St. Paul’s intercession For instantaneous insistent sanctification - Chambers, Oswald

Chapter VIII

1 Thessalonians 5:23–24

All through the bible the separation of a people by god is revealed, and the individual members of that people have to separate themselves to gods service. We are set apart that we may set ourselves apart. God who requires the separation requires also that the person be sanctified intrinsically too.

Two ideas are brought out in regard to our lord: first, the father separating Jesus for his redemptive work, say ye of him, whom the father sanctified, and sent into the world, thou blasphemest; because i said, i am the son of god? ( john 10:36); second, Jesus sanctifying himself for the work of god, and for their sakes i sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth ( john 17:19). But our lord was holy, why did he say i sanctify myself ? To coin a phrase, jesus christ sanctified his sanctification, that is, he determinedly sacrificed his holy self to his father. Jesus christ separated, or sanctified, himself by sacrificing his holy self to the will of his father; he sanctified his intelligence by sub- mitting his intelligence to the word of his father, and he sanctified his will by submitting his will to the will of his father. As the sanctified children of god we need to hear in mind that after the experience of sanctification we have to separate our holiness to god. We are not made holy for ourselves, but for god, there is to be no insubordination about us.

The majority of us are too indifferent, too religiously sentimental, to be caught up into the sweep of the apostle pauls intercession. Have we a lesser idea than that god should do in us what he wants to do? Are we prepared to pray with Murray McCartney, 10 lord, make me as holy as thou canst make a sinner saved by grace?

Of grace; how long the approach to it takes depends upon ourselves, and that leads some to say sanctification is not instantaneous. The reason why some do not enter in is because they have never allowed their minds to realise what sanctification means. When we pray to be caught up into gods purpose behind this intercession of the apostle paul, we must see that we are willing to face the standard of these verses. Are we prepared for what sanctification will cost? It will cost an intense narrowing of all our interests on earth, and an immense broadening of our interest in god. In other words, sanctification means an intense concentration on gods point of view every power of spirit, soul and body chained and kept for gods purpose only.

Sanctification means being made one with god, even as the lord Jesus christ was one that they may be one, even as we are one. That is much more than union, it is one in identity; the same disposition that ruled in jesus rules in me. Am i prepared for what that will cost? It will cost everything that is not god in me. Am i prepared for god to separate me for his work in me, as he separated Jesus, and after his work is done, am i prepared to separate myself to god even as jesus did? It is this settling down into gods truth that is needed. The type of sanctified life is the lord jesus christ, and the characteristic of his life was subordination to his father. The only way to get right with god is to soak in the atmosphere of the life of the lord jesus. The one mark of spiritual people to-day is insub- ordination. We have wild spiritual impulses that would give an opportunity to satan as an angel of light to switch the very elect, if it were possible, away from gods plan. If you want to know the result of spiritual insubordination, read 1 corinthians 12. There you will see a portrait of spiritual lunacy, absolute insubordination to the dominant sanity of the spirit of god. The characteristic of the holy ghost in a man is a strong family likeness to jesus and freedom from everything unlike jesus.

The best of us are all too shallow and flippant in our attitude to this tremendous secret of sanctification. Are we prepared to let the spirit of god grip us and put us under his searchlight, and then do a work in us that is worthy of god? Sanctification is not our idea of what we want god to do for us, sanctification is what god does for us, and he has to get us into the right relationship, the right attitude of mind and heart, where at any cost we let him do it. Are we prepared to concentrate on the holy spirits ministration? The apostle Paul is not talking about scientific truth, or intellectual truth, he is talking about spiritual truth, and the only way we can prove spiritual truth is by experience. People say, i dont understand this doctrine of sanctification. Well, get into the experience first. You only get home by going there. You may think about getting there, but you will never get there till you go. Am i prepared to do what jesus said come unto me? Am i prepared to let god make me real? Reality is the proof in my own experience that this thing is true. God grant that every worker may see the peril of not applying this spiritual logic prove it. Every time we give a message that we have no experience of, the spirit of god will bring it back to you where are you in regard to this matter?

