Return to Biblical Holiness

Introduction: A Vision for Biblical Holiness

0:02 This message was delivered at the 6th Annual Trinity Pastors Conference held at the Trinity Baptist Church in Montville, New Jersey. This is the second in a series of messages entitled Our Vision for These Days and the title of this message is A Return to Biblical Holiness. Now let us again seek the face of God in prayer, particularly praying that God will give to the men who this day have given very careful and according to one brother I spoke to, exhausting attention to the ministry of the word. We are thankful that God has been near to us as Pastor Lamar mentioned but we have the treasure in earthen vessels and I'm sure not a few of us are beginning to feel the wearing effect of the hours of sitting and concentration and the scripture tells us our father knows our frame, he remembers that we are dust and even when youths fail and young men faint, they who wait upon the Lord even us old duffers shall renew our strength and mount up with wings as eagles that we may run and not be weary and walk and not faint. So let us wait upon God to give us the strength we need to attend with carefulness to his holy word.

1:26 Let us pray.

1:31 Our Father we are indeed grateful that we come to one who knows us all together. We thank you that we need not be ashamed of what we are as creatures of the dust. For you have told us that you give to us life and breath and all things and we acknowledge that we could not draw our next breath were it not given and therefore we come in the sense of our utter dependence upon you. upon you, and plead before you your own word of promise, that if you spared not your own dear Son, how shall you not with him also freely give us all things? And our Father, because we believe you sent your dear and only begotten Son to all of the shame and all of the horror and the hell of the cross, that it is not brash for us to pray for that measure of strength we need, that we may attend with carefulness and alertness to the preaching of the word. O Lord, may your servant know your strength in the inner man and in all

2:51 the faculties of utterance, and may every hearer know the quickening grace of the Spirit, O Father, come and speak to us, we pray, as together we cry to you for that which we need to profit from this hour, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Now in planning the Pastors' Conference last year, the elders requested that I speak on that occasion on one of the evening sessions on the Holy Des miejes. I said, where are you? Where are the theme, Our Vision for These Days. And it was their intention that I should seek to bring into sharp focus the distilled essence of the concerns which in a very real sense are the rationale for the particular and unique fellowship of this pastor's conference. On that occasion, I had every intention of fulfilling my task in one sermon and intended to preach last year at this time on our vision for these days in terms of three very broad but basic

4:15 categories of biblical truth and experience, namely the recovery of the biblical gospel, the renewal of biblical holiness, and the return to biblical churchmanship. Well, as a number of you know, I was only able to get as far as the first heading, namely the matter of the recovery of the biblical gospel. And while I have no intention of re-preaching last year's message, let me simply give the heading so that you will sense something of the cohesion in what has now become a series of sermons. I began with a two-fold disclaimer. In speaking of our vision for these days, I disclaimed any extraordinary revelation. We have had no visit from an angel nor troop of angels. None of us has claimed a prophetic revelation. And when we speak of our vision for these

5:21 days, that vision is rooted in an attempt to be sensitive to inscripturated revelation and its peculiar application to the state of the professing church in our own day. And in the light of whatever sensitivity to biblical revelation God has given us and to the extent that we accurately assess the conditions in which we are called upon to minister I asserted that first of all we needed desperately a recovery of the biblical gospel. And one of the major purposes of this conference is to seek to pursue that recovery and to do so in three areas. In its essential doctrinal content, in its appointed means of communication, namely preaching and in its efficacious power. To transform lives. Now tonight I take up with you the second element of our vision for these days namely a renewal of biblical holiness.

The Centrality of Holiness in Redemptive Purposes

6:37 In addressing this vast theme I can only hope to be what I am calling selectively suggestive in contrast to any effort at being comprehensively exhaustive. In other words I will not be touching on all of the major components of the biblical doctrine of holiness or sanctification and even on those that I touch selectively I can only be suggestive and not comprehensive. And what I purpose to do in the time allotted tonight is to speak of our vision for these days. With reference to a renewal of biblical holiness under these three headings. First of all the centrality of holiness in the purposes of redemptive grace. Secondly the indispensability of holiness in the application of redemptive grace.

7:43 And then a sketch of the theology of holiness in the outworking of holiness. First of all then I address myself to this heading the centrality of holiness in the purposes of redemptive grace. According to the word of God man's condition and that means your condition and mine since the fall of our first parents Adam and Eve is a condition of universal gift. Guilt that is culpability before the court of heaven.

8:28 Extensive depravity that is pollution in every faculty and department of our humanity. And wrath deservingness that is what we have done and what we are deserves nothing less than the unleashing of the righteous holy purity. The Lord is the Lord. The Lord is the Lord.

8:56 So true is this that the apostle says in Ephesians 2 and verse 3. We were by nature the children of wrath even as the rest. Therefore any remedial intervention on the part of God either to change our culpability in the court of heaven or to change our decision of the church. For to rectify the depravity and pollution of our natures must be wholly gratuitous.

9:33 That is, it must be all of grace. It must be in toto God's undeserved favor to the ill-deserving, to the hell-deserving. And it is for this reason that I have used the terms redemptive grace, for we are considering that undeserved favor of God that has effected a redemption of man the sinner from his state of hell-deservingness as both guilty and defiled. Now this remedial or redemptive. Redemptive grace which God has extended and will infallibly apply to a vast multitude out of every kindred, tribe, and tongue, and nation, finds its fountainhead in divine purpose and in divine procurement. When we think of God's purposes of redemptive grace, that brings us immediately. Immediately into the orbit of the Biblical concepts of election, foreordination, and predestination.

