Month: March 2016

Entire Sanctification

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Pastor Scott Rowe's avatarGUIDED BY GRACE

Entire sanctification is my favorite doctrine in the Church of the Nazarene and it’s what attracted me to this denomination in the first place. It is a Work of God given to us by grace through faith and it  comes after regeneration, that is when we are born again and pass from spiritual death to life. It is an experience at a crisis moment that cleanses our heart from original sin and empowers you to serve the Lord. But, we must consecrate ourselves and surrender ourselves to him(Romans 12:1) and we are brought to a state of total devotement to God. We move from being just a fan of Jesus to being a fully committed follower. We know we are entirely sanctified because the Holy Spirit bears witness and gives us assurance. The spiritual fruit produced by His presence is as natural as fruit on a natural tree. We are…

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SANCTIFICATION IS A DISTINCT WORK OF GOD

In this chapter some points will not appear that would come properly under this head, because anticipated, and in a measure discussed, in previous chapters. Sanctification is a doctrine. It is as much so as repentance, faith, and regeneration. The word is a distinct word, has a distinct and peculiar meaning, and refers to something that is not found in repentance, faith, or regeneration, and that something is holiness. By its position in the Hymn Book and theological standards, and by the clear way in which it is urged in the Scriptures, we cannot but see that sanctification is a doctrine in itself, recognized as such by man and taught as such by God.

Let us not fall into the mistake here that repentance is a distinct thing, and conversion a distinct thing, but that sanctification is a hazy, indefinable, indefinite, never-to-be-realized state, and thereby lose sight of its individuality as a blessing, and strip from the Bible one of its grandest doctrines. But let us mark how Christians are urged to go to it, and to possess it, and see in these repeated commands the proof that it is a cardinal truth and teaching of the Word of God. Sanctification is the work of God. The Bible says “the blood cleanses,” “the altar [Christ] makes holy,” and still again “the God of peace sanctify you wholly.” In another place Christ prays the Father to “sanctify” his disciples. In still other places the expressions used in description of the blessing of holiness are “the baptism of the Holy Ghost,” “the anointing and sealing of the Holy Ghost,” and “the renewing of the Holy Ghost.” There are many others, but these suffice to show that while all the persons of the Trinity are credited with the work, yet no other being but God is recognized as the Agent and Accomplisher. Still again, by this constant recognition of God in the Bible as the Sanctifier we are shown that sanctification is not man’s work and that as a consequence it cannot be growth in grace, which is always made incumbent as a duty upon man. Conviction is a work of God in the soul of a sinner. No man could produce such a result. Regeneration is a work of God in the soul of a believing penitent. Redemption is the final work of God upon the bodies of his slumbering saints; at his voice and through his power they will come forth from the grave in radiant resurrection forms. Sanctification, or holiness, is the work of God in the soul of a Christian believer. In full view of these distinct and separate operations of the power of God, Paul says: “Christ is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.” The very position of these words show the separateness and distinctiveness of the work. Christ’s command also substantiates the idea. This command to the disciples was to tarry until they obtained not simply a blessing that would disappear in a day, but a work that would transform them into totally different men. See Luke xxiv. 49; Acts i. 8. We could say much on this point, but refrain. You who read these lines have felt the convicting power of God, and you have experienced the converting power of God, and you are later on to feel the resurrecting power of God, but have you yet felt the sanctifying power of the Almighty? If not, you are a stranger to him at that point. And if you will not feel it, then you will pass into eternity knowing certainly some of the marvelous operations of grace, but not having felt the most wonderful and blessed work of all that God performs upon the soul in this earthly life. What is this work, and in what respect does it differ from regeneration? Let me say that many have been taught to believe that regeneration does every thing for the soul. My reply to this is that the Bible calls regeneration a new birth–says it makes us new creatures, but never intimates that it makes us holy. It never calls it a baptism of fire. A baptism of fire would hardly be the proper swaddling-clothes for a newborn babe. In striking confirmation of this, I notice that I never heard a Christian liken his conversion to an experience of fire. That experience comes later, and belongs to a different work. Some claim that regeneration has done everything for them. Christ’s blood, they say, made them perfectly pure and holy at conversion, and all that is needed now is time for development. and a steady growth in grace. To this I offer several facts in reply: One is that I never heard but one regenerated person in my life claim that his heart was perfectly pure and holy, and he did it then with a hesitation and slowness that was remarkable and painful.

Another is that if there are a number who make this claim, they do it under the supposition that the inbred sin of their hearts is only temptation. Great is this mistake! Still another fact is that they have evidently mixed and confounded passages in the Bible bearing on the two subjects of regeneration and sanctification. They have taken verses of Scripture that refer exclusively to the sanctified life and used them to describe the life of the regenerated. One that is often thus twisted is the famous passage in Ezekiel: “Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.” This was a promise made to believers, and therefore could not be conversion! Again, if regeneration saves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, and from all idols of heart and life, then are regenerated men, like angel visits, few and far between!

Regeneration is a new birth, a change of masters, the implanting of a new life and love, the cleansing away of personal sins, and the removal of that depravity that results from personal transgressions, so that the man is a new creature, and can say: “Old things have passed away; all things have become new.” But all has not yet been done. Something still is left to be accomplished, as is evidenced by the command of Scripture to seek it, tarry for it, go on to it, and other like expressions. Moreover, the prayers of regenerated people, who are always asking for a clean heart, and the desires of regenerated people, who are living in the light and growing in grace both alike point to a something in the spiritual life that they have not.

The originator of this prayer and desire is the Holy Ghost, who is urging and drawing on to the higher blessing–to establishment in holiness. To resume, then: sanctification is a work of God in the soul, and this is the work:

First, it is the utter destruction of inbred sin, or inherited depravity, in the heart. This sin is called by various terms in the Bible and in religious nomenclature. “The body of sin,” “the law of sin and death,” “the flesh,” “the carnal mind,” the “old man,” and “proneness to sin,” are some of the names given to describe the dark principle of evil that rules in an unconverted life and that struggles for mastery in the heart of the regenerated Christian. Call it by what name you will, this is the thing that is destroyed in sanctification, and that is not destroyed in regeneration. Regeneration gives me power over it; sanctification kills it.

