The Importance Of Holiness

Christian holiness as a second work of grace is a fact or it is not a fact. If it is true -- and it is -- then its importance cannot be over-emphasized. A great cloud of witnesses arises across the path of Christian history to declare its truth and its value.

The Scriptures afford us abundant proof of this blessing as being essential in the great plan of salvation. All who are real believers accept the fundamental fact of divine revelation, namely, that Christ died to provide an adequate remedy for sin. His death and man's sin problem are directly related. The sin-problem involves man's relation to God, his holy law and government; and not only so, but his condition of heart, and his success or failure in sustaining ethical standards of life.

That sin is twofold in its nature is a fact sustained by the Scriptures and by universal human experience. We sinned: we stand guilty before a holy God and his righteous law. We are by our sins estranged from God. Our spirit-capacity to register God in our consciousness as a living reality is dead in us. We do not by nature or wisdom know God. (Death always conveys the idea of separation, in all its uses of the word). The provision to meet our need fully recognizes these facts and offers to us in the first approach we make to God, through faith in Christ, the forgiveness of our sins, the canceling of our guilt, the adjustment of our relationship with God, so that we become reconciled unto God and have peace with him. Our burden rolls away. We come to know him whom to know aright is eternal life.

"In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace" (Eph. 1:7).

"Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ: by whom also we have access by faith into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God" Rom. 5:1, 2. Amen. Glory to God!

The forgiveness of our sins, yea, justification through faith in Christ (justification means forgiveness on a legal basis, or in harmony with the righteousness of the law, and involves therefore the whole redemptive work of Christ and the conditions of a moral approach on the human side for our appropriation of the benefits of his death) and our being made alive -God-conscious -- in our spirit-nature are recognized needs which are fully and adequately dealt with in the provisions of grace. We are made "free from the law." Oh, happy condition! We are "born, not of blood, nor of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13).

Great and essential as are the facts, there remains an area of man's need to fully settle his sin problem which is not met as yet. This further need involves man's condition in the depth of his moral nature. This is a condition of need which pardon cannot reach, nor does being made alive from our spiritual death cover it. There is a "seed of sin's disease," a moral ill health, a perverseness of condition which calls for a radical treatment. There lurks a foe within man's heart from which he needs a complete deliverance. Something unholy pervades his human selfhood which lifts within him awful power.

"For from within, out of the heart of man, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness" (Mark 7:21, 22).

The same lips which taught this truth also taught that there is a condition of heart exactly opposite to this. "Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God." The conditions of heart described by our Lord in the Mark-Scripture are such as cannot be changed by pardoning mercies. Indeed, they are not acts of conduct, but a condition deep down in man s inmost self. That such a condition exists is so in evidence in our everyday contacts that to deny it would be to fly in the face of facts with a degree of unintelligence not many could be credited with.

Now the question is, "Is there in redemptive provisions a remedy for this area of need? Can the heart of man be made pure? Is there a cleansing from all sin as truly as there is a pardon for all our sinning? Did the finished provision of Calvary include anything to meet this condition of need and deal with it as adequately as with our guilt and death?"

"To the word, and to the testimony" for our answer. The Word, first, "But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin" (I John 1:7). "Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate" (Heb. 13:12). "For their sakes I sanctify myself (offer, or separate myself unto sacrifice), that (in order that) they also might be sanctified through the truth" (John 17:19).

"In truth" sanctification, for which Christ died and for which he prayed, is that deep personal sanctification which only God can accomplish, and for which Christ made provision when he "offered himself without spot to God." Our self-sanctification is our dedication, consecration of ourselves and our all unto God; but his "in truth" sanctification is his separating sin from our inmost selves. He takes sin out of our human selfhood, as it dwells in our members, and thus purifies our hearts, making us "free from sin" and to become in the fullest, truest sense "servants to God," love-slaves, having our "fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life."

As all the evil things named by our Lord in Mark, chapter seven, proceed out of our uncleansed hearts, so holiness proceeds out of our cleansed and "in truth" sanctified hearts. Hallelujah!

Now, beloved, this is true, and to its truth and reality there live today hosts of witnesses; and the names of many whose lives have influenced their times in the past most effectively. These too have been definite witnesses. I say, if this second work of grace meets the need in this second area of man's sin problem, then it is important with a degree of emphasis which makes its refusal sinful and its neglect dangerous. It is truly an essential part of the good news of the Gospel.

This second work of grace is indeed emancipation from the fear and fettering of an inward foe which in its nature weakens us and contributes to our defeat in living a persistent and consistent life as followers of our Lord Jesus Christ. God never meant anyone to come into right relationship with himself and then go out and lead the type of life that would honor and please him, without being made pure within, filled with divine love and empowered by his own indwelling, his cleansed and purified temple. Amen. It is hard for a sick man to be well. Make a man holy (which is moral health), and he finds it easy to be holy and to live holily. Praise God!

"The oath which he sware to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life" (Luke 1:73, 75). Amen.