10:59 When we think of the operations of redemptive grace in the procurement of our salvation, that brings us into the orbit of the Biblical concepts of redemption, atonement, propitiation, reconciliation. Now, Now when we consult the word of God with respect to the purposes of redemptive grace, when we ask the question, when God in his own infinite love, in the mystery of his own eternal mind, purposed that he would save a specific number of specific sinners, that he would set his love apart.

11:49 Upon them purposing actually to deliver them from sin and its consequences, what place did making them holy have in that sovereign, eternal, gracious, electing purpose of God? You see, we are considering under this heading the centrality of holiness. Holiness. Holiness.

12:19 Holiness. Holiness. The redemptive purposes of God, and that purpose is taken for us back into the very womb of eternity in terms of the Biblical concept of election. Divine, sovereign selectivity of certain sinners from the mass of equally hell-deserving sinners that some should be the recipients, of that remedial grace.

12:53 Well, when God then chose a people for Himself, where did this whole matter of holiness fit in the scheme of God's redemption at the point of His own electing purpose? Well, I want you to consider two texts of Scripture. And these, again, are only selective and specimen passages. Time will not permit an exhaustive list, let alone a detailed exegesis of any of them.

13:23 In Ephesians chapter 1,

13:27 in which the Apostle Paul spills out a marvelous system of divinity in the form of eulogy, in which his systematic theology bursts from a glowing heart in the form of this great hymn of praise to the Triune God, he writes, verse 3, Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, even as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, holy, without blemish before Him. As the Apostle, under the inspiration of the Spirit, breaks into this great theology in the form of eulogy, he blesses the God and Father of our Lord Jesus, who has endowed us with every single spiritual blessing in the heavenlies in conjunction with His Son, in union with His Son, and the first, the first of those blessings that he addresses is the blessing of God's sovereign selection

14:57 of certain sinners to be the recipients of this redemptive mercy. And he says, central in that very choice is not only Christ. There is no contemplation of the redemption of hell-deserving sinners apart from the person and work of His Son. We are chosen in Him, but then second only to the central truth that we are blessed in Him with every blessing, and therefore chosen in Him is the fact that we were chosen in order that we should not be merely safe from the wrath that our sin deserves, but that we should be brought back from a state of fragmentation to one in which our humanity is integrated and all of the other blessings of salvation, but these are the words used, that we should be holy and without blemish before Him so that it is not an overstatement to say that

16:18 Our salvation in Christ was never contemplated in the misty and at times we might say even mysterious subterranean depths of electing love. Never was it even conceived in the mind of God without an intention to make us holy and without blemish before him. So in the gracious electing purpose of redemption holiness is not secondary, it is not peripheral, it is not ancillary to God's purpose salvation. It is not secondary to God's purpose salvation. It is not secondary to God's purpose salvation. It is central and the same emphasis comes through in the parallel passage of Romans chapter 8.

17:15 Romans chapter 8 having stated in the well-known verse that his comforted God's people in ways that only God can measure. Verse 28 that his people are those who are called according to purpose that is they are affectionately brought out of their state. Of nature and wrath and into a state of grace according to purpose divine intention and having mentioned that divine intention the apostle goes on to write in verse 29 for whom he foreknew those that he loved beforehand he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his son that he that is his son.

18:06 Might be the firstborn among many brethren and here using different terminology that takes us into the same orbit of God's own purpose in eternity with reference to the salvation of sinners. We are told that those whom he loved beforehand those who are called in time according to divine purpose. Are those whom he foreordained to be conformed to the image that is to the moral likeness of his own son that Jesus Christ the Redeemer might be the firstborn the rightful heir. The one to whom all of the inheritance belongs and we with him as his brethren fully sharing in the.

19:06 Family likeness and so according to this text the holiness of the people of God is not a secondary or tertiary issue it is not a peripheral matter it lies at the very center of God's gracious electing purpose of redemption and then with regard to God's efficacious purchase of redemption. In the space time history of Jesus of Nazareth the incarnate God the God man where does this matter of the holiness of those for whom he lived and died fit in the divine purpose and purchase of redemption again to text very familiar to all of us I'm sure Ephesians chapter 5.

20:06 Ephesians chapter 5 and in this section in which the apostle is giving practical counsel to husbands and wives using Christ and his love to the church and the church's relation to Christ as the great reality of which marriage is but a shadow. We read in verse 25 husbands love your wives even as Christ also loved the church and gave. Himself up for it to reference to his laying down his life as a substitutionary sacrifice for sin and what was the end in view in order that he might sanctify it having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word in order that he might present the church to himself a glorious church not a.

21:07 Having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish and if this text teaches us anything with reference to the issue before us it is this that when we squeeze into those words Christ gave himself up for the church all of those realities that many of us in our own assembly have been studying in. In recent months the mystery of the bloody sweat of Gethsemane the shame of the spittle and the blows in the house of Caiaphas the high priest the mockery and the jeering and the blindfolding and the being treated like a common criminal leading them to his being impaled upon an instrument of Roman execution. The shrouded.