Second, it is a cleansing and purification. The instrument is the baptism of fire. Nothing purifies like fire. The baptism of water and all that it symbolizes is not equal to the baptism of fire. Ask a Christian, after he has felt this work of God, if his heart is pure, and there will be no hesitation, no slowness, but with the rapidity of the lightning’s flash he will say: “Glory to God! I’m pure. The blood has made me clean.”

Third, it is a filling or fullness of the Spirit, such as was never realized before. Then, says the Scripture, “were the disciples filled with the Holy Ghost,” as if this experience had not been theirs before. They had received the Holy Ghost, Christ had breathed the Spirit upon them; but at their sanctification they were filled. Paul, writing to the Romans, calls it “the fullness of the blessing.” God evidently descends in a manner and a measure upon the soul in sanctification that he does not in any previous work or condition of grace. Christ alluded to this in John 14. 23, when, speaking of the blessing, he said: “We will come unto him, and make our abode with him.” God comes to abide in the sanctified heart.

We cannot linger here, but call attention to the order of the divine work–the destruction, the purifying, and then the coming of the divine Blesser to take complete and final possession! It is a proper and necessary order, and an order observed in all cases, though for explainable causes sometimes one may be felt with pre-eminent clearness and force over the other. In my own case I was peculiarly conscious of the destruction, as by fire, and the fullness. After the recognition of these consciousness took hold of the feature of purity, saw and rejoiced that it was there, and now after twelve months still sees that it is there, and rejoices over it as an unchanging possession. – Beverly Carradine

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—Pastor Ward Clinton

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SANCTIFICATION IS NOT GROWTH IN GRACE Here is where multiplied thousands fall into error. They have confounded two separate and distinct things. They have, in insisting that holiness and growth in grace were the same, made the work of man and the work of God identical. It is a very grave error. It is more than grave — it is calamitous. So long as the Church supposes that sanctification is a gradual growth in grace, so long will God’s people be kept out of the blessing of a holy heart.

How Satan smiles when he sees the Church seeking holiness in a direction and on a plane where it can never be found!  He is not the least alarmed so long as God’s people look to themselves or to time or to growth, or to any thing but the blood of Christ, for holiness.  While Christians thus wander about, he assumes a still easier attitude or position on his throne, and continues to smile.  That entire sanctification is not growth in grace appears from several facts or considerations.

First, the words themselves. They are entirely different. One is agiasmos; the other, auxanete de en chariti. This fact alone should convince. Again, the meanings of the words are different. If they meant the same, why should the Spirit use different words. One means holiness; the other does not. One refers to a state; the other to a growth. One refers to a removal; the other to an addition. One signifies a death; the other a life. One is an impartation; the other an expansion and development. One takes away uncleanness and impurity; the other is the growth of purity.

One refers to a completed work; and the other to an, indefinite progress. And now, lest the last two expressions be misunderstood, we amplify by saying that the completed work referred to is the death of inbred sin or depravity, and that the indefinite progress is the growing holier all the days of the sanctified life; that sanctification is purity, but growth in grace is the maturing of purity.

Again, that they are not the same appears from Christian testimony. Did you ever hear a Christian admit that he had grown into the possession of a holy heart?  You, my reader, may have been growing in grace for twenty, thirty, forty years. Have you obtained the blessing of a holy heart yet? No; nor will you ever obtain it that way. Many, many times at experience-meetings you have testified to listening hundreds that you were growing in grace, and yet never have you come into the possession of holiness. Has it not occurred to you that it is a long road you are traveling? You may be gray-haired now, and still you do not possess what you have been struggling for all your life. Does it not occur to you that it would be wise to try another route? You certainly ought to be convinced by this time that holiness of heart is neither growth in grace nor is it to be found by growth in grace. The other striking fact in connection with the thought of Christian testimony is that all the people you have ever heard claim the blessing of holiness testified that they obtained it instantaneously, by faith in the blood of Christ. The two testimonies agree. Both in different ways affirm–the one negatively, the other positively–that sanctification is not growth in grace, nor is it obtained by growth in grace.

The crowning proof that holiness is not growth in grace appears from the word of God. The Bible establishes the fact by teaching plainly that entire sanctification is an instantaneous work. It also confirms the thought and places it beyond all peradventure by a distinct recognition of the two works, and by specific commands relative to them. No one can read them without being impressed. For when the Bible speaks of the duty of growth it turns to man and says, “Grow in grace;” but when it speaks of sanctification it looks to God, and says, “The very God of peace sanctify you wholly … Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.”

My beloved reader, why have you not this blessing?  Have you sought it? or have you spoken and written against it?  Have you believed or doubted?  Remember, it is obtained by earnest, humble seeking, with consecration of self to God and faith in Christ for the blessing.  If you have not sought for it, and if you do not believe in the attainment of it, who wonders that you have not obtained it?  Christ’s words are as applicable to the converted man as they are to the man of the world: “If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine.” – Beverly Carradine

Many people just do not want to believe God’s Word.

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–Pastor Ward Clinton

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SANCTIFICATION IS NOT SIMPLY A GREAT BLESSING

To call sanctification simply a great blessing is to rob it of its distinctive qualities.  It is something more than a blessing.  It is a blessing after a different order.  It is a second work wrought in the soul by the Holy Ghost.  Many people have grown merry over the words “second blessing.”  They say that they have gone much further along in the spiritual numerals; that they have advanced into the hundreds and thousands. So has the writer.  But these blessings were all in the regenerated life arising at moments of repentance, prayer, submission, and Christian work, and touching not the life of which we are writing. There is another blessing so peculiar, so distinct, that when a man experiences it, although he had felt ten thousand blessings before, he would ever after call this one the “second blessing.”

