IN the erection of a building, its foundation is the all-important consideration, lest by any means the structure should collapse; how much more then in the things of God, and in our building for eternity, is the foundation to be esteemed above everything else. The subject of sanctification is of the utmost importance to every human being, for without holiness no man shall see the Lord. Let us, therefore, seek to learn from Scripture what true sanctification is, and what is the foundation requisite for building it up.
The building of sanctification is only to be reared upon God's salvation. We are first saved, then sanctified. We are not made holy in order to be saved—we are saved in order that we may be holy. A vast amount of religious effort proceeds upon the assumption that we must needs be holy in order that we may be saved. If upon this foundation a religious life be led, despite to the Salvation of God and to the Savior are done, however earnest and sincere the builder may be.
The Scriptures plainly teach that Christ died for sinners, and that, as sinners, we derive the benefits of His work for us. If we could improve our sinful condition in such a way as to cause God to look favorably upon us, the work of Christ our Savior would not be of absolute value. Christ came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. He came “to seek and to save that which was lost." " While we were yet sinners Christ died for us." Again, God justifies us while we are still sinners by virtue of what Christ has done. God" justifieth"— not the sanctified sinner, but—"the ungodly." He brings near to Himself such as were afar off; and more, it is to those who are dead in sins, and to them while in that condition, that He gives life.
In the apostle Paul a great example of the saving grace, and sanctifying power of Christ, is seen. The apostle, since he persecuted Christ in the person of Christ's people, presents himself as the pattern sinner, so that all who come after him may have hope and comfort.
Yet, pattern sinner as he was, he was also a pattern of natural righteousness. The worst of sinners against God and Christ may be the most exalted of men in religious uprightness. No form of sin is more deadly than that of religiousness without Christ, for it is essentially sin against God and Christ. Hence Christ says the publicans and the harlots enter the kingdom before the Pharisees.
Now, the apostle had been a Pharisee; he had gloried in his religious life and in his religiousness before God, but when Christ saved him, Paul counted all his former life and boast, loss for Christ. There and then he cast aside all that in which he had formerly gloried, and instead he gloried in Christ. Being saved by Christ he lived for Christ, and lived his daily life in the faith of Christ, who had died for him. And all his holy life he attained unto, not by his own power but through Christ, who strengthened him. And as his life reached its close, Paul, the aged, was, if possible, more contemptuous as to self-attainment and more zealous for Christ, than he had been at his conversion. For he counted the things he had once gloried in but dung, that he might win Christ, and be found in Him, not having his own righteousness, which is by works, but the righteousness which is of God by faith.
Apostolic Christianity such as this, is sorely needed in our days.
Allowing that we rejoice in Christ as our Savior, let us from this position turn to sanctification. In speaking of sanctification, we must have a standard before us. Everyone who seeks to be holy has some kind of standard or example before the mind, and he endeavors, with more or less zeal, to come up to it. The Christian, when he has his own sanctification before his mind, should allow no lower standard than Christ. Christ in glory as He is, is the supreme pattern to which, by grace, all true Christians shall be changed by Christ at His coming; and Christ as He was upon earth is the only example and standard of perfect holiness that was ever seen in a sinful world amongst men.
We are not to make our own conception of sanctification our standard, and, if we do so, we shall probably leave Christ out. Neither are we to allow that, in conformity to any ecclesiastical society or religious bond, sanctification will be found. We may go utterly astray by so doing, or we may become satisfied with and proud of our religious association, and have next to nothing of Christ in our holiness. The mechanical imitation of Christ, which prevails so largely over Christendom, is exceedingly painful. The acts of Christ are imitated without any regard to their intention, and often without respect even to their nature. The feet of beggars, for example, are washed by persons in high positions in life, and are washed in public, ostentatiously, and with great ceremony. This is called the imitation of Christ It is recorded as indicative of the holiness of the saint who performs the operation The very act itself is utterly unlike the act of Christ, while the spirit of the act is hopelessly left out. Again "saints" inflict wounds upon their persons in imitation of Christ's wounds on the cross, and holiness is supposed to result from these inflictions. Alas 1 These wounds are so many tokens of the "saint's" repudiation of Christ's atoning work, for He endured the cross for us to save us thereby, not in order that we by imitating His wounds might procure holiness for ourselves.
True sanctification is erected upon the base of true salvation, and salvation reaches us through the death upon the cross, of our Savior. We take our stand at the cross of Christ, own our sinfulness and state of death towards God, and we begin our Christian life in Christ risen from the dead. Thus the root, self, is allowed no place save that of death with Christ. "I am crucified with Christ." The Christian's pathway of holiness is that of yielding himself to God as one who is alive from the dead in Christ.
Instead of laboring to slay self, he reckons himself to be "dead indeed" (or to have died) "unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord." He appropriates by faith the divine fact of His being dead with Christ and alive to God in Christ, who dies no more.
If this be looked into, its reasonableness will be seen. Christ came into the world to save sinners, and to give to men dead in sins. Having saved sinful man, and given to him new life, eternal life, Christ imparts to the saved man who has the new life, power for a daily walk of obedience. Our strength, therefore, is to draw upon Christ for the necessary strength. And when this is done, victory occurs, and victory which ever redounds to Christ's glory and honor, and never to the glory and honor of the "saint.”
If a Christian man could reach to true holiness by his own efforts, he would have somewhat whereof to boast. But if he lives a life which in the power of Christ is pleasing to God, Christ, not the saint, is magnified. If a noble rose be grafted upon a wild stem, the grand flowers bear the name of the graft, and no one extols the briar! But if there be not a diligent eye upon the briar, it will send forth its shoots to the detriment of the graft. Yet never will its own native shoots bear the beautiful flowers of the implanted rose! The two will be distinct to the end. So it is with the Christian. Christ in him does not gradually eradicate his briar nature, nor even so much as amend it. The flesh remains the flesh—
"In me (that is, in my flesh) dwelleth no good thing," is true to the end. But Christ in him, by the Holy Spirit's energy, produces the graces and the excellencies which God loves, and which are the fruits of true holiness.
Christ as He was on earth, should be the pattern for the believer. He died to bring us into living union with Himself. He ever is what He was, and we should walk even as He walked, and be like Him in degree.
How do we reach in any way to this? By dwelling in spirit with Christ, by occupation with Christ. Whether He was angry, or whether He comforted, Christ was ever perfect. Our standard must be none other than He. God does not give us a code of rules to follow, but a living example as our pattern. And God the Holy Spirit is in us, so that we may through Him, in measure, be imitators of Christ.