"SANCTIFIED BY THE HOLY GHOST"

"That I should be a minister of Christ Jesus unto the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit" (Rom. 15:16).

The apostle thought of the grace of God that made him a minister to the Gentiles. His parish was the Gentile world. His the sin kindled at the thought. By a grand figure the apostle makes himself a priest under Christ to perform a sacrifice in which the offering to God is the Gentile nations. His imagination is on fire as he seems to himself to be approaching the Gentile world through Christ to the living God. The victim upon the Jewish altar was fitted for the offering by salt, or oil, or frankincense. But these Gentiles were to be made acceptable to God by "being sanctified by the Holy Ghost." Thus the truth of Rom. 12:1 is repeated here, only more definitely, viz., we must be sanctified to be wholly acceptable to God. Consider then,

I. The Spirit promised.

God spake by the mouth of Joel: "And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour forth of my Spirit upon all flesh ... Yea, and on my servants and on my handmaidens in those days will I pour forth of my Spirit." By Isaiah He said: "I will pour water upon him that is thirsty ... I will pour my Spirit" (Isa. 44:3). By Ezekiel He said: "I will sprinkle clean water [type of the Spirit] upon you, and ye shall be clean ... And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes ... And I will save you from al your uncleanness" (Ezek. 36:25, 27, 29). Through the mouth of John the Baptist He said: "I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear; he shall baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire."

Then came Jesus repeating and amplifying all the promises about the pouring out of the Spirit and fire and His last message was: "Wait for the promise of the Father, which ye heard from me: for John indeed baptized with water, but ye shall be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days hence."

II. We are encouraged to pray for this Holy Spirit.

After promising the pouring out of the Spirit in cleansing power through Ezekiel, God said, "For this moreover, will I be inquired of by the house of Israel to do it for them." Jesus said, "If ye, then, being evil. know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?" And His parting word was, "Tarry ye in Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high." "Ye shall have power after that the Holy Spirit is come upon you" (Luke 24:49; Acts 1:8). They went back to Jerusalem to that prayer-chamber, and "These all with one accord continued steadfastly in prayer." This marvelous blessing that has such amazing effects upon the lives of men is no accident. It was promised by the prophets and by Jesus. How to get it was made known, and it is always prayed down from the skies.

III. The Spirit was poured out

The blessed promises were fulfilled. The earnest prayers were answered. Pentecost came. The condition being fulfilled, the same blessing was bestowed elsewhere, and at other times, even through all the ages. Peter and John went down to Samaria to pray for the young converts of Samaria "that they might receive the Holy Spirit." The apostles felt that it was supremely important that the converts shall receive the second blessing and be sanctified, Spirit-filled Christians. "And they received the Holy Spirit" (Acts 8:15,17).

There were some young converts at Cesarea -- Cornelius and his household. They were, especially Cornelius, "righteous," "one that feared God," "a devout man," one who "prayed to God always," "worked righteousness, and was accepted of God" (Acts 10:2, 22, 30, 31, 35). Yet God was so exceedingly anxious that these Christians should receive the sanctifying Spirit, that He sent an angel to Cornelius and a vision to Peter to get them together, that these converts might receive the Holy Spirit.

There was a little church in Ephesus. Paul, in his travels, went there, and in his first service he asked, "Did you receive the Holy Spirit when ye believed?" They answered, "Nay, we did not so much as hear whether the Holy Spirit was given." Multitudes of congregations would be obliged to confess the same today. They are never urged by their pastors to seek the baptism with the Holy Spirit for heart-cleansing and the enduement of power. But this matchless blessing was not for the people of any age or place. Peter said at Pentecost, "Ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit; for the promise is to you and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call unto him" (Acts 2:38, 39). Every one that has a call to be a Christian at all is called to be a sanctified Christian: filled with the Holy Spirit. Through all the centuries: even to our day, God has gladly bestowed the blessing upon all willing, consecrated, and believing hearts.