I am afraid that the laughter directed at the expression arises from the thoughtlessness of mirth or the failure to recognize the real work and life covered by the words.  It would be well for Methodist preachers, ere they laugh publicly over the expression, to turn to the works of the founder of our Church, Mr. Wesley, and see how frequently and certainly he used it.  In writing to Mrs. Crosby in 1761 he says: “Within five weeks five in our band received the second blessing.” In 1763 he writes: “This morning one found peace and one the second blessing.” To Miss Jane Hilton, in 1774, he writes: “It is exceedingly certain that God did give you the second blessing, properly so called. He delivered you from the roots of bitterness, from inbred sin as well as actual sin.”

Nor is this all.  The expression is not simply Wesleyan, but you might say scriptural; for Paul (in 2 Cor. i. 15) says to the Christians whom he is addressing: “I was minded to come unto you before, that ye might have a second benefit.”  The proper translation of the last word should not be “benefit,” but “grace;” and is so rendered in the marginal reading.

The Greek word is charis, which is translated “grace” one hundred and fifty times in the New Testament. Thus properly translated the verse reads: “I was minded to come unto you before, that ye might have a second grace.” The blessing of sanctification is evidently something more than a great blessing. As for great blessings, all of us have had them who are Christians; but not all have had the second blessing, for a great blessing is not necessarily the second blessing.  My beloved brethren in the ministry, who differ with me, if you come to glorying in great blessings, so will I.  Let me become a fool in such glorying.  Have you had great blessings?  So have I.  Have you had a number? So have I.  And yet not one of these was the second blessing.  Some of them I received in company with ministers who read these lines; some in the presence of various congregations I have served; and still others alone.  And yet not one of these was the second blessing.  Certainly it seems that the writer might be able to speak intelligently and discriminatingly when he humbly but firmly asserts that there is a second blessing for the child of God, altogether different from the multitude of gracious experiences that fill and glorify the Christian life.

The expression “great blessing,” in connection with the work of entire sanctification, is misleading.  The attention of the seeker is thereby directed to an emotion instead of a work and final state. The feeling may be more or less intense, according to temperament, condition, and other things I might mention. It is not a necessary feature of sanctification that a person should be overwhelmed. Some may be; but the majority are not. It is a purifying and filling rather than an overwhelming, a filling of the soul rather than the falling of the body. I grant that some have been perfectly prostrated for moments and minutes; but many have not this torrent-like baptism, and yet are as soundly sanctified as the other class.

Some of whom I have read, and some whom I have known, in receiving the blessing suddenly became conscious of a profound, unearthly, immeasurable calm and sweetness of soul. In the very core and center and heart of the experience is heard the testimony of the Holy Ghost bearing witness to the fact that this is sanctification. Thus was it with Dr. Clarke, Benson, Carvosso, Lovick Pierce, and others. Dr. Pierce said that for minutes he felt that he could live without breathing, so unutterable was the calm in his soul. Dr. Thomas C. Upham, writing about it, says: “I was then redeemed by a mighty power, and filled with the blessing of perfect love. There was no intellectual excitement, no marked joys when I reached this great rock of practical salvation; but I was distinctly conscious when I reached it.”

This is the point I make: that to lay the emphasis upon the emotional feature is misleading. It is as unwise here as it is in conversion to demand certain exalted states as the criterion in such a case. The instant we make an overwhelming rapture the standard experience, that instant we grieve and discourage many, and make it difficult, if not impossible, for them to secure the longed-for blessing. The writer cannot but insist that it is not the great joy felt at the moment that should constitute the after-rejoicing of the sanctified man, but the great work that was done in him at that time. The work is the wonderful thing; the work is the divine accomplishment to be rejoiced over. It may have for its proclaimer a great joy or a great calm or peace; but that is a small matter compared to the work itself.

The joy will subside, in a measure; the peace may have its variations; but the work done in sanctification remains. Glory to God for the work! Earthly conditions and experiences may beat like waves upon you; but, rock-like, the work itself abides, resisting every wave and outliving every storm. People and surroundings may change; failure and disappointment and loss may crowd into the life; but there, enthroned in the heart, is this perfect love to God and man that changes not, an inward calm and rest that never departs, and a faith in God that remains unshaken.

Yes, sanctification is a great blessing; but the greatness is not in the emotions which accompany it, but in the work of sanctification itself. And while the sanctified man cannot but rejoice in the possession of a peace and rest that never leave him, yet his deepest joy is in the constant realization of the work itself; that he is crucified with Christ; that he is dead to the world, and alive to God as never before; that inward sin is dead; that love reigns supreme in the heart, and that Christ abides within in a fullness and with a constancy delightful and amazing.

If God’s people, instead of doubting and denying, would humbly and prayerfully seek for sanctification as they did for conversion, then, in the language of the pastoral address of the General Conference of 1832, “our class-meeting and love-feasts would be cheered by the relation of the experiences of the higher character, as they now are with those which tell of justification and the new birth.” – Beverly Carradine

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–Pastor Ward Clinton

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SANCTIFICATION IS NOT A RECOVERY FROM BACKSLIDING

The supposition of many who have not realized this grace in the soul is that it is the recovery of the first love, or return from a more or less backslidden course. The idea is urged again and again, by different writers who are opposed to sanctification, that the professed possessors of the blessing had really drifted through unfaithfulness into a condition of darkness, fear, and even sin; and in looking for a second cleansing or sanctification have mistaken their recovery, or restoration of religious joy, for the blessing of sanctification; and, thus deluded, proclaim the fact that they have received the second blessing, when they have only been recovered from the life and course of a backslider.

