Part 5

I HOPE that your study of this passage during the week has confirmed the conclusions at which we arrived last Sunday,—that St. Paul was speaking of himself, not of another; and that he was describing his experience at the very time he wrote the Epistle. I trust also you have seen from his words that the Lord had opened his eyes to discover the holiness of the law, and changed his heart, so that with his whole soul he loved it. I hope also that it has been clear to you that this exclamation, ‘Oh, wretched man that I am!’ was the expression of his profound humiliation, under the painful sense of his own shortcoming when measured by the high standard of the holiness of God.

Now, I believe that if, instead of adopting some artificial standard of our own, we aim at the perfection of God’s holiness, as taught in the Word of God and exhibited in the life of the Son of God, we are sure thus painfully to feel the contrast between what we are and what we ought to be. Of course if we measure ourselves by ourselves we may be easily satisfied; but then we know we are not wise, and our satisfaction may be nothing more than delusion. But if we bring ourselves to the test of perfect, spotless, eternal holiness, and honestly look into the workings of our own fallen heart, I cannot imagine why we should shrink from such words as those in our confession, ‘We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.’

Are we to understand then that there is nothing but conflict and disappointment before the Christian man, and that the only effect of the opening of the heart by the Holy Ghost, is to lead us to discover, and feel the pain of, sin? If so, I could almost say, ‘Let the eye remain closed,’ for I verily believe there is no state of mind so painful as when there is the sight of sin without the sight of Christ Jesus. When you know neither sin nor a Saviour, you can be content in the world; when you know sin alone without a Saviour, you have all the anxiety of religion without the joy: but it is when you know both, that you may be sorrowful yet always rejoicing; deeply conscious of your own defects, and yet resting peacefully in the right hand of the blessed Lord who has redeemed you by His blood.

This morning, therefore, if God permit, we will endeavour to study what it is in the Saviour that can give us a peaceful, thankful joy, at the very time that we feel most profoundly humbled before the holiness of God. I have not nearly time to discuss the whole subject as I should like to do, and, therefore, must confine your attention to these two verses; standing as they do in immediate connexion with the description of the struggle, they will supply us with exactly the information we require, and teach us how in the midst of the sharpest conflict with sin the believer may enjoy the most perfect peace in Christ Jesus.

There appear to be three lessons plainly taught us.

I. We have the triumphant hope of final victory. Along with the deepest sense of unsatisfied longings after holiness there is the peaceful spirit of thanksgiving in the assurance of a coming triumph. The passage does not refer to a deliverance that had already taken place, but to one still future; and the thanksgiving was not for any thing past, but for a great work still remaining to be accomplished. So the deliverance from the text is not a deliverance from the curse, for that had taken place already; nor a deliverance from the sentence of the law, for from that the Apostle was already free; but a deliverance from the power of indwelling sin, which kept him back from the holiness at which he aimed. He said, therefore, ‘Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?’ He had found by experience that he could not deliver himself; but in the midst of his own failure he could look up to the great Deliverer, and with profound thanksgiving bless God for the undoubting assurance that in God’s own time he would be completely transformed into the very likeness of his Lord. His language is explained by his own words, in Phil. iii. 20, 21: ‘From whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ; who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able to subdue all things to Himself.’ ‘The body of this death,’ in the text, is the same as the ‘vile body,’ or ‘body of humiliation,’ in the Philippians; and the deliverance of the text is the transformation of that body into the likeness of the Lord Christ Jesus, at the appearing of our Blessed Saviour. This is exactly the same as what the Apostle John expected when he said (1 John, iii. 2), ‘Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when He shall appear, we shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is.’ So that, on the whole, we are taught that the time is most undoubtedly coming when those who are thirsting after the holiness of God will be perfectly satisfied; when the vile body shall be changed; and when not a spot, or blemish, will remain in any one of the saints of God.

