2. This experience, this acquaintance with God, was maintained and deepened and broadened in obedience to God’s teaching, or truth, or doctrine.
3. They patiently yet urgently taught others what they themselves had learned, and declared, so far as they saw it, the whole counsel of God.
They were abreast of the deepest experiences and fullest revelations God had yet made to men. They were leaders, not laggards. They were not in the rear of the procession of God’s warriors and saints; they were in the forefront.
Here we discover the importance of the doctrine and experience of holiness through the baptism of the Holy Spirit to Salvation Army leaders. We are to know God and glorify Him and reveal Him to men. We are to finish the work of Jesus, and “fill up that which is behind of the sufferings of Christ” (Col. i. 24). We are to rescue the slaves of sin, to make a people, to fashion them into a holy nation, and inspire and lead them forth to save the world. How can we do this? Only by being in the forefront of God’s spiritual hosts; not in name and in titles only, but in reality; by being in glad possession of the deepest experiences God gives, and the fullest revelations He makes to men.
The astonishing military and naval successes of the Japanese are said to be due to their profound study, clear understanding, and firm grasp of the theory, the principles, the doctrines of war; their careful and minute preparation of every detail of their campaigns; the scientific accuracy and precision with which they carry out all their plans, and their splendid and utter personal devotion to their cause.
Our war is far more complex and desperate than theirs, and its issues are infinitely more far-reaching, and we must equip ourselves for it; and nothing is so vital to our cause as a mastery of the doctrine and an assured and joyous possession of the Pentecostal experience of holiness through the indwelling Spirit.
I. The Doctrine.—What is the teaching of God’s word about holiness?
1. If we carefully study God’s word, we find that He wants His people to be holy, and the making of a holy people, after the pattern of Jesus, is the crowning work of the Holy Spirit. He commands us to “cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of the Lord” (2 Cor. vii. 1). It is prayed that we may “increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men... to the end He may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God” (1 Thess. iii. 12, 13). He says: “As He which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter i. 15, 16). And in the most earnest manner we are exhorted to “follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews xii. 14).
2. As we further study the word, we discover that holiness is more than simple freedom from condemnation for wrong-doing. A helpless invalid lying on his bed of sickness, unable to do anything wrong, may be free from the condemnation of actual wrong-doing, and yet it may be in his heart to do all manner of evil. Holiness on its negative side is a state of heart purity; it is heart cleanness—cleanness of thought and temper and disposition, cleanness of intention and purpose and wish; it is a state of freedom from all sin, both inward and outward (Romans vi. 18). On the positive side it is a state of union with God in Christ, in which the whole man becomes a temple of God and filled with the fruit of the Spirit, which is “love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.” It is moral and spiritual sympathy and harmony with God in the holiness of His nature.
We must not, however, confound purity with maturity. Purity is a matter of the heart, and is secured by an instantaneous act of the Holy Spirit; maturity is largely a matter of the head and results from growth in knowledge and experience. In one, the heart is made clean, and is filled with love; in the other, the head is gradually corrected and filled with light, and so the heart is enlarged and more firmly established in faith; consequently, the experience deepens and becomes stronger and more robust in every way. It is for this reason that we need teachers after we are sanctified, and to this end we are exhorted to humbleness of mind.