Part 31

And in his Defence of the Christian Faith Godet writes, on 'The Perfect Holiness of Jesus Christ,' as follows:--

'The supernatural in its highest form is not the miraculous, it is holiness. In the miraculous we see Omnipotence breaking forth to act upon the material world in the interests of the moral order. But holiness is morality itself in its sublimest manifestation. What is goodness? It has recently been said, with a precision which leaves nothing to be desired, Goodness is not an entity--a thing. It is a law determining the relations between things, relations which have to be realized by free wills. Perfect good is therefore the realization, at once normal and free, of the right relations to one another of all beings; each being occupying, by virtue of this relation, that place in the great whole, and playing that part in it, which befits it.

'Now, just as in a human family there is one central relation on which all the rest depend,--that of the father to all the members of this little whole,--so is there in the universe one supreme position, which is the support of all the rest, and which, in the interest of all beings, must be above all others preserved intact--that of God. And just here, in the general sphere of good, is the special domain of holiness. Holiness in God Himself is His fixed determination to maintain intact the order which ought to reign among all beings that exist, and to bring them to realize that relation to each other which ought to bind them together in a great unity, and consequently to preserve, above all, intact and in its proper dignity, His own position relatively to free beings. The Holiness of God thus understood comprehends two things--the importation of all the wealth of His own Divine life to each free being who is willing to acknowledge His sovereignty, and who sincerely acquiesces in it; and the withholding or the withdrawal of that perfect life from every being who either attacks or denies that sovereignty, and who seeks to shake off that bond of dependence by which he ought to be bound to God. Holiness in the creature is its own voluntary acquiescence in the supremacy of God. The man who, with all the powers of his nature, does homage to God as the Supreme, the absolute Being, the only One who veritably is; the man who, in His presence, voluntarily prostrates himself in the sense of his own nothingness, and seeks to draw all his fellow-creatures into the same voluntary self-annihilation, in so doing puts on the character of holiness. This holiness comprehends in him, as it does in God, love and righteousness; love by which he rejoices in recognising God, and all beings who surround God, as placed where they are by Him. He loves them and wills their existence, because he loves and wills the existence of God, and at the same time of all that God wills and loves; and righteousness, by which he respects and, as much as in him lies, causes others to respect God, and the sphere assigned by God to each being. Such is holiness as it exists in God and in man: in God it is His own inflexible self-assertion; in man it is his inflexible assertion of God.

'It is in Jesus that human nature sees how man can assert God and all that God asserts, not only humbly, but joyously and filially, with all the powers of his being, and even to the complete sacrifice of himself.'

Careful reflection will show us that in each of the above views there is a measure of truth. It will convince us how the very difficulty of formulating to human thought the conception of the Divine Holiness proves that it is the highest expression for that ineffable and inconceivable glory of the Divine Being which constitutes Him the Infinite and Glorious God. Every attribute of God--wisdom and power, righteousness and love--has its image in human nature, and was in the religion or the philosophy of the heathen connected with the idea of God. From ourselves, when we take away the idea of imperfection, we can form some conception of what God is. But holiness is that which is characteristically Divine, the special contents of a Divine revelation. Let us learn to confess that however much we may seek, now from one, then from another side, to grasp the thought, the holiness of God is something that transcends all thought, a glory not so much to be thought, as to be known, in adoration and fellowship. Scripture speaks not so much of holiness, as the Holy One. It is as we worship and fear, obey and love; it is in a life with God, that something of the mystery of His glory will be unfolded. As the Divine light shines in us and through us, will the Holy One be revealed.

NOTE D.

'Our holiness does not consist in our changing and becoming better ourselves: it is rather He, He Himself, born and growing in us, in such a way as to fill our hearts, and to drive out our natural self, "our old man," which cannot itself improve, and whose destiny is only to perish.

'And how is this kind of incarnation effected, by which Christ Himself becomes our new self? By a process of a free and moral nature, described by Jesus in words which surprise, because they place His sanctification upon nearly the same footing as our own: "As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father, so he that eateth me shall live by me."

