1. THE BESTOWAL OF ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION, as with every other gift of God’s grace, IS CONDITIONAL — it depends upon the whole-hearted co-operation of the person to be benefited.
Assuming that conversion has already taken place, the necessary conditions are: Conviction, Renunciation, Consecration, Faith.
2. THE FIRST CONDITION OF ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION IS CONVICTION; that is, seeing the need for being made holy.
(a) Conviction for holiness includes: realizing the inward sin that exists; hating it, no matter what form it may assume; believing its removal possible; seeing holiness to be both a duty and a privilege; and earnestly desiring deliverance.
(b) Such conviction is at first brought about by the Holy Spirit, but the soul must voluntarily respond to His promptings by facing its own sinfulness and by wholeheartedly seeking Holiness, if this great blessing is to be obtained.
‘When He is come, He will convict the world in respect of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment’ (John xvi. 8, R.V.).
(c) Conviction for Holiness leads the soul to realize and to sorrow over-not merely outward acts of sin, but its own inward evils, such as —
- Pride, or an undue sense of one’s own importance, fostered by the consciousness of some real or fancied superiority.
- Vanity, or love of display.
- Selfish Ambition-the craving for position, power, wealth, or dignity, for its own sake.
- Evil Temper, even though curbed and mastered.
- Malice, together with hatred, bitterness, revenge.
- Covetousness, or undue craving for possessions of any kind.
- Lust, or bondage to bodily appetites.
- Sloth, Love of the World, Selfishness, Envy, and want of thorough truthfulness.
- An experience which reveals such evils, or some of them, in all their hideousness, is necessarily painful, as Isaiah found when he exclaimed:—
‘Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts’ (Isaiah vi. 5).
(d) Various means are used by the Holy Spirit to bring about Conviction for Holiness; for example, a fresh vision of God (as with Isaiah), a sense of unrest in the soul, a holy life, a Holiness testimony, the proclaiming of Holiness, a book or article.
(e) True conviction for Holiness is marked by self abasement and humility, and it leads naturally to compliance with the further conditions of Holiness — renunciation, consecration, and faith.
3. THE SECOND CONDITION OF ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION IS RENUNCIATION; that is, giving up everything opposed to the will of God.
(a) Renunciation must be forever, and it must be entire, including —
i. All that is known to be wrong.
’Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us’ (Hebrews xii. I).
ii. Everything that seems doubtful, for the Bible shows such to be sinful.
‘Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that thing which he alloweth’ (Romans xiv. 22).
‘He that doubteth is damned [or condemned]’ (Romans xiv. 23).
(b) Renunciation will include many common habits. For example: —
i. Strong Drink, even in moderation, must be given up, because the practice is wasteful, injurious, and productive of misery, wickedness, and damnation; because the influence of a moderate drinker may lead weaker people to drunkenness; and because the whole spirit of the Bible is against it (see (c) of this paragraph), many passages expressly condemning it.
ii. The use of Tobacco must be abandoned, because the practice is wasteful (of both time and money), injurious (nicotine being a poison), dirty, selfish (causing annoyance to others), unnecessary, contrary to the general teaching of the Bible (see (c) of this paragraph), and at best, doubtful.
iii. Fashionable dress and worldly adornment must be put off, because the practice tends to gratify and to encourage pride; it absorbs time, thought, and money which could be better employed; it is, at best, doubtful; and the general teaching of the Bible is against it (see (c) of this paragraph), several passages particularly condemning it.
‘Whose adorning let it not be that outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of gold, and of putting on of apparel’ (I Peter iii. 3).
‘Moreover the Lord saith, Because the daughters of Zion are haughty, and walk with stretched forth necks and wanton eyes, walking and mincing as they go, and making a tinkling with their feet: therefore the Lord will smite with a scab the crown of the head of the daughters of Zion, and the Lord will discover their secret parts’ (Isaiah iii. I6, I7).
‘I will therefore … that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array; but (which becometh women professing godliness) with good works’ (I Timothy ii. 8-I0).
