Crisis and Process

Evan H. Hopkins gives some helpful words on whether the experience of being in Christ is once and for all or a process. His wife, Isabella, describes him coming home from a meeting where he experienced this for the first time and how she came to experience the indwelling Christ in this way, too:

"How well I recall his coming home, deeply moved by what he had heard and experienced! He told me that he was like one looking out on a land wide and beautiful, flowing with milk and honey. It was to be possessed. It was his. As he described it all, I felt that he had received an overflowing blessing, far beyond anything that I knew; and it seemed as if a gulf had come between us. We sat up late that evening, talking, with our Bibles before us. Oh, I was so hungry. At last, quite simply, but very really, I too took God at His Word, and accepted Christ as my indwelling Lord and Life, and believed that He did enthrone Himself in my heart." (Recorded in the "Appreciation" preface by Fred Mitchell to Hopkins' The Law of Liberty in the Spiritual Life.)

The following message is from Keswick's Authentic Voice edited by Herbert F. Stevenson:

"Our subject is: 'A crisis with a view to a process.' There are few things connected with the Keswick movement which have so much puzzled people as the apparent contradiction, that the blessing is both instantaneous and progressive. Those who have been brought into definite blessing, along the line of sanctification by faith, have borne witness to the fact that they had been brought into an experience of what the Lord Jesus Christ can be to them for holiness, with a suddenness that has been as striking as the change has been blessed and soul-satisfying. The sense of rest, the sense of all-sufficiency of grace in Christ, has come to them with a wonderful instantaneousness. But this has been followed by an experience of its progressiveness that they never knew before. Sanctification in the sense of conformity to the life and character of Christ is a process, a gradual process, a continuous process, an endless process. But sanctification, in the sense of a definite decision for holiness, a thorough and wholehearted dedication to God, the committal of the whole being to Him, is a crisis; and the crisis must take place before we really know the process. Before you can draw a line you must begin with a point. The line is the process, the point is the crisis. Have you come to the point? Have you come to the point that you are decided today, now, here, that you will be holy? Or, are you only earnestly praying that God will enable you to come to the point? Some people have been doing that for years. Do you see the difference?

"Two men were arguing upon this subject. One had been brought to understand it not only theoretically but practically, or experimentally, and the other one was fairly puzzled--he could not see it. The first man said, 'How did you come from London to Keswick?' 'I came by train.' 'Was it by one sudden jump into Keswick?' 'Oh, no, I came along more and more' 'Yes, I see; but first you got into the train. How did you get into the carriage? Was it more and more?' 'No, I just stepped in.' 'Exactly: that was the crisis; and as you journeyed along, it was more and more. There is the crisis; there is the process.'

"I want to show you different passages of Scripture, and to indicate where we have the crisis, and where we have the process. We will begin with the crisis, and we will take, first, the act of (i) separation from all defilement. Will you turn to 2 Corinthians 7:1? We have in that verse an act of separation from all defilement. 'Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit . . .' Look at that act. Is it to be done gradually by degrees, or instantaneously? The tense shows us that it is definite and decisive. There is the crisis. God has given you light; the light has shone into your heart. You are conscious of defilement. How will you deal with it? God says, 'Cleanse yourselves'--a decisive act of separation from all that you know to be evil. There is the crisis.

"Then there is the act of (ii) putting off evil habits. Ephesians 4:31--of course there are many other passages; I am only giving you a few--'Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice.' It does not mean that you are to be a little less censorious today than you were yesterday. The force of the exhortation is that you put it off, as you put off a coat, so that you are separate from it. Here in this passage we have a list of evil habits. Remember we were not born into the world with evil habits. The evil nature is one thing; the evil habit is another. There we have, then, a crisis--how we are to deal with evil habits.

"Take, again, the act of (iii) 'laying aside every weight' (Hebrews 12:1). Are there any weights in your life impeding your progress, marring your influence? How are you to deal with them? Shall we pray about them? Well, that is good; but praying of itself is not enough. God says, 'Lay them aside.' How shall we lay them aside? Very gradually, by degrees? Not, if we obey the word that we have before us, remembering the force of the tense. If you have a weight, you know what it is to drop it. That is not a gradual act, but a decisive, definite act. Are there any weights in your life about which God has a controversy with you? Now here is the point. God has brought us up here for this purpose, that we should deal definitely with these things. The act of laying aside is a definite act--not a process, but a crisis.

