ABIDE IN
CHRIST by Andrew Murray
Day 9
As Your
Sanctification
“But of (God) you are in
Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and Righteousness
and SANCTIFICATION and redemption—” 1 Corinthians 1:30
(Before we began this chapter,
I would like to point out something that Andrew Murray probably
assumed all readers in his day understood, but is not so well
understood today. That is, that sanctification is the process of
making men and women holy. That is why this chapter on
sanctification is also about holiness.)
“Paul...to
the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who are sanctified in
Christ Jesus, called to
be
saints..."-—so
the chapter opens in which we are taught that Christ is our
sanctification. In the Old Testament, believers were called the
righteous; in the New Testament they are called saints, the holy
ones, sanctified in Christ Jesus. Holiness* is higher than
righteousness. Holiness in God has reference to His inmost being;
righteousness, to His dealings with His creatures. In man,
righteousness is only a stepping stone to holiness. It is in this he
can come nearest to the perfection of God (comp. Matt. 5:48; 1 Pet.
1:16). In the Old Testament righteousness was found, while holiness
was only typified. In Jesus Christ, the Holy One, and in His people,
His saints or holy ones, it was first found.
As in
Scripture and in our text, so in personal experience righteousness
precedes holiness. When the believer first finds Christ as his
righteousness, he has such joy in the newly made discovery that the
study of holiness hardly has a place. But as he grows, the desire for
holiness makes itself felt, and he seeks to know what provision his
God has made for supplying that need. A superficial acquaintance with
God's plan leads to the view that while justification is God's work,
by faith in Christ, sanctification is our work, to be performed under
the influence of the gratitude we feel for the deliverance we have
experienced, and by the aid of the Holy Spirit. But the earnest
Christian soon finds that gratitude is not capable to supply the
power. When he thinks that more prayer will bring it, he finds that,
indispensable as prayer is, it is not enough. Often the believer
struggles hopelessly for years, until he listens to the teaching of
the Holy Spirit. The Spirit reveals to him that Christ as our
sanctification can be appropriated by faith alone.
Christ
is made of God unto us sanctification. Holiness is the very nature of
God, and only that which God takes possession of and fills with
Himself is holy. God's answer to the question, “How could sinful
man become holy?” is, "through Christ, the Holy One of God."
In Him, whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world, was God's
holiness revealed incarnate and brought within reach of man.
And
for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also may be sanctified
by the truth"
(John 17:19). There is no other way that we can become holy, but by
becoming partakers of the holiness of Christ.* And there is no other
way for this to take place than by our personal spiritual union with
Him, so that through His Holy Spirit His holy life flows into us. “Of
(God) are you in Christ, who is made unto us...sanctification.”
Abiding by faith in Christ our sanctification is the simple secret of
a holy life. The
measure of sanctification will depend on the measure of abiding in
Him.
As the soul learns wholly to abide in Christ, the promise is
increasingly fulfilled: "The very God of peace sanctify you
wholly.” (1 Thess. 5:23).
To
illustrate this relationship between the measure of the abiding and
the measure of sanctification the believer experiences, let us think
of the grafting of a tree, which is an instructive symbol of our
union to Jesus. The illustration is suggested by the Savior's words,
"Make the tree good, and his fruit good” (Matt. 12:33). I can
graft a tree so that only a single branch bears good fruit, while
many of the natural branches remain and bear their old fruit. This is
an illustration of believers in whom a small part of the life is
sanctified, but in whom, from ignorance or other reasons, the carnal
life still in many respects has full dominion. I can graft a tree so
that every branch is cut off, and the whole tree becomes renewed to
bear good fruit. Yet, unless I watch over the tendency of the stems
to produce sprouts, they may again rise and grow strong, and, robbing
the new graft of the strength it needs, make it weak. Such are
Christians who, when apparently powerfully converted, forsake all to
follow Christ, and yet after a time, through not being watchful and
careful, may allow old habits to regain their power. As a result,
their Christian lives and their fruit are weak. But if I want a tree
made completely good, I take it when young, and, cutting the stem
clean off at the ground, I graft it just where it emerges from the
soil. I watch over every bud which the old nature could possibly put
forth, until the flow of sap from the old roots into the new stem is
so complete, that the old life has, as it were, been entirely
conquered and covered by the new. Here I have a tree entirely
renewed. This is an emblem of the Christian who has learned in
entire consecration to surrender everything for Christ, and in a
whole-hearted faith, to wholly abide in Him. (* See note from
Marshall On Sanctification.)
If, in
this case, the old tree were a reasoning being, that could cooperate
with the gardener, what would the gardener speak to it? Would it not
be this: "Yield now yourself entirely to this new nature with
which I have given to you. Supress every tendency of the old nature
to give buds or sprouts. Let all your sap and all your life-powers
rise up into this graft from a beautiful tree, which I have put on
you. So will you bring forth much sweet fruit." And the
language of the tree to the gardener would be: "When You graft
me, do not spare a single branch! Let everything of the old self,
even the smallest bud, be destroyed, so that I may no longer live in
my own self, but in that other life which was cut off and brought and
put upon me, so that I might be wholly new and good." And,
later, were you able to ask the renewed tree, as it was bearing
abundant fruit, what it could say about itself, its answer would be
this: "In me, that is, in my roots, there dwells no good thing.
