Holiness, the False and the True - by H. A. Ironside
"Blessed is the man whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered [or, atoned for]. Blessed is the man unto whom the LORD imputeth not iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no guile." — Ps. 32:1,2.
"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God."—Mat. 5:8.
DIFFERENT as they may seem to be in subject-matter, the two passages just quoted are most intimately linked together. The blessedness therein described belongs to every one who has honestly turned to God in repentance and trusted the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior whose precious blood cleanseth from all sin.
Those who fancy they see in this wondrous cleansing an advance on Paul's declaration that "by Him all that believe are justified from all things," thereby betray their ignorance of Scripture and their low thoughts of the value attached by God to the atoning work of His beloved Son. When we speak of justification, we think of the entirety of sin and of sins, from the charge of which every believer is eternally freed. On the other hand, the thought of cleansing suggests at once that sin is defiling, and, till purged from its defilement, no soul can look up to God without guile, and thus be truly pure in heart.
The blessedness of psalm 32 is not that of a sinless man, but of a man who, once guilty and defiled, has confessed his transgression unto the Lord and obtained forgiveness for the iniquity of his sin. But he has also found in the divine method of cleansing from the defilement of sin, that henceforth the Lord will not impute sin to the one whose evil nature and its fruit have all been covered by the atonement of Jesus Christ. True it is that David looked on in faith to a propitiation yet to be made. We believe in Him who has in infinite grace already accomplished that mighty work whereby sin is now forgiven and iniquity purged. God is just, and cannot forgive apart from atonement.
Therefore He justifies the ungodly on the basis of the work of His Son.
But God is holy likewise, and He cannot permit a defiled soul to draw nigh to Him; therefore sin must be purged. The two aspects are involved in the salvation of every believer.
He who is thus forgiven and cleansed is the man in whose spirit there is no guile; he is the one who is pure in heart. He has judged himself and his sins in the presence of God. He has nothing now to hide. His conscience is free and his heart pure because he is honest with God and no longer seeks to cover his transgressions. All has come out in the light, and God Himself then provides the covering; or, to speak more exactly, God, who has already provided the covering, brings the honest soul into the good of it.
This is the great theme of 1 John 1:5-10, to which we must now turn.
For the reader's convenience, I will quote it in full:
"This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us." Immediately he adds (though, unfortunately, the human chapter division obscures the connection),
"My little children, these things write I unto you that ye sin not. And if any man sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous: and He is the propitiation for our sins: and not for ours only, but also for [the sins of] the whole world" (1John 2:1, 2).
This, then, is "the message," the great, emphatic message, of the first part of John's epistle—that " God is light," even as "God is love" is the message of the last part.
How solemn the moment in the soul's history when this first great fact bursts upon one! "God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all." It is this that makes all men in their natural condition, unsaved and unforgiven, dread meeting Him who "seeth not as man seeth," but is a "discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart."
When Christ came the light was shining, or lightening all who came in contact with it. He was Himself the light of the world. Hence His solemn words, "This is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God" (John 3:19-21). The unrepentant soul hates the light, and therefore he flees from the presence of God who is light. But he who has judged himself and owned his guilt and transgressions, as David did (in Psalm 32), no longer dreads the light, but walks in it, fearing no exposure, for he has already freely confessed his own iniquity. The day of judgment can hold no terror for the man who has previously judged himself thus, and has then, by faith, seen his sins judged by God upon the person of His Son, when made sin upon the cross. Such a man walks in the light. If any claim to be Christians and to enjoy communion with God who are still walking in the darkness, they "lie, and do not the truth."
But if we have been thus exposed—if we turn from darkness to light and walk therein—then "we have fellowship one with another;" for in that light we find a redeemed company, self-judged and repentant like ourselves, and we know that we need not shun further manifestation, for "the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin."
We must not pass hastily by this much-abused and greatly misapplied passage. It has been made to teach what is utterly foreign to its meaning. Among the general run of "holiness" teachers, it is commented upon as though it read: "If we walk up to the light God gives us as to our duty, we have fellowship with all who do the same; and having fulfilled these conditions, the blood of Jesus Christ His Son washes all inbred sin out of our hearts, and makes us inwardly pure and holy, freeing us from all carnality."
Now if this be the meaning of the verse, it is evident that we have all a large contract to fulfil ere we can ever know this inward cleansing. We must walk in a perfect way while still imperfect, in order to become perfect! Could any proposition be much more unreasonable, not to say unscriptural?
