(c) That in this conflict the Holy Spirit enables the Christian, through increasing faith, more fully and consciously to appropriate Christ, and thus progressively to make conquest of the remaining sinfulness of his nature.
Rom. 8:13, 14—“for if ye live after the flesh, ye must die; but if by the Spirit ye put to death the deeds of the body, ye shall live. For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”; 1 Cor. 6:11—“but ye were washed, but ye were sanctified, but ye were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God”; James 1:26—“If any man thinketh himself to be religious, while he bridleth not his tongue but deceiveth his heart, this man's religion is vain”—see Com. of Neander, in loco—“That religion is merely imaginary, seeming, unreal, which allows the continuance of the moral defects originally predominant in the character.” The Christian is “crucified with Christ” (Gal. 2:20); but the crucified man does not die at once. Yet he is as good as dead. Even after the old man is crucified we are still to mortify him, or put him to death (Rom. 8:13; Col. 3:5). We are to cut down the old rosebush and cultivate only the new shoot that is grafted into it. Here is our probation as Christians. So “die Scene wird zum Tribunal”—the play of life becomes God's judgment.
Dr. Hastings: “When Bourdaloue was probing the conscience of Louis XIV, applying to him the words of St. Paul and intending to paraphrase them: ‘For the good which I would, I do not, but the evil which I would not, that I do,’ ‘I find two men in me’—the King interrupted the great preacher with the memorable exclamation: ‘Ah, these two men, I know them well!’ Bourdaloue answered: ‘It is already something to know them, Sire; but it is not enough,—one of the two must perish.’ ” And, in the genuine believer, the old does little by little die, and the new takes its place, as “David waxed stronger and stronger, but the house of Saul waxed weaker and weaker” (2 Sam. 3:1). As the Welsh minister found himself after awhile thinking and dreaming in English, so the language of Canaan becomes to the Christian his native and only speech.
2. Explanations and Scripture Proof.
(a) Sanctification is the work of God.
1 Thess. 5:23—“And the God of peace himself sanctify you wholly.” Much of our modern literature ignores man's dependence upon God, and some of it seems distinctly intended to teach [pg 871]the opposite doctrine. Auerbach's “On the Heights,” for example, teaches that man can make his own atonement; and “The Villa on the Rhine,” by the same author, teaches that man can sanctify himself. The proper inscription for many modern French novels is: “Entertainment here for man and beast.” The Tendenznovelle of Germany has its imitators in the sceptical novels of England. And no doctrine in these novels is so common as the doctrine that man needs no Savior but himself.
(b) It is a continuous process.
Phil. 1:6—“being confident of this very thing, that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Jesus Christ”; 3:15—“Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye are otherwise minded, this also shall God reveal unto you”; Col. 3:9, 10—“lie not one to another; seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, and have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him”; cf. Acts 2:47—“those that were being saved”; 1 Cor. 1:18—“unto us who are being saved”; 2 Cor. 2:15—“in them that are being saved”; 1 Thess. 2:12—“God, who calleth you into his own kingdom and glory.”
C. H. Parkhurst: “The yeast does not strike through the whole lump of dough at a flash. We keep finding unsuspected lumps of meal that the yeast has not yet seized upon. We surrender to God in instalments. We may not mean to do it, but we do it. Conversion has got to be brought down to date.” A student asked the President of Oberlin College whether he could not take a shorter course than the one prescribed. “Oh yes,” replied the President, “but then it depends on what you want to make of yourself. When God wants to make an oak, he takes a hundred years, but when he wants to make a squash, he takes six months.”