The value of calm and the god of peace himself . . . (rv)

it is wonderful that by the guidance of the holy spirit, Paul puts the subsiding of suspicion in the first place. The very nature of the old disposition is an incurable suspicion that jesus christ cannot do what he came to do. Have you the tiniest suspicion that god cannot sanctify you in his almighty way? Then you need to let the god of peace slip his great calm all through your insidious unbelief till all is quiet and there is one thing onlygod and your soul; not the peace of a conscience at rest only, but the very peace of god which will keep you rightly related to god. My peace i give unto you, said jesus. When once you let the god of peace grip you by salvation and squeeze the suspicion out of you till you are quiet before him, the believing attitude is born, there is no more suspicion, you are in moral agreement with god about everything he wants to do.

One of the things which we need to be cured of by the god of peace is the petulant struggle of doing things for ourselves i can sanctify myself; if i cut off this and that and the other i shall be all right. No, Paul says the very god of peace sanctify you wholly, has the god of peace brought you into a calm, or is there a clam our and a struggle still? Are you still hanging on to some obstinate conviction of your own? Still struggling with some particular line of things you want? The god of peace himself sanctify you wholly. If we are to be sanctified, it must be by the god of peace himself. The power that makes the life of the saint does not come from our efforts at all, it comes from the heart of the god of peace. America has a phrase pray through. What we have to pray through is all our petulant struggling after sanctification, all the inveterate suspicion in our hearts that god cannot sanctify us. When we are rid of all that and are right before god, then god lets us see how he alone does the work.

When we stay our feeble efforts,
And from struggling cease,
Unconditional surrender
Brings us God’s own peace.

The great mighty power of the God of peace is slipped into the soul under the call for supreme sanctification. Some of us are far too turbulent in spirit to experience even the first glimpse of what sanctification means. People noisy in words are not always turbulent in spirit; excessively quiet people who have nothing to express in joy and shouting, may be suspicious in heart.

Value of massive truth sanctify you wholly . . .

When once we get calm before god and are willing to let him do what he chooses, he gives us an outline of some of his massive truths. And the very god of peace sanctify you wholly preserve you in unspotted integrity. Integrity is the unimpaired state of a thing, unblameable, undeserving of censure in gods sight. Pauls intercession is for an instantaneous and insistent sanctification that will preserve a man in unspotted integrity unto the coming of our lord Jesus christ. The majority of us have never allowed our minds to dwell as they should on these great massive truths; consequently sanctification has been made to mean a second dose of conversion. Sanctification can only be named in the presence of god, it is stamped by a likeness to christ. Wholly every detail, mystical, moral, material.

(a) mystical

And i pray god your whole spirit . . . Be preserved blameless . . .

The word spirit here is not the same as in verse 19. Your whole spirit, i. E. , the personality of a man imbued by the spirit of god, the two never become identical, they become identified. A mans spirit is imbued with the spirit of god till all the highest mystical reaches of his personality are living in god. Where are our imaginations? Where are all the fancies that break through language and escape? Where do they live? Where are our dreams that make us afraid of ourselves? The modern psychological phrase is subconscious, super-conscious, beyond the range of what we are able to grasp. The great mystic work of the holy ghost is in those dim regions of personality where we cannot go. If you want to know what those regions are like, read psalm 139. The psalmist implies thou art the god of the early mornings, the god of the late-at-nights, the god of the mountain peaks, the god of the sea; but, my god, my soul has further horizons than the early mornings, deeper darkness than the nights of earth, higher peaks than any mountain, greater depths than any sea can know. My god, thou art the god of these, be my god! I cannot reach to the heights or depths, there are motives i cannot touch, dreams i cannot fathom, god search me, winnow out my way. When god gives his calm, do we realise the magnitude of sanctification through his omnipotent might? Do we believe that god can garrison our imaginations, can sanctify us far beyond where we can go? Have we realised that if we walk in the light, as god is in the light, the blood of Jesus christ cleanses us from all sin? If that means cleansing from sin in conscious experience only, god almighty have mercy on us! The man who has become obtuse through sin is unconscious of sin. Being cleansed by the blood of jesus means cleansing to the very heights and depths of our spirit if we walk in the light as god is in the light. None of us soak sufficiently in the terrific god-like revelation of sanctification, and many a child of god would never have been led astray by the counterfeits of satan if they had allowed their minds to be bent on that great conception of pauls, your whole spirit from the vague beginnings of personality known only to god, to the topmost reach, pre- served entire, garrisoned by the god of peace.

