The Experience Of Holiness

The experience of holiness as a definite epochal crisis is in its very nature bound to bear fruit in the life of its possessor. I remember so well that the Word of God was a new book to me. The illumination administered to my mind and heart by the sanctifying gift of the Holy Ghost opened the book to me in a way that made it new. Many Scriptures before but dimly understood became clear and radiant with light which confirmed the reality of my experience and confirmed the truth of the doctrinal standards maintained and promoted by the National Association for the Promotion of Holiness. I found myself in complete harmony with our Wesleyan interpretation of saving truth so that the faith to which I had consented when I united with the Conference of the church now became something to which I not only consented, but I was made a living witness thereto.

The experience of holiness gives an enlarged vision of truth. With this enlarged vision, there comes a passion for the truth which motivates and gives one the urge for its promotion. One becomes aware that what he possesses is an essential part of blood-bought salvation. Like Isaiah. he "sees the Lord high and lifted up." He cries out of the deep passion of his soul, "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts!"

This experience takes out of its possessor everything that objects to or draws back from anything in God's Word. He soon adopts the language of Canaan. I remember how I used to shudder if anyone witnessed clearly to being sanctified wholly. I allowed, they would better live it and not say so much about it. I ignorantly agreed with the devil splendidly. But once I crossed the Jordan and began to possess the land, how all this was changed. One feed of the old corn of Canaan, with the grapes of Eshcol for my desert, found me so in love with the land I had entered that everything in me that ever shrank from the giants of the country was gone and a deep, holy enthusiasm for the whole truth possessed me.

I remember an illustration Dr. C. J. Fowler gave of this truth to which I am witnessing. Dr. Fowler was pastor of a Methodist Church in New England, and of course, true to the truth, he had a holiness revival in his church which produced living witnesses to this experience. He said that one evening at the close of a happy, victorious service where many witnessed clearly to the joy of full salvation, a very refined, cultured, kidgloved lady of his church came up to him and said, "Dr. Fowler, don't you think these people are making altogether too much of this question of entire sanctification?" Dr. Fowler replied, "Sister, did it ever occur to you that you have something in you that kicks on the Word of God?" The question stung her with conviction. She sought and obtained the blessing. He said ever after that she was always talking about and witnessing to the experience, using the term sanctification.

Yes, this experience both envisions and impassions its possessor so that one becomes active with a new and increased zeal for all of God's truth and for all the souls of men.

How many ministers and laymen, too, shrink from identifying themselves with this definite truth because there is a certain reproach accompanying it. It takes a consecration which involves death to reputation and death to position, and a devotion to God and His Word which puts the stake at martyrdom to cut the shorelines, and put all, including our church and our position in it, on the altar and swing out free for God. My wise friends of fifty years ago shook their heads and said, "Too bad. Butler was a promising young man but he has run off with those holiness people."

Yes, I have been identified with the whole saving truth of God and God's method of applying said truth and making it effective for fifty years now. God has led in ways I knew not of, but if I could stand again at the forks of the road and know all it involved to identify myself with this truth, I would without hesitation, and gladly, make the same choice I made at that time. I settled it to stand without wavering or compromise for the absolute authority of God's inspired Word, and for the promoting of second-blessing holiness. It became light in my soul. No shade of night has ever arisen on the day in which "the light shines more and more unto the perfect day." I stand at this evening hour of a long life without regret for the choices made and the course followed for half a hundred years now. I regret all personal failures and mistakes made. I have had many occasions for self-correction, but I have had no occasion for creed revision during these years. The truths embraced then I have proven in all the vicissitudes of life, and they have grown dearer and sweeter with the passing of the years. I have found that truth instead of needing any revision, needs to be held to with unquestioning loyalty, and I have found that truth, instead of changing, has dimensions of height and depth, of length and breadth, which remain a continued challenging to a growing soul.

To my young brethren of the ministry let me say, do not shrink from the reproach of identification with true holiness. Do not water down the crisis experience to fit the failure of anyone professing it, but rather lift the standard to its true level until all who are below that level will be awakened to their need and seek and obtain the blessing that maketh us free. Let us preach it, sing it, and live it, until its beauty shall shine from our lives, making all who know us best hungry to possess that which radiates from our lives by being true.