THE KING’ S BUSINESS
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cover, as he studies the W ord o f God, and is illumined by the Holy \Spirit, acts o f his, habits o f life, forms o f feeling, speech, and action that are not in conformity with this central purpose' o f his life» These departures in his acts, habits o f life, forms o f feeling, speech and action, from the central purpose o f his will to be wholly God’s, must be confessed to God as blame worthy, and put away as soon as discov ered, and this department of his being and life must be brought, by God’s Spirit and the indwelling Christ, into conformity to God’s will as revealed in His Word. The victory in this newly discovered and unclaimed territory can and should be instantaneous. For example, if I should discover in myself an irritability o f tem per that is manifestly displeasing to God, I can go to God and confess it, renounce it, and then instantly, not in my own strength, but by looking to the Lord Jesus and claim ing His patience and gentleness, overcome it and never have another failure in that direction. It is, however, at the coming o f our Lord Jesus Christ with all His saints that He is to establish our hearts unblamable in holiness - before God the Father, and our spirit and soul and body are to be preserved entire and without blame, and that in this sense we are to be wholly sanctified (see 1 Thess. S:23, R. V .; 1 Thess. 3:12, 13). There is also a progressive, work o f sanctification, an increasing in love, an abounding more and more in a godly walk and in’ pleasing God, and growing in the knowledge and grace o f our Lord Jesus Christ, a being trans formed into the image o f our Lord JeSus from glory unto glory, each new gaze at Him making us more like Him, a growing up into Christ in all things, until we attain unto a full-grown man, unto the measure o f the stature o f the fulness of Christ (1 Thess. 3:12; 4:1, 10, R. V .; 2 Peter 3:18, R. V .; 2 Cor. 3:18, R. V .; Eph. 4:11-15).
ment. These two meanings o f the word, of course/ are closely related to one another. Sanctification in Bible usage is not some ecstatic experience by which “the carnal nature,” or anything else, is eradicated. It is the clear teaching o f the Bible that every believer in Christ is already sanctified; that every believer is sanctified through the blood o f Jesus Christ shed upon the Cross o f Calvary (see Heb. 13:12, R. V .). The Apostle Paul, in 1 Cor. 1 :2, R. V., speaks o f all the members of the .church o f God at Corinth as “they that are sanctified in Christ Jesus,” and in the sixth chapter, eleventh verse, R. V. o f the same epistle, he writes to them, “Ye were sanctified.” There were many very imperfect Chris tians in the church at Corinth. Paul tells them plainly that they, were not “spiritual,” but “carnal,” “babes in Christ” (1 Cor. .3:1), and yet he tells them distinctly, in spite of their carnality and lack o f spirit- , uality and in spite o f their immaturity, .that they were already "sanctified." By the offering o f the body o f Jesus Christ once for all every believer is cleansed for ever from all the guilt o f sin, “perfected forever” as far as his standing before God is concerned, and in this sense is fully sanc tified, or set apart for God as His peculiar property (Heb. 10:10, 14). There is, how ever, another sense in which any believer may be fully sanctified in the present, viz., it is the believer’s present and blessed priv ilege and immediate solemn duty to pre sent his body to God, a living sacrifice. Not some part or parts o f the body, but the whole body with its every member and every faculty, and when he does thus pre sent his body a living sacrifice, holy, accept able unto God, then he is wholly sanctified (see Rom. 12:1). When this is done the believer, so far as the will, the governing purpose o f his life, the center of his being, is concerned, is wholly God’s, or perfectly sanctified. He still may and will daily dis
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