This is certainly very different from the teaching of a famous little volume, called “Christian Perfection,” written by one of the most eminently pious men that ever lived, which says that entire sanctification is preceded by a gradual mortification of sin and ardent aspirations after holiness; in a word, by conditions and experiences the opposite of backsliding.  According to this definition of sanctification, that it is nothing but a recovery from backsliding, we are necessarily led to infer that the Thessalonians, whom Paul so highly commended in his Epistle, saying that they were “ensamples” through their labor of love, patience of hope, and joy in the Holy Ghost, that they were really a set of backsliders. And when he wrote, “and the very God of peace sanctify you wholly,” he meant that he hoped the God of peace would recover them from their present backslidden condition. Truly this definition and explanation of entire sanctification, or the second blessing, as given by the doubters of the work, is enough to make Wesley turn over in his grave, and to cause the admirers of Fletcher and Carvosso and Clarke and Benson and McKendree to blush for those consecrated men of God. So, according to this explanation, these holy men were backsliders. Who is ready to credit this? Who, after reading their lives and their own statements and descriptions of the blessing of sanctification, can believe such a thing of them? Read the “Life of Fletcher,” and see how the definition fails to agree with the facts. Open the “Life of Carvosso,” and see how, after his conversion, he pressed steadily on, living in prayer, and never resting until he obtained the blessing of sanctification.

Now we turn to Bishop McKendree he is giving his experience: “Not long after my conversion Mr. Gibson preached a sermon on sanctification, and I felt its weight. When Mr. Easter came he enforced the same doctrine. This led me more minutely to examine the emotions of my heart. I found remaining corruption, embraced the doctrine of sanctification, and diligently sought the blessing it holds forth. The more I sought it, the more I felt the need of it, and the more important did that blessing appear.  In its pursuit my soul grew in grace.” Then he goes on to describe when and how the blessing of sanctification came upon him. Where does the backsliding come in here? When did he lose God? On the contrary, he tells us that as he sought the blessing his soul grew in grace.

Now let the reader turn to Mr. Wesley’s volume on “Christian Perfection,” and read certain paragraphs on pages 37, 61, and 78, and he will find that the author calls the blessing a total death to sin and an entire renewal in the love and image of God obtained instantaneously, received by faith, and witnessed to by the Holy Ghost. In none of these instances can you find anything favoring the idea of a recovery from backsliding. On the contrary, it is represented as a sudden uplift and deliverance granted a soul that had been previously growing in grace; that it is a second and distinct work done in and for not a backslidden, but a consecrated life.

With great shrinking I mention my own experience in the same breath with such superior and holy men. But God calls upon me to witness here, and by my tongue and pen to protest humbly, but firmly, against this degrading definition of sanctification. God knows that I have not been a backslider. He knows that for over twelve years the rule of my life, rarely broken, has been never to lay my head upon my pillow until I felt a sense of acceptance with him; while every day I have felt his peace and presence in my soul.

Evidently the blessing I received on June 1, of last year, was not a recovery from backsliding.

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–Pastor Ward Clinton

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SANCTIFICATION IS NOT REGENERATION, NOR REGENERATION EXTENDED OR PERFECTED

Sanctification is not regeneration. The very words teach us that. They are not the same, do not mean the same thing, and are not used synonymously in the Bible, Hymn Book, standards, religious biographies, and testimony of Christians. They are felt to represent two different things. Justification means pardon; conversion, a turning about; regeneration means renovation, reproduction, entering upon a new life, while sanctification means the act of being made holy.  If regeneration and sanctification mean the same, and include the same work, then 1st  Corinthians 1. 30 becomes senseless, and should read thus: “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us regeneration and regeneration and regeneration and regeneration.” But the two words are different, and refer to different works wrought supernaturally in the soul, and so the passage reads: “Who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption.”  The word “righteousness” should be translated “justification.” Again, the two words, representing different works, follow each other in point of time.

To the Thessalonians, who were Christians, and possessed joy in the Holy Ghost, Paul writes that God wanted them to be sanctified. He said the same thing, in substance, to the Romans, the Corinthians, and to the Hebrews. Sanctification, or Christian perfection, comes after regeneration. The Saviour himself recognized this order, for while in the fifteenth chapter of John he tells his disciples that they are clean through his word, yet a little while after he informs them that they must yet be sanctified, which sanctification, we remember, took place on Pentecost.

The Hymn Book observes the same order. Open it and read the subjects as divided. First is the “Gospel Call,” then “Penitential Exercises,” then “Justification,” and then “Sanctification.” The same order is observed in our theological works. Sanctification follows regeneration. But clearer and more convincing than all is one’s own experience. On the twelfth day of July, 1874, God converted my soul, and fifteen years afterward, at 9 o’clock in the morning of June 1, 1889, he sanctified my soul and body. It was a different work from the first, and a different experience. My consciousness testified to the fact of the difference, and so did the Holy Ghost.

The emphasized words above are full of significance. A calm settles upon soul and body. The inward battle and tumult have ended. The flesh does not lust against the spirit as formerly, but is led by the Spirit and restrained by the Spirit, calmly and easily and without the fearful strugglings of other days. This experience alone gives to sanctification a peculiarity strikingly different from regeneration. Again, entire sanctification is not the deepening or perfecting or extension of regeneration.

Regeneration is a perfect work in itself; needs no improvement, and is given none. Sanctification has no quarrel with regeneration, either in the Bible or Christian experience, and is not in antagonism with it in any respect whatever, although some would so persuade the people. It aims to do another thing, and accomplishes another work altogether. It removes something from the soul that has been a constant trouble and hindrance to the regenerated man. It kills inbred sin; or, as Dr. Whedon calls it, the “sinwardness” in us; or, as some would recognize it, the “prone-to wander feeling.” That is the work that sanctification does: it removes or kills the “sinwardness” or prone-to-wander movement of the heart. It is idle to say that regeneration does this, when Christians in their experience universally testify to the fact that after conversion they still feel the stirrings and movement of sin within them. The sanctified man tells you that this is not the case with him. That dark medium upon which Satan and the world operated, to the inward disturbance and unrest of the child of God, is utterly removed or destroyed. Entire sanctification did that work, and can alone do it.

