INTERPRETING CHRISTIAN HOLINESS by Westlake Taylor Purkiser

Chapter Four: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF HOLINESS

W. T. Purkiser (1910-92) was a prolific writer, respected scholar, and well-loved preacher within the Church of the Nazarene who also had a significant voice in the larger evangelical Christian community. He authored and contributed to some of the most widely disseminated and enduring works in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition.

For better or for worse, we live in an age that is incurably psychological. The post-Freudian world can never be the same as the world before Freud. This is not all bad. Whatever we can learn that, will help us understand the nature of man will help us understand a little better the experience of holiness.

Just as archaeology and secular history have shed light upon places and events reported in the Bible, so the sciences of human nature -- psychology, anthropology, sociology may help us understand better what it was God created when He formed man of the dust of the earth and breathed into him the breath of life, so that man became a living soul fashioned in the image of his Maker.

Theology itself has felt the impact of psychology. Archbishop William Temple, who anticipated so much that has come to the fore in contemporary theology, wrote: "Our theology has been cast in a scholastic mold, i.e. all based on logic. We are in need of and we are gradually forced into, a theology based on psychology. The transition, I fear, will not be without much pain; but nothing can prevent it." [1]

It, is only necessary to add that, if the psychology upon which such theology is based is biblical psychology the gain will be great.

I. Never should we underestimate the divine element in our sanctification. What God does in and for us is nothing short of a miracle. Yet right along with this is another truth that needs to be brought into focus. Divine grace does not cancel our humanity.

We still live in an imperfect world, conditioned by a hundred factors over which we have no control, some of which go back into infancy and early childhood. And God works within the limits of that humanity.

"We have this treasure in earthen vessels,' " wrote the Apostle Paul (II Cor. 4:7). I have never had the temerity of the seminarian who took this as his text and spoke in his preaching class on "The Glory of the Cracked Pot." But the truth is, some of the vessels are chipped, some of them are marred, and some of them are a bit, cracked.

Psychology can help us understand better the complexity of our motivations, the degree to which our reactions are conditioned by past experiences, the way in which apperception actually alters our grasp of truth, and the unsuspected ways in which the unconscious colors and affects conscious experience. It may aid us in freeing ourselves from the myth that people always react alike and are equal in temperament and personality.

Our psychological age should also alert us to the need to be careful in our modes of expression. Carelessness in the use of psychological terms sometimes involves us in saying what we do not mean.

A prime example of this is the term "self."' We sometimes talk about the eradication or destruction of "self."' We know what we mean, or at least, it is to be hoped that we do. We mean self in the sense of "selfishness."' We mean the eradication or destruction of the sinfulness of the self. In this sense we may talk about "self' being "crucified and slain, and buried deep, and all in vain may efforts be to rise again'" In this sense we understand the prayer we sometimes hear,

"Lord, slay the self in me.

But self more properly means the real inner being, the ego, the core and soul of personal identity. It is the "I", the "me," that persist through all modifications and changes from birth to death. If this psychological ego were to be crucified or destroyed in any literal sense, the result would be nonentity.

Whatever else it, is, carnality is the human self corrupted, diseased, fevered, and warped.

Holiness cleanses the corruption, heals the disease, takes away the fever, and straightens the warp. But it does not destroy the self. That self must be consecrated and cleansed and committed to the purposes of God.

Paul the Apostle expressed it all in one of his great paradoxes: "I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me" (Gal. 2:20). Here, as Dr. William Greathouse has so well expressed it, is a sinful "self" to be crucified with Christ, a human self to be controlled by Christ, in order that the true self may be realized in Christ.

E. Stanley Jones testified: "I laid at His feet, a self of which I was ashamed, couldn't control, and couldn't live with; and to my glad astonishment He took that self, remade it, consecrated it to Kingdom purposes, and gave it back to me, a self I can now live with gladly and joyously and comfortably." [2]

Such a surrender is the heart and soul of Christian consecration. Consecration is not chiefly the surrender of possessions, things, or even other people. It is the submission of the central self to the sanctifying will of God. Possessions, things, and others are involved in the believer's consecration. But it is only when the final "Yes" is said which permanently admits the Saviour to the innermost recesses of the soul that consecration becomes real and complete.

This is the insight expressed in the order in Frances Ridley Havegal's familiar "consecration" hymn. Life, hands, feet, voice, lips, silver and gold, will, heart, and love are all presented in that sequence. The process might go that far and still fall short were it not for the final, climactic gift of all:

Take myself and I will be

Ever, only, all for Thee.

The radical, uncompromising claim of Christian consecration is sketched in clear outline by the late C. S. Lewis in his spiritual autobiography, Surprised by Joy. When he turned from atheism to Christianity, he found, so he said, that "there was no region even in the innermost depth of one's soul (nay, there least of all) which one could surround with a barbed-wire fence and guard with a notice, No Admittance. And that was what I wanted; some area, however small, of which I could say to all other beings, "This is my business and mine only." "But God would not be satisfied with less than all."

The self is not to be slain. It is to be surrendered. It is the "vessel unto honor" of which Paul wrote: "sanctified, and meet for the master's use, and prepared unto every good work" (II Tim. 2:21). What makes the difference is that self is no longer on the throne, pretending to be the lord of the life. Self is in the servant role, on its knees, consecrated to the Lord of all life – no longer central but submissive.

II. The distinction between humanity and carnality is of prime importance for a psychological interpretation of holiness. Theoretically, it is not hard to state the difference. Practically, one man's "humanity" may be another man's "carnality," and what would be condemned as carnality in others may be excused as humanity in oneself.

Objections to the possibility of holiness usually fall into one of two classes. Either it is claimed that human nature as such is sinful or it is said that the source of sin is in the physical body.

