The long quote from "one whom God has greatly honoured in bringing liberty and joy to thousands" is Samuel Logan Brengle. The quote is from his book Helps to Holiness.
"Jesus also that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered without the gate" (Hebrews 13:12).
"Blessed as is the justification of the soul, and its reconciliation to our God and Father; blessed as is the regeneration of the heart, yet these are only parts of His ways with us. The Scripture sets forth both in type and teaching that the Lord Jesus suffered to do even a deeper work. He suffered upon the Cross that He might sanctify us wholly; it shows us that we are to be sanctified and made holy; just as we were justified and made regenerate through the shedding of His blood.
"The Christian is not long out of Egypt delivered both from 'the wrath to come' and also from 'this present evil world,' ere he becomes conscious of indwelling evil. He is painfully aware of the presence of 'the body of sin,' 'sin in his members,' 'the superfluity of naughtiness,' 'the carnal mind,' 'filthiness of the flesh and spirit,' 'the evil heart of unbelief,' 'the bondwoman and her son,' filling his heart with doubt and unbelief, fear and care, yes, and many other troubles, causing him unevenness in his Christian walk.
"But the Holy Ghost who convicted us of our sins and lost estate, is faithful also to convict us of sin, making us long and sigh for a full deliverance; showing us a life of love and rest, that we know not of in our wilderness state. Some beautiful life crossing our path, some inspired testimony urging us onward to Christian perfection, some rich discourse making our hearts hunger and thirst after a sweeter and more gracious state than we know--these have caused us to long for a life of love, that casts out fear, kills criticism, murmuring and discontent, that drowns envy, hatred, malice and all uncharitableness, evil speaking and unkind suspicion in its blessed torrent, that makes us harmless as doves, meek and gentle like our Master.
"Let us see then what the Scripture says on this important theme. First what saith St. Paul?
"1. THE DEATH OF CHRIST ON THE CROSS DESTROYS THE BODY OF SIN--O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death. I thank God through Jesus Christ (Rom. 7:24). Our old man was crucified with Christ that the body of sin might be destroyed (Rom. 6:6).
"In the preceding chapter we saw that the Regeneration of the heart was sanctification begun. Our present chapter will deal with it completed.
"In regeneration as taught in Romans 6, our will and conscience were renewed through the sacrifice of Christ. We were crucified, buried and risen with Him that we might walk in newness of life. And yet the question 'Shall we continue in sin,' was not fully answered there, for in our nature we find there are deeper places than our will and conscience, even the thoughts and desires of our heart, the affections, the imagination and the memory. And until these have been purified we are not yet entirely sanctified; we are not yet at rest; and the language of our soul ever find expression in some such words as those of the great hymn-writer, Charles Wesley:
Thy secret voice invites me still,
The sweetness of Thy yoke, to prove,
And fain I would, but though my will
Seems fixed, yet wide my passions rove.
"In Romans 7, therefore, the Apostle continues his theme and concludes his reply to the question, 'Shall we continue in sin?' He speaks to us of deeper things. The union of the soul with Christ in death and resurrection (Rom. 6) now gives place to a union with Him in marriage that we may bring forth fruit unto God (Rom. 7 and 8).
"In further answer to the question, 'Shall we continue in sin?' he again uses the words, 'Know ye not' (Rom. 7:1), and then continuing, employs the metaphor not of death with Christ (6:10), nor bond-service rendered to Christ (6:16) but of marriage with Him. In other words, he is not dealing now with the will or the conscience, but with the desires. It is not now, we cannot, or we must not, but we don't want to commit sin. The objective of the regenerate soul, he tells us, is marriage with Christ; but as it seeks to present itself and its members for that blessed end, it discovers that there is a hindrance in the way. The law and the old husband are the difficulties. If the law be a hindrance, says the objector, surely it must be evil. 'Nay,' says the Apostle, 'the law is holy and just and good.' It is 'holy' because it commands the marriage; 'just' because it forbids it while the old husband is alive; and 'good' because it shows the way out of the difficulty.
"No! no! the law is no hindrance. The only obstacle to the marriage is indwelling sin--'sin in the members,' that old husband to which even the regenerate soul is united, until sanctified wholly by the blood of Jesus.
"The seventh chapter of Romans gives us the photograph of this terrible thing the [Greek text here] that doth 'yet remain' in the regenerate; 'working in me all manner of covetousness' (verse 8), deceiving me (verse 11), 'working death in me' (verse 13), 'present with me' (verse 21), 'bringing me into captivity' (verse 23), and dwelling in me (verse 17). Have we ever been convicted of it? Have we ever, like St. Paul, groaned for deliverance? Has the language of our heart been 'Oh! wretched man that I am?' Have we, like him, seen the real cause of our trouble? It is 'not I' he declares, for I have been crucified with Christ and I am now regenerate--a new creature in Christ Jesus; but it is something which is 'no longer I but sin.' It is lower than my will so that I am utterly unable to evict it from me. It is, as it were, two-and-a-half inches beyond my reach. I struggle and resolve; I determine and endeavor; but alas! all to no purpose, and yet until this thing has been cast out, this old husband destroyed, this evil thing that spreads its poison through all my members, there can be no real union with my Lord nor fruitfulness in His service. Observe the language of the Apostle, he does not cry, 'Oh! wretched man that I am who shall save me,' but 'who shall deliver me (who am already saved) from this vile corpse'; so that when it has been taken away I shall find within me, in its place, a living Christ.
