The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 476

SANCTIFICATION

436

move

unholiness, and to advance the things that are holy.

store the things destroyed.

reconsecrate

it.

Men

still

He

He

that\

must also reHe that desecrated the holy must also

caused the hurt must also heal

it.

that destroyed

alive to a sense of justice will not con-

tradict us.

The

obligation to resanctify this world's life rests in

sense upon Satan.

He

instilled into

its

deepest

our veins the poison which

generates the'diseases of our souls. The spark that caused the fire of sinful passions to break out in human nature was kindled by him.

That Satan

is

hopelessly lost and condemned, does not annul God's

Even Satan himself, according to this right, ought immediately to repent and stand before God holy as in the beginning. And this world of men, which he corrupted, was not his, but belonged to God. He should never have touched it. Hence the obligation continues to rest upon him not only to stop his unholy working in it, but also to reconsecrate perfectly what he has so biteternal right.

and maliciously profaned. That Satan neither will nor can do this justifies his fearful judgment; but it does not annul God's right and never will. If in Paradise man had unwillingly fallen a victim to Satan, the obligation to resanctify the life of this world would have rested upon Satan, but not upon him. But man fell willingly j sin owes its existence not only to the fatherhood of Satan, but also to the motherhood of man's soul hence man himself is involved in the guilt and included under the judgment of death, and therefore obliged to restore what

terly

;

he has ruined. created man holy, with the power to continue holy holy by virtue of the increasing development of the implanted germ. But man ruined God's work in his heart. He soiled the undefiled raiment of holiness. And doing this he violated the right. If he had belonged to himself, if God had allowed him to do with himBut self as he pleased, the right would not have been violated. He did not give man to himself; He retained him for Himself as His own property. The hand that ruined and desecrated man destroyed God's property, encroached upon the divine right of sovereignty yea, upon His very right of ownership, and thus became liable (i) to the penalty for this encroachment, and (2) to the

God

;

also

—

obligation of restoring the ruined property to

Hence the undeniable and sanctifi cation.

This obligation

its original state.

positive obligation of rests,

man's

self-

not upon God, nor upon the

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