people whom He had chosen and formed for
Himself He gives up to oppression and slavery, that their hearts may be prepared to long
for and welcome a Deliverer. In a series of mighty wonders He proves Himself the
Conqueror of their enemies, and then, in the blood of the Paschal Lamb on their doors,
teaches them what redemption is, not only from an unjust oppressor here on earth, but
from the righteous judgment their sins had deserved. The Passover is to be to them the
transition from the seen and temporal to the unseen and spiritual, revealing God not only
as the Mighty but as the Holy One, freeing them not only from the house of bondage but
the Destroying Angel.
And having thus redeemed them, He tells them that they are now His own. During
their stay at Sinai and in the wilderness, the thought is continually pressed upon them that
they are now the Lord's people, whom He has made His own by the strength of His arm,
that He may make them holy for Himself, even as He is holy. The purpose of redemption
is Possession, and the purpose of Possession is likeness to Him who is Redeemer and
Owner, is Holiness.
In regard to this Holiness, and the way it is to be attained as the result of redemption,
there is more than one lesson the sanctifying of the firstborn
will teach us.
First of all, we want to realize how inseparable redemption and holiness are. Neither
can exist without the other. Only redemption leads to holiness. If I am seeking holiness, I
must abide in the clear and full experience of being a redeemed one, and as such of being
owned and possessed by God. Redemption is too often looked at from its negative side as
deliverance from: its real glory is the positive element of being redeemed unto Himself.
Full possession of a house means occupation: if I own a house without occupying it, it
may be the home of all that is foul and evil. God has redeemed me and made me His own
with the view of getting complete possession of me. He says of my soul, 'It is mine,' and
seeks to have His right of ownership acknowledged and made fully manifest. That will be
perfect holiness, where God has entered in and taken complete and entire possession.2 It
is redemption gives God His right and power over me; it is redemption sets me free for
God now to possess and bless: it is redemption realized and filling my soul, that will
bring me the assurance and experience of all His power will work in me. In God,
redemption and sanctification are one: the more redemption as a Divine reality possesses
me, the closer am I linked to the RedeemerGod,
the Holy One.
And just so, only holiness brings the assurance and enjoyment of redemption. If I
am seeking to hold fast redemption on lower ground, I may be deceived. If I have become
unwatchful or careless, I should tremble at the very idea of trusting in redemption apart
from holiness as its object. To Israel God spake, 'I brought you up out of the land of
Egypt: therefore ye shall be holy, for I am holy.' It is God the Redeemer who made us
His own, who calls us too to be holy: let Holiness be to us the most essential, the most
precious part of redemption: the yielding of ourselves to Him who has taken us as His
own, and has undertaken to make us His own entirely.
A second lesson suggested is the connection between God's and man's working in
sanctification. To Moses the Lord speaks, 'Sanctify unto me all the firstborn.'
He afterwards says, 'I sanctified all the firstborn
for myself.' What God does He does to be
carried out and appropriated through us. When He tells us that we are made holy in Christ
Jesus, that we are His holy ones, He speaks not only of His purpose, but of what He has
really done; we have been sanctified in the one offering of Christ, and in our being
created anew in Him. But this work has a human side. To us comes the call to be holy, to
follow after holiness, to perfect holiness. God has made us His own, and allows us to say
that we are His: but He waits for us now to yield Him an enlarged entrance into the secret
places of our inner being, for Him to fill it all with His fulness. Holiness is not something
we bring to God or do for Him. Holiness is what there is of God in us. God has made us
His own in redemption, that He might make Himself our own in sanctification. And our
work in becoming holy is the bringing our whole life, and every part of it, into subjection
to the rule of this holy God, putting every member and every power upon His altar.
And this teaches us the answer to the question as to the connection between the
sudden and the gradual in sanctification: between its being a thing once for all complete,
and yet imperfect and needing to be perfected. What God sanctifies is holy with a Divine
and perfect holiness as His gift: man has to sanctify by acknowledging and maintaining
and carrying out that holiness in relation to what God has made holy. God sanctified the
Sabbath day: man has to sanctify it, that is, to keep it holy. God sanctified the firstborn
as His own: Israel had to sanctify them, to treat them and give them up to God as holy.
God is holy: we are to sanctify Him in acknowledging and adoring and honouring that
holiness. God has sanctified His great name, His name is Holy: we sanctify or hallow that
name as we fear and trust and use it as the revelation of His Holiness. God sanctified
Christ: Christ sanctified Himself, manifesting in His personal will and action perfect
conformity to the Holiness with which God had made Him holy. God has sanctified us in
Christ Jesus: we are to be holy by yielding ourselves to the power of that holiness, by
acting it out, and manifesting it in all our life and walk. The objective Divine gift,
bestowed once for all and completely, must be appropriated as a subjective personal
possession; we must cleanse ourselves, perfecting holiness. Redeemed unto holiness: as
the two thoughts are linked in the mind and work of God, they must be linked in our heart
and life.
When Isaiah announced the second, the true redemption, it was given to him, even
more clearly and fully than to Moses, to reveal the name of God as 'The Redeemer, the
Holy One of Israel.' The more we study this name, and hallow it, and worship God by it,
the more inseparably will the words become connected, and we shall see how, as the
Redeemer is the Holy One, the redeemed are holy ones too. Isaiah says of 'the way of
holiness,' the 'redeemed shall walk therein.' The redemption that comes out from the
Holiness of God must lead up into it too. We shall understand that to be redeemed in
Christ is to be holy in Christ, and the call of our redeeming God will acquire new
meaning: 'I am holy: be ye holy.'