Ye then who are humbled and cast down because of your infinite shortcomings, ye must not be disheartened, but must trust your Saviour. He came to save His people from their sins, and in His own time He will do it. If you be in Him, He has already set you free from the curse; He has already given you the earnest desire to do His will; He has already so far secured the victory that, ‘Sin shall not have the dominion over you.’ And the time is soon coming when He will Himself appear in His glory, and then all conflicts will be over, and you will be like Him, for you shall see Him as He is. Like St. Paul, therefore, you may begin at once to give Him thanks. You remember the case of Jehoshaphat, and how he put the singers in front of his little army, to praise God for the promised victory, even when the enemy stood there in the fulness of his strength. So you too may rise at once in the spirit of thanksgiving: for in Christ Jesus your victory is far more certain than that of Jehoshaphat. You may press on, therefore, with the utmost vigour, with a victory full in view; and, though as yet you fall infinitely short of His most perfect character, you need not wait till you have overcome your difficulties, but may even now say, as St. Paul did, ‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord.’

II. But you could not do this if all the while the power of sin were shutting you out from God. And this leads us to a second point of the utmost possible importance: viz., that now, in the midst of the struggle, and during the time of imperfection, in Christ Jesus we are free from all condemnation. If, as we pursue our course, we were to be condemned for all the sin of which we are guilty in either omission or commission, in either thought, word, or act, there could be no peace or hope in our struggle. I am not surprised that poor people who do not know the Gospel go to priests for absolution, or resort to any other man-made expedient in order to endeavour to escape from the misery of the perpetual exclusion from God of which they must be conscious. But in Christ Jesus you need nothing of the kind, for ‘there is now no condemnation for them that are in Christ Jesus.’ Observe the force of the ‘now’ in contrast with the ‘shall’ of the twenty-fourth verse of the seventh chapter. The complete deliverance is future: so he said, ‘Who _shall_ deliver me?’ But the perfect freedom from all condemnation is present: and therefore he says, ‘There is _now_ no condemnation.’ The ‘therefore now’ of that verse depends on the sixth verse of the seventh chapter, the intermediate passage being a parenthesis, so that the connexion is as follows: ‘Now we are delivered from the law, . . . there is therefore now no condemnation.’ The battle is not over, and you have still to fight a hard fight with sin; but now that sin cannot cut you off from God, for you are no longer under the law: you are in Christ Jesus, and He has satisfied the law in your behalf. Your sin undoubtedly deserves condemnation, and you have not a word to say in its defence: but He has already borne that condemnation, so that in Him you are free; and nothing can separate you from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus the Lord. Now, think for one moment of the unspeakable blessedness of this most precious truth. You may review all that has occurred through the day,—your prayers, your praises, your wandering thoughts, your conversation, your motives, and your heart’s desires,—and oh, how far they will all fall short of the holiness of God! If you are not in Christ Jesus, the thought of them must fill you with anxiety, doubt, and a sense of distance from God; but if you are enabled by His grace to take home to your heart the blessed truth, that _now_, even _now_, before you have gained the victory, there is no condemnation,—then that sin does not separate you from Him. It humbles you, it is true, and deeply grieves you; but it cannot cut you off from God: you are sheltered in the covenant of Grace. ‘The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth you from all sin,’ and you may kneel before Him in the peaceful enjoyment of a true and uninterrupted fellowship with God. In the spirit of adoption you may cry Abba, Father; and with the happy trust of a child in its father’s arms, you may say, ‘I will lay me down in peace, and sleep; for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety.’

III. But that is not all; for besides this we have the unspeakable privilege of the unceasing leading of God the Holy Ghost. If we were left to ourselves to fight out our battle with sin, to rely on our own judgment, and to overcome by our own powers, we should be overcome before we had struck a single blow. But not only is there a final victory promised to us in the future, and a complete freedom from all condemnation in the present, but there is also another most sacred gift at once enjoyed by all who are in Christ Jesus: viz., the present indwelling of God the Holy Ghost within the soul. This belongs not to the future, but to the present: it is not connected with the ‘shall’ of verse twenty-four, but with the ‘now’ of verse one. ‘There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, who walk,’ or who are walking, ‘not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.’ So, in verse fourteen, we read of a present leading as the privilege of a present sonship: ‘As many as are led,’ or being led, ‘by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.’ It is impossible to attempt to unfold all the blessings which follow from this most sacred privilege: it conveys to us all that is connected both with companionship and power. Companionship, because He is not one afar off to be reached only occasionally, and that after special efforts: but dwelling within the soul as a Leader, a Comforter, a Witness, an Advocate, a Friend. And a power: for He is not like a mighty arm afar off, omnipotent if we could but reach it; but a very present help: one that knows our weakness better than we do, and perceives our danger before we know it ourselves. One that, dwelling within, can so act on the conscience, and so move the secret springs of the will, that He does not merely make use of us as machines, but constrains us to hate sin and to love holiness; while He Himself imparts a power to shake off our fetters, and as free men to walk with God.