(b) moral

your whole . . . Soul preserved blameless . . .

There are those who want to form religion on mysticismlive according to your temperament. Every sanctified soul is a mystic, but he does not live in that region only, he is soul and body as well as spirit, and what is true in the mystical sphere is true in the moral sphere. Soul is mans spirit becoming rational in the body, explaining itself. When a little child wants to say something and has not a vocabulary, it speaks through gesticulations and facial workings, it has not the power of soul to express itself in words. Paul says not only your whole spirit preserved blameless, but your whole soul. Are we forming the mind of christ? A man has the spirit of jesus given to him, but he has not his mind until he forms it. How are we to form the mind of christ? By letting his spirit imbue our spirit, our thinking, our reasoning faculties, then we shall begin to reason as jesus did, until slowly and surely the very spirit that fed the life of jesus will feed the life of our soul.

Sanctification covers not only the narrow region where we begin the spiritual life, but the whole rational man, sanctified wholly in imagination and reasoning power. How do you read history? Do you discern the arm of the lord behind it? How do you sum up the circumstances of your own life? The sun shall no more be thy light by day; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee; but the lord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy god thy glory. The light on the inside will guide you, a reasoning soul, to understand the facts revealed by common days and nights you cannot understand otherwise. A humble, ignorant man or woman depending on the mind of god has an explanation for things that the rational man without the spirit of god never has.

(c) material

. . . Your whole . . . Body preserved blameless.

Man is not only mystical and moral, but material; never say because you have a body you cannot progress. According to the apostle Paul the body is unutterably sacred. The bible does not say that the body is a curse and a hindrance, it says it is the temple of the holy ghost. What? Know ye not that your body is the temple of the holy ghost? It is only when garrisoned by the god of peace that the stupendous sanctity of the holy ghost preserves a man, spirit, soul and body, in unspotted integrity, without blame, unto the coming of jesus. Our whole body is preserved as we come into contact with all the different relationships of life. In the beginning of spiritual education we are apt to pay too much attention to one of these spheres and satan gets his chance with the others. If we pay attention to the spiritual, satan will pay attention to the nerves.

Sanctification is an instantaneous, continuous work of god; immediately we are related rightly to god it is manifested instanter in spirit, soul and body. The reason the church as a whole does not believe it is because they will not soak in the massive truths of god, consequently every now and again in the history of the church, god has had to raise up some servant of his to emphasise afresh this intense, vivid, sanctification of the whole spirit, the whole soul, and the whole body, preserved blameless unto the coming of our lord jesus christ.

O Lord, my approach to Thee is dulled because
of my physical dimness, but my spirit and heart
rejoice in Thee and my flesh shall rest in hope.
Touch me bodily, O Lord, till I answer in thrill-

ing health to Thy touch.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Insulate me, O Lord, from the things of sense and
time, and usher me into the presence of the King.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
O Lord, I am distressed at my slow manifestation
of any of the beauty of holiness that might express
my unspeakable gratitude for Thy salvation, such
lack of the winsome. O Lord, cause me by looking
to Thee to be radiant (rv ).
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
O Lord, I would bless and praise Thee. How hard
I find it to praise Thee when I am not physically
fit, and yet why should it—that means that I praise
Thee when it is a pleasure to me physically. O Lord,
that my soul were one continual praise to Thee.