O Lord God! the Holy One of Israel and his Redeemer! I worship before Thee in
deep humility. I confess with shame that I so long sought Thee more as the Redeemer
than as the Holy One. I knew not that it was as the Holy One Thou hadst redeemed, that
redemption was the outcome and the fruit of Thy Holiness; that a participation in Thy
Holiness was its one purpose and its highest beauty. I only thought of being redeemed
from bondage and death: like Israel, I understood not that without fellowship and
conformity to Thyself redemption would lose its value.
Most holy God! I praise Thee for the patience with which Thou bearest with the
selfishness and the slowness of Thy redeemed ones. I praise Thee for the teaching of the
Spirit of Thy Holiness, leading Thy saints, and me too, to see how it is Thy Holiness, and
the call to become partaker of it, that gives redemption its value; how it is for Thyself as
the Holy One, to be Thine own, possessed and sanctified of Thee, that we are redeemed.
O my God! with a love and a joy and a thanksgiving that cannot be uttered, I praise
Thee for Christ, who has been made unto us of Thee sanctification and redemption. In
Him Thou art my Redeemer, my Holy One. In Him I am Thy redeemed, Thy holy one. O
God! in speechless adoration I fall down to worship the love that passeth knowledge, that
hath done this for us, and to believe that in one who is now before Thee, holy in Christ,
Thou wilt fulfil all Thy glorious purposes according to the greatness of Thy power.
Amen.
1. 'Redemption through His blood.' The blood we meet at the threshold of the pathway of
Holiness. For it is the blood of the sacrifice which the fire of God consumed, and yet could not
consume. That blood has such power of holiness in it, that we read, 'Sanctified by His own blood.'
Always think of holiness, or pray for it, as one redeemed by blood. Live under the covering of the
blood in its daily cleansing power.
2. It is only as we know the Holiness of God as Fire, and bow before His righteous judgment,
that we can appreciate the preciousness of the blood or the reality of the redemption. As long as
we only think of the love of God as goodness, we may aim at being good; faith in God who
redeems will waken in us the need and the joy of being holy in Christ.
3. Have you understood the right of property God has in what He has redeemed? Have you
heard a voice say, Mine. Thou art Mine. Ask God very humbly to speak it to you. Listen very
gently for it.
4. The holiness of the creature has its origin in the Divine will, in the Divine election,
redemption, and possession. Give yourself up to this will of God and rejoice in it.
5. As God created, so He redeemed, to sanctify. Have great faith in Him for this.
6. Let God have the entire possession and disposal of you. Holiness is His; our holiness is to
let Him, the Holy One, be all.
2 See Note A on Holiness as Proprietorship.
SIXTH DAY
HOLY IN CHRIST.
'Who is like unto Thee, O Lord! among the gods?
Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness,
Fearful in praises, doing wonders?
Thou in Thy mercy hast led Thy people which Thou hast redeemed:
Thou hast guided them in Thy strength to the habitation of Thy holiness …
The holy place, O Lord, which Thy hands have established.' - EX. xv. 11–17.
N these words we have another step in advance in the revelation of Holiness. We have
here for the first time Holiness predicated of God Himself. He is glorious in holiness:
and it is to the dwellingplace
of His Holiness that He is guiding His people.
Let us first note the expression used here: glorious in holiness. Throughout Scripture
we find the glory and the holiness of God mentioned together. In Ex. xxix. 43 we read,
'And the tent shall be made holy by my glory,' that glory of the Lord of which we
afterwards read that it filled the house. The glory of an object, of a thing or person, is its
intrinsic worth or excellence: to glorify is to remove everything that could hinder the full
revelation of that excellence. In the Holiness of God His glory is hidden; in the glory of
God His Holiness is manifested: His glory, the revelation of Himself as the Holy One,
would make the house holy. In the same way the two are connected in Lev. x. 3, 'I will
be sanctified in them that come nigh unto me, and before all the people I will be
glorified.' The acknowledgment of His Holiness in the priests would be the manifestation
of His glory to the people. So, too, in the song of the Seraphim (Isa. vi. 3), 'Holy, holy,
holy, Lord God of Hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory.' God is He who dwelleth in
a light that is unapproachable, whom no man hath seen or can see: it is the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God that He gives into our hearts. The glory is that which can
be seen and known of the invisible and unapproachable light: that light itself, and the
glorious fire of which that light is the shining out, that light is the Holiness of God.
Holiness is not so much an attribute of God, as the comprehensive summary of all His
perfections.
It is on the shore of the Red Sea that Israel thus praises God: 'Who is like unto Thee,
O Lord! Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness?' He is the Incomparable One, there
is none like Him. And wherein has He proved this, and revealed the glory of His
Holiness? With Moses in Horeb we saw God's glory in the fire, in its double aspect of
salvation and destruction: consuming what could not be purified, purifying what was not
consumed. We see it here too in the song of Moses: Israel sings of judgment and of
mercy. The pillar of fire and of the cloud came between the camp of the Egyptians and
the camp of Israel: it was a cloud and darkness to those, but it gave light by night to
these. The two thoughts run through the whole song. But in the two verses that follow the
ascription of holiness, we find the sum of the whole. 'Thou stretchedst out Thy right
hand: the earth swallowed them.' 'The Lord looked forth upon the host of the Egyptians
from the pillar of fire and discomfited them.' This is the glory of Holiness as judgment
and destruction of the enemy. 'Thou in Thy mercy hast led Thy people which thou hast
redeemed. Thou hast guided them in Thy strength to the habitation of Thy Holiness.' This
is the glory of Holiness in mercy and redemption - a Holiness that not only delivers but
guides to the habitation of holiness, where the Holy One is to dwell with and in His
people. In the inspiration of the hour of triumph it is thus early revealed that the great
object and fruit of redemption, as wrought out by the Holy One, is to be His indwelling:
with nothing short of this can the Holy One rest content, or the full glory of His Holiness
be made manifest.
