"My Personal Holiness"

The following is from a message delivered by Arthur C. Rice at the annual convention of the Japan Evangelistic Band in 1939. This is taken from the book titled Personal Holiness:

"'My people's greatest need is my personal holiness,' said one of the holiest and most deeply taught servants and ministers of God in Scotland [Robert Murray McCheyne]. So far as you and I are concerned I suppose we might go further and say, 'So far as those around me are concerned, their greatest need is my personal holiness.' 'So far as my country is concerned, its greatest need is my personal holiness. So far as the world is concerned, its greatest need is my personal holiness.'

". . . The witness unto the Lord Jesus Christ is to be a world-wide witness; but if it is to be so, it can only be as the followers of the Lord Jesus Christ are identified with Him: only so can the witness be unto Him.

"I go back, as I often do, and others do too, with grateful hearts to Romans 6. Look at Romans 6. 6. Oh! The wonder of it, that the Lord Jesus Christ should have identified Himself with me. Each one of us can truly say He took up with Him to the cross my old bad disposition, my old sinful nature.' There on the cross He died that unspeakably awful death; He died unto sin once for all; He identified Himself with me in that death.

"And then a few verses further on (Romans 6. 11) the call comes to identify myself with Him. Just as He died unto sin once for all, so I am to reckon (that is to conclude, account) that I likewise am dead to sin with my Lord. So then, beloved, the test inevitably comes for each one of us at the point of our next temptation. That will be a proof as we face that temptation, a proof as to whether we are identified with the Lord Jesus Christ in His death to sin. When that temptation comes, will it find us so related to and so identified with the Lord Jesus Christ that we shall be consciously dead to sin? Dear Paget Wilkes used to say, 'God promises to those who trust in Him, victory over the world, over death and over the devil; but God's deliverance from sin is to be dead to it.' To be dead to sin means of course victory every time; but death to sin is a bigger thing than mere victory; it is a state of deadness to sin through identification with the Lord Jesus Christ. So then, beloved, will temptation, when it comes, be as it was with Him, externally? . . . Because in the Lord Jesus Christ there was never any inbred sin; the temptation always was from the outside; and this may be true of us: but only as Christ Jesus is reigning in us.

"Will you turn with me to Hebrews 4. 15. The literal translation of this verse is:--

"'Tempted in all things, in like manner, sin apart.'

"If we insert the word 'we' which is not in the original, but in the translation, the similarity of temptation between the Lord Jesus Christ and ourselves can never be in relation to inbred sin, for of that the Lord Jesus had none. And yet the words are quite clear 'In all points.' What does it mean? What is the explanation? Thank God there is an explanation and a very blessedly true and satisfying explanation. The Lord Jesus Himself has met the need. The poison of unbelief (that is the inbred sin, the devil's work of imparting into the human heart distrust of God) that can be and is effectually dealt with by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

"As you heard read this morning (1 John 1. 7 and 9): 'The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin.' And it means not only cleansing from the guilt of sin but from sin itself. 'If we confess our sins,' if we come humbly to the Lord Jesus Christ and at His feet tell Him the truth and all the truth and hold nothing back, and really desire to have Him, then He is faithful, faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. That is the double cure; not pardon only but purity of heart; and we are going to commemorate in a few minutes by broken bread and outpoured wine the unfathomable love of Him Who gave Himself for us, that His sacred body might be broken and His precious blood might be shed, that our sinful bodies might be made clean by His body, and our souls washed through His most precious blood. Not pardon only, but purity of heart. And, beloved, as by faith we seek to know more and more , and to be more and more conscious of the Saviour's precious blood in all its power to cleanse, the more we can become conscious that our temptations may be on the line of His temptations, along the line of Hebrews 4. 15. ('Tempted in all things, in like manner, sin apart.') With a pure heart, a heart by blood made clean, our temptations can in a measure be more and more like the temptations of the Lord Jesus Christ; and therefore (shed abroad by the Holy Ghost Himself) a closer bond of union, a deeper love for Him Who is our Great High Priest in heaven, Who feels for and sympathises with the infirmities of those He loves and those who love Him.

"Beloved, if according to that clear exponent of Entire Sanctification, John Wesley, such sanctification is just simply perfect love, then holiness, which, so far as we are concerned, is the greatest need of those around us, of our country and of the world at large, that holiness is after all simply the first command; it is not something to be regarded as an exceptional thing for just a few deeply taught saints, but for every disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, the very first command of all--'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, with all thy mind and with all thy strength'; a glorious imperative, backed by the Almighty power of God to make it not only possible but a blessed reality. Beloved, . . . all that is needed is faith, simply trusting in the Lord, a faith which from the heart responds to Him and says to the Lord, 'Yes, Lord, be it so according to Thy word.'

"Just a word in conclusion. God does not give to His people ready made habits. Habits have to be formed by repeated acts of obedience, and as surely as when the new temptation comes, we obey the Lord, so surely will the habit grow of habitually saying 'Yes Lord.' Oh! so blessedly simple, the obedience of a faith that works by love."