If my left arm acts quickly, my right arm will surely respond.
And so, if the soul, renouncing self and sin and the world, with
ardour of faith in the precious blood for cleansing, and in the
promise of the gift of the Holy Spirit, draws nigh to God, God
will draw nigh to that soul, and the blessed union will be
effected suddenly: and in that instant, what faith has reckoned
done will be done, the death-stroke will be given to "the old
man," sin will die, and the heart will be clean indeed, and
wholly alive toward God through our Lord Jesus Christ. It will
not be a mere "make-believe" experience, but a gloriously real
one.
It is possible that some have been led into confusion of thought
on this subject by not considering all the Scriptures bearing on
it. What is it that cleanses or sanctifies, and how? Jesus prays:
"Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth." Here it is
the word, or truth, that sanctifies.
John says: "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from
all sin." Here it is the blood.
Peter says: "God...put no difference between us and them,
purifying their hearts by faith." And Paul says: "That they may
receive forgiveness of sins, and inheritance among them which are
sanctified by faith." Here it is by faith.
Again, Paul writes: "God hath from the beginning chosen you to
salvation through sanctification of the Spirit" (2 Thess. ii.
13). And again, "That the offering up of the Gentiles might be
acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Ghost" (Romans xv. 16).
And Peter writes: "To the strangers... elect... through
sanctification of the Spirit" (1 Peter i. I, 2). Here it is the
Spirit that sanctifies or makes clean and holy.
Is there, then, confusion here? Jesus says, "the truth"; John
says, "the blood"; Paul and Peter say, "faith," and "the Holy
Ghost." Can these be reconciled? Let us see.
Here is a child in a burning house. A man at the peril of his
life rushes to the spot above which the child stands in awful
danger, and cries out, "Jump, and I will catch you!"
The child hears, believes, leaps, and the man receives him; but
just as he turns and places the boy in safety, a falling timber
smites him to the ground wounded to death, and his flowing blood
sprinkles the boy whom he has saved.
A breathless spectator says: "The child's faith saved him."
Another says: "How quick the lad was! His courageous leap saved
him." Another says: "Bless the child! He was in awful danger, and
he just barely saved himself." Another says: "That man's word
just reached the boy's ear in the nick of time, and saved him."
Another says: "God bless that man! He saved that child." And yet
another says: "That boy was saved by blood; by the sacrifice of
that heroic man!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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