SANCTIFICATION by A. C. Spicer

Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · May 3, 1877

SANCTIFICATION

By A. C. Spicer

BY ELD. A. C. SPICER.

The dear Saviour prayed the Father to sanctify his disciples, and in the same prayer declared that he “sanctified himself that they might be sanctified.” John 17:17, 19. The inference, therefore, is that Christian sanctification is a possibility, and is desirable. Furthermore, the invocation of Jesus Christ to his Father was, “Sanctify them through thy truth;” and his declaration was, “And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.” And there was added, as if to avoid misapprehension of his words, “Thy word is truth.”

Here, then, is definitely set forth

1. The direct agent in the work of sanctification,—God.

2. The means to be employed in that work,—truth, as contained or expressed in God’s word.

To sanctify as defined by Worcester is:—

1. “To free from the power of sin; to cleanse from corruption; to make holy.”

3. “To ordain or set apart to sacred ends; to consecrate; to hallow. So for example: God blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it.”

No fault need be found with these definitions or with the illustration. They are doubtless sufficiently explicit and complete for common, practical use. What is needful to those who use the term, and especially to those who adopt “sanctification” as a creed, and advocate it as a specialty of their faith and life, is that they understand the meaning of the definition, and of the term as used in the Bible. The substance of the first definition is contained in the last clause,—“to make holy,” for that will “free from the power of sin” and “cleanse from corruption.” This applies only to moral agents. The third definition varies but in a light shade from the first to render it applicable to inanimate objects, and is expressed in the one word “consecrate,” to set apart for sacred uses.

Sanctify—“to make holy.” Holiness (as righteousness and godliness) pertains to character in a moral agent; and this character is to be developed, to be wrought out or attained by activities. It is not inherent (like purity and innocence) nor spontaneous. It is character of a moral agent in conformity to moral law and in harmony with the Divine will chosen and wrought out by voluntary activities. It is not the result of accidental or ephemeral conformity of life merely to the letter of law. Holiness is character in conformity to the letter and spirit or intent of moral law, which character is intelligently chosen by a free moral agent as a highest earthly good and as the pleasure and will of God. Not only is this character so chosen, but those conforming acts of life thus in harmony with the Divine will are also intelligently and conscientiously chosen and directed as the God-ordained and essential means for the development of that holy character, and are adopted and pursued as the pleasure of God from pure, conscientious, moral motives. Hence this holiness is not spontaneous nor enforced, accidental nor extrinsic. It is a chosen, intrinsic virtue, and is usually of gradual growth by definable, chosen processes. Rom. 6:19, 22; 2 Cor. 7:1; Eph. 4:24; 1 Thess. 3:13; 4:7.

The present purpose is to ascertain and set forth the scriptural use and true meaning of the word “sanctify.” To this end reference is had to Ex. 19:10, 12–15, 21–25.

Moses is charged to go down from the presence of God on the mount “and sanctify the people” (verse 10), also to “sanctify the mount.” Verse 23. In what that act of sanctification was to consist is there declared, “Set bounds about the mount.” Verse 23. How this was to be done is indicated in verses 12, 13, 21, 23, 24. “Thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it; whosoever toucheth the mount shall surely be put to death. There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long they shall come up to the mount.” “Charge the people, lest they break through unto the Lord to gaze, and many of them perish . . . let not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the Lord, lest he break forth upon them.” “So Moses went down unto the people and spake unto them.” Verse 25.

And thus, “setting bounds about the mount” by declaring it sacred,—set apart,—consecrated—to the appearance of God thereon and the sublime manifestation of his power and authority therefrom, by prescribing rules for the deportment and conduct of the people on the occasion,—a law of action for their guidance—telling them where they should go, and what to do, how near they should approach to the mount, and what not to do, how to act and demean themselves, giving them complete directions as a law of action to guide them in properly observing the occasion and honoring God, these acts are termed “sanctifying the mount.”

This is in exact accord with the third definition quoted, and was the sanctification of an inanimate object by setting it apart to sacred ends; consecrating it; hallowing it. And this is effected by, (1) announcing to the people that it is by God so set apart to sacred uses; and (2) giving to the people a law of action in relation to the thing set apart, and instructing them in that law, and charging them to be obedient thereto.

So also was the sanctification of the people effected by prescribing to them a rule of deportment, a law of action, by which they were to be governed, thus “setting bounds unto the people round about,”—circumscribing them “round about” by a law of life—to govern and guide them on the occasion of God’s special visit to the mountain and speaking to the people. They were instructed to purify themselves even to the washing of their garments and the avoiding of those indulgencies, which might in any degree vitiate their sense or detract from entire attention to him and his words. V. 15. They were also charged where and how far to go; and where not to go, and what not to touch, how to appear, and what to do. In short, in respect to that particular time, place, and event, there was given to the people, evidently, a complete rule of deportment—a complete law of action; and they were instructed in it carefully and fully, and enjoined to obey it, and these commands were enforced by the peril of their lives. The record here is brief, but there can be no doubt that the law and commandments and instruction were complete and all-sufficient to entail entire responsibility upon the people.

