In considering the subject of sanctification, it is important for us to take into account the primary meaning of the word as used in Scripture. Sanctification in its principal and ordinary meaning signifies the actual conveyance by which anything on earth is devoted or passed over to God, of which we have abundant examples in the Old Testament with reference to men and animals. The firstborn of man and beast, for instance, were to be " holy unto the Lord;" that is to say, they were to be devoted or consigned to Him as His possession. Consequently, when we find the word " Sanctification" in the New Testament, it is no new idea to the mind of Scripture; and is there, too, used in this, its primary signification, but with a deeper moral obligation on those thus sanctified or set apart, because consummated in the Spirit and not in the flesh. Hence we find in Heb. 10, " By which will we are sanctified;" and again, " He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified." These Scriptures teach us that we who had been strangers and enemies to God are now by His will set apart and passed over to Him, and therefore this is called " Sanctification of the Spirit." No practical experience can ever raise us higher, but practical experience lets us into the wondrous blessedness of this our position. God, in His grace, has sanctified us unto Himself, for Christ is of God made unto us sanctification, as well as righteousness and redemption; and when the Lord unfolds what would be His heavenly desires for His disciples, He prays, " Sanctify them through thy truth; thy word is truth." That is, that they might enter into the practical blessedness of their position. That position was such an one that He could say of them, " They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world." " And for their sakes I sanctify myself that they may be sanctified truly." His was positional sanctification; for moral, He did not need. It was going to the Father, setting Himself apart in the heavens in separation from all here. And this—His exaltation—His positional sanctification, would necessarily conduce to our full sanctification, because of our association with Him as seated in the heavenlies, outside and above it all. This it was that He desired and prayed to be known by us practically. The moment God draws us unto Himself we belong and are set apart to Him; and we never can have better sanctification than what He, according to His will, has there and then made over to us in His beloved Son. This, as well as all the blessings of grace, are gifts and not exploits, but the experimental blessedness of the gifts cannot be known to anyone, unless he learns the value and greatness of it. Although when called, he is really sanctified and set apart to God, and " the consecration of his God is upon his head;" yet lie requires to be kept in the power and responsibility of the blessing, in order to be in conscious possession of it. No amount of acquaintance or experience of divine sanctification improves in the least degree his own nature, but according as he learns the grace of God, and therefore, if faithful, the older and longer he is in the school, the more he will know of what sanctification introduces him to; and thus he will have more practical resource to baffle and stifle the ever varying and daily increasing subtlety of his own evil heart. I believe the activities of nature, which sorely tried a young Christian, would 'prove comparatively trifling to an advanced one; but on the other hand, the subtle and suited ones addressed to the older would have overwhelmed the younger; so that if the experiences of sanctification increase, the necessity for them increases also.
Having said so much of this subject in general, I shall now dwell a little on the mode and process by which OUT souls are experienced therein. When we are worshipping, we are properly enjoying the result of our sanctification, and, therefore, that which leads us into worship; or, when we have declined from it, restores us thereto-must lead us into the sense of our sanctification, of which it is, as we have said, the result. Now for our souls to be happily led into worship, and for them to be restored to it after failure or falling, are of course two distinct things. The first is the higher; and the latter, as we know, by far the most common and frequent with us: but in either case I believe the mode or process by which we are brought into sanctification is what the apostle expresses in Eph. 5 as the " washing of water through the word," and what the Lord performs in John 13 when He washes the disciples' feet.
The moment we fall from our near and separated place with God, from the place of our worship, and where we realize His appropriation of us to Him-. self, we are defiled; and the first step in restoration is the washing of our feet, or washing us with water through the word. On this order of practical sanctification, i.e., that which we are led into in restoration after failure, I would first dwell for a little, and detail the order and blessing of this wondrous service in the soul of one sanctified unto God, and who has been a worshipping Nazarite, but who has now defiled the head of his consecration.