22:07 The mystery of a darkness rivaled only by that darkness in Egypt in the midst of the plagues that wrought ultimately in the deliverance of God's people take all that is bound up in the words he gave himself up for it the reality of vicarious sin bearing vicarious bearing of the wrath of God. The. Foundation of our Lord in all the billows and waves of the father's fiery indignation against sin and he went through all of that for what purpose not to have places that have church buildings where people come and sing their foot tapping choruses to get a little religious shot in the arm and live giddy careless lives indifferent to God's claims upon them.

23:08 In different to his law in different to being like his son oh no he went through all of this in order to sanctify it in order that he might present it to himself holy and without blemish in all of his travel the wholeness of those for whom he traveled was central to his self giving love. Titus chapter 2 Titus chapter 2 having given very detailed ethical instruction on very practical issues of what it means to be a holy man a holy woman a holy mother a holy old man a holy young man a holy old woman a holy slave a holy master now the apostle tells us why he's giving all of his life to God.

24:17 All these detailed instructions about holiness verse 11 for for the grace of God has appeared bringing salvation to all men or have appeared to all men bringing salvation and we don't need to make a decision on that rendering for our purposes but the grace of God has appeared it has appeared in space time history. In the life and death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ the grace of God has appeared and appearing it teaches us verse 12 instructing us to the intent that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly and righteously and godly in this present world. Looking.

25:18 For the blessed hope and appearing of the glory of the great God and Savior Jesus Christ here is all this practical instruction on practical godliness and holiness Paul why have you given all of this he says because the grace of God has appeared teaching us that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts we should live soberly righteously and godly and since that's what grace teaches I have been giving some of the details. Of what it is to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts what it is to live soberly righteously and godly well Paul why are you both so concerned about that verse 14 who gave himself for us in order that he might redeem us from all iniquity and purify unto himself a people for his own possession. Zealous of God.

26:19 Good works these things speak and exhort and reprove with all authority Titus what is to be one of the dominant notes in your ministry it is to be the note that grace has come with a fixed body of instruction and central to that body of instruction is not only that the only ground of the sinner's acceptance. Before God is found in the doing and the dying of another thought that on the basis of our acceptance on the grounds of the work of Christ we are to give ourselves heart and soul to living soberly righteously and godly continually denying ungodliness and worldly lusts and for this fundamental reason Jesus Christ.

27:19 Died to have a people who would live that way and he says because this is so central to the very revelation of grace and the redemptive intention of Christ these things speak and exhort don't assume that people will automatically know what it is to live a sober righteous holy life don't assume that they will automatically understand what it is to deny ungodliness and worldly lusts. No chapter 2 in verse 1 speak the things which befit the healthy doctrine and then he gives detailed ethical and moral instruction and he says that detailed ethical and moral instruction has its tap roots in the very cross of the Lord Jesus Christ. He died in order that he might redeem us from all iniquity. And purify to himself a people for his own possession zealous of good works.

28:30 What do we say then before the witness of these four texts we see the centrality of holiness in the purposes of redemptive grace as that purpose is revealed in terms of election the divine sovereign gracious selection. Of a multitude of sinners to be the recipients of saving mercy holiness is central to that glorious and mysterious yet wonderful choice of God of particular but undeserving sinners and when the Lord Jesus in space time history lays down his life for his own. That he.

29:22 Might not merely make them savable but that he might actually save them by cleansing and presenting them to himself central to his purpose in the procurement of redemption was the securing to himself of a holy people and the presenting of himself in the last day of a people who will be saved. This spotless and without any. Blemish. Now I ask you my ministering brethren would you get the slightest idea from the plethora of gospel preaching on the airwaves and the TV waves from the majority of the preaching in the best of our evangelical churches. That's central to the very purpose of redemptive grace. Is the making of a holy people. Let me put the question this way.

30:33 Were you to come an unannounced stranger and simply mingle among the church members in the average evangelical church in our land that claims to believe in plenary verbal inspiration in the essential deity of our Lord Jesus Christ in the doctrine of the Trinity substitutionary atonement. Were you to simply come as an unannounced. Guest and live and move and mingle with people and see them at the shop and their living room and what they did and did not watch on the TV and how parents related to children and children to parents and how families related to the neighborhood and to the environment around them. Would you get any notion that somebody died to make them consumed with zeal to live a holy life. To deny everything that was unlike God and everything that was contrary to his law. Denying ungodliness and unrighteousness solicitous with a sensitive conscience seeking in every facet and detail of life to live soberly in touch with spiritual reality righteously and godly in this present age. My friends.

31:58 I think we would get precious little impression that the death of Jesus had anything to do with people living like that. In fact in most evangelical churches when someone begins to live that way you know what he's immediately labeled as a legalist. The word is synonymous with a man or woman committed to serious universal holiness. What a tragedy that's the more angelical grace not perverted legalism and so our vision for these days is to see a renewal of biblical holiness because of the centrality of holiness in the redemptive purposes of God. But then secondly I want you to consider with me the.

The Indispensability of Holiness in the Application of Grace

33:06 Indispensability of holiness in the application of redemptive grace we've seen the centrality of holiness in the purposes of redemptive grace in election and in the procurement of our salvation. But now where does it fit in the application of redemptive grace my heading already has tipped my hat we're going to consider the indispensability of holiness. In the application of redemptive grace when elect sinners are actually conceived in their mother's wombs born and then grow and arrive at that point when God purposes effectually to call them into union with his son by applying with power the gospel of his son. And there is in the.