Neither of these views is defensible. Those who claim that human nature as such is sinful have a twofold problem on their hands. They must either hold that God did not create Adam and Eve as truly human or else that He created them as sinful beings. And they must either hold that the sinfulness of human beings is eternal or that the redeemed will be transformed into something other than human when they enter heaven.

Neither pair of alternatives is very promising. Adam and Eve were created in the image of God in innocence and primitive holiness, untested but still real. They were created as human beings. The very name Adam" means "man. . .

Nor do the finally redeemed become anything other than human beings in heaven. The Saviour, who took upon Him the nature of man, is still "the man Christ Jesus" (I Tim. 2:5), although exalted to the right hand of God. In the new heavens and the new earth, the dwelling of God shall be with men and they shall be His people (Rev. 21:3).

The view that the seat of sin is the physical body is equally mistaken. It is true enough that many of the sins common to human life are those which come through the pull of bodily appetites and desires. Yet in the 17 works of the flesh listed by Paul in Gal. 5:19-21, the majority have no physical basis whatsoever -- as, for example, "idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings."'

The idea that the body is sinful also runs head on into the doctrine of the incarnation. Every evidence in Scripture points to the fact that Jesus of Nazareth, the sinless, holy Son of God, had a normal human body. He grew hungry and tired; He slept; He ate; He rejoiced; He suffered; He was subject to every kind of temptation we have, "yet without, sin" (Heb. 4:15).

Sin in human nature is an intrusion. It does not belong in man as he was designed to be. It is no necessary part of anything essential to a full and normal human life.

But where is the dividing line between the human and the sinful? How can one tell the difference between those tendencies, inclinations, and desires which are part of our necessary human existence and those which come from and together constitute the nature of inbred sin?

There is an important clue in the statement, about "the mind of the flesh" in Rom. 8: 6-7, "For to be carnally minded is death; but to be spiritually minded is life and peace. Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it, is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."

In the phrase "not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be" we have the line of distinction drawn. Whatever is human within us -- part of man's normal psychological makeup -- can be and is subject, to the law of God. Whatever is carnal is not and cannot be subject to God's law.

In fact, the entire purpose of the moral law is to give guidance and direction to human nature and its varied expressions. Every human instinct,, need, and desire has a possible legitimate expression within the guidelines laid down by God's law. Each of the Ten Commandments, for example, establishes limits and guidelines for human tendencies which are legitimate and right in their proper place.

On the contrary, no carnal impulse, attitude, or tendency can find an expression in Christian life within the law of God. None is subject to His law. All are outlaw propensities and inevitably lead to sin.

Consider the sorry list: envy, malice, animosity, bitterness, retaliation, selfish temper, pride, covetousness, grudge holding, lovelessness, divided loyalty, double-mindedness. How can one be envious or malicious in keeping with the law and nature of Christ,? How can one manifest, animosity and bitterness in harmony with Christian ideals? Even to ask the question is to see the answer.

Human psychological impulses and tendencies, as Paul said of the physical body, are to be "kept under" (I Cor. 9:27). All carnal impulses and the other hand, are to be eliminated by that divine conditioning of our selfhood by the indwelling Spirit, who alone enables us to love God supremely and our neighbors as ourselves.

III. Involved in the psychological interpretation of holiness is the need to learn to live with limitations. We all have to walk the narrow path between the too easy acceptance of our limitations and the futility of constantly heating our heads against a stone wall. Some too quickly surrender to their obstacles. They accept as inevitable what they should attack and overcome. Others make themselves and everyone around them miserable by a hopeless struggle against limitations in their lives they should learn to accept.

It is important that we rightly measure our limitations. Some of them we may overcome by direct action and with the help of God. Others we must come to terms with and learn to live with.

There are limitations in the measure of health and strength. There are limitations in education and training. There are limitations in native ability and talent,. There are limitations that come with advancing age. And there are limitations in circumstances, past and present. A man cannot lift himself by his bootstraps when he has no boots.

The New Testament has a comprehensive word for limitations. It is the word "infirmity," and it literally means lack of strength, weakness, or "inability to produce results."

Paul, more than any other New Testament writer, speaks of infirmities. He gives us the promise that the Holy Spirit "helpeth our infirmities"' (Rom. 8:26). While the particular weakness in view is lack of knowledge about what to pray for, the term is plural and the statement is general.

The very word "help" is full of meaning. When a person promises to help us with something, it does not mean that he is going to do it for us. The only way we can need help is to be doing something too big to be done alone.

Sometimes limitations can be taken away. More often, we climb on top of them.

Paul, again, is our teacher. Whatever his "thorn in the flesh" may have been, it seems almost certain it was a physical fact. The apostle prayed three times for deliverance and the idea is clear that these prayers were not casual wishes beamed Godward, but prolonged and intense seasons of supplication.

When the answer came, it was not exactly as the apostle had expected. But it satisfied him fully. Christ said to him, "My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in [your] weakness."

Then Paul gives us our best secret for successfully living with limitations. He said, "Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me"" (II Cor. 12:8-9).

This is turning liabilities into assets. When one is not so gifted, he works harder. When one cannot run like a hare, he plods like a tortoise -- and usually comes in ahead.

We can, to be sure, put up with our limitations. We can accept them and suffer them. But, it is better to use them for stepping-stones and climb over them. We grow by working away at the edges of our liabilities. We may not completely overcome them. But if we face them honestly and bravely, we shall find that in the long run we are both bigger and better for the effort.

IV. The best of saints still have a long road to travel. There are rough places to be smoothed, kinks of mind and personality to be straightened out,, failings and weaknesses to be faced, corrected, and strengthened.

As James McGraw has well put it, "Psychological weakness is not necessarily spiritual wickedness." One may have the baptism with the Spirit and still need help with personal problems of emotional adjustment.