And now, observe further, how, as it is in the redemption of His people that God's
Holiness is revealed, so it is in the song of redemption that the personal ascription of
Holiness to God is found. We know how in Scripture, after some striking special
interposition of God as Redeemer, the special influence of the Spirit is manifested in
some song of praise. It is remarkable how it is in these outbursts of holy enthusiasm, God
is praised as the Holy One. See it in the song of Hannah (1 Sam. ii. 2), 'There is none
holy as the Lord.' The language of the Seraphim (Isa. vi.) is that of a song of adoration.
In the great day of Israel's deliverance the song will be, 'The Lord Jehovah is become my
strength and song. Sing unto the Lord, for He hath done excellent things. Cry aloud and
shout, thou inhabitant of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel in the midst of thee.'
Mary sings, 'For He that is mighty hath done great things to me: and holy is His name.'
The book of Revelation reveals the living creatures giving glory and honour and thanks to
Him that sitteth on the throne; 'and they have no rest day and night, saying, Holy, holy,
holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, which was, and which is, and which is to come.' And
when the song of Moses and of the Lamb is sung by the sea of glass, it will still be, 'Who
shall not fear, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? for Thou only art holy.' It is in the
moments of highest inspiration, under the fullest manifestation of God's redeeming
power, that His servants speak of His Holiness. In Ps. xcvii. we read, 'Rejoice in the
Lord, ye righteous, and give thanks at the remembrance of His Holiness.' And in Ps.
xcix., which has, with its thrice repeated holy, been called the echo on earth of the Thrice
Holy of heaven, we sing -
Let them praise Thy great and terrible name.
HOLY IS HE.
Exalt ye the Lord our God,
and worship at His footstool:
HOLY IS HE.
Exalt ye the Lord our God,
and worship at His holy hill:
For the Lord our God is HOLY.
It is only under the influence of high spiritual elevation and joy that God's holiness
can be fully apprehended or rightly worshipped. The sentiment that becomes us as we
worship the Holy One, that fits us for knowing and worshipping Him aright, is the spirit
of praise that sings and shouts for joy in the experience of His full salvation.
But is not this at variance with the lesson we learnt at Horeb, when God spake,
'Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes,' and where Moses feared and hid his face? And
is not this in very deed the posture that becomes us as creatures and sinners? It is indeed:
and yet the two sentiments are not at variance: rather they are indispensable to each other;
the fear is the preparation for the praise and the glory. Or is it not that same Moses who
hid his face and feared to look upon God, who afterwards beheld His glory until his own
face shone with a brightness that men could not bear to look upon? And is not the song
that sings here of God as glorious in holiness, also the song of Moses who feared and hid
his face? Have we not seen in the fire, and in God, and specially in His Holiness, the
twofold aspect; consuming and purifying, repelling and attracting, judging and saving,
with the latter in each case not only the accompaniment but the result of the former? And
so we shall find that the deeper the humbling and the fear in God's Holy Presence, and
the more real and complete the putting off of all that is of self and of nature, even to the
putting off, the complete death of the old man and his will, the more hearty the giving up
to be consumed of what is sinful, the deeper and fuller will be the praise and joy with
which we daily sing our song of redemption: 'Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, glorious in
holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?'
'Glorious in holiness; fearful in praises:' the song itself harmonizes the apparently
conflicting elements. Yes, I will sing of judgment and of mercy. I will rejoice with
trembling as I praise the Holy One. As I look upon the two sides of His Holiness, as
revealed to the Egyptians and the Israelites, I remember that what was there separated is
in me united. By nature I am the Egyptian, an enemy doomed to destruction; by grace, an
Israelite chosen for redemption. In me the fire must consume and destroy; only as
judgment does its work, can mercy fully save. It is only as I tremble before the Searching
Light and the Burning Fire and the Consuming Heat of the Holy One, as I yield the
Egyptian nature to be judged and condemned and slain, that the Israelite will be
redeemed to know aright his God as the God of salvation, and to rejoice in Him.
Blessed be God! the judgment is past. In Christ, the burning bush, the fire of the
Divine Holiness did its double work: in Him sin was condemned in the flesh; in Him we
are free. In giving up His will to the death, and doing God's will, Christ sanctified
Himself; and in that will we are sanctified too. His crucifixion, with its judgment of the
flesh, His death, with its entire putting off of what is of nature, is not only for us, but is
really ours; a life and a power working within us by His Spirit. Day by day we abide in
Him. Tremblingly but rejoicingly we take our stand in Him, for the Power of Holiness as
Judgment to vindicate within us its fierce vengeance against what is sin and flesh, and so
to let the Power of Holiness as Redemption accomplish that glorious work that makes us
give thanks at the remembrance of His Holiness. And so the shout of Salvation rings ever
deeper and truer and louder through our life, 'Who is like unto Thee, O Lord, among the
gods? Who is like unto Thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?'