"Now this further deliverance and fuller salvation St. Paul tells us is through the cross. 'He suffered without the gate that he might sanctify the people with his own blood.' We are 'sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.' 'Ye also were made dead to the law by the body of Christ that ye should be married to Him.'
"And now let us look further and see what saith St. John?
"2. THE BLOOD OF CHRIST CLEANSES THE HEART FROM SIN --If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin (I John 1:7).
"As we turn from St. Paul to St. John's writings, we notice that nowhere do we find any such expression as being 'crucified and risen with Christ.' The thought of identification with Christ on the cross and in the tomb is entirely foreign to St. John [not foreign to his understanding but foreign to his writings in recorded Scripture]. That conception is wholly Pauline. Are we to infer that St. John never deals with the theme of sanctification at all? Certainly not. We discover that he uses other language and other metaphors. Where St. Paul speaks of the destruction of the body of sin through the cross, St. John speaks of the blood of Christ cleansing from all sin; where St. Paul speaks of our being risen and married to Christ, St. John tells us that we are perfected in love.
"'If we say that we have no sin,' says he, 'we deceive ourselves, but if we (do no such thing but on the contrary) confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive our sins and to CLEANSE us from ALL UNRIGHTEOUSNESS.'
"In the Old Testament typology the lesson of holiness through the death of a substitute is very plain. The sin offering, the cleansing of the leper, the blood sprinkled upon the living bird set free to soar heavenward, the blood upon the people, the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, all speak of the effects of Christ's passion differing from and deeper than the sprinkling of the blood upon the Egyptian lintel. True it is that the blood upon the door post (Exod. 12:7), upon the book (Heb. 9:19), upon the altar (Exod. 29:12), upon the mercy-seat (Lev. 16:4) tells of wondrous grace, but the blood upon the people speaks of the blood of Jesus upon the heart and reminds us that 'His blood cleanseth from all sin,' and that he died to sanctify His people and make them pure even as He is pure. This is the very heart of the Gospel. The central blessedness of the New Covenant.
"Many of God's children, I know, find it hard to understand in what sense we are made holy by the blood of Christ. The atoning work for our justification and the indwelling of His Spirit for our Sanctification are easy to comprehend, but in what sense can we be made holy in heart by the shedding of His blood? This difficulty arises partly from ignorance of the nature of sin.
"In the minds of many sin is regarded merely as an act of wrong doing, wrong thinking, or wrong speaking. According to this view, the Holy Spirit can of course keep us from yielding to temptation and thus 'free from sin' in the above sense; while the blood of Christ avails to remove all stain of guilt and condemnation, if we do transgress.
"This, however, is a very defective view of sin and in consequence of sanctification. The truth is that in the Word of God, sin (as distinguished from sins and sinning) is spoken of as a spiritual entity, e.g., 'the body of sin' 'the carnal mind,' etc., etc. Sanctification, then, in its principal meaning is the destruction of that entity, a moral cleansing of our nature from its defiling presence and power, a real healing of the soul and a removal of inward depravity. A further difficulty of understanding in what sense we are made holy by the blood of Christ is due to our failure to recognize the use of figurative language. The late Thomas Cook writes thus:
"'But some cannot understand how this cleansing is through the blood of Jesus; we need to explain that we are obliged to use figurative language. We sing of a 'fountain filled with blood,' but we all know there is no such fountain. When we speak of the blood of Jesus cleansing from sin, we do not mean that the blood of Christ is literally applied to the heart. What is meant is that through the great atoning work Christ has procured or purchased complete deliverance from sin for us exactly as He has made forgiveness possible for us. But while Christ is thus through His death what may be called the procuring cause of sanctification, the work itself is wrought in us through the agency of the Holy Spirit. He comes to the heart in sanctifying power, excluding the evil and filling it with love (when we believe the blood cleanseth us from all sin) just as He comes in regenerating power when we believe for forgiveness and are adopted into the family of God.'
"Perhaps no text in the Word of God has brought complete deliverance to more souls than I John 1:7. Testimonies abound. In fact, almost all who have entered into this great inheritance speak of this word as the Magna Charta of their deliverance.
"That great and good woman, Frances Ridley Havergall, entered into the Sabbath rest upon this 'exceeding great and precious promise,' and cried, 'if all does not mean all what does it mean?'