IV. Any doubtful practice must be left off, whether connected with mind, body, family, business, re creation, dealings with comrades, or anything else.
(c) The Bible clearly sets forth principles which should govern the daily conduct of God’s people, particularly with regard to such renunciations as those just referred to. For example, it teaches that —
i. God’s people should be separate from the world in spirit and conduct.
‘Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be My sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty’ (2 Corinthians vi. I7, I8).
ii. Habits which influence others wrongly ought to be given up, even though harmless to those who practise them.
‘But take heed lest by any means this liberty of yours become a stumbling-block to them that are weak… And through thy knowledge shall the weak brother perish, for whom Christ died? ….Wherefore, if meat make my brother to offend, I will eat no flesh while the world standeth, lest I make my brother to offend’ (I Corinthians viii. 9, 11, I3).
‘It is good neither to eat flesh, nor to drink wine, nor anything whereby thy brother stumbleth, or is offended, or is made weak’ (Romans xiv. 2I).iii. Everything, including the exercise of bodily appetites, such as eating and drinking, should be done to the glory of God.
‘Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God’ (I Corinthians x. 3I).
IV. The body is to be honoured and treated as God’s dwelling-place, and hence should not be polluted or injured.
‘What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God; and ye are not your own? (r Corinthians vi. 19).
‘If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are’ (I Corinthians iii. 17).
(d) It is but reasonable that seekers after Holiness should completely renounce everything wrong or doubtful. God could only rightly bestow so great a blessing upon those who separate themselves from all that is opposed to Him.
4. THE THIRD CONDITION OF ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION IS CONSECRATION; that is, the dedication to God of ourselves and all we possess, to live only to please Him and do His will.
(a) The need for consecration is seen when we remember that, at the Fall, Adam forsook his life of entire consecration to God; he set up, as it were, to be his own master instead of being God’s servant, and started pleasing himself instead of living to please God. All men are, by nature, in the same condition as that to which Adam fell. By consecration a man once again yields himself fully to God to live only to please Him.
(b) Consecration to God must be both entire and real.
i. To be entire it must include the body, with all its members and powers; the mind, with all its faculties; the heart, with all its capacities; also goods, money, family, influence, reputation, time, ability, life, indeed everything.
ii. To be real it must be not in imagination or sentiment merely, but everything must henceforth actually be used as belonging to God and not to ourselves. History has sometimes supplied illustrations of the kind of consecration required. Loyal subjects of a dethroned monarch have placed unreservedly at his disposal themselves, their goods, their families, their lives-in fact, their all-in order to help their sovereign to regain his lost throne. In the same way God’s true-hearted followers now place at His disposal themselves, and all they possess, in order to help Him to regain His rightful throne in the hearts of mankind.
(c) Consecration may, in some respects, be likened both to a sacrifice and to crucifixion.
i. Consecration is like a sacrifice because by it we give ourselves up to God as the animals were given up to Him in olden times, the difference being that ours is a living, not a dead sacrifice.
‘I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service’ (Romans xii. I).
ii. Consecration is like crucifixion because it involves painful dying to many things very precious to the natural man, such as undue love of self, the admiration of the world, the ownership of goods, inordinate love of kindred and friends, choosing one’s own way.
‘I am crucified with Christ; nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me’ (Galatians ii. 20).
‘God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world’ (Galatians vi. 14).
When once a man’s possessions have been consecrated to God, he will use them, as God directs him, in the way that seems most likely to advance God’s Kingdom, whether this be by selling all that he does not actually need, and devoting the proceeds to God’s cause right away, or by retaining his property and using in God’s service the income which it brings to him.
(d) Renunciation and Consecration differ from each other in that —
- Renunciation means giving up what is against God.
- Consecration means giving up all we have to be used for God.
(e) Consecration, although a condition of sanctification, must not be mistaken for sanctification itself. Consecration is an act done by man before God sanctifies him; sanctification is a work done by God within man after man has done his part.
(Complete and unabridged from the 1922 edition of the Doctrine Book)
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