'Who is like unto Thee, O Lord! glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing
wonders?' With my whole heart would I join in this song of redemption, and rejoice in
Thee as the God of my salvation.
O my God! let Thy Spirit, from whom these words of holy joy and triumph came, so
reveal within me the great redemption as a personal experience, that my whole life may
be one song of trembling and adoring wonder.
I beseech Thee especially, let my whole heart be filled with Thyself, glorious in
holiness, fearful in praises, who alone doest wonders. Let the fear of Thy Holiness make
me tremble at all there is in me of self and flesh, and lead me in my worship to deny and
crucify my own wisdom, that the Spirit of Thy Holiness may breathe in me. Let the fear
of the Lord give its deep undertone to all my coming in and going out in Thy Holy
Presence. Prepare me thus for giving praise without ceasing at the remembrance of Thy
holiness. O my God! I would rejoice in Thee as my Redeemer, MY HOLY ONE, with a joy
unspeakable and full of glory. As my Redeemer, Thou makest me holy. With my whole
heart do I trust Thee to do it, to sanctify me wholly. I do believe in Thy promise. I do
believe in Thyself, and believing I receive Thee, the Holy One, my Redeemer.
Who is like unto Thee, O Lord! glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing
wonders?
1. God's Holiness as Glory. God is glorified in the holiness of His people. True holiness
always gives glory to God alone. Live to the glory of God: that is holiness. Live holily: that will
glorify God. To lose sight of self, and seek only God's glory, is holiness.
2. Our Holiness as Praise. Praise gives glory to God, and is thus an element of holiness. 'Thou art holy, Thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel.'
3. God's Holiness, His holy redeeming love, is cause of unceasing joy and praise. Praise God
every day for it. But you cannot do this unless you live in it. May God's holiness become so
glorious to us, as we understand that whatever we see of His glory is just the outshining of His
holiness, that we cannot help rejoicing in it, and in Him the Holy One.
4. The spirit of the fear of the Lord and the spirit of praise may, at first sight, appear to be at
variance. But it is not so. The humility that fears the Holy One will also praise Him: 'Ye that fear
the Lord: praise the Lord.' The lower we lie in the fear of God, and the fear of self, the more surely
will He lift us up in due time to praise Him.
S E V E N T H D A Y .
HOLY IN CHRIST.
'Ye have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bare you on eagles' wings, and brought you unto
myself. Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice indeed, and keep my covenant, ye shall be a peculiar
treasure unto me above all people: ye shall be unto me an holy nation.' - EX. xix. 4–6.
ISRAEL has reached Horeb. The law is to be given and the covenant made. Here are
God's first words to the people; He speaks of redemption and its blessing, fellowship
with Himself: 'Ye have seen how I brought you unto myself.' He speaks of holiness as
His purpose in redemption: 'Ye shall be unto me an holy nation.' And as the link between
the two He places obedience: 'If ye will indeed obey my voice, ye shall be unto me an
holy nation.' God's will is the expression of His holiness; as we do His will, we come
into contact with His holiness. The link between Redemption and Holiness is Obedience.
This takes us back to what we saw in Paradise. God sanctified the seventh day as the
time for sanctifying man. And what was the first thing He did with this purpose? He gave
him a commandment. Obedience to that commandment would have opened the door,
would have been the entrance, into the Holiness of God. Holiness is a moral attribute; and
moral is that which a free will chooses and determines for itself. What God creates and
gives is only naturally good; what man wills to have of God and His will, and really
appropriates, has moral worth, and leads to holiness. In creation God manifested His wise
and good will. His holy will He speaks in His commands. As that holy will enters man's
will, as man's will accepts and unites itself with God's will, he becomes holy. After
creation, in the seventh day, God took man up into His work of sanctification to make
him holy. Obedience is the path to holiness, because it is the path to union with God's
holy will; with man unfallen, as with fallen man, in redemption here and in glory above,
in all the holy angels, in Christ the Holy One of God Himself, obedience is the path of
holiness. It is not itself holiness: but as the will opens itself to accept and to do the will of
God, God communicates Himself and His Holiness. To obey His voice is to follow Him
as He leads in the way to the full revelation and communication of Himself and His
blessed nature as the Holy One.
Obedience. Not knowledge of the will of God, not even approval, not even the will
to do it, but the doing of it. Knowledge, and approval, and will must lead to action; the
will of God must be done. 'If ye indeed obey my voice, ye shall be unto me an holy
nation.' It is not faith, and not worship, and not profession, that God here asks in the first
place from His people when He speaks of holiness; it is obedience. God's will must be
done on earth, as in heaven. 'Remember and do all my commandments, that ye may be
holy to your God' (Num. xv. 40). 'Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy; and ye
shall keep my statutes and do them. I am the Lord which sanctify you' (Lev. xx. 7, 8).
'Therefore shall ye keep my commandments and do them: I am the Lord: I will be
hallowed among the children of Israel: I am the Lord which hallow you, that brought you
up out of the land of Egypt' (xxii 21, 33).