We must not forget that people may be pure in heart but immature in personal development. Paul described the aim of the Christian gospel as not only "the perfecting of the saints" but also "that we may henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine" and that we may "grow up" (Eph. 4:12-15).

Sanctified people may have problems with prejudices that have been drilled into them from early childhood until they have become a stubborn part of their entire outlook on life. One has only to recall Peter's struggle over establishing fellowship with Gentile Christians, as reflected in Acts 10 and Gal. 2:11-14, to see a vivid illustration of this. When Peter was sanctified at Pentecost, he didn't lose his Jewish prejudices overnight.

Sanctified people may have problems that arise from differences of judgment, or from the emotional conditionings of close family ties. We have but to remember the disagreement between Paul and Barnabas over John Mark (Acts 15:36-41) to see this.

Without, the Spirit's help, we could never cope with our human weaknesses effectively. Without the indwelling Spirit, Peter never would have conquered his prejudices, nor would he have written about "our beloved brother Paul" (II Pet. 3:15) after Paul took him to task for them. Without the openness of perfect love, Paul never would have conceded that John Mark had vindicated himself (II Tim. 4:11).

But the problems still arose and had to be faced. If they had not been solved, they could have defeated the purpose of God in the lives of Peter, Cornelius, Barnabas, Mark, and Paul. Without the Holy Spirit, they could not. Without their honest effort, He would not.

V. Important to the psychology of the sanctified life is an understanding of the place and function of emotions in our humanity. Many seem to expect an experience of constant joy and blessing. Because peace with God and the witness of the Spirit to a clean heart often find expression in high emotional tides, some have tended to make feelings an indicator of the spiritual state.

The problem is, of course, the emotions have a way of changing from day to day. They are affected by factors that have no relationship whatsoever to one's spiritual and moral condition. There is nothing but danger in identifying feelings with the grace of God.

Even Jesus is described as "a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief" (Isa. 53:3), whose tears flowed when He was confronted with the sorrow of His friends and the hardness of those He had come to help (John 11:35; Luke 19:41 Paul confessed his continual heaviness and sorrow of heart for his own nation (Rom. 9:1-2), and found occasion to need encouragement from Christian friends (Acts 28:15).

Peter writes to those "who are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations: that the trial of our faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ" (I Pet. 1:5-7).

John Wesley wrote

A will steadily and uniformly devoted to God is essential to a state of sanctification, but not a uniformity of joy, or peace, or happy communion with God. These may rise and fall in various degrees; nay, and may be affected either by the body or by diabolical agency, in a manner which all our wisdom can neither understand nor prevent. [4]

Emotion and blessing play an important part in Christian life. A religious experience which had no effect on the feelings would not meet the needs of the whole person. It would not go far enough.

But the purpose of emotion in religion is akin to the purpose of emotion in other areas of life. It is not primarily to be enjoyed. It is to be employed. It is the natural prelude to action.

There is more in common between "emotion" and "motion"' than the fact that the two words differ by only one letter. God has given us physical feelings, for instance, as part of the preparation for some sort of physical action. Fear is a good example. In fright, the glands pump additional adrenaline into the bloodstream, the heartbeat is quickened, and the body is prepared for "fight or flight."

Conversely, the appropriate action strengthens the emotion which corresponds to it. Running away increases the fright. Clenching the fists strengthens anger. Whistling tends to lift the spirits.

The application of this to the spiritual life is not difficult to see. God gives high tides of blessing and joy, not simply for the sake of making us happy, but to prepare us for service to the Kingdom and to our fellowmen. Just as emotion in the physical life can actually be harmful unless followed by action appropriate to it, so blessing and spiritual joy miss their purpose unless they work out in heightened devotion. Emotion which is not expressed in devotion eventually dries up.

But the very best state of grace will not guarantee high emotions all the time. Holiness is not hilarity. Feelings are a by-product of spirituality and neither its cause nor its measure.

C.W. Ruth used to say, "Feelings are the most undependable dependence anyone ever depended on!" He would comment that the only man in the Bible who went by "feeling" was Isaac, who as a result blessed the wrong boy!

Faith is the supreme condition for salvation. Holiness is a relationship based, not on feelings, but on faith. Faith anchors to facts: the fact of God's promises, and the fact of consecration and obedience. Feelings are swayed by circumstances, and may have no direct relationship whatsoever.

Feelings are conditioned by the physical tonus of the individual. The state of health and the condition of one's nerves make a great deal of difference in the emotions he has.

Two excerpts from the journal of a pioneer New England circuit rider serve to illustrate this point. The first entry is dated Wednesday night at bedtime:

Arrived at the home of Brother Brown late this evening, hungry and tired after a long day in the saddle. Had a bountiful supper of cold pork and beans, warm bread, bacon and eggs, coffee and rich pastry. I go to rest feeling that my witness is clear; the future is bright; I feel called to a great and glorious work in this place. Brother Brown's family are godly people.

But the next entry, written late on Thursday morning, tells a different story:

Awakened late this morning after a troubled night. I am very much depressed in soul; the way looks dark; far from feeling called to work among this people, I am beginning to doubt the safety of my own soul. I am afraid the desires of Brother Brown and his family are set too much on carnal things. [5]

Because feelings vary, will and purpose must govern our lives and not feelings and impulse. Every Christian must learn to do what is right whether he "feels like it" or not.

Conviction, not convenience must be our guide to conduct. It, is well to go to church, to serve in the Kingdom, to read the Bible, and to pray -- when we "feel like it." It is better to do these things whether we feel like it or not,.

While we cannot always account for the fluctuation of our moods and the changing tide of emotions, we need not surrender to them. The peril of uncontrolled moods is discouragement, one of Satan's most powerful tools.

There are some important lessons at this point in the story of Elijah, "a man subject to like passions as we are" (Jas. 5:17). After the tremendous victory on Mount Carmel, under the threats of Jezebel, Elijah fled to the wilderness, fell under a juniper tree, and wished to die. His emotional collapse was complete. Utter discouragement filled his soul.