My will may be rectified in regeneration; but what if sin be something more than an act of the will? It certainly seems so when we behold it transmitted from Adam down to us without the consent of our wills, and exhibiting itself in children too young to exercise their judgment and moral powers. May not sin have left part of its life in the tendencies of the body, and exist also as a transmitted nature apart from my personal sin and guilt? Let Nos. 7 and 20 of our Articles of Religion answer. When I am born again I stand a regenerate creature in the presence of wayward tendencies of the flesh, and this dark element called original sin, that has been indescribably but certainly sent down from Adam to us, and interwoven in our natures. It is not long before the young convert finds out its presence and power. Why is it there in a regenerated life? Because there is no new birth or renovation for original sin. “The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.” (Rom. viii. 7.) It is hopelessly cursed of God now and forever. It has to be removed or destroyed. Spiritual Agags have to be hewed to pieces, not changed into Israelites.

Regeneration renews my soul, imparts power to resist and conquer sin; but does not rid me of the presence of depravity in the heart. This is done by another and distinct work of the Holy Ghost; and that work is entire sanctification. This marvelous work is one of removal or destruction. Both ideas are taught in the Bible. It is called a circumcision–i. e., a cutting out and off of something within our natures. And again, it is called a baptism of fire. We all know what fire does–that it consumes. Many difficulties may be urged by the skeptical; but the experience of the sanctified, without exception, is that sin has been removed from or destroyed in the heart. This is one of the secrets of the deep rest and perfect peace that constantly fills the soul of one who has received the blessing. Let us sum up the thought. We, as Methodists, believe in the existence within us of what we call in Article VII. original and actual sin. “Original sin” refers to the sin of Adam, and “actual sin” to our own personal transgressions.

In justification, which means pardon, my own actual or personal sins are forgiven, but not original sin. How can I be pardoned for what I did not commit? How could I ask God to forgive me for what I did not do? And how could God, in truth and justice, grant me pardon for what I had not done? Justification evidently cannot reach original sin, and the conclusion is that I stand a justified man, with inherited depravity within me. In regeneration the soul is born again, made new, entered upon a spiritual life. That personal depravity which arises from one’s own actual sin is corrected by regeneration; but original sin, or inherited depravity, remains untouched. Can depravity be regenerated, the “old man” in us be converted and made holy?  Paul, in writing to Christians, did not say make the “old man” a new man, but “Put off the old man, which is corrupt,” and put on the “new man.” It is idle to say this was done in regeneration.  Sound reasoning is against it, and a universal Christian experience. The fact to which we are driven is that the regenerated soul is left in the presence of an inherited sin or depravity.

We must also remember that in the spiritual life we get what we ask for. We approach a throne of grace praying for pardon and deliverance from personal sins and a personal sinful nature. What Adam did for us and to us is no more in the mind or prayer than something occurring in a distant world billions of leagues away. In either case I can see how God can regenerate my soul, save me from the effects of a personal depravity, or that evil I have brought upon myself by actual sin, and yet original sin, or transmitted depravity, remains intact within me. This latter sin remains for another work. To say otherwise is to confound two distinct works of the Holy Ghost, regeneration and sanctification; or it makes regeneration a partial or imperfect work, which thought cannot be entertained for a moment. Sanctification does not go over the work of regeneration, deepening the lines and making it more effectual. Sanctification is not a second touch upon the same blind eyes, but it is a second touch of the Holy Ghost laid upon something else altogether.

The first touch, regeneration, alters the personal sinful life and nature,for which I am accountable; the second touch, sanctification, removes the inherited sinful nature, for which I am not accountable, but which burdens and afflicts me not the less. We cannot afford to throw the slightest imputation upon regeneration; it is a perfect work of God, and does all he intended it should do. The expression “remains of sin,” I am confident is misleading, and we should discard it unless we are careful to have it understood that by it we mean original sin. Our hope for a perfect deliverance is in the sanctifying grace of God. Not that our depravity is sanctified any more than it was regenerated, but we are sanctified by the removal or destruction of depravity, and by the communication, at the same instant, of “the fullness of the blessing of the gospel of Christ.”

When that sanctifying work occurs sin dies in the heart. Various propensities of the body, which regeneration subdued, but could not eradicate, are instantly corrected, arrested, or extirpated. The craving of habit is ended, the root of bitterness is extracted, pride is lifeless, selfwill is crucified, and anger and irritability are dead. In a word, inward sin is dead. A sweet, holy calm fills the breast, actually affects the body, steals into the face, and rules the life. The millennium has begun in the soul.

Chapter Two          Chapter Four          My books on Amazon

–Pastor Ward Clinton

Sanctification by Beverly Carradine 2

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CHAPTER 2

HOW I OBTAINED THE BLESSING OF SANCTIFICATION

I always believed in the doctrine in a general way, but not in the way particular. That is, I recognized it as being true in our standards and religious biographies; but was not so quick to see it in the life and experience of persons claiming the blessing. I was too loyal a Methodist to deny what my Church taught me to believe; but there must have been beams and motes that kept me from the enjoyment of a perfect vision of my brother. Perhaps I was prejudiced; or I had confounded ignorance and mental infirmity with sin; or, truer still, I was looking on a “hidden life,” as the Bible calls it, and, of course, could not but blunder in my judgments and conclusions, even as I had formerly erred as a sinner in my estimation of the converted man. Several years since I remember being thrown in the company of three ministers who were sanctified men, and their frequent “praise the Lords” was an offense to me. I saw nothing to justify such demonstrativeness. The fact entirely escaped me that a heart could be in such a condition that praise and rejoicing would be as natural as breathing; that the cause of joy rested not in any thing external, but in some fixed inward state or possession; that, therefore, perpetual praise could not only be possible, but natural, and in fact irrepressible. But at that time all this was hidden from me, except in a theoretic way, or as mistily beheld in distant lives of saints who walked with God on earth fifty or a hundred years ago.

