Now this new nature must have an object, and God has given it one that is not in this world at all. There is not a single thing in this world that will not unsanctify us if we go after it. Sanctification is all connected with Christ in glory. The whole thing is new; the nature, the character, the object by which we are sanctified through the Holy Ghost, is outside the world entirely. The work being fully accomplished, the Holy Ghost comes down and says, Now the world is done with, and if you do not come out of it in body, be out of it, and in heaven, in spirit. I have come down purposely to connect you with One outside it. The object before us is a glorified Christ; He is our life: we are “created in Christ Jesus.” The believer has duties here, and is not taken out of the world; but his life is wholly connected with Christ at the right hand of God, and everything that diminishes our perception of Him there diminishes our practical sanctification here.
Our testimony is that the Man whom the world rejected is at God's right hand. Where the gospel begins is (not with Christ come into the world, great as was the grace and love shown in that to win man's heart, and to which he turns to feed on with delight when saved, but) with Christ turned out of it. The world rejected Him, and God took Him up into heaven and made Him there the head of the new creation, and we are to be conformed to it. “And now, little children, abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence, and not be ashamed before him at his coming. If ye know that he is righteous, ye know that every one that doeth righteousness is born of him. Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God; therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.” “Sons of God “; we have the title of Christ: “I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God.” This was never said before redemption.
And just mark how the apostle identifies us with Christ; “the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.” He completely associates us with a rejected Christ down here. “Now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be” —we have the treasure in poor earthly vessels now; “but we know” —we are so identified with Christ— “that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is “up there in glory. We shall never see Him as He was down here in humiliation, but in glory we shall see Him as He is.
And now, what is the effect of this? “Every man that hath this hope on him purifieth himself, even as he is pure.” I see the work of redemption accomplished; I see Christ at the right hand of God; that is the Man I am connected with; and as to this first Adam, I must reckon it dead; it is enmity with God, and I am not in it though it he in me. When we look at our portion, it is that “we are sons of God, and ... when he shall appear we shall be like him.” That is the Christian hope, beloved friends, and the only thing that there is for the Christian's heart.
He “purifieth himself even as he is pure.” I can never be as He was, for He never had any sin in His nature; but I am going to be perfectly like Him. Thus I may do without all the notions of men as to perfection in this world; these are a mere delusion from beginning to end, for it is a glorified Christ we are going to be like, and no other Christ. He does not say we are to be pure as Adam was.
And why purify myself? Because I am not pure, and therefore I must purify myself. He does not say, pure as He is pure. But He is the standard by which I purify myself—Christ, as He is, there above. I am to be like Him, and the life I have of Him can never be satisfied till then. I have ever to purify myself.
You may find other passages on the subject, but there is no other way of looking at sanctification in scripture. There is no setting apart to God except in the Second man. It is, “Beholding with open [unveiled] face the glory of the Lord, we are changed into the same image from glory to glory.” Into what image? Why, the image of the One I am looking at—Christ in glory. We have it expressed in three ways: “Beholding with unveiled face the glory of the Lord"; then “the glory of Christ who is the image of God"; and then “the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” When I come to associate it with man, I must get it as it is in Him up there. If I say, Where am I to look at God's holiness in a man? I answer, In Christ in glory. He was the Holy One and walked according to the Spirit of holiness down here, and I am to walk as He walked; but that by which the Holy Ghost works this in us is by looking at the glorified Christ up there; by having an object and a motive up there which takes my heart out of all that is here, as His was who walked through the world, as I have to do. I am going to be with Him and like Him. A man who, in heart, is not only with God and for God, but even now an imitator of God as a dear child—that is Christian sanctification.
And as when Christ appears, we shall be like Him, and we purify ourselves now as He is pure; our holiness, our walk now, is referred to that day in 1 Thessalonians. His coming runs through all our relationships here, and then as to holiness it says, “The Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all, even as we do toward you; to the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father” —when? In our walk down here, of course, people say. But it is not so put. It is “at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.” It is quite true the work in us is to purify ourselves as He is; but it is to be “unblameable in holiness” when He appears. Of course, if we are sincere, we purify ourselves now as He is; but God has taken man clean out of this world as to his living associations and his conversation, and “when Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we also appear with him in glory.”