In this extremity, God did three things for Elijah.

First, the Lord provided for the prophet' s physical needs. An angel fed him, and he slept soundly. His nerves had been stretched to the breaking point. His reserves were exhausted. Good emotional health is closely connected with good physical health.

Second, God gave Elijah normal companionship. He directed him to find Elisha and call the younger man to be his associate. The tendency of those who are discouraged is to withdraw from friends and Christian associations. This is the worst possible thing to do. One way to throw off undesirable moods is to seek the company of good Christian friends.

The third step in Elijah's recovery was the challenge of a new task. Instead of sitting and brooding over his difficulties, the prophet was given a new assignment. To be active, to find a job and do it wholeheartedly, is a sure cure for the "blues."

There are two elements more fundamental than feelings in holiness. These are obedience and faith -- the two "feet" whereon the child of God must walk.

When high feelings subside, and "heaviness through manifold temptations' " comes, then one should check his consecration and obedience, "dig in,'" and hold on by faith. Like all trials, "this, too, will pass"; and faith, so much more precious than gold, though it be tried in the fire, will "be found unto praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ."

1. Quoted by J. G. McKenzie, Psychology, Psychotherapy, and Evangelicalism. (London: George Allen and Unwin, Ltd., 1940), p. vii. 2. Mastery: The Art of Mastering Life (New York: Abingdon Press, 1955), p.97. 3. (New York: Harcourt,, Brace and Company, 1955). The last two chapters illustrate this point. 4. Letters, VI. 68; quoted by J. Baines Atkinson in The Beauty of Holiness (London: The Epworth Press, 1953), pp.131-32. 5. Leslie R. Marston, From Chaos to Character (Winona Lake, Ind: Light and Life Press, 1944), pp.76-77.

Coming Next: THE SOCIOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF HOLINESS

INTERPRETING CHRISTIAN HOLINESS by Westlake Taylor Purkiser

Chapter Two: THE HISTORICAL INTERPRETATION OF HOLINESS

W. T. Purkiser (1910-92) was a prolific writer, respected scholar, and well-loved preacher within the Church of the Nazarene who also had a significant voice in the larger evangelical Christian community. He authored and contributed to some of the most widely disseminated and enduring works in the Wesleyan-Holiness tradition.

Christian holiness not only has a basis in the Bible, It also has a history in human understanding. God's truth never changes. Men's understanding of that truth does change. Theology, like all other human disciplines, is constantly changing -- pushing forward, and sometimes regressing.

It is because important insights are often lost that we need a basic acquaintance with the history and literature of the Wesleyan movement. Generations, like groups of people within any generation, may become provincial and cut off from the experience and thought of the Church universal.

One of the major problems of our age is its rootlessness, its lack of any sense of continuity with its past. Part of this, as Kenneth Keniston has pointed out, is due to the rapidity of change in these times in which we live. Because change comes so fast, we suffer an intensification of the present -- a heightening of the now until we have come to talk about the "now generation," the "now people." We are, as Keniston described it, "stranded in the present." [1]

Traditionally, to be sure, church people are a conservative crowd. Most of us dislike any change we can't jingle in our pockets. But change is with us, and Thomas Wolfe was most certainly right when he wrote, "You can't go home again . . . to your childhood . . . back home to the old forms and systems of things which once seemed everlasting but which are changing all the time." [2]

But having conceded this much to the present, and the changing future, we still need the perspective that comes from at least some awareness of the past. Not all the brilliant theologians and Bible scholars have been born in the twentieth century by any means. The same advice might be given to theological reconstructionists that has been offered to young protesters against the "Establishment": "Don't scuttle the ship before you have learned how to build a raft."

A sense of history provides the correctives needed for some of our one-sidedness. We need the balance that can be found in many of the older holiness classics, such as:

John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection

Hannah Whitall Smith, The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life

A. M. Hills, Holiness and Power

Daniel Steele, The Gospel of the Comforter and Milestone Papers

J. A. Wood, Perfect Love and Purity and Maturity

H. A. Baldwin, Holiness and the Human Element

Thomas Cook, New Testament Holiness

And the sound, practical wisdom of George D. Watson, Samuel Logan Brengle, S. A. Keen, Beverly Carradine, and a dozen more.

Men are still writing, and in the Kingdom the new wine may be as good as the old. But the past has insights in it which we need to correct some of the overcompensations we have made -- the swing of the pendulum past center point.

Two items are particularly important in the present.

I One is the common, modern version of Wesleyan "eternal security." It differs from Calvinistic eternal security in that it relates to entire sanctification rather than to justification and the new birth. It is the notion that in the experience of holiness we have a sort of deposit of grace sufficient for the rest of life, and that sanctification is an end to be gained which when reached insures an easy slide down the slope into the Pearly Gates.

Put in such bald terms, no one would own up to such a view. But in one form or another it is surprisingly common among holiness people. Here the historical interpretation of Christian holiness can help.

Let us hear again the words of John Wesley, and let us inscribe them on the fleshy tables of our hearts:

The holiest of men still need Christ as their prophet, as "the light of the world." For he does not give them light, but from moment to moment: the instant he withdraws, all is darkness. . . . God does not give them a stock of holiness. But unless they receive a supply every moment, nothing but un holiness would remain. [3]

If the Bible makes anything clear, it is that the cleansing which is the heart of holiness is not only a cleansing that begins at a definite point of consecration and faith, but it is also a cleansing which continues moment by moment. This is the meaning of the verb in I John 1:7, which literally reads, "If we are walking in the light as He is in the light, we are having fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son is cleansing us from all sin." It begins to cleanse, and it keeps right on cleansing completely and continuously.