34:07 Purpose and work of God the conversion of a sinner what place does their actual moral and ethical transformation have that's what we mean by the application of redemptive grace election never took anyone to heaven if God only elected sinners they'd all go to hell and may I say it reverently the procurement of redemption upon the cross never took a sinner to heaven it has to be applied. And now we're in the realm of the application of that which was purposed by the father and purchased by the son and though the father is primarily the one set forward as the agent in calling in that calling it is uniquely the prerogative and activity of the Holy Spirit to effect those changes which bring a sinner out of a state of wrath.

35:10 Into a state of grace out of death into life out of condemnation into glorious acceptance in the beloved well I want us to note again just looking at several of the biblical witnesses at the indispensability of holiness in that application of redemptive grace to elect sinners and the simplest way I know to divide up that application is to divide it up in terms of calling. That's the front end of it the Christian life and consummation that's the back end and in the application of redemption that's what God does to sinners in the revealed method of grace what God may do with imbeciles and infants is not revealed in scripture we are concerned with what's revealed with the people sitting here and with the preacher standing here well in the application of our salvation it will be applied to all of us.

36:10 Who are saved in terms of a beginning which the Bible calls calling and then in the Christian life which is set before us under a vast array of images and biblical concepts and then consummation or glorification well in terms of that whole spectrum of the application is holiness optional is it desirable or is it indispensable. So indispensable that to claim that I am an elect sinner loved and purchased by Christ called by the father in the way of the Christian life hoping for its consummation at the coming of Christ and yet I am not in the way of holiness am I a well instructed believer or am I a self deluded hypocrite well let's look at the biblical witness first of all calling.

37:10 Here I direct your attention to 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 2nd Thessalonians chapter 2 verse 13 and who has a conscience feeling the pressure of duty and notice the great apostle of grace is never ashamed to talk about feeling bound to do things. See we live in an age when anyone says I feel bound people say uh oh he doesn't know his liberty in Christ are you going to say that of Paul he said even with regard to giving thanks for other Christians he felt himself under obligation. I'm bound to give thanks to God always for you brethren beloved of the Lord why for that God chose you from the beginning unto salvation you see election is unto salvation it is not salvation he chose you from the beginning unto salvation in sanctification of the spirit and belief of the truth where unto he called you through our gospel.

38:20 To the obtaining of the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ what a marvelous distillation of rich theology in these verses let's start back at the back and work forward he said we're bound to give thanks for you why because he says here are a people who will infallibly obtain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ he's confident that their salvation. Will be consummated and they shall be in the language of Romans 8 glorified together with Christ well who are those people that will obtain the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ well they are those who have been effectually called through the gospel the word calling with but perhaps two exceptions in the New Testament never means a mere summons. It means.

39:20 It means the divine summons that effects the sinner's response so that to be called is a unique designation of the people of God in the book of the revelation it says and they that are with him are called and chosen and faithful and so when the apostle says he called you through our gospel it's not everyone who's merely summoned that obtains the glory of the Lord Jesus Christ would God it were so then the way would be wide and wide. But he's saying you were actually brought by divine power into union with Christ first Corinthians one nine is the best exposition of that God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of his son Jesus Christ our Lord so here's a people who are going to obtain glory who are they those who have been called called through what through the gospel.

40:20 Well when they were called through the gospel what actually happened in them what were the dynamics of grace at work in their hearts he says you were called through the gospel in the realm of the sanctifying work of the spirit and the belief of the truth and why were they and only they called in the realm of the sanctifying influence of the spirit. And belief of the truth it's because they were chosen of God and why were they chosen of God because as he says in the first phrase they were beloved of God so you see he traces if we do it in reverse glorification calling calling through the gospel and belief of the truth and the sanctifying work of the spirit and all because they were chosen and chosen because they were loved.

41:21 But now for our purposes what I want you to notice is this dare we extract out of this string of rich experimental divinity any strand of that for which Paul gave thanks do you think he would have given thanks for people who claim to be saved and chosen who claim to believe the truth and be called in whom there was no. Of that. Paul definitive work of the spirit sanctifying them on the threshold of Christian experience that he is setting them apart from the dominion and lordship of sin unto the dominion and the lordship of Christ and of righteousness never would he given thanks for people who claim to have a salvation like that for such a salvation was never conceived in the heart of God in purchase. But.

42:22 The salvation conceived and purchase is the salvation applied and if he chose us to be holy and if Christ died to make us holy then the spirit in applying that salvation in the context of the proclamation of the gospel does what he sanctifies the one whom he brings to belief of the truth. And he does it in conjunction with their calling not some second work of grace not some optional surrender not some higher life no friends that is of the very essence of possessing life and into that whole category we can bring the whole biblical doctrine of the terms of the new covenant we are saved under the terms of the new covenant Hebrews 8 and Hebrews 10.

43:24 And what does God commit himself to do in the new covenant upon all whom those benefits come he says I will take out the heart of stone I will give them a heart of flesh I will put my spirit within them I will write my law upon their hearts I will put my fear in their hearts I will cause them to walk in my statutes and my judgments we bring the whole category of Romans 6 dying to sin. In union with Jesus Christ and this notion that that is quote positional what kind of nonsense is that sin sure isn't positional when he says as you presented your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin was that positional or experimental you presented your members on to sin that's experience but he said having been made free from sin. You now have your fruit of the holiness.