But a serious examination of the verse shows there is no question raised in it as to how we walk. It is not a matter of walking according to the light given as to our duties; but it is the place in which, or where, we walk that is emphasized: "If we walk in the light." Once we walked in the darkness. There all unsaved people walk still. But all believers walk in that which they once dreaded—the light; which is, of course, the presence of God. In other words, they no longer seek to hide from Him, and to cover their sins. They walk openly in that all-revealing light as self-confessed sinners for whom the blood of Christ was shed.
Walking thus in the full blaze of the light, they walk not alone, but in the company of a vast host with whom they have fellowship—for all alike are self-judged, repentant souls. Nor do they dread that light and long for escape from its beams; for "the blood of Jesus Christ," once shed on Calvary's cross, now sprinkled upon that very mercy-seat in the holiest from whence the light—the Shekinah-glory—shines, "cleanseth us from all sin." Literally, it is, "cleanseth us from every sin." Why fear the light when every sin has been atoned for by that precious blood?
The moment the soul apprehends this all fear is gone. Mark, it is no question of the blood of Christ washing out my evil nature—eliminating "sin that dwelleth in me"—but it is that the atoning work of the Son of God avails to purge my defiled conscience from the stain of every sin that I have ever been guilty of. Though all the sins that men could commit had been laid justly to my single account, yet Christ's blood would cleanse me from them all!
He therefore who denies his inherent sinfulness, and declares he has not sinned, misses all the blessing stored up in Christ for the one who comes to the light and confesses his transgressions, It is perhaps too much to say that verse 8 refers to holiness professors; yet such may well weigh its solemn words: "If we say that we have no sin [nature], we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us." Primarily it describes such as ignore the great fact of sin, and would dare approach God apart from the cross of Christ. They are self-deceived, and know not the truth. But it is surely serious enough to think of real Christians joining with these, and, while still in danger of falling, denying the presence of sin within them. Far better is it to say, honestly, with Paul,
"I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing" (Rom. 7:18).
The great principle on which God forgives sin is declared in verse 9. "If we confess," He must forgive, in order to be faithful to His Son, and just to us for whom Christ died. How blessed to be resting, not only on the love and mercy of God, but on His faithfulness and justice too! To deny that one has sinned, in the face of the great work done to save sinners, is impious beyond degree; and the one who does so is stigmatized by that most obnoxious title, "a liar!"
These things are written that believers might not sin. But immediately the Holy Spirit adds, "If any man sin, we [that is, we Christians] have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." My failure does not undo His work. On the cross He died for my sins in their totality; not merely the sins committed up to the moment of my conversion. He abides the effectual propitiation for our sins, and, for the same reason, the available means of salvation for the whole world.
Trusting Him, I need hide nothing. Owning all, I am a man in whose spirit there is no guile. Living in the enjoyment of such matchless grace, I am among the pure (or single) in heart who see God, revealed now in Christ.
To be pure in heart is therefore the very opposite of double-mindedness. Of some of David's soldiers we read, "They were not of double heart;" or, as the Hebrew vividly puts it, "not of a heart and a heart." "A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways," but the pure in heart are consciously in the light, and the inward man is thus kept for God.
In the man of Romans 7 we see described, for our blessing and instruction, the misery of double-mindedness; while the close of the chapter and the opening verses of chapter 8 portray the pure in heart.
The conflict there set forth has its counterpart in every soul quickened by the Spirit of God who is seeking holiness in himself, and is still under law as a means of promoting piety. He finds two principles working within him. One is the power of the new nature; the other, of the old. But victory comes only when he condemns self altogether, and looks away to Christ Jesus as His all, knowing that there is no condemnation to those who are before God in Him.
The man in Romans 7 is occupied with himself, and his disappointment and anguish spring from his inability to find in self the good which he loves.
The man of Romans 8 has learned there is no good to be found in self.
It is only in Christ; and his song of triumph results from the joy of having found out that he is "complete in Him." But it will be necessary to notice these much-controverted portions of the word of God more particularly when we come to the consideration of the teaching of Scripture as to the two natures, in our next chapter; so we refrain from further analysis of them now.
Coming back to the central theme of our present paper, I would reiterate that "cleansing from all sin" is equivalent to "justification from all things," save for the difference in view-point. Justification is clearing from the charge of guilt. Cleansing is freeing the conscience from the defilement of sin.