Surely, then, we may understand the apparent contradiction in the Apostle’s words, and see why it was that he was thanking God, although he called himself a wretched man. He called himself a wretched man, because there was that in his ruined nature which kept him back from the exalted holiness at which he aimed: but he could still thank God, for he was sure that before long he would be transformed into the likeness of Christ Himself; and, more than that, he knew that even now, in the days of his conflict, there was a freedom from all condemnation for his failures, and the sacred assurance of the Holy Ghost abiding in his soul to lead him on to victory. Therefore it was that he could give thanks. And, dear brethren, if you are in Christ Jesus, may not you do the same? Is there not the same hope for you? Are not you equally free from condemnation? Is not the indwelling Spirit equally effectual for you? How is it then that your whole souls are not filled with bright hope, and profound thanksgiving? How is it that we do not all unite more heartily and unreservedly in the spirit of the text, ‘I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord?’

HOLINESS THROUGH FAITH.

‘And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.’—ACTS, xv. 9.

I FEAR that I may have almost wearied some of you by dwelling so long as I have on the subject of sanctification, or Christian holiness; but it is one of such overwhelming practical importance, and so intimately connected with the glory of God, that I am persuaded we ought none to grudge any time spent on the study of it. I must ask your attention, therefore, to a phrase which has lately become familiar to some of you, viz. ‘holiness through faith.’ I like the expression thoroughly, and believe it to be full of truth; for there can be no true holiness except by faith, and no real faith that does not lead to holiness. If we are holy at all we may be perfectly certain that the holiness will be through faith; and if we are real believers we may be equally sure that we shall be holy; therefore it is that in this passage, when the Apostle is speaking of the sacred work of divine purity wrought in the soul by the Holy Ghost, he described Him as ‘purifying the heart by faith.’ This then shall be our subject for this morning, and I hope we may learn two great truths: first, that holiness is not known by faith; and next, that faith is the power by which it pleases God to produce holiness in the soul.

I. Holiness is not known by faith. This seems so obvious that it may be scarcely thought to require consideration, but from what I have read lately, I am inclined to think it does. Let us then bear well in mind that faith is entirely occupied with things future or unseen. ‘Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’ The moment that we can see anything, that thing ceases to be an object of faith. There is an old saying, that ‘seeing is believing;’ but that is the creed of the materialist, who says he can only believe what he sees; but it will not do for the Christian, or even for the philosopher, for sight supersedes faith, and the very essence of faith is to believe when we cannot see. So our Lord said to Thomas, ‘Blessed are they which have not seen, and yet have believed.’ You believe that the Lord Jesus is now at the right hand of the Father, and will shortly come again; but when you stand before Him and behold Him on His throne, it will no longer be a matter of faith, but of sight. So our justification through imputed righteousness is a matter of faith: it is a divine act of the hidden mind of God, and perfectly invisible to the eye of man. You cannot see your name in the book of life; you cannot see the counsel of God blotting out your sin because of the finished sacrifice, or accounting you righteous in Christ Jesus even at the very time that you know yourself to be a ruined sinner. You cannot see it, for the whole transaction is out of sight: it takes place in heaven, not on earth; in the council-chamber of God, and not within the reach of human vision. This, therefore, is an object of faith, and can only be known by faith. You cannot hope to see your justification, or the imputation of righteousness to your soul; all that you can do is to trust God for it. He has declared in His Word that He has ‘made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him.’ So that we may trust in His assurance, and believe that, the Lord Jesus having been made sin for us, we are accounted righteous in Him, even with the righteousness of God. Yes: and thanks be to God! we may believe it at once, for the Covenant of God is as perfect now as it can be if we wait a hundred years. There is nothing, therefore, to prevent a present and immediate faith in the finished Work, and perfect Word, of a Blessed Saviour. Believe Him, and there is peace; and believe Him now.