“So Moses went down from the mount unto the people, and spake unto them,” declaring unto them all the words of God unto him, instructing, commanding, and charging them in the name of God what to do and how to do, thus by a law “setting bounds unto the people round about,” saying unto them, “Take heed,” etc. And these acts are termed (verse 25) “sanctifying the people.” In this work, (1) Moses (under God) is the direct agent commanding and instructing the people; and (2) God’s word—his law—is the means used, while the act of the people in obeying the words of God is a secondary, concomitant means and the people themselves secondary, cooperating agents.

The term “sanctify” in John 17:17, 19 is evidently used with the same signification. “Sanctify them through thy truth, thy word is truth.” Here, God is implored by the loving, very anxious Saviour and friend of man (1) to be himself the direct agent, and (2) to use his word as the means to make the disciples holy. It is the truth, then, as contained in God’s word that is to be the means of sanctifying God’s people; i. e., God is asked to make that word, as embodying the truth, a law of life unto them. God is besought by that law to “set bounds unto the people round about;” by it to prescribe their deportment and acts of life in obedience to the Divine idea of right and fitness and to God’s will and pleasure; to circumscribe them around with his moral law of holiness, which is to be implicitly accepted by them when fully instructed therein as a law of moral life and guide unto holiness of character, essential to acceptance with Christ and to the reward of eternal life.

This thought is rendered more complete by the language of verse nineteen, containing Christ’s declaration that, “For their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth.” This must mean, when he says, “For their sakes I sanctify myself that they might be sanctified,” etc., that Christ does this,—sanctifies himself—as an example unto us, for in no other sense could his sanctification conduce or redound to our sanctification. It is evident that much of Christ’s mission and labors on earth were as an example to us, that we might by witnessing an example of a holy life learn better how to live one. In instituting the church ordinances, Christ partook thereof himself as an example to us. When he asked for the administration of baptism to himself by John, he testified, “Thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.” And when he had solemnly instituted the third and last ordinance on that night of his betrayal, he testified of it, “I have given you an example, that ye should do as I have done unto you.” Previous to this, Christ had exhorted, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me, for I am meek and lowly in heart,” etc. Matt. 11:29. In fact, either definitely or impliedly, Christ’s whole earth-life is frequently presented as an example to us, as by John in 1 John 2:6,—“He that saith he abideth in him ought also to walk even as he walked.”

Now, it seems that he had done something as an example to his disciples which he terms “sanctifying himself.” And it is clearly implied by him in the language used that the means employed for his sanctification was God’s truth—“his word.” Also this is the only logical inference; for unless he employed the same means, the same instrumentality that is to be employed in man’s sanctification, the example would be imperfect and hence inefficient for the object designed. He prays that man may be “sanctified through the truth”—God’s word. Then it was through the application of that word to his life that he sanctified himself.

How did he do it? He made it the guide of his life. He walked in its precepts. He kept its commandments, and statutes. He averred, “I came down from Heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me;” and that while here he sought not his own will, but the will of the Father who had sent him. John 6:38; 5:30. As doing that will he faithfully kept his Father’s commandments, “did all those things that pleased him,” and “finished his work;” and himself presented his obedience thereto as an example to us. “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” John 15:10. Christ’s abiding love is promised as an encouraging reward to induce obedience to the commandments of God. The keeping of those commandments is the object sought, and his example and the rewarding love of his Father are presented here as a strengthening, sustaining encouragement.

We learn from Luke 1:6, that “walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless” is what constitutes “righteousness.” And, further, we learn from John 14:15–24; 1 John 2:29; 3:22–24, that the condition upon which we are to be blessed of God (as asked in this prayer of the Saviour) and be accounted holy—righteous—is that we have his commandments and keep them. Now grouping these thoughts all together, it seems clear that that which Christ did as an example to us, which he termed “sanctifying himself,” was the “keeping the commandments and ordinances of God, blameless,” and doing his Father’s will in all things, which he declares to be the purpose of his earth-mission. In that work of sanctification of Christ, (1) Christ himself, as “one” in purpose and labor with the Father, was the agent, and (2) God’s law was the means.

Thus Christ “set bounds unto himself round about” by his Father’s commandments and will, conforming his life thereto during all his stay on earth and amid all

his labors, sufferings, trials, and agony even unto death, walking among pursuing and persecuting men blameless, as an example to them and us; and thus it was he “sanctified himself” “for our sakes.”