44:25 That's experimental all of this nonsense position what's that mean just a convenient way to plead the obvious truth out of the text from all these people that claim to believe in Christ who've never been freed from the dominion of sin the whole doctrine of the new covenant the whole doctrine of faith union with Christ in which the virtue of his death and resurrection for sin effects in us. Death to sin and a resurrection to walk in newness of life the whole doctrine of Romans 8 in those opening verses the realm of the flesh in the realm of the spirit he that is in the realm of the flesh is described as possessed of the carnal mind it is enmity against God it is not subject to the law of God neither indeed can it be so then they that are in the flesh cannot please God to choose me but you are not in the flesh but in the spirit.

45:31 The spirit is so be that you've had the baptism no it's so be that you've claimed your inheritance no it's so be that you've entered into the higher life no he says you are not in the realm of the flesh as the basic circle of moral orientation but in the spirit is so be that the spirit of God dwell in you and if any man have not the spirit of Christ he is none of his and to have the spirit of Christ he is none of his. To have the spirit of Christ is not some positional mystical pie in the sky notion it's to be graciously and radically wrenched from the dominion of the flesh and pervasively and fundamentally implanted into the realm of the spirit and that all happens at calling that which is born of the flesh is flesh that which is born of the spirit is spirit. So it's.

46:35 Indispensable holiness is indispensable in the application of redemptive grace in calling or what about in the Christian life and here I sat at my desk is was embarrassed I said Lord what text shall I choose and in the interest of time let me just quote them first Peter 1 13 to 15 where Peter exhorts in the climactic part of that passage but as he which have called you is holy so be ye holy. Be ye in all manner of conversation that is all manner of your life because it is written be ye holy for I am holy and then he goes on to say and if you pass the time of your sojourning he says in fear if he call on him as father who judges without respect of persons past the time of your sojourning in fear knowing that you were redeemed.

47:34 Not with corruptible things such as silver and gold but with the precious blood of Christ you see a spirit rock perception of the price of my redemption and the certainty of my redemption never leads to a flippant indifferent attitude to holiness it leads to a solicitous intense godly fear lest I should buy my carelessness treat lightly the redeemer. And the redemption that he purchased for me. Second Corinthians 7 1 after giving a marvelous demonstration of the privileges of the people of God in adoption at the end of chapter 6 Paul says having therefore these promises dearly beloved that is taking into our bosoms all of the rich promises that God will be to us a father we shall be his sons and daughters.

48:37 That he will dwell among us and walk among us that we shall have covenant fellowship with the living God having therefore these promises dearly beloved let us click our heels and go happy happy happy all the time time time never being too concerned about how we live since it's all fixed up and in the bag having therefore these promises dearly beloved let us cleanse ourselves of all defilement of the flesh and of the spirit perfecting holiness in the fear of God I didn't write that a legalist didn't write that the great apostle of grace wrote it on the heels of underscoring the apex of redemptive grace the privilege of adoption and covenant fellowship with God and to use the privileges of grace.

49:39 And the apex of the privilege of grace fellowship with God as an excuse for a careless and light and flippant life is to show that one is at best pitifully ignorant of the very ABCs of grace and probably devoid of a gram of saving grace in his heart holiness is indispensable in the Christian life. And the apex of the privilege of grace fellowship with God as an excuse for a careless and light and flippant life is to show that one is at best pitifully ignorant of the very ABCs of grace and probably devoid of a gram of saving grace in his heart holiness is indispensable in the Christian life.

50:41 And the apex of the privilege of grace fellowship with God is to show that one is at best pitifully ignorant of the very ABCs of grace and probably devoid of a gram of saving grace in his heart holiness is indispensable in the Christian life. And the apex of the privilege of grace fellowship with God as an excuse for a careless and light and flippant life is to show that one is at best pitifully ignorant of the very ABCs of grace and probably devoid of a gram of saving grace in his heart holiness is indispensable in the Christian life.

51:44 And the apex of the privilege of grace fellowship with God is to show that one is at best pitifully ignorant of the very ABCs of grace and probably devoid of a gram of saving grace in his heart holiness is indispensable in the Christian life. And the apex of the privilege of grace fellowship with God is to show that one is at best pitifully ignorant of the very ABCs of grace and probably devoid of a gram of saving grace in his heart holiness is indispensable in the Christian life.

52:45 And the apex of the privilege of grace fellowship with God is to show that one is at best pitifully ignorant of the very ABCs of grace and probably devoid of a gram of saving grace in his heart holiness is indispensable in the Christian life. And the apex of the privilege of grace fellowship with God is to show that one is at best pitifully ignorant of the very ABCs of grace and probably devoid of a gram of saving grace in his heart holiness is indispensable in the Christian life.

53:49 And the apex of the privilege of grace fellowship with God is to show that one is at best pitifully ignorant of the very ABCs of grace and probably devoid of a gram of saving grace in his heart holiness is indispensable in the Christian life. Jesus stated it in pictorial language when he says, Enter ye in at the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction. The gate of surface shallow religious experience is wide. Nor repentance, nor humiliation, nor self-loathing, nor abandonment of works righteousness and flesh withering confession, nothing in my hands I bring. You can go tripping through loaded down. With self-sufficiency and self-righteousness and complacency. And it leads on a broad road of convenient religion that may have tons of Christ and Jesus and the cross and heaven and its language.