We find two distinct offerings under the law which describe to us the two classes of defilement into which we may fall; the one is the offering for leprosy, (Lev. 14,) and the other that of the red heifer. (Num. 19) I consider leprosy as the sin of my nature acting openly in the flesh: and what has reached that point of activity, that it is not only injurious to myself, but to others; it is contagious. I am a bad example, affecting others by my evil, though it does not assume the malignant stage until there is a protracted or violent expression of the workings of nature. For this order of defilement two birds alive and clean were offered, while the red heifer was the provision for that of another order. It was for all manner of defilements which spring from association or contact-that which is, in one sense, outside myself-what I contract from circumstances, influences, and the like. There are also two delays or difficulties to a soul which may be conscious that he is not in a worshipping state-one is, that he does not see his sin or defilement; and the other, that he is unbelieving in adopting the means of restoration. There is often difficulty in discovering how I have been defiled; but if I seek the Lord and listen to His word, I am sure to be corrected; and if I obtain a knowledge of Him in His work and grace, my soul passes into the freshness of acceptance. Sensible need of His grace always precedes sensible relief from it. If I feel that I need His mercy when I draw near, I find the throne of grace, where I obtain what I need. If I really feel my need, and am convicted by His word, I have in the spirit of my mind renounced and abandoned my evil ways; and in looking unto God, thus convicted and separated in heart and judgment from my former way, I find through Christ the throne of grace, where there is a renewal of my practical sanctification, and additional grace imparted to preserve me from the like in time to come. The sin of which we have thoroughly repented before God, and from the defilement of which we have been truly restored, is ever the sin we are the least likely to fall into again, at least in that particular line. I do not say but that, as the same nature always exists, it may and does break out in lines very kindred; but I think it will be found that the actual and identical line of evil is feared and avoided. Abram does not go down again into Egypt, though he does to the land of the Philistines.
I now desire to trace in detail how a soul is restored; for when restored, he has entered on practical sanctification. Leprosy, I have remarked, is sin acting in my flesh, and by example injurious to others. Peter's denial of the Lord partook of this character, as also does unchecked anger or evil speaking; but I need not enumerate the many sins that come under this head. The word of Jesus and His look convicted Peter.
These two-the word and the look are always connected, for unless the soul hears the word under His eye, there is not true conviction. When there is true conviction there is repentance; and where there is repentance there is clear discontinuance of the evil, or what is typically expressed by " healing." (Lev. 14) The evil influence is gone, the claim of sanctification is renovated in the soul. Chastening may be needed for this process, but when " healing " has set in, the soul is turned to the Lord; and then is the process of cleansing, which, as detailed in this chapter, typifies the experience in the soul of what Christ is for it. Two birds were taken for the leper that was to be cleansed, one of which was killed over running water, and the other, with cedar-wood, and scarlet, and hyssop, was dipped in the blood of the one which was killed, and the leper sprinkled seven times and pronounced clean. That is to say, Christ having passed through death but now risen, proclaims to me as Priest, through the Spirit, the seven-fold or perfect assurance that I am clean. My eye is engaged with Him, the risen One, for my justification, as the leper with the living bird. The soul enjoys and is revived in what Christ is for it now before God, and the sense of distance or judgment is removed. I enter into fresh and greatly enhanced appreciation of the grace of my Lord Jesus Christ; but though I have full confidence in His reception of me, still, as we see with Peter, there is something more required, as is typified here, before he takes his place as fully restored. The leper could return to the camp before he could return to his house; though on re-entering the camp his appearance bore evidence of his separation from his former self-his clothes being washed and all his hair shaved off; yet, after seven days, every particle of hair is again shaved; his own conscience is assured of the ground of his acceptance expressed by the offerings on the eighth day, and he receives from the priest a personal, confidential assurance of his full restoration; his ear, his right hand, and his right foot being marked with significant tokens of the same. The blood and the oil with which each of these parts were touched, I understand as the purification and practical consecration of the whole man in the activities of his nature, to God; and to express the sense in the soul which Peter enjoyed after his conference with the Lord in John 21; where, while He distressed him as to the question of his love, He re-assures his heart by asking him to tend His sheep and to follow Him; which Peter could not have done unless the whole question between himself and the Lord had been settled. Nothing so restores a person to the sense of a place of nearness once his, and which he has forfeited by transgression, as to be entrusted again; and then it is the believer feels, that not only is he cleansed before God, but that the Lord deals with him as clean; " he shall be clean," is the word for the leper (verse 20) after all this process which we have noticed. Practical sanctification has necessarily this double sense, that " I am " both to God, and also for God; hence the Lord sanctifies by cleansing us with washing of water through the word. This is ever the first step. He speaks to me through His word, and then the Spirit presents to my soul, according to the nature of my defilement, the ground of my restoration; for Jesus Christ the righteous is my advocate with the Father, and therefore I confess, and am forgiven, and " cleansed from all unrighteousness."
Now, in the red heifer I think is typified the cleansing of the defilement which we imbibe from evil association and contact, because of our susceptibility to evil and natural inclination to it; and hence the ashes in the running water expressed in type the sense which the Spirit of God conveys to the soul of Christ's judgment for sin; a judgment executed, and now passed and over, and in which was included everything in nature, from the cedar to the hyssop, but of which the ashes are the evidences; the sense of this being reproduced and certified in my soul establishes me in exoneration from personal defilement.