What a blessed calling is ours! all connected with a glorified Christ—a Christ that the world has rejected; with a holy nature, born of God, and as an object for this life, He has given you the glorified Christ, the Son of God. God, even in this way, is making you partakers of His holiness. You say, But I must get this holiness formed perfectly in a man to know its true character. You have got it in Christ up there. Now let us turn back to the chapter we read, and you will find it there.
It puts us in Christ's place before God—before the Father, more strictly—and into Christ's place before the world. The first verse begins by bringing in the Father's name, Christ on high after finishing the work, and then the disciples are placed before the Father too, His name being manifested to them. “Jesus lifted up his eyes to heaven and said, Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son.” The verse beginning “Now come I to thee,” closes the first part. Then He says, “I have given them thy word, and the world hath hated them, because they are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” This is our place. In the thoughts and mind of God we do not belong to the world at all. Christ tested it in every way, and never found, except in a poor woman who anointed Him at Bethany, a single comforter or capacity for sympathy in others, not even in His disciples.
How then am I to be set apart in the world? If I have nothing wholly outside it, my leaving particular evils comes to giving up one thing and taking to another; but getting something that is outside of it delivers me wholly from its power.
Let us keep to the word of God. The word of God is the word of God; it “discerns the thoughts and intents of the heart.” Men, when reasoning against the truth, will reject the word of God; they will reject its authority, and say, Do not quote the Bible to me. It is just as if, when I have a fine-tempered sword in my hand, they should tell me not to use it. When you meet with cavilers, the only way is to use the word, and you will find that it does detect. Just use the word, and you will be astonished to see how they come out with all their rationalism and infidelity.
But to turn to it now. “They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world.” Well, He says, “Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth.” This is just what Christ the blessed Son of God was; He was the truth itself, and the truth perfectly suited to man's heart and conscience. This is what the word of God does, looked at as a means. The Father's word brings the truth into my heart, and searches it, and detects everything that is there; it comes as a light and shows everything there that is not of the new creation. And it does so by revealing what is up there. The law did not do this; it came and claimed from man what man ought to be down here; no murdering, no stealing, and, besides this, condemning lust. It takes man as man, and says, That is what man ought to be. But this is not what we have got in Christ. What we have in the truth in Him is the bringing of what is heavenly down to a quickened soul, the bringing down to it all that is in God's mind about itself. It is set apart to God by the revelation of what is heavenly, what is in Christ above, and judges thus all that is not. They were believers, and now He is looking for them to be sanctified, and that is done by sheaving them what is heavenly, associating them with what is in Him above by the Father's word.
“As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.” To carry what? The manifestation of Christ revealed by the Father's word. I cannot be sent into the world if I am in it and of it, nor can I go there as sent by Christ, but as I am fully associated with Him in the spirit of my mind. He says, I send them into the world as Thou hast sent Me. What does that tell us of their mission?
“And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified by the truth.” He is set apart as the Man of God's counsels and heart, as Man in glory. Nay, He says, I set Myself apart; and the Holy Ghost brings the knowledge of it down, and, by the communication of Christ in glory, makes me more like Him every day. He says, You must not have a motive that is not drawn from Me in heaven. All sanctification is referred to being like Him there, kept by the Holy Father to walk as He walked down here before His Father.
Whilst it is, “Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me,” it is, “Righteous Father, the world hath not known thee.” It is very solemn. He appeals to the Father as against the world. It is lying in wickedness. Meanwhile, Christ “is made unto us wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” “Imputed” cannot be applied to all these words. If to any, it is not the subject of this text. People talk of “imputed sanctification “; how about imputed redemption? What does that mean? I hope we shall get more than imputed redemption on going into glory! It is the kind and measure and standard of these things, and that is Christ, and He made them of God to us. It is a question of partaking in God's holiness. The world has rejected the Son of God. Up to the cross it was proved that nothing could win man's heart; he must be born again; and now, being born again, I am associated with Christ. I am going to be in the same glory that He is in, and I am going on until I get there, purifying myself as He is pure. Then I shall see Him as He is, and he like Him. The world we are naturally of has rejected the Son of God, and the associations of the believer are with a glorified Christ, waiting till He comes to take him home. God has sanctified us to Him by the blood of Christ.
J. N. D.
(Concluded from page 330)