55:03 But it's a broad road in which there is no sensitive conscience about sin. No careful regard to be cleansed from all defilement of flesh and of spirit. No plucking out of right eyes. No hacking off.

55:19 No plucking off of right hands. No pursuing of universal holiness. It's a broad road and it leads to hell. Even though the echo of the name of Jesus is all along it.

55:32 But he said there's a narrow gate that leads right in to a compressed way. And that way leads to life.

55:42 There's no other way that leads to life. But the way of serious spirit wrought. Not gospel holiness. It is indispensable in the application of salvation.

55:58 And brethren, no little part of our vision for these days is that contrary to all of these God dishonoring notions. That most Christians are just carnal Christians that will make it by the skin of their teeth. Lose a few rewards and after a few years in heaven will forget about the whole business anyway. And there are a few serious disciples.

56:19 But they're all going to the same place. My friends, that's heresy. That denies everything from the eternal intention of God in electing grace. It denies the purpose of the bloodletting of the incarnate God.

56:36 It denies the power of the Holy Spirit in regenerating grace. It denies everything integral to the scheme of redemptive grace as revealed in the scriptures. You can say all you want. Dear people, oh, I wish you'd take seriously the word of God as husbands.

56:59 I wish you'd take seriously the word of God as wives. Oh, I wish you'd take seriously. You can give them all kinds of entreaties and appeals. And they'll sit there as comfortable in their carnal security as though you were babbling in Hindustani.

57:16 But when you begin to tell them unless you are pursuing holiness, you'll burn in hell.

57:24 Then you see what happens.

57:27 Legalist, you're teaching salvation.

57:31 You're denigrating the work of Christ. People who say the only reason I'm pursuing holiness is because I love my Savior. And my Savior has worked in my heart and changed it from a sin-loving heart to a heart that loves the things He loves. That works.

57:55 We don't believe salvation by works, but we sure believe in the salvation that works. And what it works. Works is the divine purpose. And he fucks the divine purchase.

58:08 And any other salvation is not in his book. It's been concocted in men's brains and in their perverse hearts. Never mind out of a careful exegesis of the word of God.

The Theology of Holiness: Essence and Struggle

58:25 Well, thirdly and finally, in the few minutes that remain, and here I can just give you the heads. I want to speak briefly. Please. About not only the centrality of holiness in the purposes of redemptive grace, the indispensability of holiness in the application of redemptive grace, but I want to give you something of a little overview of the theology of holiness in the outworking of redemptive grace.

58:55 Our vision for these days not only brings within its scope these first two headings, which are broad. And in the first two headings, we have the first two headings, which are broad. In a sense, touch the very biblical theory, if I may use that terminology, the very biblical theology of salvation. But now, under this third heading, on the theology of holiness in the outworking of redemptive grace, what I'm trying to say by those words is this, that in this period called the Christian life, between calling and consummation, our vision for these days is that we be called back to the old paths, away with the novel, that have been spawned upon the church in the last three centuries in the area of this matter of the outworking of redemptive grace in the Christian life.

59:50 And if you and I are responsibly to teach our people, then surely we must touch upon these aspects of the theology of holiness in the outworking of redemptive grace. We must touch upon the essence of biblical holiness. And when you boil it all down, and the old Puritans saw it clearly, it comes down to two things. It is a process of mortification and of transformation or conformation.

60:17 Romans 8, 13, If you by the Spirit do put to death the deeds of the flesh, that's the negative. 2 Corinthians 3, 18, But we all with open face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord are transformed into that image from one stage of glory to another. That's the whole motif. Of Colossians, put off, put on.

60:38 It's the whole motif of Ephesians 4 that we read today. That's the essence of biblical holiness. And in the midst of that, there will be the reality of Galatians 5, 17, the flesh lusting against the Spirit, the Spirit lusting against the flesh, these two contrary the one to the other, so that you may not do the things that you would. And we won't debate about the meaning of Romans 7, and we'll be too busy echoing its language on our knees.

61:11 Crying out, Oh God, when everything in me wants to love you with all... My heart is so cold.

61:22 And when I would do the good of worshiping you with all of my being, I have to drag a dull mind and a distracted spirit. Wretched man that I am. I really wonder when anyone debates the meaning of Romans 7, where a man is in the secret place.

61:44 We need to teach the essence of biblical holiness, that it is the constant mortification and constant conformation in a context of real and at times agonizing and acutely painful struggle.

62:06 And yet wonder of wonders interlaced with joy, in the Holy Ghost. What a conundrum a healthy biblical Christian is, to himself, as well as to others.

The Theology of Holiness: Scope

62:23 Then we need to teach something about the scope of biblical holiness. And as I meditated upon it and said, Lord, how can I state it in the simplest terms possible? I hope this is not simplistic. The scope of biblical holiness is, the whole man, in the whole of his life.

62:42 That's it. The whole man, his motives, his intentions, his perspectives,

62:53 his mind, his judgment. Romans 12, transformed by the renewing of the mind. Don't be like the Gentiles, who in the ignorance of their mind, let this mind be in you, which was in Christ Jesus. Oh, we could multiply text.

