Holy in Christ: Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is HolyMurray, Andrew
Religion
Holy in Christ: Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy
Murray, Andrew
Holiness
And how is this to be done? God has made very special provision for
this. Holy Scripture speaks so explicitly of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit
that communicates holiness, in connection with the body. At first sight
it looks as if the word, your bodies, were simply used as equivalent to,
your persons, yourselves. But as the deeper insight into the power of
sin in the body, and the need of a deliverance specially there, quickens
our perception, we see what is meant by the body being the temple of the
Holy Spirit. We notice how very specially it is of sins in the body that
Paul speaks as defiling God's holy temple; and how it is through the
power of the Holy Ghost in the body that he would have us glorify God.
'Know ye not that _your body_ is the temple of the Holy Ghost: glorify
God therefore, in the power of the Holy Spirit, in _your body_.' The
Holy Spirit must not only exercise a restraining and regulating
influence on the appetites of the body and their gratification, so that
they be in moderation and temperance,--this is only the negative
side,--but there must be a positively spiritual element, making the
exercise of natural functions a service of holy joy and liberty to the
glory of God; no longer a threatened hindrance to the life of obedience
and fellowship, but a means of grace, a real help to the spiritual life.
It is only in a body that is full of the holy life, very entirely
possessed of God's Spirit, that this will be the case.
And how can this be obtained? In the true Christian life, self-denial is
the path to enjoyment, renunciation to possession, death to life. As
long as there is ought that we think we have liberty and power to use or
enjoy aright, if we but do so in moderation, we have not yet seen or
confessed our own unholiness, or the need of the entire renewing of the
Holy Spirit. It is not enough to say, 'Every creature of God is good, if
it be received with thanksgiving;' we must remember the addition, 'for
it is sanctified by the word and by prayer.' This sanctifying of every
creature and its use is a thing as real and solemn as the sanctifying of
ourselves. And this will only be where, if need be, we sacrifice the
gift and the liberty to use it, until God gives us the power truly to
use it to His glory alone. Of one of the most sacred of Divine
institutions, marriage, Paul, who so denounces those who would forbid to
marry, says distinctly that there may be cases in which a voluntary
celibacy may be the surest and acceptable way of being 'holy both in
body and spirit.' When to be holy as God is holy indeed becomes the
great desire and aim of life, everything will be cherished or given up
as it promotes the chief end. The actual and active presence of the Holy
Spirit in the life of the body will be the fire that is kept burning
continually on the altar.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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