A moment's reflection will make the reason of this clear to us. It is in a man's work
that he manifests what he is. I may know what is good, and yet not approve it. I may
approve, and yet not will it. I may in a certain sense will it, and yet be wanting in the
energy, or the selfsacrifice,
or the power that will rouse and do the thing. Thinking is
easier than willing, and willing is easier than doing. Action alone proves whether the
object of my interest has complete mastery over me. God wants His will done. This alone
is obedience. In this alone it is seen whether the whole heart, with all its strength and will,
has given itself over to the will of God; whether we live it, and are ready at any sacrifice
to make it our own by doing it. God has no other way for making us holy. 'Ye shall keep
my statutes and do them: I am the Lord which make you holy.'
To all seekers after holiness this is a lesson of deep importance. Obedience is not
holiness; holiness is something far higher, something that comes from God to us, or
rather, something of God coming into us. But obedience is indispensable to holiness: it
cannot exist without it. While, therefore, your heart seeks to follow the teaching of God's
word, and looks in faith to what God has done, as He has made you holy in Christ, and to
what God is still to do through the Spirit of Holiness as He fulfils the promise, 'The very
God of peace sanctify you wholly,' never for one moment forget to be obedient. 'If ye
shall indeed obey my voice, ye shall be an holy nation to me.' Begin by doing at once
whatever appears right to do. Give up at once whatever conscience tells that you dare not
say is according to the will of God. Not only pray for light and strength, but act; do what
God says. 'He that doeth the will of God is my brother,' Jesus says. Every son of God has
been begotten of the will of God: in it he has his life. To do the Father's will is the meat,
the strength, the mark, of every son of God.
It is nothing less than the surrender to such a life of simple and entire obedience that
is implied in becoming a Christian. There are, alas! too many Christians who, from the
want either of proper instruction, or of proper attention to the teaching of God's word,
have never realized the place of supreme importance that obedience takes in the Christian
life. They know not that Christ, and redemption, and faith all lead to it, because through it
alone is the way to the fellowship of the Love, and the Likeness, and the Glory of God.
We have all, possibly, suffered from it ourselves: in our prayers and efforts after the
perfect peace and the rest of faith, after the abiding joy and the increasing power of the
Christian life, there has been a secret something hindering the blessing, or causing the
speedy loss of what had been apprehended. A wrong impression as to the absolute
necessity of obedience was probably the cause. It cannot too earnestly be insisted on that
the freeness and mighty power of grace has this for its object from our conversion
onwards, the restoring us to the active obedience and harmony with God's will from
which we had fallen through the first sin in Paradise. Obedience leads to God and His
Holiness. It is in obedience that the will is moulded, and the character fashioned, and an
inner man built up which God can clothe and adorn with the beauty of holiness.
When a Christian discovers that this has been the missing link, the cause of failure
and darkness, there is nothing for it but, in a grand act of surrender, deliberately to choose
obedience, universal, wholehearted obedience, as the law of his life in the power of the
Holy Spirit. Let him not fear to make his own the words of Israel at Sinai, in answer to
the message of God we are considering: 'All that the Lord hath spoken, we will do;' 'All
that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient.' What the law could not do, in that it
was weak through the flesh, God hath done by the gift of His Son and Spirit. The lawgiving
of Sinai on tables of stone has been succeeded by the lawgiving
of the Spirit on the table of the heart: the Holy Spirit is the power of obedience, and is so the Spirit of
Holiness, who, in obedience, prepares our hearts for being the dwelling of the Holy One.
Let us in this faith yield ourselves to a life of obedience: it is the New Testament path to
the realization of the promise: 'If ye will obey my voice indeed, ye shall be unto me an
holy nation.'
We have already seen how holiness in its very nature supposes the personal relation
to God, His personal presence. 'I have brought you unto myself; if ye obey, ye shall be
unto me an holy nation.' It is as we understand and hold fast this personal element that
obedience will become possible, and will lead to holiness. Mark well God's words: 'If ye
will obey my voice, and keep my covenant.' The voice is more than a law or a book; it
always implies a living person and intercourse with him. It is this that is the secret of
gospel obedience: hearing the voice and following the lead of Jesus as a personal friend, a
living Saviour. It is being led by the Spirit of God, having Him to reveal the Presence,
and the Will, and the Love of the Father, that will work in us that personal relation which
the New Testament means when it speaks of doing everything unto the Lord, as pleasing
God.
Such obedience is the pathway of holiness. Its every act is a link to the living God, a
surrender of the being for God's will, for God Himself to take possession. In the process
of assimilation, slow but sure, by which the will of God, as the meat of our souls, is taken
up into our inmost being, our spiritual nature is strengthened, is spiritualized, growing up
into an holy temple in which God can reveal Himself and take up His abode.
Let every believer study to realize this. When God sanctified the seventh day as His
period of making holy, He taught us that He could not do it at once. The revelation and
communication of holiness must be gradual, as man is prepared to receive it. God's
sanctifying work with each of us, as with the race, needs time. The time it needs and
seeks is the life of daily, hourly obedience. All that is spent in selfwill,
and not in the living relation to the Lord, is lost. But when the heart seeks day by day to hearken to the
voice and to obey it, the Holy One Himself watches over His words to fulfil them: 'Ye
shall be unto me an holy nation.' In a way of which the soul beforehand can have but
little conception, God will overshadow and make His abode in the obedient heart. The
habit of always listening for the voice and obeying it will only be the building of the
temple: the Living God Himself, the Holy One, will come to take up His abode. The
glory of the Lord will fill the house, and the promise be made true, 'I will sanctify it by
my glory.'