I am ever inclined to evil. The sap I collect from the soil is in its
nature corrupt, and ready to show itself in bearing evil fruit. But
just when the sap rises into the sunshine to ripen into fruit, the
wise gardener has clothed me with a new life. Through this my sap is
purified, and all my powers are renewed to bring forth good fruit. I
have only to abide in what I have received. He cares for the
immediate suppression and removal of every bud which the old nature
still would put forth."
Christian,
do not fear to claim God's promises to make you holy. Do not listen
to the suggestion that the corruption of your old nature would make
holiness an impossibility. In your flesh dwells no good thing, and
that flesh, though crucified with Christ, is not yet dead. It will
continually seek to rise and lead you to evil. But the Father is the
Gardener. He has grafted the life of Christ onto your life. That holy
life is mightier than your evil life. Under the watchful care of the
Gardener, that new life can keep down the workings of the evil life
within you. The evil nature is there, with its unchanged tendency to
rise up and show itself. But the new nature is there too— because
the living Christ, your sanctification, is there—and through Him
all your powers can be sanctified as they rise into life and be made
to bear fruit to the glory of the Father.
And now,
if you would desire to live a holy life, abide in Christ your
sanctification. Look upon Him as the Holy One of God who was made man
that He might communicate to us the holiness of God. Listen when
Scripture teaches that there is within you a new nature, a new man,
created in Christ Jesus, in righteousness and true holiness. Remember
that this holy nature which is in you is especially fitted for living
a holy life, and for performing all holy duties. This is true of the
new nature as much as the old nature is fitted for doing evil.
Understand that this holy nature within you has its root and life in
Christ in heaven, and can only grow and become strong as the dealings
between it and its source are uninterrupted. And, above all, believe
most confidently that Jesus Christ Himself delights in maintaining
that new nature within you, and imparting to it His own strength and
wisdom for its work.
Let that
faith lead you daily to the surrender of all self-confidence, and the
confession of the utter corruption of all there is in you by nature.
Let it fill you with a quiet and assured confidence that you are
indeed able to do what the Father expects of you as His child, under
the covenant of His grace, because you have Christ strengthening you.
Let it teach you to lay yourself and your services on the altar as
spiritual sacrifices, holy and acceptable in His sight, a sweet
smelling savor. Do
not look upon a life of holiness as a strain and an effort, but as
the natural outgrowth of the life of Christ within you.
And let a quiet, hopeful, and joyful faith hold itself assured that
all you need for a holy life will most certainly be given you out of
the holiness of Jesus. Then you will you understand and prove what it
is to abide in Christ our sanctification.
* "
Holiness may be called spiritual perfection, as righteousness is
legal completeness."—God's Way of Holiness, by H. Bonar, D.D.,
p. 148.
Note.
The
thought that in the personal holiness of our Lord a new holy nature
was formed to be communicated to us, and that we make use of it by
faith, is the central idea of Marshall's invaluable work, The Gospel
Mystery of Sanctification:—
"One
great mystery is, that the holy frame and disposition whereby our
souls are furnished and enabled for immediate practice of the law,
must be obtained by receiving it out of Christ's fullness, as a thing
already prepared and brought to an existence for us in Christ, and
treasured up tn Him; and that, as we are justified by a righteousness
wrought out in Christ, and imputed to us, so we are sanctified by
such an holy frame and qualification as are first wrought out and
completed in Christ for us, and then imparted to us. As our natural
corruption was produced originally in the first Adam and propagated
from him to us, so our new nature and holiness is first produced in
Christ, and derived from him to us, or, as it were, propagated. So
that we are not at all to work together with Christ in making or
producing that holy frame in us, but only to take it to ourselves,
and use it in our holy practice, as made ready to our hands. Thus we
have fellowship with Christ, in receiving that holy frame of spirit
that was originally in Him; for fellowship is where several persons
have the same things in common. This mystery is so great, that
notwithstanding all the light of the Gospel, we commonly think that
we must get an holy frame by producing it anew in ourselves, and by
pursuing it and working it out of our own heart'' (see chap, iii.).*
* I have
felt so strongly that the teaching of Marshall is just what the
Church needs to bring out clearly what the Scripture path of holiness
is, that I have prepared an abridgment (all in the author's own
words) of his work By leaving out what was not essential to his
argument, and shortening when he appeared diffuse, I hoped to briug
his book within reach of many who might never read the larger work.
It is published by Nisbet & Co. under the title, The Highway of
Holiness. I cannot too earnestly urge every student of theology, and
of Scripture, and of the art of holy living, to make himself master
of the teaching of Marshall's third, fourth, and twelfth chapters.
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