"Further, there is the act of (iv) handing our bodies over to God. We little realize that while the spirit and soul are right with God, we may still keep the body in our own hands. I suppose the body is the last thing that the Christian really gives over to God. His gifts, his possessions? Yes. Spirit and soul? Yes. The body? Well, we have not done with it; it is useful, we think, we want to use it for ourselves. Romans 12:1, 'Present your bodies . . .' That is what we have to bring. Take the words just as they stand. You are a Christian; the Holy Spirit has touched your spirit, you have eternal life. The citadel of our being is the spirit, the city the soul, and the walls of the city are the body. The five senses, the five gates, are in the walls, and the evil one gets through the gates. You cannot keep the body, you cannot keep the walls. 'Except the Lord keep the city, the watchman waketh but in vain' (Psalm 127:1). Therefore, 'present your bodies,' hand them right over into God’s hand--a definite, not a gradual act. There is a crisis; the tense in the original points clearly to that. What you have been trying to do gradually God wants you to do suddenly, immediately, up to the light you have.

"Then, take the act of (v) being divinely adjusted. Hebrews 13:20-21, 'The God of peace . . . make you perfect in every good work to do His will.' Here is God’s act. He makes you perfect. What is the meaning? He adjusts you; you are in a state of spiritual dislocation, you are out of joint, and the prayer is that God should put you into joint. He does not do it gradually; it is done instantaneously. This is what has taken place in the case of hundreds of souls in this very tent. In a few brief moments the whole inner being has been adjusted. First, spiritual adjustment, and afterwards spiritual enduement. There we have again the tense that points to an immediate decisive act, God’s act. When we present ourselves to Him, when we yield our whole being to Him and lay ourselves at His feet, then He takes us and puts us into joint, He adjusts us, He brings us into harmony. What we have been trying to do gradually, all our life, now that we hand ourselves over to Him, He does immediately. After those words in Hebrews which I have just quoted, we have 'working in you.' There is the part that is progressive. Or, again, 'to do His will.' Doing His will is the progressive part. Being put into joint, being made perfect, adjusted, is the crisis.

"Take another passage. There is the act of being (vi) divinely appropriated, or wholly sanctified. I Thessalonians 5:23, 'The very God of peace sanctify you wholly,' that is, sanctify not your spirit and soul only, but body also: the whole man, spirit, soul and body. Sanctification on our side is giving ourselves to God. Sanctification on God’s side is appropriating us unto Himself. That is the positive side of sanctification, when God Himself, the Holy One, takes possession of us, appropriates us to Himself. Here is God’s act, and the remarkable thing is that it is still in the aorist, pointing to a crisis. The blessing that so many people have realized as a sudden blessing--here it is put before us as God’s act, and pointing to a crisis.

"Take one more text under the head of crisis, and referring, this time to the act of (vii) enthroning Christ as Lord. I Peter 3:15, 'Sanctify in your hearts Christ as Lord' (R.V.). We have here a beautiful thought. Your heart is looked at as a sanctuary--not only as a city. Christ is within, and you know Him as Jesus, and you know Him as Christ, but how imperfectly you have known Him as Lord! It is not that a new Person has to enter in, but it is a new revelation of the same Person to your soul. And when you see Him as Lord, you enthrone Him. To sanctify Christ as Lord is to enthrone Him in your heart. He who is on the throne in glory is now to be on the throne in your heart. That is not a gradual process. The tense here points to a decisive act. It is a crisis. Is not that wonderful? I want you to bear it in mind. So that, we not only look at the verb, but at the tense, and this shows us the duty of immediate response, immediate obedience.

"What have we seen? That separation from all defilement is an immediate act; that the putting off of evil habits is an immediate act; that laying aside every weight is an immediate act; that handing over our bodies to God is a definite immediate act; that being divinely adjusted is a divine act, and God does it at once, immediately; that being divinely appropriated, or wholly sanctified, is God’s act, an immediate act; that enthroning Christ in our hearts as Lord is an immediate act, the act of a moment. All those passages that I have quoted point to a crisis.

"Shall we turn now to the process?

(i) Spiritual conformity. 2 Corinthians 3:18, 'But we all, with open face beholding,' or reflecting 'in a glass [mirror] the glory of the Lord, are changed . . .' Here is the present tense, here is the process, gradual, continuous, and endless. This is what you perfectly understand. And the process follows the crisis: 'From glory to glory.' There is the growth, the advancement, the process.

