3. It is well that we take in every aspect of what God has revealed of holiness in His word. But let us never weary ourselves by seeking to grasp all completely. Let us even return to the simplicity that is in Jesus. To bow at His feet, to believe that He knows all we need, and has it all, and loves to give it all, is rest. And holiness is resting in Jesus the rest of God. Let all our thoughts be gathered up into this one: Jesus, Blessed Jesus.
4. This holy life in Christ is for to-day, when you read this. For to-day He is made of God unto you sanctification: to-day He will indeed be your holiness. Believe in Him for it; trust Him, praise Him. And remember: you are in Him.
[p201]
Twenty-third Day.
[Contents]
HOLY IN CHRIST.
‘The temple of God is holy, which temple ye are. The body is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you; therefore glorify God in your body.’—1 Cor. iii. 16, vi. 13, 19.
‘She that is unmarried is careful for the things of the Lord, that she may be holy both in body and spirit.’—1 Cor. vii. 34.
‘Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God.’—Rom. xii. 1.
Coming into the world, our Blessed Lord spake: ‘A body didst Thou prepare for me; lo, I come to do Thy will, O God.’ Leaving this world again, it was in His own body that He bore our sins upon the tree. So it was in the body, no less than in soul and spirit, that He did the will of God. And therefore it is said, ‘By which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.’
When praying for the Thessalonians and their sanctification, Paul says, ‘And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly; and may your spirit and soul and body be preserved entire, without blame, [p202] at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Of himself he had spoken as ‘always bearing about in the body the dying of Jesus, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our body. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus’ sake, that the life also of Jesus may be manifested in our mortal flesh.’ His earnest expectation and hope was, ‘that Christ be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death.’ The relation between body and spirit is so intimate, the power of sin in the spirit comes so much through the body, the body is so distinctly the object both of Christ’s redemption and the Holy Spirit’s renewal, that our study of holiness will be seriously defective if we do not take in the teaching of Scripture on holiness in the body.