The experience of entire sanctification is not an end but a beginning, not a goal but a starting place. True, it is an end of carnal strife and confusion within the soul. It is an arrival at a realization of God's will for all His people. Yet the end of carnal strife and confusion is for the sake of a beginning of peace and victory. And the point of arrival is but a portal that leads onto a highway stretching across all of life and on into eternity.

We do not retain the grace of God by hoarding it, like the man in the parable -- wrapping it in a napkin to bury for safekeeping. We retain it by risking it in the marketplace, investing it in the commerce of human life, spending it freely on others in the assurance that it will return increasing dividends.

The light is present as long as the windows are open to the sun. The holiness to which God calls us is the sanctifying presence of the Lord of Glory moment by moment.

Puzzles as to "how carnality gets back into the heart" of a person who backslides after he has been sanctified are completely artificial. If the light is lost, "all is darkness." Without a supply of holiness every moment, "nothing but unholiness would remain." Carnality returns as blindness comes when sight is lost, as poverty returns when a fortune is squandered, as disease recurs when the laws of health are violated, and as death and corruption invade a branch when it is cut off from the vine (John 15:1-6).

Holiness is not a storage battery to be used whenever and wherever, apart from the ultimate source of its energy. Holiness is a throbbing, pulsating connection with the divine Dynamo.

Holiness is not a tank of water. It is a pipeline directly into the Reservoir.

This is the truth in May Whittle Moody's familiar lines:

Dying with Jesus, by death reckoned mine;

Living with Jesus, a new life divine;

Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine,

Moment by moment, O Lord, I am Thine.

Moment by moment I'm kept in His love

Moment by moment I've life from above.

Looking to Jesus till glory doth shine,

Moment by moment, O Lord, I am Thine.

Hannah Whitall Smith in The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life says that, in the ongoing life of holiness, our part is continual surrender and continual trust. [4] There is a "once-for-all" surrender in the moment of full consecration, and there is a "once-for-all" act of appropriating faith. But the going and growing life in the Spirit requires that we continually surrender and continually trust.

Holiness is not only a work of grace; it is the workings of grace. It is not only an act of God; it is a relationship begun at a given time and place and renewed and maintained day by day.

This is so familiar to us in human relationships that it is hard to see why we find the idea so difficult, in our relationship with God.

There is, for instance, an obvious difference between a wedding and a marriage. The wedding is a "once-for-all" event, permanently identified with a time and place, a calendar and a geography. The wedding is unrepeatable. By its very nature, it, establishes what both God's law and human ideal intend to be a permanent, union.

But the marriage is not a "once-for-all" event. It is an ongoing relationship.

When the wedding is over, there is nothing more we need to do about it. But we have to work at the marriage.

The wedding may take place in church or chapel. The marriage is lived daily in the home, and its implications pervade every other possible association between men and women in the shop, the office, the school, the marketplace, or wherever people are together.

Need it be said that homes which fail do not fail at the time of the wedding, but in the course of the marriage? The test does not come during the beauty of the wedding. The test comes when "moonlight and roses turn to daylight and dishes." The test comes after the "billing and cooing," when there are too many bills and not enough "coos.

"Which things," as Paul would say, "are an allegory."'

All that is true about the wedding, and more, is true about the moment when the child of God first enters the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ. It, is "once-for-all." It begins what is meant to be a permanent state of affairs. It has a time and a place. It is complete. It alters everything that happens, every relationship and every decision, from that time on until the end of life.

And all that is true about the marriage, and more, is true of the processes wherein God works in us to will and to do of His good pleasure. The life of holiness is a daily life in the home, the shop, the office, the school, the marketplace. It, is not history; it is biography. It is never completed. It never ends.

Just as one cannot have a marriage without a wedding, so one cannot have the ongoing life without the experience of grace that initiates it. But just as the wedding has little value unless it is followed by a sound marriage, the experience of grace doesn't mean much unless it is the beginning of a deepening and ever richer relationship.

Oswald Chambers wrote, "The test of life 'hid with Christ in God' is not the experience of salvation or sanctification, but the relationship into which these experiences have led us."

Chambers went on to explain that "experience is absolutely nothing if not the gateway only to a new relationship. The experience of sanctification is not the slightest atom of use unless it has enabled me to realize that the experience means a totally new relationship. The experience may take a few moments of realized transaction, but all the rest of life goes to prove what that transaction means."

The problem, Chambers said, is that "people stagnate because they never go beyond the image of their experiences into the life of God which transcends all experiences.

"We must beware," he warned, "of turning away from God by grubbing amongst our own experiences." [5]

II A second item wherein we may learn from history lies at the opposite end of the spectrum from the matter just considered. It is the view commonly held today that a act of sin in the sanctified life immediately cuts off the soul completely from God and plunges it into total rebellion and complete depravity once more.

Here again the Wesleyan classics can help us. The older holiness writers -- and by this I mean such people as S. A. Keen, G. D. Watson, Daniel Steele, M. L. Haney, Hannah Whitall Smith, Thomas Cook, and Beverly Carradine -- almost without exception said that a sanctified Christian involved in an unpremeditated act of sin (what Thomas Cook called a "surprise sin") could be immediately forgiven and fully restored by confessing that sin and receiving forgiveness through our divine Advocate with the Father.

This view is based directly on I John 2:1-2, "My little children, these things write I unto you, that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and he is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world."

These verses are set in the context of one of the finest expressions of cleansing from all sin and all unrighteousness in the New Testament (I John 1:6-10). Nor are they in conflict with the strong statements of I John 3:6-9, where the grammar shows that repeated sins are in mind.

The purpose of John's writing in fact is "that ye sin not," (verse 1) -- and the grammar is such as to imply, "not even a single time." The apostle chooses his words carefully. He does not say, "When every Christian sins," or even, "When any man sins." The sin is not expected. There is no suggestion that it is necessary. The statement is, "If any man sin," and the conditional form of the statement implies the possibility of its opposite.

