Heart Talk On The Second Work Of Grace

How any real student of the Word of God can fail to see the difference between the first epochal work of grace and the second work of grace is more than I can understand. The two symbols by which the double cure for sin is presented to us by our Lord himself, are so plain it is amazing how any careful reader of the word, much less a real student, can miss the truth.

The new birth is the first divine imperative in salvation. This inward change is referred to as passing from death unto life, and it is this: The spirit-department of human personality is that part which died in man, as the first fact in the original penalty for sin. Man was created a threefold being - Body, Soul and Spirit. Bodily, through the physical senses of seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting and smelling he is earth-conscious. Soulfully, which involves intellect, imagination and memory, man is self-conscious. I can close my eyes and neither hear nor feel, nor smell, nor touch anything, and yet I am a self-conscious being. I think, I reason, I imagine, I have insight. Spiritually, man was created God-conscious. This phase of man's consciousness died when he sinned. That is, man was so separated from God, that he lost God-consciousness. He lost the favor and fellowship of God. Thus men in their natural state "Know not God."

When Jesus said to Nicodemus "Ye must be born again," he was not just proclaiming an arbitrary requirement of a sovereign God; but rather announcing a merciful and adequate provision of a Holy God to meet an imperative need in man's condition. "Except a man be born again he cannot see the Kingdom of God." The New Birth enables him to see. As soon as the New Birth is experienced men know God, become God-conscious.

This experience is symbolized by water, and illustrated by the wind's blowing. Jesus said to Nicodemus who asked "how can these things be?" "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." This is a wonderful illustration; there is in it that which cannot be explained, but there is also that certainty which cannot be denied. Everyone who lives knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the wind blows. We feel it; we see the effects of it. It is an unmistakable fact known to every one. So the experience of being born from above cannot be explained but it is a certainty, known and felt by all who are thus born. Then, too, the unmistakable effects of being thus born are seen. No question about this at all. This truth expresses the first divine imperative. It is a foundational fact in salvation.

There is, however, a second imperative in man's need and in God's provision. It is "The Sanctification without which no man shall see the Lord" Heb. 12:14. This definite sanctification is Pentecostal Sanctification, or the "In-truth-Sanctification" for which Christ prays in his High Priestly prayer for his own in John 17:19. It is unto the end that we, his own believing people, might be "in truth sanctified," that he offered himself in supreme sacrifice.

This in-truth-sanctification is not ceremonial or official, but it is personal, character-deep, bloodbought, and Spirit-wrought Sanctification. The following Scriptures fully confirm this fact. "Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish" Eph. 5:25 and 27. "Wherefore Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate" Heb. 13:12.

This second divine imperative, like the first, is not an arbitrary decree, but rather a gracious provision to meet an imperative need in man's condition. This is symbolized by fire, and is associated with our being baptized with the Holy Ghost. This baptism is as definitely in God's plan of salvation as is being born again. Being baptized with the Holy Ghost is both promised and commanded by our Lord.

I have heard men embrace the language of John 17:21, 23 and utterly ignore the fact of the relation of the experience described, to the fact of its being the direct objective of Christ's prayer for the personal sanctification of those who were his own. He witnessed to the Father of them for whom he prayed "Sanctify them." "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world" John 17:16. He witnessed further, "They are thine, and all mine are thine and thine are mine, and I am glorified in them" John 17:10. Verses 21,23 are clearly descriptive of the experience of these after the prayer, "Sanctify them," was answered.

It is indeed faulty, in view of the whole of this wonderful chapter to claim the experience of verses 21, 23 and identify such experience with the first work of grace. No, beloved, there is a double cure for a double need in our being saved to the uttermost. The "Tarry ye" side of Christ's teaching is as plain as the "Repent ye" side of it.

After the disciples had been in the school with Christ for the entire period of his public ministry, he bade them to "Wait for the promise of the Father" Acts 1:4. Surely Toplady has it right in his immortal hymn, Rock of Ages, when he wrote "Be of sin the double (twofold) cure, Save from wrath, and make me pure." These two facts are associated with the blood of Christ, and the office work of the Holy Spirit, and are both presented as being obtained "by faith." Amen.

When Paul wrote of and witnessed to the resurrection of Christ in the Corinthian letter he said, "If Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead?" "If Christ be not risen, then is our preaching vain, and your faith is also vain. Yea, and we are found false witnesses of God," I Cor. 15:12-15. We may adopt this language regarding the truth of this article as to two epochal works of grace, as two parts of one uttermost salvation.

If this is not true then a great host of God's people in the past and in the present are false witnesses of God. We would have to include in this list such men as Bishops Hamline, Joyce, Oldham, McIntire, McCabe and Mallalieu, and such men of our own generation as Daniel Steele, Commissioner Brengle, Joseph H. Smith, J. A. Wood, Milton Haney, H. C. Morrison, John Wesley Hughes, C. J. Fowler, E. F. Walker, J. B. Chapman and a host of others, both ministers and laymen, numbering literally thousands, who witnessed clearly to this definite fact of two works of grace. These witnesses rang clear and backed their profession by fruit-bearing lives.

Beloved, it follows as a logical and necessary fact, that if this is truth, then the importance of it cannot be over emphasized It is essential. It is no small error to deny it, or to fail to obtain it and minister it. Paul witnesses as to his preaching Christ. "Whom we preach, warning every man in all wisdom; that (in order that) we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus" Col. 1:28.

In preaching Christ, Paul ministered the whole range of truth which resulted in turning men from sin to Christ for the new birth, "Warning every man." And then, "Teaching every man in all wisdom that every man may be presented perfect in Christ Jesus." This means leading men to Christian perfection, or in other words, to true holiness as a second work of grace.

Let us minister all the good news of the Gospel, which includes God's double cure for sin here, and our final deliverance from mortality, pain and death hereafter.