In my early ministry I was never thrown with a sanctified preacher, nor have I ever heard a sermon on entire sanctification until this year. I beheld the promised life from a Pisgah distance, and came back from the view with a fear and feeling that I should never come into that goodly land. So, when I was being ordained at Conference, it was with considerable choking of voice and with not a few inward misgivings and qualms of conscience that I replied to the bishop’s questions, that I was “going on to perfection,” that I “expected to be made perfect in love in this life,” and that I “was groaning after it.” Perhaps the bishop himself was disturbed at the questions he asked. Perhaps he thought it was strange for a minister of God and father in Israel, whose life was almost concluded, to be asking a young preacher if he expected to obtain what he himself had never succeeded in getting. Stranger still if he asked the young prophet if he expected to attain what he really felt was unattainable! One thing I rejoice in being able to say: That although about that time, while surprised and grieved at the conduct of a man claiming the blessing of sanctification, and although doubts disturbed me then and even afterward, yet I thank God that I have never, in my heart or openly, denied an experience or warred against a doctrine that is the cardinal doctrine of the Methodist Church, and concerning which I solemnly declared to the bishop that I was groaning to obtain.  God in his mercy has kept me from this inconsistency–this peculiar denial of my Church and my Lord.  Let me further add that in spite of my indistinct views of sanctification all along, yet ever and anon during my life I have encountered religious people in whose faces I traced spiritual marks and lines–a divine handwriting not seen on every Christian countenance.  There was an indefinable something about them, a gravity and yet sweetness of manner, a containedness and quietness of spirit, a restfulness and unearthliness, a far-awayness about them that made me feel and know that they had a life and experience that I had not; that they knew God as I did not, and that a secret of the Lord had been given to them which had not been committed to me.  These faces and lives, in the absence of sanctified preachers and sermons on the subject, kept my faith in the doctrine, in a great degree I suppose, from utterly perishing.

Then there were convictions of my own heart all along in regard to what a minister’s life should be. Only this year, a full month before my sanctification, there was impressed upon me suddenly one day such a sense of the holiness and awfulness of the office and work that my soul fairly sickened under the consciousness of its own short-comings. and failures, and was made to cry out to God.  Moreover, visions of an unbroken soul-rest, and a constant abiding spiritual power, again and again, have come up before the mind as a condition possible and imperative.  A remarkable thing about it is that these impressions have steadily come to one who has enjoyed the peace of God daily for thirteen years. At the Sea-shore Camp-ground, in 1888, after having preached at 11 o’clock, the writer came forward to the altar as a penitent convicted afresh under his own sermon, that he was not what he should be, nor what God wanted him to be and, was able to make him. Many will remember the day and hour, and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at the time.  I see now that my soul was reaching out even then, not for the hundredth or thousandth blessings (for these I had before obtained), but what is properly called the second blessing. I was even then convicted by the Holy Ghost in regard to the presence of inbred sin in a justified heart.  Several months since I instituted a series of revival services in Carondelet Street Church, with the Rev. W. W. Hopper as my helper.  At all the morning meetings the preacher presented the subject of entire sanctification.  It was clearly and powerfully held up as being obtained instantaneously through consecration and faith.

Before I received the blessing myself I could not but be struck with the presence and power of the Holy Ghost. While urging the doctrine one morning the preacher received such a baptism of glory that for minutes he was helpless; and while we were on our knees supplicating for this instantaneous sanctification the Holy Spirit fell here and there upon individuals in the assembly, and shouts of joy and cries of rapture went up from the kneeling congregation in a way never to be forgotten. The presence of God was felt so overwhelmingly and so remarkably that I could not but reason after this manner: Here is being presented the doctrine of instantaneous sanctification by faith. If it were a false doctrine, would God thus manifest himself ? Would the Holy Ghost descend with approving power upon a lie? Does he not invariably withdraw his presence from the preacher and people when false doctrine is presented!  But here he is manifesting himself in a most remarkable manner. The meeting or hour that is devoted to this one subject is the most wonderful meeting and hour of all. The service fairly drips with unction. Shining faces abound. Christ is seen in every countenance.  If entire sanctification obtained instantaneously is a false doctrine, is not the Holy Ghost actually misleading the people by granting his presence and favor, and showering his smiles at the time when this error or false doctrine is up for discussion and exposition?  But would the Spirit thus deceive? Irresistibly and with growing certainty we were led to see that the truth was being presented from the pulpit, and that the Holy Ghost, who always honors the truth when preached, was falling upon sermon, preacher, and people, because it was the truth.  And by the marvelous and frequent display of his presence and power at each and every sanctification meeting he was plainly setting to it the seal of his approval and endorsement, and declaring unmistakably that the doctrine that engrossed us was of heaven and was true.  One morning a visitor–a man whom I admire and tenderly love–made a speech against entire sanctification, taking the ground that there was nothing but a perfect consecration and growth in grace to look for, that there was no second work or blessing to be experienced by the child of God. This was about the spirit and burden of his remarks.  At once a chill fell upon the service that was noticed then and commented on afterward.  The visitor was instantly replied to by one who had just received the blessing, and as immediately the presence of God was felt and manifested.  And to the proposition made–that all who believed in an instantaneous and entire sanctification would please arise–at once the whole audience, with the exception of five or six individuals, arose simultaneously.  It was during this week that the writer commenced seeking the blessing of sanctification.