"How many witnesses could we call to tell of this 'so great salvation.' Space only allows of a single instance, and he shall be one whom God greatly honoured in bringing liberty and joy to thousands [Samuel Logan Brengle.]. After telling of how God had convicted him of his great need and shown him all the evil of his heart, he continues [The quote is from Brengle's book Helps to Holiness]:
"'Then God spoke directly to my soul, not by printed words through my eyes, but by His Holy Spirit in my heart. 'If we confess our sins he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.' The first part about forgiveness I knew but the last clause about cleansing was a revelation to me. . . . The word was with power and I bowed my head in my hands and said, "Father, I believe that." Then a great rest came into my soul and I knew I was clean. In that instant the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God purged my conscience from dead works to serve the living God. But God meant greater things for me. On the following Tuesday morning, just after rising with a heart full of eager desire for God, I read these words of Jesus at the grave of Lazarus, "I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth on me though he were dead yet shall he live, and he that liveth and believeth on me shall never die. Believest thou this?" The Holy Ghost, the other Comforter, was in those words, and in an instant my soul was melted before the Lord like wax before fire, and I knew Jesus. He was revealed in me as He had promised and I loved Him with an unutterable love. I walked out over Boston Common before breakfast, and still wept and adored and loved. Talk about the occupation of heaven! . . . . My soul was satisfied, satisfied, satisfied.'
"Thank God we could call many other witnesses such as these, but we are searching the Scriptures, and so ask once more what saith St. Peter?
"3. THE SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST HEAL THE SOUL--By whose stripes ye were healed (I Peter 2:24).
"Where St. Paul speaks much of the cross of Christ and St. John of His blood, St. Peter again and again emphasizes His sufferings. And here He tells us that by the stripes of Christ there is perfect healing for the soul. This perfect soundness of heart is only another name for the destruction of the body of sin, or the entire cleansing of the nature. The thought of healing for the soul is very common in the Scriptures, more particularly in the Old Testament. 'The whole head is sick and the whole heart faint' says the prophet Isaiah (chap. 1:5) 'The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick' (Jer. 17:9) (R. V.) 'They have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly' (Jer. 6:14). Many other passages could be quoted.
"The miracles, too, of the Lord Jesus upon the bodies of people when studied as parables of the soul, make the matter very plain and remind us that He is a great Physician as well as a great Saviour.
"There is something very comforting in this view of things. From one aspect sin may be looked upon as a disease, something for which in the first place we are not responsible for having. 'By one man's disobedience many were made sinners.' Hence the Lord says, 'I will be merciful to their unrighteousness.' A doctor does not begin to treat his patient by boxing his ears or scolding him for his carelessness. 'The Lord moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and said, I will; be thou clean.' Sin, inherited depravity, makes the soul sick. The Lord is present to heal and the Apostle reminds us that it is by His stripes the cure is effected. Our conscience finds healing in His wounds; our will is healed by His passion; our desires are healed by His stripes; the fountain of our thoughts is healed by the blood that flowed from His veins.
"That sacred head that only thought of mercy, love and truth was crowned with thorns that my foolish and sinful thoughts might be for ever purged. Those blessed hands that ministered only good were pierced that mine might be freed from covetousness and greed. His holy feet that only walked on errands of mercy were nailed to the cruel tree that mine might be delivered from their wayward and wilful wanderings. Those pure lips that spoke none but words of comfort, grace and truth, were parched with cruel thirst that mine might be cleansed of their folly, pride, and sin. That beautiful face ever aglow with tenderness and love was spat upon and stained with blood that mine so often clouded with anger, murmuring and pride might be calm as His. His divine heart, pure, stainless and full of heavenly love, was riven with the soldier's spear that mine might be made clean in His most precious blood.
"Here is the testimony of one who was deeply burdened with the consciousness of his grievous malady, Mr. Reginald Radcliffe. He once wrote to his wife as follows: 'I feel as if my soul had been bitten and stung by Satan and that his venomous tongue had saturated every inmost recess of my soul with his poisonous essence of gall. Nothing but the miraculous cleansing, living and life-giving blood of Jesus can cleanse me. I am satanically infused. Nothing but the Lord Jesus dipping me in His blood can cleanse me! Thanks though! Yea! let the caverns of hell hear me shout as devils fly in impotence. His blood is a million times too strong for them. What safety! What a tower! The waves had as well give over beating against it.'
"Yes, thanks be to God! by His stripes we too, like him, can be made perfectly whole.
"We must bring our chapter to a close, and I cannot do better than quote from the writings of one of our greatest saints. No one in this country has perhaps had a deeper experience of God's sanctifying grace than Mrs. Hester Ann Rogers. She was one of John Wesley's most faithful helpers. Writing to a friend she says:
"'It is the blood of Jesus that cleanseth from all sin, not penal sufferings, not mortification of any kind, not anything we have, not grace already received, not anything we are or can be, not death nor purgatory, no, nor the purgatory of all doings and sufferings, and strivings put together. No! No! Christ is the procuring meritorious cause of all our salvation He alone forgiveth sin and He alone cleanseth from all unrighteousness. Faith is the only condition and it shares in the omnipotence it dares to trust.
The wounds of Christ are open,
Open now for you and me;
The wounds of Christ are open,
There for refuge flee.
"'Let us then fear lest we receive the grace of God in vain' and fearing, let us hasten to plunge into the fountain that was opened for sin and uncleanliness, and rest not till by His stripes we are made perfectly whole, and we can say with St. Paul 'God forbid that I should glory save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ whereby the world is crucified unto me and I unto the world.'"
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