‘I sanctify myself for them, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.’ ‘I come to do Thy will, O God. In the which will,’ the will of God accomplished by Christ, ‘we have been sanctified through the one offering of the body of Christ.’ Let us understand and hold it fast: Christ’s giving up His will in Gethsemane and accepting God’s will in dying; Christ’s doing that will in the obedience to the death of the cross, this is His sanctifying Himself, and this is our being sanctified in truth. ‘In the which will we have been sanctified.’ The death to self, the utter and most absolute giving up of our own life, with its will and its power and its aims, to the cross, and into the crucifixion of Christ, the daily bearing the cross—not a cross on which we are yet to be crucified, but the cross of the crucified Christ in its power to kill and make dead—this is the secret of the life of holiness—this is true sanctification.
Believer! is this the holiness which you are seeking? Have you seen and consented that God alone is holy, that self is all unholy, and that there is no way to be made holy but for the fire of the Divine Holiness to come in and be the death of self? ‘Always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested [p156] in our mortal body’—is the pathway for each one who seeks to be sanctified in truth, even as He sanctified Himself; sanctified just like Jesus.
He sanctified Himself for us, that we ourselves also might be sanctified in truth. Yes, our sanctification rests and roots in His, in Himself. And we are in Him. The secret roots of our being are planted into Jesus: deeper down than we can see or feel, there is He our Vine, bearing and quickening us. Let us by faith understand that, in a manner and a measure which are far beyond our comprehension, intensely Divine and real, we are in Him who sanctified Himself for us. Let us dwell there, where we have been placed of God. And let us bow our knees to the Father, that He would grant us to be mightily strengthened by His Spirit, that Christ as our Sanctification may dwell in our hearts, that the power of His death and His life may be revealed in us, and God’s will be done in us as it was in Him.
Be holy, for I am holy.
Holy Father! I do bless Thee for this precious blessed word, for this precious blessed work of Thy beloved Son. In His never-ceasing intercession Thou ever hearest the wonderful prayer, ‘I sanctify myself for them, that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.’
Blessed Father! I beseech Thee to strengthen me mightily by Thy Spirit, that in living faith I may [p157] be able to accept and live the holiness prepared for me in my Lord Jesus. Give me spiritual understanding to know what it means that He sanctified Himself, that my sanctification is secured in His, that as by faith I abide in Him, its power will cover my whole life. Let His sanctification indeed be the law as it is the life of mine. Let His surrender to Thy fatherly will, His continual dependence and obedience, be its root and its strength. Let His death to the world and to sin be its daily rule. Above all, let Himself, O my Father! let Himself, as sanctified for me, the living Jesus, be my only trust and stay. He sanctified Himself for me, that I myself also may be sanctified in truth.
Beloved Saviour! how shall I rightly bless and love and glorify Thee for this wondrous grace! Thou didst give Thyself, so that now I am holy in Thee. I give myself, that in Thee I myself may be made holy in truth. Amen. Lord Jesus! Amen.
1. ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.’ Jesus means that our life shall be the exact counterpart of His, including even the crucifixion. The beginning of such a life is the denial of self, to give Christ its place. The Jews would not deny self, but ‘denied the Holy One, and killed the Prince of Life.’ The choice is still between Christ and self. Let us deny the unholy one, and give him to the death.
2. The steps in this path are these: First, the deliberate decision that self shall be given up to the death; then, the surrender to Christ crucified to make us partakers of His crucifixion; then, ‘knowing that our old man is crucified,’ the faith that says, ‘I am crucified with Christ;’ and then, the power to live as a crucified one, to glory in the cross of Christ.
3. This is God’s way of holiness, a Divine mystery, which the Holy Spirit alone can daily maintain in us. Blessed be God, it is the life which a Christian can live, because Christ lives in us.