According to direction, he laid every thing on the altar–body, soul, reputation, salary; indeed, every thing.  Feeling at the time justified, having peace with God, he could not be said to have laid his sins on the altar; for, being forgiven at that moment, no sin was in sight.  But he did this, however: he laid inbred sin upon the altar; a something that had troubled him all the days of his converted life–a something that was felt to be a disturbing element in his Christian experience and life. Who will name this something?  It is called variously by the appellations of original sin, depravity, remains of sin, roots of bitterness and unbelief, and by Paul it is termed “the old man;” for, in writing to Christians, he exhorts them to put off “the old man,” which was corrupt.  Very probably there will be a disagreement about the name, while there is perfect recognition of the existence of the thing itself.  For lack of a title that will please all, I call the dark, disturbing, warring creature “that something.” It gives every converted man certain measures of inward disturbance and trouble. Mind you, I do not say that it compels him to sin, for this “something” can be kept in subjection by the regenerated man.  But it always brings disturbance, and often leads to sin.  It is a something that leads to hasty speeches, quick tempers, feelings of bitterness, doubts, suspicions, harsh judgments, love of praise, and fear of men.  At times there is a momentary response to certain temptations that brings not merely a sense of discomfort, but a tinge and twinge of condemnation.  All these may be, and are, in turn, conquered by the regenerated man; but there is battle, and wounds; and often after the battle a certain uncomfortable feeling within that it was not a perfect victory.  It is a something that at times makes devotion a weariness, the Bible to be hastily read instead of devoured, and prayer a formal approach instead of a burning interview with God that closes with reluctance.  It makes Church-going at times not to be a delight, is felt to be a foe to secret and spontaneous giving, causes religious experience to be spasmodic, and permits not within the soul a constant, abiding, and unbroken rest. Rest there is; but it is not continuous, unchanging, and permanent. It is a something that makes true and noble men of God, when appearing in the columns of a Christian newspaper in controversy, to make a strange mistake, and use gall instead of ink, and write with a sword instead of a pen. It is a something that makes religious assemblies sing with great emphasis and feeling: “Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it.”  It is an echo that is felt to be left in the heart, in which linger sounds that ought to die away forever. It is a thread or cord-like connection between the soul and the world, although the two have drifted far apart. It is a middle ground, a strange medium upon which Satan can and does operate, to the inward distress of the child of God, whose heart at the same time is loyal to his Saviour, and who feels that if he died even then he would be saved.  Now that something I wanted out of me.

What I desired was not the power of self-restraint (that I had already), but a spirit naturally and unconsciously meek. Not so much a power to keep from all sin, but a deadness to sin. I wanted to be able to turn upon sin and the world the eye and ear and heart of a dead man. I wanted perfect love to God and man, and a perfect rest in my soul all the time. This dark “something,” that prevented this life I laid on the altar, and asked God to consume it as by fire. I never asked God once at this time for pardon. That I had in my soul already. But it was cleansing, sin eradication I craved. My prayer was for sanctification. After the battle of consecration came the battle of faith. Both precede the perfect victory of sanctification. Vain is consecration without faith to secure the blessing. Hence men can be perfectly consecrated all their lives, and never know the blessing of sanctification. I must believe there is such a work in order to realize the grace. Here were the words of the Lord that proved a foundation for my faith: “Every devoted thing is most holy unto the Lord.” “The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” Still again: “The altar sanctifieth the gift.” In this last quotation is a statement of a great fact. The altar is greater than the gift; and whatsoever is laid upon the altar becomes sanctified or holy.  It is the altar that does the work. The question arises: Who and what is the altar? In Hebrews xiii. 10-12 we are told. Dr. Clarke, in commenting upon the passage, says the altar here mentioned is Jesus Christ.  All who have studied attentively the life of our Lord cannot but be impressed with the fact that in his wondrous person is seen embraced the priest, the lamb, and the altar. He did the whole thing, there was no one to help. As the victim he died; as the priest he offered himself, and his divine nature was the altar upon which the sacrifice was made. The Saviour, then, is the Christian’s altar. Upon him I lay myself. The altar sanctifies the gift. The blood cleanses from all sin, personal and inbred. Can I believe that?  Will I believe it?  My unbelief is certain to shut me out of the blessing, my belief as certainly shuts me in. The instant we add a perfect faith to a perfect consecration the work is done and the blessing descends. As Paul says: “We which have believed do enter into rest.” All this happened to the writer. For nearly three days he lived in a constant state of faith and prayer. He believed God; he believed the work was done before the witness was given. On the morning of the third day–may God help me to tell it as it occurred!–the witness was given. It was about 9 o’clock in the morning. That morning had been spent from daylight in meditation and prayer. I was alone in my room in the spirit of prayer, in profound peace and love, and in the full expectancy of faith, when suddenly I felt that the blessing was coming. By some delicate instinct or intuition of soul I recognized the approach and descent of the Holy Ghost. My faith arose to meet the blessing. In another minute I was literally prostrated by the power of God. I called out again and again: “O my God! my God! and glory to God!” while billows of fire and glory rolled in upon my soul with steady, increasing force. The experience was one of fire. I recognized it all the while as the baptism of fire. I felt that I was being consumed. For several minutes I thought I would certainly die. I knew it was sanctification. I knew it as though the name was written across the face of the blessing and upon ever y wave of glory that rolled in upon my soul.

Cannot God witness to purity of heart as he does to pardon of sin? Are not his blessings self interpreting?  He that impresses a man to preach, that moves him unerringly to the selection of texts and subjects, that testifies to a man that he is converted, can he not let a man know when he is sanctified?

I knew I was sanctified just as I knew fifteen years before that I was converted. I knew it not only because of the work itself in my soul, but through the Worker. He, the Holy Ghost, bore witness clearly, unmistakably and powerfully, to his own work; and, although months have passed away since that blessed morning, yet the witness of the Holy Spirit to the work has never left me for a moment, and is as clear today as it was then. In succeeding chapters I desire humbly to show that the blessing of sanctification may be clearly distinguished from other blessings; that it is an instantaneous work; that it is obtained by faith alone; that the Holy Ghost testifies distinctly and peculiarly to the work and life; that a man thus sanctified is under special pressure and command to declare the blessing, and that while thus testifying on all proper occasions that he is sanctified, may be humbler in spirit than a Christian who claims not the blessing.

These things I desire, in all love and tenderness and joy, to speak of as matters not of theory, but of experience. Especially would I call attention to the calm, undisturbed life; the perfect, unbroken rest of soul that follows the blessing of sanctification.