"Take another. (ii) Spiritual renewal. 2 Corinthians 4:16, 'The inward man is renewed day by day,' is being renewed. That is progressive.

"(iii) Spiritual strengthening. Colossians 1:11, 'Strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power . . .' That is Christ on the throne. 'The riches of His grace' is Christ on the cross; 'the riches of His glory' is Christ on the throne. From the throne came the gift of the Spirit, a stream perpetually flowing. 'Being strengthened'; there is the process. You do not get the power put into your hands that you may use it independently of Him; it is always in the Lord’s hand, and it is always flowing from the throne: 'Being strengthened with all might.' Are you in the stream? A perpetual reception. There is the process.

"(iv) Progressive purity. There is such a thing as an instantaneous cleansing. But, remember, there is the other side of the truth--progressive purity. I John 3:3, 'Every man that hath this hope in Him,' that is, in Christ, 'purifieth,' is purifying, 'himself, even as He is pure.' An endless process.

"(v) Spiritual growth. II Peter 3:18, 'Grow in grace.' I need not dwell upon the fact that all growth, of necessity, is progressive.

"(vi) Progressive sanctification. Hebrews 10:14, 'For by one offering He hath perfected forever them that are sanctified,' or 'are being sanctified.'

"Lastly (vii) transformation of character. Romans 12:1-2, 'I beseech you . . . that ye present your bodies . . . But be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind . . .' We have both here put together. The crisis, 'present'; the process, 'Be ye transformed.' How closely they are connected there! I have given you, then, the crisis and the process, and, I trust--I am speaking especially to my younger hearers--you have marked these places in your Bibles to distinguish between the one and the other.

"Now we come to the practical question: Is the crisis to be repeated? If I have once consecrated myself to God, am I not to consecrate myself to Him again? My answer to that question is this. Take, for instance, the act of consecration. Is it to be done over and over again? or is it done once for all? I say, Yes, it is to be done again in the sense of restoration. You have slipped back, your attitude of consecration has not been maintained; you have to come back again, you have to repeat the act undoubtedly.

"But, I say again, Yes, it has to be repeated in the sense of confirmation. You consecrated yourself to God yesterday; you did it thoroughly, honestly; you wholly gave yourself to Him. You woke up this morning, and what was the attitude you took, if you took the right attitude? Just one of confirmation. I did that act yesterday, and I say 'Amen' to the act this morning, not because I have to do it over again, as if I had never done it before; and yet I do it as an act of confirmation.

"Let me close with one little illustration. A beautiful copy of Aesop’s Fables was presented to a certain family that I know, and that book was very much used in the nursery. After many years, when the children had grown up, you can imagine that the leaves got loose and scattered, as the book had been a good deal pulled about. An artist called at that house, and his eye was attracted by the beauty of the illustrations. He saw that they had been done by a man who knew how to draw. He asked the head of the household, 'Would you have any objection to giving me that book? I should prize it much.' The head of the family took the book and gathered up all the stray leaves, and put them all together, and taking the book in his hand, he said to his friend, 'You are welcome to the book; it is yours. I give to you.' The artist took away the book.

"Two or three days afterwards one or two more stray leaves were discovered. What did the head of the family say? Did he say, 'Dear me! I never gave that book thoroughly to my friend after all! I suppose I must have him back and go over the whole process again; I must tell him that now I give him the book afresh because I did not give it wholly to him yesterday'? No; he says, 'I gave the book to my friend, and the whole book; therefore, I will pass these leaves on to him: they do not belong to me.' There was a fresh discovery, but he remembered that he gave the whole book, and those leaves were all included in the gift, and so he passed them on to his friend.

"Do you see how that applies? When you consecrated yourself to God, you gave the whole book, so far as you knew. But, as the Spirit has been leading you on to make fresh discoveries, what are you to do? The devil says, 'That was not a genuine act of consecration; you must do it all over again.' But you say, 'No; I knew I could never do anything perfectly, but I can do it up to the light that God gives me. I can do that thoroughly. In that sense I did give myself wholly to the Lord yesterday, or last week, and now I discover fresh things, and pass them on at once, immediately.' In that sense the crisis is repeated--but it is an act of confirmation. See that, every morning, and every day, and many times during the day, you can say 'Amen' to the fact that you have handed yourself wholly to Him. In that sense it is repeated, and you need not backslide in order to do it over again."