63:10 It's the whole man. The deepest recesses of motive. Whatever you do, even when you're doing the things that make you, most like your dog, you're eating and drinking. Do all to the glory of God.

63:23 It touches the inner springs of motivation. Whoso looketh to lust, it touches my wandering thoughts. He that hates, it touches the deepest springs of my emotions and dispositions to others. You see, the scope of biblical holiness is as deep as the deepest fibers of the soul and all of its motions.

63:47 But then it extends to the farthest reaches of my external deeds. Do all things without grumbling and grousing, that ye may be blameless and harmless, sons of God without rebuke, shining as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.

64:05 It's the whole man, in the whole of his life. That's why the Bible gives detailed ethical instruction. It doesn't simply say,

64:16 Titus, tell him.

64:19 It tells him out. Then it says, Say, tell the old women to be godly. Tells them how to be godly.

64:28 Speaks to slaves, to masters. Speaks to widows. Speaks to singles. It speaks about our money and the rich and the poor.

64:37 Speaks about our bodies and the sanctity of sex. It touches all of these things. The scope of biblical holiness is the whole man in the whole of his life living, all of it in the presence of God. I recently read a choice treatise.

65:00 It's three sermons preached by Matthew Henry. Six o'clock in the morning, near where Pastor Blaze labors in Bethnal Green. And the three sermons are beginning the day with God, continuing the day with God, and ending the day with God. And when I finished reading those three treatises, I said, oh God, this man lived in a different universe from us.

65:23 And he was talking to, to common laborers and ordinary people who are up at six o'clock in the morning to hear how to begin the day with God. And he talks about such things as make every night when you lie upon your bed, bring near the last time you will lie down in your coffin. And if you were lying down to lie down for the last time, what issues would you want to settle with God? He said, he who thus dies every night when he goes to sleep will find no great trauma when he actually comes to die.

65:54 And the book is full of things like that. How to begin the day with God. How to continue. How to end it.

66:02 And he wasn't some mystic off in a tower somewhere. He's talking to people who work twelve hour days. That's what we mean by divinity on the subject of holiness. Living all of life in the whole of our humanity unto the living God by the grace of his spirit.

The Theology of Holiness: Standard

66:29 And then we need to say much about the standard of biblical holiness. If we're going to set forth a theology of holiness that is biblical, not only the essence of it, the scope of it, but the standard of it, the character of God. Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Matthew 5, 48.

66:49 The law of God. Romans 7, 12. We know that the law is spiritual in the commandment holy and just and good. And then we need to see that it is the moral image of Christ as seen in the scriptures.

67:09 He that saith he abideth in him ought himself so to walk even as he walked. 1 John 2, 6. And it is the whole of the perceptual will of God in the scriptures. I have respect unto all of thy commandments.

67:27 Therefore I hate every false way. Who is the blessed man? The one who meditates in the law of God day and night. The whole revelation of God's will of precept.

67:41 That's the standard of biblical holiness. Not subjective feelings. Not men's rules and regulations. But that comprehensive standard made up of these biblically revealed components.

The Theology of Holiness: Method and Source

67:57 And then we need to say much about the method of biblical holiness. In Philippians 2, 12 and 13 is our pivotal text. It is co-action. Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling for it is God who is at work in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.

68:18 Well, does he work or I work? If I work, does that suspend his working? Does his working negate the necessity of my working? Paul says no.

68:28 Work out. Not playing games. But with the whole engagement of your whole being with fear and trembling. Why?

68:37 Because you're not on a fool's air and God's at work in you on your willer and your doer. And when you've been able to will what was right and do it, you don't reach around and pat yourself on the back. You say, thank you, Lord. You worked in me both the will and the power to do.

68:52 It's all of grace. But he doesn't work bypassing our will or our doing. He works in us to will and to do. You see, that's all double talk.

69:01 Well, it's Bible.

69:04 Tell God you don't like his double talk. But teach it to your people anyway.

69:10 And then we need to tell people about the source ultimately of biblical holiness. It is by the Spirit that we mortify. Romans 8, 13. It's by the Spirit we are conformed into his image.

69:22 2 Corinthians 3, 18. It is in feeding upon and living in union with Christ who said, Without me ye can do nothing. He who eats of my flesh drinks of my blood. He who eats of my blood lives by me.

The Theology of Holiness: Context (The Church)

69:36 It is in living union and communion with Christ and in dependence upon the Spirit. This is the source of strength and grace for biblical holiness. And then you better say much about the context of biblical holiness, which is the church of Jesus Christ. Ephesians chapter 4 is the classic passage.

69:58 God knows nothing of freelance holiness. A lot of people as holy as the Archangel Michael. If you put them on an island all alone with nothing but a monkey and a coconut.

70:15 That's right. But you put a second island dweller with them. And if they had the raw materials in five years they'd both have a nuclear bomb pointed at one another. And they'd sit there glowering saying, Who's going to move first?

70:30 The Bible knows nothing of holiness that is limited to marvelous feelings in the closet. Well, you don't have a wife that has strong mood swings with her monthly cycle and goes from being sweet as an angel to being as unreasonable as only the Lord knows what.

70:50 And you've got to love her when her hormones are making her very vulnerable to being an unreasonable witch.

71:01 And you've got to love her. Because when you see her at her worst, that ain't nothing compared to what God saw you to be. When he loved you. You love as Christ loved.

