God’s Gift of Holiness

The following is Evan H. Hopkins' brilliant unfolding of God's gift of Himself to us in holiness taken from Keswick's Authentic Voice edited by Herbert F. Stevenson:

For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called: But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty; And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to nought things that are: That no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption: That, according as it is written, he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord--I Corinthians 1:26-31.

"I want to preface my remarks by stating a difficulty which may be present in the minds of many here tonight. Let me read you a sentence or two from a letter that I received. 'We are asked to accept holiness by faith in the same way that we accept justification by faith. Now that presents a real difficulty to my mind. Is not holiness a growth, a process, the result of the work of the Holy Spirit in the heart? Justification is something already complete; to accept it therefore by faith, is clear and intelligible to me. But sanctification being a process that can never be absolutely completed in this life, I cannot see how it can be received by faith in the same way that justification is received by faith.'

"That holiness is a process, of course, we all readily admit; that it is a progressive work of God the Holy Ghost in the heart, is clear and intelligible; but that that is the only aspect or even the chief aspect in which holiness is presented to us in Holy Scripture, we cannot for a moment admit. I would endeavor to show that before we are really ready to deal with sanctification as a process, we must know what it is to receive sanctification as a gift: and that gift is Jesus Christ. It is of the very first importance, if we are seeking holiness, that our thoughts should be fixed not upon it, but upon Him; not upon a thing like a process, but upon a person, the Lord Jesus Christ. And when that is established clearly in our minds we shall find that to receive Christ by faith as our holiness does not present any more difficulty than to receive Christ by faith as our righteousness.

"Let us consider sanctification from three points of view--as an attainment, as a gift, as an experience. Now look at sanctification as—

I. AN ATTAINMENT. I would quote a remarkable sentence from Dr. Edersheim’s well-known work on The Life and Times of Jesus Christ the Messiah. In his exposition of the Sermon on the Mount he shows the contrast between man’s way and God’s way of righteousness. He says, 'Every moral system is a road by which, through self-denial, discipline, and effort, men seek to reach the goal.' Now let us understand what that means. Here is an unregenerate man; he is earnest, he is religious, he is seeking salvation. Well, he has a starting-point, and there is the road before him. But what is his goal? Life, righteousness—and he is seeking to reach that goal by painful effort. Now what does Dr. Edersheim say in contrast to this? 'Christ begins with the goal, and places His disciples at once in a position to which all other teachers point as the end. They work up to the goal of becoming the children of the kingdom. He makes men such freely of His grace; and this is the kingdom. What the others labor for, Christ gives. They begin by demanding, He by bestowing.'

"These are golden words. We have here a grand principle, and when we grasp that principle we have the key to the difficulty of what is meant by sanctification by faith. Take righteousness. How is Christ made of God unto us righteousness? My answer is, by attaining it. There was a time in our own experience as sinners when we put righteousness before us as the end to be struggled for, and we hoped to reach it as an attainment. We knew no other way of justification than by personal attainment. But when the light broke in, and our eyes were open to see the truth of the Gospel, what did we discover? We discovered this—that that which we could not attain for ourselves Christ had attained for us, and that He placed us at once in righteousness as our starting-point. Christ made of God unto us righteousness, Christ the end of the law for righteousness; and we started the Christian life by starting from that point. So that that which to Christ was an attainment, became to us by faith an obtainment. We did not attain it, but it is a righteousness which Christ attained; He Himself became of God unto us righteousness. It was God’s gift of righteousness to us, and we received that gift by faith. Now if we are Christians, we perfectly understand that. That is the first lesson, and that is the key to the whole difficulty.

"Now take holiness. How is Christ made of God unto us holiness? I answer, by attaining holiness. It is scarcely possible for us to conceive of a man, created holy, if we take holiness in the highest sense of conformity to the will of God. Moral goodness really means choosing to be holy, and no man can be made to choose, or be made as having chosen; there must be the trial, there must be the probation, there must be the running the race—the goal must be reached. It was not in His incarnation that Christ was made of God unto us righteousness or sanctification. His incarnation was the starting-point. As Professor Godet beautifully puts it, 'Jesus was by His miraculous birth placed in the same condition of purity and innocence in which the first man existed before the Fall; and that was so ordered that He might be able successfully to enter once more upon that pathway of progress from innocence up to holiness which had been the course originally open to man, but at the very outset of which Adam had fallen.' Now, here was the second Adam [sic], and what we may glory in is that Christ has reached the goal not only of righteousness, but of holiness. And if it is asked what is the distinction between righteousness and holiness, I take it that the answer is, righteousness is that which satisfies God’s law; holiness is that which satisfies the Father’s heart: and the Lord Jesus Christ came not only to meet the claims of the law, and a broken law, by His death and perfect obedience, but He came also to lead the ideal life, the life of the child with the Father, a life that perfectly satisfied His Father’s heart. He has become holiness unto us; and He, as holiness, is as much the Father’s gift to us as righteousness, and as we receive Him by faith as righteousness, so we receive Him by faith as holiness. He has reached the goal.