Yet when defeat comes, when there is an impulsive and unpremeditated transgression of God's law, the case is not hopeless. There is an instant remedy. Immediate confession brings immediate forgiveness and cleansing. Christ is the "Mercy Seat" for His own in the moment of tragic defeat as well as "for the sins of the whole world."

It is true that some have not recognized this possibility. They have suffered a bit, perhaps, from what someone has called "hardening of the categories," and have been quite vehement in the claim that a single act of sin under any circumstances plunges the sanctified soul into complete depravity and necessitates a definite two-stage restoration involving forgiveness followed later by entire sanctification.

The result of this hardened view is one of two extremes. On the one hand, the Christian trapped into sin may go into despair and throw over his entire covenant with Christ, lapsing into total backsliding. Or, more commonly but even worse, he may cover his sin, rationalize, excuse, or deny it, and thereby drive it into his subconscious. There it festers and poisons the soul and comes out in legalism, rigidity, and a critical, judgmental, suspicious, and defensive attitude toward everybody and everything. Other people must be torn down in order to build up the crippled ego.

In extreme cases, actual physical collapse takes place for which there is no medical cure. For while the conscious mind may reject the truth, the heart does not forget.

What we need to remember was said by the "fathers" in many ways:

John Wesley: "A believer may fall, and not fall away. He may fall and rise again. And if he should fall, even into sin, yet this case, dreadful as it is, is not desperate. For we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous. [6]

M. L. Haney: "One act of disobedience brings defilement, and with it comes the consciousness of impurity, and the only refuge is immediate flight to Christ, that the stain may be washed out. Satan will tempt you to throw away all that God has previously done for you, and send you back to the beginning to repent and believe for justification, and the substitution of a new consecration for the former one, that you may believe and be sanctified. . . . Don't listen to him; but go straight to Christ with that one offense, and let him heal the wound thus made, and you will again be pure in his sight. If you delay, you will be almost certain to add other offenses, for one sin paves the way to another, and every moment of delay increases your danger. Therefore hasten while the wound is fresh, and be healed in Christ's all-cleansing blood." [7]

S. A. Keen: "There may come spiritual failures to the fully-saved soul, such as temporary disobedience, inadvertent yieldings to temptations, impulsive indulgences in wrong feelings, occasional lapses into sin. . . . The anchor that can hold the soul in this fierce storm, is to know that such spiritual repulses do not forfeit the gracious state of cleansing from all sin, unless they come from a preceding repudiation of its consecration and trust, or are immediately followed by the cancellation of the same. The soul must know, whenever such spiritual calamities come, that an immediate confession to God, and a reassertion of its trust in the all-cleansing blood, will prevent the forfeiture of its experience, and bring an immediate renewal of the witness to full salvation." [8]

Hannah Whitall Smith: "In this life and walk of faith, there may be momentary failures [defined in the context as conscious, known sin], which, although very sad and greatly to be deplored, need not, if rightly met, disturb the attitude of the soul as to entire consecration and perfect trust, nor interrupt, for more than the passing moment, its happy communion with its Lord." [9]

Daniel Steele: "So long as love to God is the undiminished motive there can be no career of sin. But faith may become weak and love may decline. Then under the pressure of temptation the child of God may commit a single sin, as [I John] 2:1 implies, and have recourse to the righteous Advocate with the Father, and thus retain his birthright in the kingdom of God. Or he may with Judas pass out of the light into so total an eclipse of faith as to enter upon a returnless course of sin entirely sundering him from the family of God, and enrolling him as a 'son of perdition,' a 'child of the devil,' whose characteristics he has permanently taken on.""

None of this is to excuse sin or treat it lightly. It ought never to happen in the sanctified life. But if it does, it must be dealt with honestly and forthrightly. We have been much less open and clear about this whole matter than our fathers, and much to our detriment.

It, must be recognized, to be sure, that there is premeditated sin, calculated and presumptuous, which is in itself an indication of a backslidden heart. A person so involved, however, had long since lost the sanctifying fullness of the Spirit. When he comes back after his sad journey to the far country, he comes as a rebel to be forgiven and restored. He must then make his consecration anew and receive anew the fullness of the blessing of the gospel.

Even in such a case, there need be no more than a moment of time between the renewed sense of forgiveness and prayer for the cleansing touch.

Without obscuring some real differences between piety in the Old Testament, and in the New, this is what happened in David's restoration after his sin with Bathsheba as recorded in Psalms 51. Here, with but a moment between, is the prayer for forgiveness of specific sins and transgressions (verses 1-4), and the plea, "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. . . . Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me" (verses 7-10).

1. Quoted in Sheldon Garber, ed., Adolescence for Adults (Chicago: Blue Cross Association, 1969), pp. 74-75. 2. You Can't Go Home Again (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1941, p.706. 3. A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1966, reprint), p. 82. 4. (Westwood, N.J.: Fleming H. Revell Company, reprint), p.32. 5. If Thou Wilt Be Perfect (London: Simpkin Marshal, Ltd., 1949, reprint), p.85. 6. Sermon on Matthew 5:13-16. Works, V, 301. 7. The Inheritance Restored, Fourth Edition Revised and Enlarged. (Chicago: The Christian Witness Co., 1904), p.171. 8. Salvation Papers (Cincinnati: M. W. Knapp, 1896), pp.97-103. 9. Op. cit., p.163. 10. Half-Hours with St. John's Epistles (Boston: Christian Witness Co., 1901), Comment on I John 3:9, loc. cit.

Coming Next: THE THEOLOGICAL INTERPRETATION OF HOLINESS

Sanctification, When Obtained?

by Dr. Quinton J. Everest

"Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth." John 17:17.