It is the great aspect of the gospel treated in the beginning of Hebrews 10. This has been already taken up at some length in the paper on "Sanctification by the Blood of Christ," and I need not go into it again here, save to add that the purging of the conscience there referred to should be distinguished from maintaining a good conscience in matters of daily life. In Hebrews 10 the conscience is looked at as defiled by the sins committed against God, from which the atoning work of His Son alone can purge. But he who has been thus purged, and has therefore "no more conscience of sins," is now responsible to be careful to have always a conscience void of offence toward God and man, by walking in subjection to the Word and the Holy Spirit, By so doing a "good conscience" will be enjoyed, which is a matter of experience; while a "purged conscience" is connected with our standing.
Should I, by lack of watching unto prayer, fall into sin, and thus become possessed of a bad conscience, I am called upon at once to judge myself before God and confess my failure. In this way I obtain once more a good conscience. But as the value of Christ's blood was not altered in the sight of God by my sin, I do not need to seek once more for a purged conscience, as I know the efficacy of that atoning work ever abides. So far as my standing is concerned, I am ever cleansed from all sin; otherwise I would be accursed from Christ the moment failure came in; but in place of this, the Word tells one, as already noted, that "if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and He is the propitiation for our sins." Satan will at once accuse the saint who sins; but the Fathers estimation of the work of His beloved Son remaining unchanged, every accusation is met by the challenge, "The LORD rebuke thee...is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?" (See Zech. 3:2.) And at once, as a result of the advocacy of Christ, the Holy Spirit begins His restoring work, using the Word to convict and exercise the soul of the failed one, and, if need be, subjecting him to the rod of chastening, that he may own his sin and unsparingly judge himself for taking an unholy advantage of such grace. When this point is reached a good conscience is again enjoyed. But it is only because the blood cleanseth from every sin that this restoring work can be carried on and the link not be broken that unites the saved soul to the Saviour.
"Whosoever Is Born Of God Doth Not Commit Sin"; or, The Believers Two Natures WE must now notice, somewhat at length, what is practically the only remaining proof text for the theory we have been examining—that of perfection in the flesh. We turn to 1 John 3. "Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law [or, doeth lawlessness; lit. trans.]; for sin is the transgression of the law [or, sin is lawlessness]. And ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin. Whosoever abideth in Him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him. Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as He is righteous. He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil. Whosoever is born of God doth not commit sin; for His seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. in this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother" (vers. 4-10).
Let the reader note well two points at the outset: First, This passage speaks of what is characteristically true of all who are born of God. It does not contemplate any select, advanced coterie of Christians who have gone on to perfection or obtained a second blessing. And it is folly to argue, as some hard-driven controversialists have done—in subject alike to Scripture and to reason—that only advanced believers, who have attained to holiness, are born of God, the rest being but begotten! This position is not tenable for a moment in view of the plain declaration in the same epistle that "Whosoever believeth that Jesus is the Christ is born of God."
Second, If the passage proves that all sanctified Christians live absolutely without sinning, it proves too much; for it also tells us that "whosoever sinneth hath not seen Him, neither known Him." Are the perfectionists prepared to own that if any of their number lose the "blessing" and fall away, it proves that they never did know God at all, but were hypocrites all the days of their former profession? If unwilling to take this attitude toward their failed brethren and to place themselves in the same category when they fall (as they all do eventually), they must logically confess that "committeth sin" and "sinneth not" are not to be taken in an absolute sense, as though the one expression were "falls into sin," and the other, "never commits a sin."
A little attention to the opening verses of chapter 2, which have already been noticed in our previous paper, would deliver from radicalism in the understanding of the passage now before us. There, the possibility of a believer failing and sinning is clearly taught, and the advocacy of Christ presented to keep him from despair. "If any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." No interpretation of the balance of the epistle contradictory to this clear statement can possibly be correct.
John's epistle is one of sharp contrasts. He deals in abstract statements.
Light and darkness we have already seen contrasted. No blending of these is hinted at. John knows no twilight. Love and hatred are similarly contrasted throughout the epistle. Lukewarmness in affection is not here suggested. All are either cold or hot.
So it is with sin and righteousness. It is what is characteristic that is presented for our consideration. The believer is characteristically righteous: he does righteousness, and sinneth not: that is, the whole bent of his life is good; he practises righteousness, and consequently he does not practise sin. With the unbeliever the opposite is the case.
He may do many good acts (if we think only of their effect upon and his attitude toward his fellow-men), but his life is characterized by sin.