"Look at sanctification as--

"II. A GIFT. What do we mean when we speak of the Lord Jesus Christ as God’s gift of holiness? Not a gift added to Christ Himself, but a gift included in the one great gift—Jesus Christ. You cannot divide Christ into parts. To receive Him is to receive all that He includes; and He includes 'all things that pertain unto life and godliness.'

"But it is one thing to receive a gift, and it is another thing to know what the gift contains. You may have a large estate, and yet you may know nothing of the treasures that lie a few feet below the surface. Perhaps you own thousands of acres of land, and yet you are a poor man because you cannot pay your way. Now if below the surface there were large deposits of mineral wealth, what would be needed in order to enrich you and set you free from your bondage and difficulty? No addition need be made to your property, but simply the discovery of what you already possess. Not something added to it, but uncovering the surface and seeing what is already there. So it is with Christ. You cannot be a Christian at all if you have not received Christ. It takes two to make a Christian—the sinner and Christ; that is the Christian. And every true believer has received Christ Jesus the Lord, and in that gift everything is comprehended, all that is needed for life and godliness. You have Christ, but how little have you actually realized as to what He contains!

"When we speak of the blessing of holiness we mean that a revelation has been made, by the Spirit of God to the soul, of a fresh aspect of Christ. That is what we mean. Every fresh blessing along the path of faith is connected with some new unfolding of the Person of Christ to the soul. It is a revelation of what you already have in possession, it is true; but we know that it is a law in the spiritual life that Christ is to you practically what He is to your faith. You must know what you have; you cannot trust until you know. 'Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God' (Romans 10:17), and the word of God tells us that which we have to believe. You not only see it, but you appropriate it. Now this is the grand principle that runs through the whole life. The Holy Spirit unveils Christ to us in fresh aspects, meeting the fresh or the deeper needs of the soul.

"Shall I try to illustrate it to you in a familiar way, so that even a little child might understand me? In that chapter which we read just now, I Corinthians 1, or part of it, you will see that the main subject, as I understand it, is wisdom. The Greeks gloried in wisdom, human wisdom. 'Do you glory in wisdom?' the apostle would say. As he would say to the Roman, 'Do you glory in power?' As he would say to the Jew, 'Do you seek a sign—outward glory?' The Lord Jesus Christ is God’s answer to each of these needs. Wisdom. Here is the wisdom of God—behold how the wisdom of God is displayed in redemption. 'Christ is made of God unto you wisdom, even righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.' Wisdom is that which comprehends these three things. I give you a purse. Let me call that purse wisdom. What does that purse contain? Well, there is one sovereign, and we will call that 'righteousness'; there is another sovereign, and we will call that 'sanctification.' Put these two sovereigns together; they must go together, as we see from a consideration of the original—'both righteousness and sanctification.' But there is something else in the purse; it is a promissory note. You cannot cash it yet; it has reference to the future. We will call that 'redemption.' The two sovereigns may be used at once to meet the need of the present. But we have to wait for that which is included in 'redemption.' Now when you take the purse you take what the purse contains. Look at the application of this. What is my need? My need as to position: the first thing is to be put into a right position before God. Christ is made unto me righteousness--that is my standing, my judicial position. I stand before God in the very righteousness of God. Christ is the righteousness of God.

"But a right position does not meet all my need. It is not realizing my position that can give me sufficient power for either walk or work. Therefore there must be the other provision—He is made of God unto me not only righteousness but sanctification. That points to my need as to condition; dealing with my disposition, with my desires, with my thoughts, with my will, with my whole spiritual condition. You cannot have right character till you have got right condition, and the first thing is to get into a right condition; and when I receive Christ not only as my righteousness but as my holiness, the first step is taken to secure the right condition.

"All this is in perfect harmony with all the other doctrines connected with the triumphant life. Let me touch on one or two of these.

"Take victory. How important to understand what the secret of victory is. Many of us have been taught in times past to look at it in this way: the enemy is on the heights, and we are on the plain beneath. Our great spiritual foe occupies the victorious position; we are in the valley, and the conflict consists in seeking through God’s grace to dislodge him. That is to say, we have to fight for victory. But there is a more excellent way: what is the fight of faith? It means this, that Christ has dislodged the foe, and has secured for us the victorious position, and that before we begin that fight we are privileged to take by faith the place of victory; so that the conflict consists in holding the victorious position by faith. 'That ye may be able to stand,' hold your ground, 'and having done all, to stand.' What is it that the enemy is seeking to do? To dislodge you. Now Christ puts us into the victorious position, the impregnable position, and He gives us armor that we might be enclosed in Him, and we must take it by faith, and hold it by faith, and fight by faith from that victorious position. It is the fight of faith; and all this is in perfect harmony with what we have said about holiness. We begin with victory even as we begin with righteousness—and so let us begin with holiness.

