The work of the Holy Spirit - pagina 502

SANCTIFICATION

462

including finished good works, preached to them, they are at rest. Their fleshly nature is quite well satisfied with this. But there are

more thoughtful and of tenderer conscience, who do not ac" wide gate and the broad way " thus opened to their souls, but who believe the word " Strait is the gate and narrow the way." To them it reads, " Be holy"; and there can be no rest or comfort others,

cept the

:

for the conscience until they are reconciled with that word.

Hence we say

that

sanctification, that the

guarantees

it

it is

Holy

to us, not once, but forever

pear before the Holy One

And is

our

not enough that Christ has obtained Spirit imparts

this is the blessed

sanctification.

As

we may be

;

it,

but also that Christ

so that whenever

we

ap-

actually holy in Christ.

comfort of the Word, that Christ Himself Adam his descendants have the

in fallen

fearful certainty that their nature is wholly unclean, so in the risen Christ,

His redeemed have the glorious guaranty that

in

Him

they

be completely holy. This is the mystery of the Vine and the branches, and of the profound word " Now are ye clean through the word which I have spoken unto you." As our Surety He assures us hereby ( ) that the holy disposition once created in us, altho temporarily overwhelmed by sin. can never be lost; (2) that Christ's form, of which there is but a small beginning in us, shall attain full perfection before we enter the New Jerusalem (3) that as our Surety He appears before the Father in our behalf, having deposited in the treasury In this knowlof His merits all that we still lack, in our name. shall

:

:

i

;

edge the troubled soul

finds rest.

Let us be careful that the precious vessel

in

which God presents

to us this grace remains intact, for the sinner can suffice with nothing less.

But we should also be careful to avoid the other extreme, which, under the plea that Christ is our sanctification, denies the work of the Holy Spirit in the soul. The supporters of this view concede that Christ is our sanctification, that the Holy Spirit works in us, and that good works are the result, but in such a way that our own person as such remains just as wicked and unprofitable as heretof(yre.

same.

To

be regenerate or not, believing or unbelieving,

The only

difference between the

two

is,

is all

the

that independently

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