71:13 That's different, isn't it? And you take all of the precepts. I'll never forget the day it hit me like a ton of bricks. Having no church background and no churchmanship.

71:24 First time I read in the Reformers that ordinarily outside the Church of Christ there is no salvation. I said, uh-oh. That's a big remnant from Rome. They never cut off.

71:32 Now I understand what they meant. The New Testament epistles with but few exceptions. They weren't written individuals so they could have devotional material. They were written to churches and communities of believers.

Challenge and Rebuke to Superficiality

71:46 And they are told to work these things out in the living, of living saints with all of their ugly remaining sin and all of our quirks and idiosyncrasies. And I say, my dear brethren, our vision for these days is one that encompasses not only setting forth the centrality of holiness in the purposes of redemptive grace, the indispensability of holiness in the application of redemptive grace, but something of a comprehensive theology of holiness in the outworking of redemptive grace. Well, that's what I wanted to say to you tonight. That's part of our vision. That's what burns in our spiritual gut, if I may say it without being coarse. And I ask you as you sit here tonight, are these the truths that burn in your heart? And do they regulate your life?

72:48 If you've never been accused of being overly scrupulous, having a hypersensitive conscience, being somewhat legalistic, I doubt you know anything of a serious pursuit of holiness. Because you see, people that live this way are a rebuke to giddy, shallow, either very, very immature believers or self-deceived hypocrites.

73:21 Rarely have I met a man that put his hand on my shoulder and said, my brother, I appreciate everything I see of your efforts to walk in universal holiness, but you could do better. The men that have done that, I can count on one hand, but I don't have enough hands and feet to count the many that said, brother, just take it easy. Don't be quiet. Don't be quite so serious.

73:48 Don't be quite so intense. Don't be quite so persnickety about those little details.

73:57 Why do they do that?

74:00 Because you know and I know the moment you get in the presence of any man or woman who takes God's ways more seriously than you do, there is a light that exposes your own darkness.

74:13 And you either need to cry that God, by grace, will bring you up to that standard or you try the lowest way to lower the standard to your own level so you feel a little more comfortable. I tell you, it's serious business trying to be holy with the tinderbox of remaining sin within, a seducing, bewitching world without, and a powerful and wise old devil going about as a roaring lion. But blessed be God, if he's put us in the way, he's going to keep us on the way and bring us home safely at last to glory. Then all the struggle will be over.

Heavenly Hope and Perseverance

74:55 Won't it be wonderful to praise him not just for an hour without a distracting thought, but through the endless ages of eternity. To have a body, this is what excites me about heaven, to have a body that can respond to every impulse of a perfectly redeemed mind and soul. Think of what you would desire to do for Christ if you had no remaining sin in your mind, in your emotions, in your motives. Oh, you see, it would take a glorified body to contain such a soul.

75:29 And blessed be God, that's just what we'll have. And with all of the energy of such a perfected soul, housed or fused, whatever term you want to use, in a glorified body, we'll be able to do all that and won't even need to sleep or take a nap. There shall be no night and they have no need of rest.

75:52 Does that excite you when you think of heaven? If so, maybe the root of the matter is in you. Press on, press on. Amidst the groans, the sighs, the times when you feel you're just about to go under.

76:07 Take out your old pilgrim's progress and read it again. It'll do you a lot more good than the modern claptrap coming off the presses, six little steps to a happy Christian life. Old Bunyan was in touch with reality. Yeah, he got sights of the celestial city that made him dance.

76:25 But he had encounters with Apollyon that almost did him in. That's where I live. I want Bunyan's old way. Leave the claptrap to those who know nothing of the reality of biblical holiness.

Closing Prayer and Exhortation

76:39 Well, you've been very patient. May God write his word upon our hearts. Let us pray. Our Father, we have spoken of very weighty matters tonight and yet we feel that in the very speaking of them we defile them.

77:01 For there is so much sin that yet clings to us. Lord, wash even the preachment of your word in the blood of your Son that it may not be anything other than a sweet savor before you. Wash our hearing in the blood of Christ. We confess we cannot even hear your word as we ought.

77:24 We cannot receive it and obey it as we ought. Oh, look upon us in our weakness and in our remaining perversity and darkness and dullness and work in us to will and to work of your good pleasure. We pray for any who sit here tonight and know nothing of what it is to be in the way of holiness. For any who deceive themselves that their shallow attachment to the name and ways of Christ were enough.

77:52 Lord, may the arrows stick in their hearts and give them no rest until in laying hold of your Son they know they've been placed into the way of biblical holiness. Help your dear servants who come from churches that have been lulled to sleep in a ministry or under a ministry which has told people that holiness was optional. Holiness was something only a tangent to your saving purposes and an optional one at that. Oh, Lord, give them wisdom to know how lovingly and patiently to instruct their people.

78:29 Give them a discriminating ministry that knows how to invade the conscience as we heard last night. Oh, our God, will you not in our day raise up an army of preachers whose own lives validate your purpose to make men holy through the death of your Son and then may they be enabled to preach the doctrine of biblical holiness with the credibility of a holy life and in the power and in the demonstration of the Holy Spirit. Oh, God, hear our cry and may the blessing of your grace continue upon us and remain and abide with us as we leave this place and go to our rest. Hear our cry. Receive our thanks for this day in your presence. We ask in Jesus' name.

79:24 Amen.