"So it is with deliverance. Many a one knows that there is present pardon, but they realise that they are in bondage to sin, in captivity, and they say, 'O God, give me grace that I may deliver myself!' Oh, if they could only see that Christ has set us free, that Christ has given us deliverance, and we step into the deliverance by faith, and then walk in freedom. 'Stand fast in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free . . .' (Galatians 5:1). So with holiness. 'That we, being delivered out of the hand of our enemies, might serve Him without fear in holiness—(not for it; it is to be the very element of our service)—and righteousness before Him, all the days of our life' (Luke 1:74,75). We have not to serve in order that we might attain holiness, but we have holiness in order that we might serve Him in it, and it is to be the very element of our activity. We must begin with it. So, if we want holiness, we must apprehend Christ as God’s provision for holiness. We must receive Him as such before we are ready to walk so as to please Him.

"Now we come to holiness as--

"III. AN EXPERIENCE. Take three thoughts briefly. First, there is the rest of His peace. I do not mean peace of conscience—simply that blessed peace that comes when you know the burden is gone and your sins are forgiven—but a far deeper peace than that, a soul-satisfying peace, the peace of the heart that is satisfied with Christ. Not as our own attainment, not a self-satisfaction, but a satisfaction with Him because we are finding how fully He can meet the need, that need which we realize in the walk amid difficulty, temptation, and trial. It is when we are satisfied in Christ and with Christ that we find the secret of abiding, for then we have no desire to depart from Him. We know that sheep that are satisfied with their pasture do not wander. So with the soul that is satisfied with the Lord Jesus Christ—the world loses its attractiveness. But when you cease to be satisfied with Christ, then you begin to look around, and the old temptations come with their old power. To abide in the rest of His peace—here is the secret of abiding; it is the secret of being kept calm and still, not easily moved.

"Then there is the rest of His purity. So long as we are struggling with the impurity within, there can be no rest. You know what it is to fight, hand to hand, with your evil passions. Oh, what an endless fight, what a hopeless conflict it is when you are struggling with your own evil passions! But when you let the Lord come in as your purity, the Lord as your holiness, to possess you, you enter at once into a new experience. God appeared to Moses in the burning bush. Why was it called a holy bush? There was nothing different in the bush itself from other trees in the wilderness. What made the ground on which it stood holy? There can be but one reason—because God possessed it. The Holy One had come down and made that bush His abode. There is only one Holy One, there is only one holy center. We are holy as we are brought to that center; we have no holiness when we get away from that center, and cease to be possessed by the Holy One. Christ is the Holy One: 'He is made of God unto us holiness'; let Him come and take possession. Here is a room full of darkness. What must we do to get rid of the darkness? Bring in the light! That is all. The burning light brings with it its own rays which dispel the darkness. There is the cause and there is the effect. The cause is Christ; the illumination that fills our souls is the effect.

"We are not to be occupied with the effect, but with Him who is the source of all our purity; and yet we cannot but be conscious of an entirely new experience. Oh, the rest of discovering that the Holy One stills the tempest that has been going on within! Christ comes, and says, 'Peace, be still,' and we realize that we are delivered from sin’s dominion, raised above these evil passions. There is a process, undoubtedly; but we are not occupied with the process. It is an endless process—it is more and more; and it is the work of the Holy Spirit all along, the Spirit glorifying Christ in our hearts, the Spirit enabling us to realize our need of Christ more and more, and then unfolding to us an infinite fullness in Him, and showing us how perfectly He can satisfy the heart that is longing for holiness.

"And lastly, there is the rest of His power. Listen to the words, 'Strengthened (or, being strengthened) with all might, according to His glorious power . . .' (Colossians 1:11), nay, better than that, 'according to the power of His glory.' This is the power of Him who is on the right hand of God; He has poured out His Holy Spirit upon us. There is the power of His death; we see it on the Cross. But here is the power of His glorified life. 'Being strengthened'—it is continuous—'according to the power of His glory.' Nothing is difficult if the power you have is sufficient. Struggling is a sign not of power but of weakness. To get the power, all that is needed is the contact of faith. It is not by struggling we get strength; it is trusting, and then the power flows in as a stream. And then activity follows as the result. But it is activity without fret and friction and strain.

"Here is the secret of victory. This is to be in the stream of a triumphant life; it is the life of the risen One. Oh, be occupied with Him. Do not be occupied with an it. If your thoughts are taken up with the process of sanctification, the work of the Holy Ghost in you, of course you will be continually feeling your spiritual pulse, and you will desire to be satisfied with yourself, and you will be occupied with an it. But if you see that Christ is your indwelling holiness, and you enshrine Him as such in your heart, you will know what it is to be satisfied only with Him. And you will then see the great purpose God has in all this, namely, 'That no flesh should glory in His presence,' and that 'He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.'"