Dr. Quinton J. Everest, was the speaker for Your Worship Hour which was heard around the world for over fifty years. He and Seth Rohrer were two of the founders of Bethel College, Mishawaka, Indiana and the Everest-Rohrer Chapel pictured above is named in their honor.

"And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith." Acts 15:8, 9.

"Have ye received the Holy Ghost since ye believed?" Acts 19:2.

The past two Sundays we have considered Sanctification -- "What It Is" and "Whom It is for." Today we will consider when it is obtained. I am sure we will find an answer to this question if we search sincerely and with open hearts. Certainly we should be interested in defending the doctrines of God's Word -- as Jude says, "Earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints." vs. 3.

However, I am not primarily interested in defending a doctrine, but desirous of presenting a truth which needs a definite and sane reemphasis in the day in which we are living.

If because of an impure heart condition and if because of the need of spiritual power, the disciples and others in Jesus' day needed to be sanctified, surely it can be said without fear of contradiction that the need of this experience is equally as great today. If God's sanctifying power is needed to purify the heart and to empower for effective Christian living and service, where is the honest, sincere Christian who would object to the application of this sanctifying grace? Surely every one of you Christians listening to me is interested in having all that God has for you, and furthermore, you are no doubt interested in the greatest possible advancement of Christ's cause. This being true, I trust you will prayerfully consider whether you have been sanctified and filled with the Spirit.

When? -- Subsequent To Conversion

As we study the scriptures and as we consider Christian experience, we are impressed with the fact that "the when (or the time) of sanctification" is an important phase of this doctrine. If every individual is sanctified when he is born again, then, of course, we need not spend much time in urging sanctification. As I said last week, sanctification is begun in the New Birth, but if Jesus' words are true in John 17:17, we know that there is still a further work of sanctification necessary.

Some attempt to prove that sanctification or the Baptism with the Holy Ghost is not subsequent to regeneration by stating that the Apostles and their company were only converted on the day of Pentecost. We soon realize that this statement and theory is false when we consider such passages as Luke 10:20 where Jesus said to the disciples, "Rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven."

Anyone knows that evil spirits are not subject to sinners, but sinners are subject to evil spirits. Here we see that evil spirits were subject to the disciples; therefore, the disciples were not sinners. We know also that sinners' names are not written in Heaven, but here Jesus says that the disciples' names are written in Heaven; therefore, the disciples were not sinners, When we remember that these words of Jesus were uttered some months before the baptism at Pentecost, we are forced to the conclusion that the disciples were pardoned, regenerated men long before they were filled with the Holy Ghost. Jesus also says in John 17:12: "While I was with them in the world, I kept them in thy name: those that thou gavest me I have kept and none of them is lost, but the son of perdition."

If none of them were lost but Judas, then the eleven disciples were saved. This statement was made before Pentecost. In the sixteenth verse Jesus also says, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world."

Any candid mind reading chapters 14 to 17 of St. John cannot ask for further proof that the disciples were regenerated men long before their sanctification by the Baptism of the Holy Ghost.

Again, consider the revival held by Philip at Samaria. A genuine work of grace was performed in the hearts of the Samaritans. We read that: "The people with one accord gave heed unto those things which Philip spake... unclean spirits, crying with a loud voice, came out of many that were possessed with them... And there was great joy in the city." Acts 8:6.

We can be sure that the great joy was not among sinners, who rejected Philip's message. Those who rejoiced were of the number out of whom the unclean spirits had been cast, and others who, believing the Gospel message, had forsaken their sins and accepted Christ. We read further that, "When they believed Philip preaching the things concerning the kingdom of God, and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women," Verse 12.

Luke then goes on clearly revealing what follows the regeneration and baptism of these Samaritan converts: "Now when the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John: Who when they were come down, prayed for them, that they might receive the Holy Ghost: For as yet he was fallen upon none of them," Verses 14-16.

Surely nothing could be more plain or clear. They had received the word and believed in Jesus; the unclean spirits had been cast out of them; they had great joy and had been baptized. No one would dare say that they were not forgiven and made children of God. But they had not yet received the Holy Ghost. We note, however, that when Peter and John prayed for them that they might receive the Holy Ghost and laid their hands on them, they did receive the Holy Ghost. The ]act that they were sanctified by the baptism with the Holy Ghost subsequent to regeneration is an undisputable fact.

Take the case of Cornelius for another illustration of the fact that sanctification is subsequent to regeneration. It certainly would be heard to doubt that Cornelius was a pardoned man prior to Peter's visit to him. The Scripture says of Cornelius that he was: "A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway." Acts 10:2.

The angel who visited him said, "Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial be]ore God," Verse 4. Surely God could never say all this of a man who was still a sinner. I am sure you will agree that there is no such thing as a "devout" sinner " fearing God with all his house." God says that, "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord: but the prayer of the upright is his delight." Proverbs 15:8.

If Cornelius had been a wicked man, his prayer and alms would not have come up for a memorial before the Lord. What he did was accepted and acceptable to the Lord; therefore, we must conclude that he was not a sinner.

But now note! Even though Cornelius obeyed, feared, and worshipped God, yet he had not received the Holy Ghost. While Peter preached to this devout, prayerful, charitable, righteous, obedient, God-fearing man, the Holy Ghost fell on him and on his household, purifying their hearts by faith. No one could ask for a clearer case of sanctification by the baptism with the Holy Ghost subsequent to regeneration.

I could give other scriptures bearing out this same thought, but surely this is sufficient to convince any honest man or woman. Listen, my friend, have you received the Holy Ghost since you believed? Have you been definitely filled with God's Holy Spirit since you became a child of God? If you have not, it is provided for you. And, furthermore, let me say that you will not be the victorious Christian that God wants you to be and that even you yourself desire to be until you are sanctified by the baptism with the Holy Ghost and with fire.