But it is not so with sanctification, or holiness. The seat of holiness, or sanctification, is in our own souls. It is not like the name written in the Book of Life which no man can see; for it is the law written by the Holy Ghost upon the fleshy tables of the heart, and therefore within view of conscience. God has placed a conscience within every one of us: an eye that looks inward, and can see all that is passing within the soul. Are there bad acts, bad words, or bad thoughts? Conscience may see them all. Is there a deep desire to walk with God, and do His Will? Conscience discovers it. So says the Apostle John (1 John, iii. 20, 21): ‘If our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things. Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence towards God.’ Conscience therefore must decide as to the existence of sanctification, or personal holiness. Justification, or imputed righteousness, is known by faith, not sight: sanctification, or inwrought righteousness, is known by sight, not faith. We should be acting in unbelief if we were to doubt the perfection of imputed righteousness because we cannot see it, for faith is concerned with the unseen; but we should be putting faith into altogether a false position if we were to presume to believe in the perfection of our holiness so long as conscience convinces us that sin is still abiding in the heart. If we are conscious of indwelling sin, and find it ready to break out like a fire at any moment, it is not the office of faith to reckon it dead. No, dear brethren: true holiness is a practical change of heart wrought in us by the Holy Ghost, and perceptible; it is a new character wrought in us by a new power, and springing from new principles. It is not an invisible change, but one known by its results; it is not a matter of faith, but of experience; and so St. John says in his Epistle (1 John, iii. 24): ‘Hereby we know that He abideth in us, by the Spirit which He hath given us.’

II. But, though holiness is not known by faith, faith is the power by which it pleases God to produce it, and therefore it is well called ‘Holiness through faith.’ Some people seem to speak of this subject as if they had made a great religious discovery. I often wonder what books they had read, or what sermons they had heard, before they discovered it. They could not have been those of the great divines of the Church of England,—such as Hooker, Bishop Reynolds, or Archbishop Leighton; nor of the great Evangelical Fathers in the Church of England,—such as Venn, Cecil, and Simeon; for holiness through faith is the keynote of all their writings. Over and over again have sermons been preached and books written on such great, full, plain texts as this: ‘Put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith.’

But, leaving such discussions, let us consider the office of faith in producing holiness, and examine in what way it pleases God to purify the heart through faith.

We shall find that He does it in two ways.

(1.) By the introduction of new motives and principles. He does not deal with us as though we were without mind, but by the use of the mind which He Himself has given. The refiner refines the silver, but the silver has no voice in the transaction: it is simply acted upon as lifeless matter. But it is not so with the soul: the soul can think, can feel, can sorrow, can rejoice, can love; and when God refines it He calls into activity all its faculties. In purifying the heart He makes use of its powers, and so consecrates them to His most sacred service. For example, there is no greater power in the whole mind of man than love. People will make any sacrifices under the influence of a powerful affection; God therefore takes that faculty of love, and so consecrates it to His own sacred service, that the people of God may say, ‘The love of Christ constraineth us.’ And now you see in a moment the office of faith. How is that love to grow up within the soul if there be no faith preceding it? If you have no trust in His reconciling grace,—if it is all a matter of uncertainty to you whether He is loving you as a child, or about to cast you as a condemned criminal into hell,—I cannot see what there is to call forth any love within your heart. St. John says, ‘We love Him because He first loved us;’ so that if there is no trust in His first love the motive is gone, and there is no power by which love in us can be produced. But when, on the other hand, we can believe His boundless grace,—believe that He gave Himself to be sin for us with as little doubt as if we actually saw Him on the cross,—believe that we are already forgiven through His blood, and, though so unworthy, made the righteousness of God in Him,—believe, in short, that He is fulfilling to us that most precious promise in Hosea, ‘I will love them freely, for mine anger is turned away from him,’ and all because the Son of God was content in our place to die,—then there is something to call forth love in the hardest heart that ever beat; something that must make sin in all its forms inexpressibly hateful; something to produce those sacred results of constraining love described by St. Paul, when he said, ‘That they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto Him that died for them, and rose again.’

If therefore you earnestly desire holiness, remember it must be holiness through faith. Do not fall into the common error of supposing it must be faith through holiness; but keep close to what is taught you in the text: viz., that God purifies the heart through faith. First, get a fast hold on His love to you. Realise that, and you may safely leave your love to Him to follow. But, till you know that, you will never be really holy, for you can never be under the power of the great governing principle of love.