IV. Notice the purpose of the blessing.

If our discussion of Romans 5-8 has not been unpardonably lacking in clearness, it has made plain to every reader that "the sin" dwelling in us is the prolific fountain of all moral evil in our life. We have seen how it was personified as the "warring queen," "the old man," "the body of sin," the cruel "slave-master," the "law of sin," the "murderer." We have seen that it was called the very essence of "enmity against God" that never can be tamed or brought into subjection, or be reconciled with anything good.

Moreover, we have seen again and again in the sixth chapter that "the sin," this "old man" of corruption, this "body of death," this cruel master, may be "crucified" and "destroyed," so that we are "made free from sin." In the eighth chapter we were told how it is done. The great apostle, giving his experience, said, "The Spirit made free" (8:2). And this idea is repeated over and over again through a dozen verses. Now, that is exactly what the text means: "Being sanctified by the Holy Spirit." Peter, years afterward, describing the blessing that came to Cornelius and his friends, said: "And God, who knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Spirit ... cleansing their hearts by faith." The eminent theologian, Dr. Daniel Steele says: "Sanctification is the act of God's grace removing impurity existing in the nature of one already born of the Spirit." The conquering Holy Ghost. Law, philosophy, self-culture, Standard Dictionary defines sanctification: "Specifically in theology, the gracious work of the Spirit whereby the believer is freed from sin and exalted to holiness of heart and life."

So if any soul wishes to be freed from the "carnal the sin," "the sin" that was born in him and "dwells" in him, prompting him to every kind of evil and iniquity, the dictionary and our text and the eighth chapter of Romans tells him just how to receive the blessing. Let him persistently seek the baptism with the Holy Spirit. He can come into the life with a fiery, sin-consuming energy that will utterly burn up the chaff and dross of the nature, and leave the heart clean to be the temple of the indwelling Spirit.

This is the blessing that brings victory to the daily life. It is the vile sin-principle inside the heart that is the source of the ever-recurring moral defeats of men. The over-boiling and ebullitions, the rasping impatience, the hot words that stab like daggers the hearts we love, the incessant yielding to habits we hate and would be rid of, the cooling off of devotion to God, the chill of ardor in spiritual service, the apathy and indifference and deadness to divine things, the luke-warmness of heart and loss of first love, and a thousand other symptoms of waning piety -they all come from "the sin" discussed in this Epistle to the Romans. The moral law cannot remove it. The inner conflict in the soul between holy aspirations and evil propensities, between good resolutions and evil desires, can never cease, and the civil war can never end, until this evil principle is "destroyed." It can be utterly cast out and eliminated from the life. But only one power ever revealed to man can do it -- that is, the cleansing, all-agonizing effort, tears, prayer, have all been tried, and all have ignominiously failed. But the Omnipotent God coming into the soul, the sanctifying, sin-consuming, carnality-slaying Holy Spirit coming into the citadel of our nature, can bind the strong man, kill him, and cast him out. Then for the first time in the experience, the conflict will be over. "The peace of God that passeth all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

This is what the Spirit was given for. A million ages ago, "God chose you from the beginning unto salvation in sanctification of the Spirit" (2 Thess. 2:13). He planned this world to be the home of sanctified Christians. To doubt the possibility of such an experience is to misread and misinterpret and doubt the unchangeable truth of the holy God.

V. This coming of the Spirit in sanctifying power is conditioned on our faith.

We are "sanctified by faith that is in me" (Acts 26:18). "That we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith" (Gal. 3:14). "Giving them the Holy Ghost ... cleansing their hearts by faith" (Acts 15:8, 9).

But we cannot believe for this blessing till we have first complied with other conditions. There must be absolute surrender to obey God about everything (Acts 5:32). There must be absolute consecration of yourself to God. "Present yourselves unto God" (Rom. 6:13). Then pray for the blessing in faith: "He giveth the Holy Spirit to them that ask him" (Luke 11:13). Dr. A. J. Gordon, the noble, sanctified Baptist preacher of Boston, said: "It seems clear from the Scriptures that it is still the duty and privilege of believers to receive the Holy Spirit by a conscious, definite act of appropriating faith, just as they receive Jesus Christ. For it is as sinners that we accept Christ for our justification, but it is as sons, we accept the Spirit for our sanctification."