What we need in most of our churches is not more machinery, more committees, more members, or more organization, but more of the Holy Ghost. The more of the Holy Ghost we get, the less of the world we will have, and we surely can stand less of the world. The church is being ruined and cursed with an overdose of worldly plans and programs. The only hope of the church is salvation through the blood of Christ and sanctification by the baptism with the Holy Ghost.

To every humble, believing, born-again heart in my audience, I want to say that the Comforter is promised to you. By sincere prayer and faith consecrate your redeemed and ransomed powers to the Lord, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. All through the history of the church of Christ witnesses can be found who will gladly testify from personal experience that the promise was not restricted to the few, but was promised to "All that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call," Acts 2:39.

Some have said that sanctification is a work which takes place at death. Personally I do not know of anything in the Bible to substantiate such a view. The idea of death purification springs from the false notion that sin is in matter. I am sure that just a little careful thought will prove this to be absurd. Sin is not found in wood, cloth, skin, bone, muscle, and heart of man. The body is simply an instrument of the soul and spirit within. The body will die, but the real man will live on eternally. Death, therefore, is not an entity -- it is not a purifier or sanctifier -- but it is simply the dissolution of soul and body and seals destiny. There is nothing in this dissolution to impart spiritual life or to sanctify the soul.

The Bible declares that death is an enemy, but if it could do what some have claimed, it would certainly be a friend. Jude in writing his Epistle writes to those who "are sanctified by God the Father."

He does not say sanctified by death or by some other process, but by God the Father. No, my friend, there is no saving efficacy in death. If there were, God would never have permitted His Son to suffer and die for the salvation and sanctification of lost, sinful men. If death could perform it, everyone would have his need met in the hour of death.

Still others contend that while pardon and spiritual life are realized in regeneration, heart sanctification comes as a development. That is, if we attain it at all, it must be by the long process of a silent growth. I have found that one trouble with the people who advocate this is that they never arrive. Evidently the people to whom Jude had written had arrived, for he writes to those who "are sanctified."

I have yet to meet the first person who has testified that he was sanctified by growth. I have heard thousands testify that they definitely, instantaneously experienced the sanctifying baptism with the Holy Ghost. The mistake made here is confusing purity of heart with Christian maturity. Christian maturity or ripeness comes with the flight of time, both in nature and in grace, but heart cleansing and the baptism with the Holy Ghost is to be obtained as suddenly and sensibly as pardon and regeneration. A sinner cannot grow into the experience of salvation; neither can a Christian believer grow into the experience of sanctification. Consecration and faith on the part of the Christian and the cleansing power of God are the factors producing sanctification, and when this is effected, then there are unparalleled possibilities for Christian growth.

Revelation Of Experience

The experiences of born-again individuals reveal that there is need of a further work of grace in the heart of man. It was very evident in the lives of the disciples. A study of their lives previous to and following Pentecost will reveal the fact that something definite took place. Following the infilling of the Holy Spirit, there was greater faith, a new power, and a more intense love. Selfish desires and personal interests were subservient to the plans and desires of the Spirit of God.

Of the Corinthians Paul said, "Ye are yet carnal," I Corinthians 3:3. They were in the state of prolonged babyhood. Paul had to feed them on milk when they should have been feeding on the meat of God's Word. Paul says, "I could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ," Verse 1. There were among them envying, strife, and division. If many a professor of religion would search his heart and if many churches would make a bit of investigation, they would find that carnality is the thing that is causing trouble. What is needed is the sanctifying baptism of the Holy Ghost. On every hand a lack of something is felt and expressed by God's people. Their Christian experience is not all that they expected it would be. Instead of expected victory, it is oft recurring, dreaded defeat; instead of deep, abiding heart rest, it is disquiet and discontent; instead of advancing, it is losing ground. The question is -- is this life of constant disappointment the normal life of the Bible Christian? To these questions God's Word answers with an emphatic, "No!" The grand, glorious, adequate supply is the sanctifying fullness of the Holy Spirit. This fullness is the birthright of every believer. My dear listener, what have you done with your birthright? Have you claimed it, and are you this very moment living in possession of it, or are you, Esau-like, "despising your birthright?" It is my prayer that every one of you will have the desire awakened to inherit your birthright blessing.

To have our sins covered by the blood -- to have our transgressions forgiven -- is a wonderful experience, but it is also possible and is the gracious privilege of each believer to have his heart cleansed and purified, thus ridding him of all unrighteousness.

Can Be Obtained Now

Some have inquired as to the time that must elapse between the regenerating by the Spirit and the filling with the Spirit. In the case of the Apostles, a little over three years elapsed between the day when they heard the call of Christ to "Follow Him" and the day when they were "filled with the Holy Spirit." In the case of the Samaritans and Ephesians, there were a few weeks, and in the case of Saul only a few days. In a meeting where I served as evangelist, one man was both born of the Spirit and filled with the Spirit the same night. As soon as God forgave him of his sins he prayed that God would fill him with His Spirit, and his need was met. From this, we conclude that there is no definite period of time which the believer must wait to be filled with the Holy Spirit, but as soon as God reveals the need, there should be an obedient seeking.

Some contend that there must be a prolonged period of tarrying and that the gift of the Holy Spirit is always accompanied with "speaking in tongues." But we find that in Acts immediately when prayer was offered for the infilling of the Spirit, there was an answer. And not in every instance did they speak in tongues; in fact, Paul argues quite strongly against this in I Corinthians 14.

It is both foolish and unwise to try to force God to a certain outward manifestation. My friend, the thing you need to see is that if you have never been sanctified, it is your privilege to have this experience now. If you are definitely assured that you are justified freely, consecrate yourself and all you have to God right now. Ask Him to cleanse your heart, and you can be assured that the Holy Spirit will infill you.