'I brought you unto myself; if ye will obey my voice in deed, ye shall be unto me an
holy nation.' Seekers after holiness! God has brought you to Himself. And now His voice
speaks to you all the thoughts of His heart, that as you take them in, and make them your
own, and make His will your own by living and doing it, you may enter into the most
complete union with Himself, the union of will as well as of life, and so become a holy
people unto Him. Let obedience, the listening to and the doing the will of God, be the joy
and the glory of your life; it will give you access unto the Holiness of God.
BE HOLY, AS I AM HOLY.
O my God! Thou hast redeemed me for Thyself, that Thou mightest have me wholly
as Thine own, possessing, filling my inmost being with Thy own likeness, Thy perfect
will, and the glory of Thy Holiness. And Thou seekest to train me, in the power of a free
and loving will, to take Thy will and make it my own, that in the very centre of my being
I may have Thine own perfection dwelling in me. And in Thy words Thou revealest Thy
will, that as I accept and keep them I may master their Divine contents, and will all that
Thou willest.
O my God! let me live day by day in such fellowship with Thee, that I may indeed
in everything hear Thy voice, the living voice of the living God speaking to me. Let the
Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Thy Holiness, be to me Thy voice guiding me in the path of
simple, childlike obedience. I do bless Thee that I have seen that Christ, in whom I am
holy, was the obedient one, that in obedience He sanctified Himself to become my
sanctification, and that abiding in Him, Thy obedient, holy Child, is abiding in Thy will
as once done by Him, and now to be done by me. O my God! I will indeed obey Thy will:
make Thou me one of Thy holy nation, a peculiar treasure above all people. Amen.
1. 'He became obedient unto death.' 'Though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the
things which He suffered.' 'I come to do Thy will.' 'In which will we are sanctified.' Christ's example
teaches us that obedience is the only path to the Holiness or the glory of God. Be this your
consecration: a surrender in everything to seek and do the will of God.
2. We are 'holy in Christ' - in this Christ who did the will of God and was obedient to the death.
In Him it is we are; in Him we are holy. His obedience is the soil in which we are planted, and must
be rooted. 'It is my meat to do His will;' obedience was the sustenance of His life; in doing God's
will He drew down Divine nourishment; it must be so with us too.
3. As you study what it is to be and abide in Christ, as you rejoice you are in Him, always
remember it is Christ who obeyed in whom God has planted you.
4. If ever you feel perplexed about holiness, just yield yourself again to do God's will, and go
and do it. It is ours to obey, it is God's to sanctify.
5. Holy in Christ. Christ sanctified Himself by obedience, by doing the will of God, and in that
will, as done by Him, we have been sanctified. In accepting that will as done by Him, in accepting
Him, I am holy. In accepting that will of God, as to be done by me, I become holy. I am in Him; in
every act of living obedience, I enter into living fellowship with Him, and draw the power of His life
into mine.
6. Obedience depends upon hearing the voice. Do not imagine you know the will of God. Pray
and wait for the inward teaching of the Spirit.
E I G H T H D A Y .
HOLY IN CHRIST.
'And let them make me a holy place, that I may dwell among them.' - EX. xxv. 8.
'And the tent shall be sanctified by my glory, and I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will
be their God.' - EX. xxix. 43, 45.
THE Presence of God makes holy, even when it descends but for a little while, as at
Horeb, in the burning bush. How much more must that Presence make holy the place
where it dwells, where it fixes its permanent abode! So much is this the case, that the
place where God dwells came to be called the holy place, 'the holy place of the habitation
of the Most High.' All around where God dwelt was holy: the holy city, the mountain of
God's Holiness, His holy house, till we come within the veil, to the most holy place, the
holy of holies. It is as the indwelling God that He sanctifies His house, that He reveals
Himself as the Holy One in Israel, that He makes us holy too.
Because God is holy, the house in which He dwells is holy too. This is the only
attribute of God which He can communicate to His house; but this one He can and does
communicate. Among men there is a very close link between the character of a house and
its occupants. When there is no obstacle to prevent it, the house unintentionally reflects
the master's likeness. Holiness expresses not so much an attribute as the very being of
God in His infinite perfection, and His house testifies to this one truth, that He is holy,
that where He dwells He must have holiness, that His indwelling makes holy. In His first
command to His people to build Him a holy place, God distinctly said that it was that He
might dwell among them: the dwelling in the house was to be the shadowing forth of His
dwelling in the midst of His people. The house with its holiness thus leads us on to the
holiness of His dwelling among His redeemed ones.
The holy place, the habitation of God's Holiness, was the centre of all God's work
in making Israel holy. Everything connected with it was holy. The altar, the priests, the
sacrifices, the oil, the bread, the vessels, all were holy, because they belonged to God.
From the house there issued the twofold voice - God's call to be holy, God's promise to
make holy. God's claim was manifested in the demand for cleansing, for atonement, for
holiness, in all who were to draw near, whether as priests or worshippers. And God's
promise shone forth from His house in the provision for making holy, in the sanctifying
power of the altar, of the blood and the oil. The house embodied the two sides that are
united in holiness, the repelling and the attracting, the condemning and the saving. Now
by keeping the people at a distance, then by inviting and bringing them nigh, God's house
was the great symbol of His own Holiness. He had come nigh even to dwell among them;
and yet they might not come nigh, they might never enter the secret place of His
presence.