Then, when Christ prayed his Father to sanctify his disciples “through the truth”—“his word”—he asked the Father by the Holy Spirit which was to be sent to instruct, to keep and lead them and “guide them into all truth,” to so commend the value of God’s word unto them, and to take the teachings of Christ “and show it unto them.” (John 16:15) In such a way that they shall be constrained to love it and induced to accept it as their law of life and “guide to holiness,” by it “setting bounds unto them round about” so that they should sin not, but should “walk in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless,” walking thus by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, so that this faith might be “accounted unto them for righteousness.”

In this work of sanctifying the disciples (1) God is asked to be the efficient agent, and (2) God is asked to use the truth as expressed in his word as the necessary means through which to effect the object desired. God works by the agency of the Holy Spirit, to enlighten, admonish, convict, subdue, subject, teach, guide, sustain, and perfect, and hence to bring into obedience to the divine law and into harmony with the divine will and pleasure, and thus make holy. This we learn from John 14:15–26; 16:7–15, and corresponding scriptures. Manifestly, sanctification implies holiness, godliness, righteousness, and pertains to character. And this character is attainable by entire conformity of the interior life and exterior deportment of the child of faith to the law and ordinances and expressed will and pleasure of God. It is moral character developed in and by the believing child of grace in entire conformity to God’s moral law and to his will and pleasure, and with the teaching, precepts, life-example and character of Jesus Christ, taught, led, and controlled by the Holy Spirit.

Then, by the agency of the Holy Spirit, the truth as embodied in God’s word, the disciples of our Lord may be thus sanctified by co-operating with God in “setting bounds” unto themselves “round about” by his holy law, and then walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord, blameless. “Ye shall sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44), is everywhere the spirit of the divine requirement. And “this is the will of God, even your sanctification;” “for God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness (1 Thess. 4:1–8) is the teaching of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

If this be a true conception and understanding of the subject, then the doctrine of sanctification is full of deep and valuable import to us, and means much more than mere ephemeral emotions excited by sectarian zeal for creed or special doctrine; far more than excitement manifesting itself in undignified, wild, and extravagant enthusiasm; very much more than the mere emotional pleasures of even a true faith, and by far more than the evanescent joys of a blind faith or sectarian zeal, interspersed by grace and unguided by wisdom.

It means self-abasement and subjection and subdued humiliation; it means the heart, temple of God, swept, washed, and purified by the blood of Christ and inhabited by the Holy Ghost; it means much pruning, much chiseling, grinding, and burnishing; it means passions all subdued, affections all chastened, temper all controlled and sweetened, and sympathies all tenderly alive and pulsating to the beautiful and true in virtue, a conscience quick and sensitive to every pulsation of right and wrong and to every call to duty, and a benevolence that knows no limit within the possible. It means, hence, a mild, calm, meek, and quiet temper and demeanor; an entirely dispassionate, pure, and innocent life, fervent devotions, strong and controlling religious convictions, divinely enlightened sentiments, noble aims and holy aspirations, great hope, grand designs, matured plans, unfailing resolves, and earnest, persistent, yet cautious and discreet labors. In short, sanctification means a religious character patterned after that of the blessed Master and developed and perfected “in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” Eph. 4:13. Again, if the true meaning of the term sanctify as used in the Bible, has been correctly apprehended as stated above, then the import of the words in Gen. 2:3,—“And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from his work which he had made. And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made”—must be this:—

1. On the seventh day God, ceasing from his six days’ creative work, rested himself from all his works, as an example to man.

2. God pronounced his blessing upon that seventh day declaring his purpose to make it a holy day.

3. God sanctified it—made it holy, which consisted (1) in proclaiming to the people that “it was by God so made a holy day set apart for sacred rest from secular labor, for religious instruction and for the worship and honor of the living God; and (2) in “setting bounds about” it by a law for its observance, by giving to the race a law of the Sabbath, commanding its observance as a day of holy rest, directing what to do in respect to it and how to do. In this work of sanctifying it (1) God is the direct agent, and (2) God’s moral law is the means, as above seen.

The sanctification of the seventh day, hence, implies a Sabbath law—a law for the government of man’s conduct in respect to it, and that that law was proclaimed to the race, and that they were carefully and fully instructed in that law. It implies that God then and there, in Eden, ordained a Sabbath law for the protection of the institution when he created it, and that then and there he gave the Sabbath and the law thereof to man.

Then, to argue that though the Sabbath was instituted in Eden for man, yet it was not given to him, nor was any Sabbath law enacted or given to him until two thousand five hundred years thereafter at Mt. Sinai, is to argue against light.

The conclusion is as the beginning, viz., that Christian sanctification is both possible and desirable, even in the high sense indicated above. High as the standard of perfection is, which is understood to be required, yet the child of true faith walking in the pure, clear light of God’s word, need not despair. For God is pledged by his word to hear and answer the prayer of faith; the Holy Spirit is pledged to enlighten and assist to the full extent of any need; and Jesus Christ, the ever loving friend of the contrite in heart, is yet interested in us and anxious for the saints’ sanctification no less than he was when he uttered that memorable prayer to his Father.