Each of the offerings in the Old Testament presented some distinct line in the great antitype; but we must always remember that He fulfilled them all at one and the same time; and, therefore, while we are looking at Him as the antitype of one, the Spirit is, in fact, engaging our souls with the antitype of all; so that while the leper is engaged with, and learning afresh in his soul the depth and perfection of Christ's work for him, his eye being set on the living Christ, he is also consciously receiving purification from the water of separation, because he has been defiled by contact with his own nature. Whether our sin be an open outbreak of the evil of our nature, or defilement contracted from the evil around us, the first entrance into our sanctification is by cleansing. We are restored into happy consciousness of the virtue of our Lord and Savior for us; and all this is comprised in His washing our feet, and must necessarily he the beginning of our practical sanctification, because we cannot be before God unless cleansed; but now being cleansed, sanctification progresses. I have dwelt long on the cleansing, because I apprehend that it is ignorance or uncertainty about this which hinders many souls from entering into and enjoying their sanctification. In order to have the sense of this cleansing, it is, we may thankfully say, by no means necessary that I fall into sin or contract defilement; but as cleansed, whether learned in the way of restoration after failure, or in the more honorable and blessed way of estimating my sin in the light of God's presence without yielding to it, I am in sanctification; and trouble, whether it be that of heart, or service, or tribulation from the world, all these only contribute to establish me in sanctification, for in each and all I find myself dependent on my Lord: and hence He prays in John 17, " Sanctify them through thy truth." Now here I learn the power that authorizes my sanctification. Unless cleansed, I could not take that ground; but now, through the truth, I find that I am detached from the world and attached to God. The truth has declared to me the Father, and I cannot therefore be of the world. The world knows me not, (the born of God,) as it knew Him not. The more I realize that I am born of God, the more I must not only be separated from all that is contrary to God, but I must also be consciously in my new relationship with God; and this is practical sanctification. The action on my soul of the wondrous truth that God is my Father in a world at enmity with Him must necessarily expose me to all its enmity and opposition; so that this sanctification, the more I enter into it, entails on me the sense of the world's evil oppressing me; because I am maintaining my title before God according to His own revelation to me. This, the practical sanctification, because of son-ship or title, introduces my soul into my proper path on earth, always a sorrowing one, and therefore attended with more suffering than joy here. But there is another mode of sanctification, fraught with nothing but joy and entire separation unto God; and this is positional and not merely title and relationship in an opposing scene. It is positional, I repeat, as Christ's was when He said, " For their sakes I sanctify myself that they may be sanctified thoroughly." By virtue of association with Him in this, His positional sanctification, we are " sanctified thoroughly;" that is to say, our Savior has gone to heaven, above all the ruin and evil here, and now by His Spirit He associates us there with Himself. And this is the practical efficacy of the doctrine set forth in Eph, ii., that of being seated with Him in heavenly places. I am " thoroughly sanctified," for my " citizenship is in heaven; from whence I look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change my vile body that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body;" and the working of the assured anticipation of being like Him leads me practically into the same purity which He is in, (" He that hath this hope in him purifieth himself even as He is pure,") as knowing myself not only contrary to the world in nature and title, but out of, and apart from, it by association and hope. This is full, practical sanctification. The believer finds himself not only separated to God by title and the claims of relationship, but he also finds that by position and in association with his Lord and Savior, he is unto God and for God in distinct, sensible separation in spirit from what is contrary to God, looking for full deliverance in a glorified, body and in likeness to Him whom when we see we shall be fully like.
In conclusion, I would recapitulate the how and the when the believer is in practical sanctification. I use the word practical," I repeat, to show that I do not make sanctification depend on my own attainment, but, being sanctified by God's will, I desire to know the blessing of it and therefore call it " practical."
Well, then, the first part of this blessing, the entrance into known sanctification, is, as we have seen, the cleansing, the consciousness that I am made clean every whit. If this is not known, the power and blessing of sanctification cannot be enjoyed; but cleansing being assured to the soul, then I realize my sonship, and the claim of my relationship to God-most happy realizations in themselves, but exposing me, as I walk in the power of them, to the keen sense of the antagonism of all that is in the world, which I exasperate the more, and necessarily feel the more as I maintain my title. And many, many Christians make this the sum and end of their sanctification; that is, they do not see that it calls them to anything further than maintaining themselves in title as God's children in the world; therefore the more holy they are, the more they suffer, and find no place of relief; and this it is, no doubt, that has suggested to some, positive and corporeal exclusion from the world. From this loss and suffering they would have been preserved, if they had apprehended the position which they are now called to occupy with Christ in virtue of His positional sanctification; and then, in conscious association with Him, the holy desires in them would find unchecked expression; and they would feel in themselves that both according to God and before Him, they were " thoroughly sanctified."
May we one and all apprehend the grace of the blessed God, and praise Him through Christ Jesus our Lord.