All these things are written on our behalf. It is as the Indwelling One that God is the
sanctifier of His people still: the Indwelling Presence alone makes us holy. This comes
out with special clearness if we note how, the nearer the Presence was, the greater the
degree of holiness. Because God dwelt among them, the camp was holy: all uncleanness
was to be removed from it. But the holiness of the court of the tabernacle was greater:
uncleanness which did not exclude from the camp would not be tolerated there. Then the
holy place was still holier, because still nearer God. And the inner sanctuary, where the
Presence dwelt on the mercyseat, was the Holiest of All, was most holy. The principle
still holds good: holiness is measured by nearness to God; the more of His Presence, the
more of true holiness; perfect indwelling will be perfect holiness. There is none holy but
the Lord; there is no holiness but in Him. He cannot part with somewhat of His holiness,
and give it to us apart from Himself; we have only so much of holiness as we have of
God Himself. And to have Himself truly and fully, we must have Him as the Indwelling
One. And His indwelling in a house or locality, without life or spirit, is only a faint
shadow of the true indwelling as the Living One, when He enters into and penetrates our
very being, and fills us, our very selves, with His own life.
There is no union so intimate, so real, so perfect, as that of an indwelling life. Think
of the life that circulates through a large and fruitful tree. How it penetrates and fills
every portion; how inseparably it unites the whole as long as it really is to exist! - in
wood and leaf, in flower and fruit, everywhere the indwelling life flows and fills. This
life is the life of nature, the life of the Spirit of God which dwells in nature. It is the same
life that animates our bodies, the spirit of nature pervading every portion of them with the
power of sensibility and action.
Not less intimate, yea rather, far more wonderful and real, is the indwelling of the
Spirit of the New Life, through whom God dwells in the heart of the believer. And it is as
this indwelling becomes a matter of conscious longing and faith, that the soul obeys the
command, 'Let them make me a holy place, that I may dwell among them,' and
experiences the truth of the promise, 'The tent shall be sanctified by my glory, and I will
dwell among the children of Israel.'
It was as the Indwelling One that God revealed Himself in the Son, whom He
sanctified and sent into the world. More than once our Lord insisted upon it, 'Believe me,
that I am in the Father and the Father in me; the Father abiding in me doeth the works.' It
is specially as the temple of God that believers are more than once called holy in the New
Testament: 'The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are.' 'Your body is a temple of
the Holy Spirit.' 'All the building groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord.' It is - we
shall later on learn to understand this better - just because it is through the Spirit that the
heart is prepared for the indwelling, and the indwelling effected and maintained, that the
Spirit so peculiarly takes the attribute of Holy. The Indwelling Spirit is the Holy Spirit.
The measure of His indwelling, or rather of His revealing the Indwelling Christ, is the
measure of holiness.
We have seen what the various degrees of nearness to God's Presence in Israel were.
They are still to be found. You have Christians who dwell in the camp, but know little of
drawing nigh to the Holy One. Then you have outer court Christians: they long for
pardon and peace, they come ever again to the altar of atonement; but they know little of
true nearness or holiness; of their privilege as priests to enter the holy place. Others there
are who have learnt that this is their calling, and long to draw near, and yet hardly
understand the boldness they have to enter into the Holiest of all, and to dwell there.
Blessed they to whom this, the secret of the Lord, has been revealed. They know what the
rent veil means, and the access into the immediate Presence. The veil hath been taken
away from their hearts: they have found the secret of true holiness in the Indwelling of
the Holy One, the God who is holy and makes holy.
Believer! the God who calls you to holiness is the God of the Indwelling Life. The
tabernacle typifies it, the Son reveals it, the Spirit communicates it, the eternal glory will
fully manifest it. And you may experience it. It is your calling as a believer to be God's
Holy Temple. Oh, do but yield yourself to His full indwelling! seek not holiness in the
first place in what you are or do; seek it in God. Seek it not even as a gift from God, seek
it in God Himself, in His indwelling Presence. Worship Him in the beauty of holiness, as
He dwells in the high and holy place. And as you worship, listen to His voice: 'Thus saith
the high and lofty One, that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high
and holy place, with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit.' It is as the Spirit
strengthens us mightily in the inward man, so that Christ dwells in our heart by faith, and
the Father comes and makes with Him His abode in us, that we are truly holy. Oh, let us
but, in true, truehearted consecration, yield ourselves to be, as distinctly as was the
tabernacle or the temple, given up entirely to be the dwelling of the Most High, the
habitation of His Holiness. A house filled with the glory of God, a heart filled with all the
fulness of God, is God's promise, is our portion. Let us in faith claim and accept and hold
fast the blessing: Christ, the Holy One of God, will in His Father's Name, enter and take
possession. Then faith will bring the solution of all our difficulties, the victory over all
our failures, the fulfilment of all our desires: 'The tent, the heart, shall be sanctified by
my glory; and I will dwell among them.' The open secret of true holiness, the secret of
the joy unspeakable, is Christ dwelling in the heart by faith.
BE HOLY, AS I AM HOLY.
We bow our knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus, that He would grant unto us,
according to the riches of His glory, what He Himself has taught us to ask for. We ask
nothing less than this, that Christ may dwell in our hearts by faith. We long for that most
blessed, permanent, conscious indwelling of the Lord Jesus in the heart, which He so
distinctly promised as the fruit of the Holy Spirit's coming. Father! we ask for what He
meant when He spake of the loving, obedient disciple: 'I will come and manifest myself
to him. We will come and take up our abode with him.' Oh, grant unto us this indwelling
of Christ in the heart by faith!