'Jesus derived the nourishment of His life from the Father who had sent Him: He lived by the Father. The meaning of that, doubtless, is, that every time He had to act or speak, He first effaced Himself; then left it to the Father to think, to will, to act, to be everything in Him. Similarly, when we are called upon to do any act, or speak any word, we must first efface ourselves in presence of Jesus; and after having suppressed in ourselves, by an act of the will, every wish, every thought, every act of our own self, we are to leave it to Jesus to manifest in us His will, His wisdom, His power. Then it is that we live by Him, as He lives by the Father. The process is identical in Jesus and in us. Only in Jesus it was carried on with God directly, because He was in immediate communion with Him; whilst in our case the transaction is with Jesus, because it is with Him that the believer holds direct communication, and through Him that we can find and possess the living Father. In that lies the secret, generally so little understood, of Christian sanctification.' (Godet, Biblical Studies, N. T., p. 190.)

NOTE E.

Let me once more refer all students of holiness to Marshall on Sanctification, and specially his third and fourth chapters. If they will compare him with our modern works--say, for instance, God's Way of Holiness, by so eminent an author as Dr. H. Bonar--they cannot but be struck by the prominence which Marshall gives to the one thought, that our holiness, a holy nature, is provided in Jesus, and that as faith accepts and maintains our union with Jesus in personal intercourse, sanctification is by faith. While, in other works, the union to Jesus, and faith in Him, are but incidentally mentioned, and the chief stress is laid upon duties and the motives which urge to their performance, Marshall points out how motives never can supply the strength we need: it is the power of Christ's life in us, it is Christ Himself, as we by faith are rooted in Him, who works all our works in us.

An abridgment of the work, for popular use, is published by Nisbet & Co.

NOTE F.

Note from Bengel on Rom. i. 4.

'According to the Spirit of Holiness. The word hagios, holy, when God is spoken of, not only denotes the blameless rectitude in action, but the very Godhead, or to speak more properly, the divinity, or excellence of the Divine nature. Hence hagiosune (the word here used) has a kind of middle sense between hagiotes, holiness, and hagiasmos, sanctification. Comp. Heb. xii. 10 (hagiotes or holiness), v. 14 (hagiasmos or sanctification). So that there are, as it were, three degrees: sanctification, sanctity of life, holiness. Holiness is ascribed to the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. And since here the Holy Spirit is not mentioned, but the spirit of holiness (prop. sanctity, hagiosune), we must further inquire what this remarkable expression denotes. The name spirit is expressly and very frequently given to the Holy Spirit; but God is also called a spirit; and the Lord Jesus Christ is called a spirit, but in contrast to the latter. (2 Cor. iii. 17.) With this we must compare the fact that, as in this passage, so often the antithesis of flesh and spirit is found where Christ is spoken of. (1 Tim. iii. 16; 1 Pet. iii. 18.) In these passages the Spirit is applied to whatever belongs to Christ (apart from the flesh, although this was pure and holy, and above the flesh), through His generation of the Father, who sanctified Him: in short, His Godhead itself. For here, flesh and spirit, and chap. ix. 5, flesh and Godhead, stand in mutual contrast. This spirit is here called not the spirit of holiness, the usual title of the Holy Spirit; but it is called in this passage the spirit of sanctity, to suggest at once the efficacy of that holiness or divinity, which led of necessity to the Saviour's resurrection, and by which it was most forcibly illustrated, and also that spiritual and holy, or Divine power of Jesus who has been glorified and yet retained a spiritual body. Before the resurrection the spirit was concealed under the flesh; after the resurrection the spirit of sanctity concealed the flesh. In reference to the former, He was wont to call Himself the Son of man; in reference to the latter, He is known as the Son of God.'