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–Pastor Ward Clinton

Sanctification by Beverly Carradine 1

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CHAPTER 1

MY REASON FOR WRITING  The following are some of my reasons for writing upon the subject of entire sanctification:

First, I am trying to reach a class that, like myself, have lived in a kind of bondage all their Christian lives; have longed for perfect spiritual rest, and knew not how to obtain it. I speak to them.

Then there is such a thing as a rising generation. They need to be taught concerning this doctrine. If we are not to declare openly that which our elders and superiors have known beforehand, what is to become of this advancing host of young people? Such a policy would put an end to the gospel itself. Still again, there are occasional articles in our papers striking at and ridiculing the doctrine of entire sanctification. Some of them remind me of Joab’s interview with Abner. One hand is stretched forth in seeming kindness, when suddenly the other drives a hidden sword to the heart of the doctrine.  In all conscious personal weakness and unworthiness I appear in this book pleading for an experience that fills me and thrills me at this writing, and as a defender and upholder of a doctrine that I know now to be true, because it has been transformed into an experience in my soul, and become a blessed reality in my life.  It has been suggested that what I call facts in my experience may be fancies.  Glory be to God! it is no fancy that Christ has kept me from sin for months, and that my soul in all that time has been filled with perfect peace and rest and love.  It is not a fancy that God has in a moment lifted me into a state which I have been vainly trying to reach for a number of years.  These are facts that stand out like Mont Blancs above the range of ordinary experiences.  “One thing I know, that whereas I was blind, now I see.” One experience in the converted or sanctified life is worth ten thousand theories. Furthermore, it is proper to say that there is not such general and accurate knowledge of sanctification among the people as some think.  The fact of the blessing maybe believed in, but the manner of obtaining it be unknown, because unproclaimed. Hundreds of Methodists in this city had never heard, until a short while since, a sermon on sanctification, in which the blessing was held up as obtained instantaneously through consecration and faith.  The Carondelet Street congregation, one of the largest and noblest in the Connection, listened with wonder; not at the doctrine, but at the method of obtaining the blessing.  Some doubted and drew back; but others, to the number of thirty, have entered into the sanctified life.  There are multiplied thousands in the land who know not the way of entrance into the sanctified life, and thousands more who are in ignorance of sanctification itself. Ask them what it is, and nine out of ten will reply that it is a growth in grace, while the Scriptures plainly teach that growth in grace is man’s work, and sanctification is the work of God. Because of these things I cannot but write and speak of the things I have seen and felt. – B. Carradine

Chapter Two

–Pastor Ward Clinton

Sanctification by Beverly Carradine

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PREFATORY INTRODUCTION By L. L. Pickett

There is a great revival on the doctrine, experience, and literature of holiness. This great Bible doctrine is agitating the Churches and people extensively. It is firing the pulpit, energizing the pew, awakening the thoughtless, resuscitating the class and camp meeting, and harnessing the press to the car of a more spiritual and unctuous religious experience than has prevailed for many years.  Books, papers, and tracts are opening many eyes to the beauties of holiness, and feeding many hungry souls with this “hidden manna” of the Lord. And the revival comes none too soon. In many places worldliness abounds, and the seed of the kingdom is being choked by the deceitfulness of riches. Ambition, pride, self-love, and place seeking are, to say the least, too common. Full salvation is the God-given remedy for these evils. Praise the Lord, the “fullness of the blessing” is the divine antidote that effectually removes these contagious diseases. But the sad truth is that many oppose the doctrine and deny the experience.  It is no uncommon thing for even Methodist papers to cast their innuendoes at the great Wesleyan and Bible statement of this precious doctrine.  Some Methodist preachers have departed from the teaching of the fathers and have written books to destroy the foundation doctrine of the Church.  But bless the Lord! the work is reviving.  This book will help forward the good cause–the cause of Bible holiness.  When Brother Carradine entered the experience he at once told the good news far and wide through the Church papers. His rich experience and strong articles on the subject stirred many hearts. These and others will be glad to get this work, so as to preserve in permanent form the parts of it they have read before and to feed their souls on the truths so well and clearly stated in the parts that are new to them.  I am glad to publish and circulate the book.  Brother C. knows nothing of these introductory words and will not see them till the book is before the public.  Please circulate the book, and pray for its author, and Your humble fellow-laborer, L. L. Pickett. Columbia, S.C., June 26, 1890

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The straying of the Methodists from their sound doctrine at that time helped give rise to the Church of The Nazarene, a church that, to this day, acknowledges the reality of the Biblical doctrine of Holiness Unto The Lord.  It is something that every Christian can, and should, experience.

–Pastor Ward Clinton

My God is Holy, is yours?

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If you believe in and follow an unholy God, you do not have to be concerned about being holy in your conduct.

“I sin daily in thought, word, and deed?”  …Hmm… you might want to re-examine that because the God of the Holy Bible commands that His people be holy

Romans 6:19-22

“I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!   But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life.”

  • In the Old Testament, things were sanctified. • The Tabernacle was sanctified (Exodus 40:9). “Take the anointing oil and anoint the tabernacle and everything in it; consecrate it and all its furnishings, and it will be holy.”
  • The mountains were sanctified (Exodus 19:23). “Moses said to the LORD, ‘The people cannot come up Mount Sinai, because you yourself warned us, “Put limits around the mountain and set it apart as holy.”’”
  • The nation of Israel was sanctified (Exodus 19:10-11). “And the LORD said to Moses, ‘Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Have them wash their clothes and be ready by the third day, because on that day the LORD will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.’”
  • First born children were sanctified (Exodus 13:2). “Consecrate to me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to me, whether man or animal.”
  • In the New Testament people were sanctified (Acts 2:1-4). 16

“When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.”

“If Jesus Christ is not Lord of all, He will not be Lord at all.” —R. S. Nicholson

Romans 12:1-2: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

–Pastor Ward Clinton