And for this, we beseech Thee, grant us to be strengthened with might by Thy Spirit
in the inner man. O Most Mighty God! let the spirit of Thy Divine Power work mightily
within us, renewing our mind, and will, and affections, so that the heart be all prepared
and furnished as a temple, as a home, for Jesus. Let that Blessed Spirit strengthen us to
the faith that receives the Blessed Saviour and His indwelling Presence.
O Most Gracious Father! hear our cry. We do bow our knee to Thee. We plead the
riches of Thy glory. We praise Thee who art mighty to do above what we can ask or
think. We wait on Thee, O our Father: oh, grant us a mighty strengthening by the Spirit in
the inner man, that this bliss may be ours in its full blessedness, our Lord Jesus dwelling
in the heart.
We ask it in His Name. Amen.
1. God's dwelling in the midst of Israel was the great central fact to which all the commands
concerning holiness were but preparatory and subordinate. So the work of the Holy Spirit also
culminates in the personal indwelling of Christ. (John xiv. 21, 23. Eph. iii. 16, 17.) Aim at this and
expect it.
2. The tabernacle with its three divisions was, as of other spiritual truths, so the image of
man's threefold nature. Our spirit is the Holiest of all, where God is meant to dwell, where the Holy
Spirit is given. The life of the soul, with its powers of feeling, knowing, and willing, is the holy place.
And the outer life of the body, of conduct and action, is the outer court. Begin by believing that the
Spirit dwells in the inmost sanctuary, where His workings are secret and hidden. Honour Him by
trusting Him to work, by yielding to Him in silent worship before God. From within He will take
possession of thought and will; He will even fill the outer court, the body, with the Holiness of God.
'The God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit, and soul, and body, be
preserved entire, without blame. Faithful is He which calleth you, who will also do it.'
3. God's indwelling was within the veil, in the unseen, the secret place. Faith knew it, and
served Him with holy fear. Our faith knows that God the Holy Spirit has His abode in the hidden
place of our inner life. Set open your inmost being to Him; bow in lowly reverence before the Holy
One as you yield yourself to His working. Holiness is the presence of the Indwelling One.
N I N T H D A Y .
HOLY IN CHRIST.
'And thou shalt make a plate of pure gold, and grave upon it, HOLINESS TO THE LORD. And it shall be
upon Aaron's forehead, that Aaron may bear the iniquity of the holy things, which the children of Israel
shall hallow in all their holy gifts; and it shall always be upon his forehead, that they may be accepted
before the Lord.' - EX. xxviii. 36, 38.
GOD'S house was to be the dwellingplace
of His Holiness, the place where He was
to reveal Himself; as the Holy One, not to be approached but with fear and
trembling; as the Holymaking
One, drawing to Himself all who would be made
partakers of His Holiness. Of the revelation of His Holy and His Holymaking
Presence, the centre is found in the person of the high priest, in his double capacity of representing
God with man, and man with God. He is the embodiment of the Divine Holiness in
human form, and of human holiness as a Divine gift, as far as the dispensation of symbol
and shadow could offer and express it. In him God came near to sanctify and bless the
people. In him the people came their very nearest to God. And yet the very Day of
Atonement, in which he might enter into the Most Holy, was but the proof of how unholy
man was, and how unfit to abide in God's Presence. In himself a proof of Israel's
unholiness, he yet was a type and picture of the coming Saviour, our blessed Lord Jesus,
a wondrous exhibition of the way in which hereafter the holiness of God should become
the portion of His people.
Among the many points in which the high priest typified Christ as our sanctification,
there is, perhaps, none more suggestive or beautiful than the holy crown he wore on his
forehead. Everything about him was to be holy. His garments were holy garments. But
there was to be one thing in which this holiness reached its fullest manifestation. On his
forehead he was always to wear a plate of gold, with the words engraved on it, HOLINESS
TO THE LORD. Every one was to read there that the whole object of his existence, the one
thing he lived for, was, to be the embodiment and the bearer of the Divine holiness, the
chosen one through whom God's holiness might flow out in blessing upon the people.
The way in which the blessing of the holy crown was to act was a most remarkable
one. In bearing HOLINESS TO THE LORD on his forehead, he is, we read, 'to bear the iniquity
of the holy things which the children of Israel hallow; that they may be accepted before
the Lord.' For every sin some sacrifice or way of atonement had been devised. But how
about the sin that cleaves to the very sacrifice and religious service itself? 'Thou desirest
truth in the inward parts.' How painfully the worshipper might be oppressed by the
consciousness that his penitence, his faith, his love, his obedience, his consecration, were
all imperfect and defiled! For this need, too, of the worshipper, God had provided. The
holiness of the high priest covered the sin and the unholiness of his holy things. The holy
crown was God's pledge that the holiness of the high priest rendered the worshipper
acceptable. If he was unholy, there was one among his brethren who was holy, who had a
holiness that could avail for him too, a holiness he could trust in. He could look to the
high priest not only to effect atonement by his bloodsprinkling,
but in his person to secure a holiness too that made him and his gifts most acceptable. In the consciousness of
personal unholiness he might rejoice in a mediator, in the holiness of Another than
himself, the priest whom God had provided.
Have we not here a most precious lesson, leading us a step farther on in the way of
holiness? To our question, How God makes holy, we have the
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