Beck, in his Lehrwissenschaft, p. 604, puts it very clearly, thus--

'Inasmuch as the innocence and purity of Christ were not present in His sufferings and death as a quiescent attribute, but were in full action in the indestructible life-power of the Spirit, as He sanctified His own self to God for us ("through the eternal spirit," Heb. ix. 14--therefore, in Rom. i. 4, hagiosune, the habit of holiness in its action or sanctity, not hagiotes, only an inner attribute, or hagiasmos, holiness in its formation)--His suffering effected an everlasting redemption.'

NOTE G.

'Freed' and 'Possessed'--The Twofold Result of Redemption.

(From an address by Pastor Stockmaiev.)

'Who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a people for His own possession, zealous of good works.'

'In the redemption work of our Saviour Jesus Christ, there are two definite parts. You will never find the secret of abiding in Christ, so long as you cannot see these two definite distinct parts. The first is "Jesus for me," the other "I for Jesus." Blessed be our Saviour that He came for sinners. He for us. Blessed be the Lord that there is redemption from penalty; but that is not yet all that redemption means. You must have a clear apprehension of the second part of redemption, by that same Holy Ghost who is the guide to introduce us into the full possession of all that Christ, living and dying, has wrought out for us. He gave Himself that He might redeem us from all iniquity--not that we might have the pleasure of being pleased with our own purity or holiness, or such things; but that He might have us altogether for Himself, to purify unto Himself, for Himself, not for Himself and themselves, but unto Himself, a people of His own possession.

'What is now redemption?--freedom from self, even spiritual self. We are not to be our own centre, the centre of our joy, our progress, having in our poor weak hands the threads of our spiritual life. There is no real spiritual life but Christ's life, and He must have the care of it altogether from the beginning to the end. Lift up your eyes, dear brethren, you who were creeping on the ground. We are made for the glory of God, to be possessed by Jesus. The Lord God found a way, in giving His Son, the Lamb of God, His Lamb, to get such selfish people, who even in the line of the Christian life found means to seek and to nourish self, to get such people into His own real practical possession, to be possessed by Jesus. That is redemption, and that only; that is liberty, and that is reality; that is what satisfies, not to be satisfied with any experiences of your own, but to let go your experiences, and to say, I am free, so free as the people of Israel were coming out of Egypt, free to serve God. "Let my people go, that they may serve me." You are free, free through the blood of Christ, free through the power of the Holy Ghost--no flesh, no hand, no self being able to keep you back. The Lord has stretched out His arms upon all the powers who had kept us in the bondage of Egypt, and He triumphed over them. You are free as the bird of the air to live in Jesus--that is freedom; you are free in your daily life, free in the deepest, inmost depths of your being, free for Jesus, possessed by Him, a people of His own possession. Let my people go, said God. So, I have given my blood, said Jesus; and no flesh, no sin, no self can claim against the blood of Jesus. He has redeemed unto Himself, not for us, a people of His own possession....

'You are inquiring about the secret of abiding in Jesus. Have you not seen this in the 15th of John, that abiding and bearing fruit are inseparable? You cannot abide in Jesus for His joy, and your inward satisfaction. The secret of abiding is to stand as a redeemed one, as firmly in the second part of redemption as the first. I am now living for Jesus, and I have only to ask, Lord, what wilt Thou have done now? I am for Thee. I am for Jesus. I have only to follow, to follow as a sanctified one, as a possessed one, as one who is no more living for himself, who has given his life up into the hands of Jesus. Oh, how these questions of abiding become simple! It is not mysticism; it is not some special experience. It is simply a fact. I need Jesus for every moment, and my temptations as well as my duties become opportunities of realizing this life of fellowship with Christ. Oh, yes, this is redemption! Oh, mighty power of God the Father, God the Son, God the Holy Ghost, engaged to keep such a weak, helpless, unfaithful thing as you and myself in the centre of life! Sealed by the Holy Ghost, and God will never break His own seal.'

THE END.

MORRISON AND GIBB, PRINTERS, EDINBURGH.