He makes sin a practise. In this are manifested who are of God, and who are of Satan.
The essence of sin is—not the transgression of the law, but "lawlessness." No scholar questions now the incorrectness of the Authorized Version here. Sin is doing one's own will—that is lawlessness. This was what marked every man till grace reached him.
"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all" (Isa. 53:6). He, the sinless One, was manifested to free us from our sins—both as to guilt and power. "In Him is no sin." Of none save Him could words like these rightfully be used. "The prince of this world cometh," He said, "and hath nothing in Me."
We who have been subdued by His grace and won for Himself no longer practise sin. To every truly converted soul sin is now a foreign and hateful thing. "Whosoever practiseth sin [literal rendering] hath not seen Him, neither known Him." This verse must not be lightly passed by. It is as absolute as any other portion of the passage. No one who has ever known Him can go on practicing sin with indifference.
Backsliding there may be—and, alas, often is. But the backslider is one under the hand of God in government, and He loves him too well to permit him to continue the practise of sin. He uses the rod of discipline; and if that be not enough, cuts short his career and leaves the case for final settlement at the judgment-seat of Christ (1 Cor. 3:15; 11:30-32, and 2 Cor. 5:10).
The point of John's teaching is that one who deliberately goes on in unrighteousness is not, and never has been, a child of God. He who is by faith united to the Righteous One is himself a righteous man. The one persistently practicing sin is of the devil, "for the devil sinneth from the beginning"—the entire course of the evil one has been sinful and wicked.
The 9th verse gets down to the root of the matter, and should make all plain: "Whosoever is born of God doth not commit [or practise] sin; for His seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin [or, be sinning], because he is born of God." It is the believer looked at as characterized by the new nature who does not sin. True, he still has the old carnal, Adamic nature; and if controlled by it, he would still be sinning continuously. But the new nature, imparted when he was born again,
"not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible," is now the controlling factor of his life. With this incorruptible seed abiding in him, he cannot practise sin. He becomes like the One whose child he is.
The doctrine of the two natures is frequently stated and always implied in Scripture. If not grasped, the mind must ever be in confusion as to the reasons for the conflict which every believer knows within himself, sooner or later.
This conflict is definitely declared to go on in every Christian, in Gal. 5:16,17. After various exhortations, which are utterly meaningless if addressed to sinless men and women, we read, "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust [or desire] of the flesh. For the flesh lusteth [or desireth] against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other; so that ye cannot [or might not] do the things that ye would." The flesh here is not the body of the believer, but the carnal nature. It was so designated by the Lord Himself when He said to Nicodemus: "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. Marvel not that I said, unto thee, Ye must be born again" (John 3:6,7). The two natures are there, as in Galatians, placed in sharp contrast. The flesh is ever opposed to the Spirit. The new nature is born of the Spirit, and controlled by the Spirit; hence it is described according to its character.
Agreement between the two there can never be; nevertheless, there is no instruction as to how the flesh may be eliminated. The Christian is simply told to walk in the Spirit; and if he does, he will not be found fulfilling the desires of the flesh. This is the man who "sinneth not."
The nature of the conflict is fully described in a typical case—probably the apostle's own at one time—in Rom. 7, which has already been before us. The man therein depicted is undoubtedly a child of God, though many have questioned it. Some suppose him to be a Jew seeking justification by the law. But the subject of justification is all taken up and settled in the first five chapters of the epistle. From chapter 6 on, it is deliverance from sin's power that is the theme.
Moreover, the man of Rom. 7 "delights in the law of God after the inward man." What unconverted soul could speak like this? The "inward man" is the new nature. No Christless soul delights in what is of God. The "inward man" is opposed to "another law in my members," which can only be the power of the old nature, the flesh.
These two are here, as in John 3 and in Gal. 5, placed in sharp contrast. Paul is describing the inevitable conflict that every believer knows when he undertakes to lead a holy life on the principle of legality. He feels instinctively that the law is spiritual, but that he himself, for some unexplained reason, is fleshly, or carnal, in bondage to sin. This discovery is one of the most heart-breaking a Christian ever made. Yet each one must and does make it for himself at some time in his experience. He finds himself doing things he knows to be wrong, and which his inmost desires are opposed to; while what he yearns to do he fails to accomplish, and does, instead, what he hates.
But this is the first part of a great lesson which all must learn who would matriculate in God's school. It is the lesson of "no confidence in the flesh"; and until it is learned there can be no true progress in holiness. The incorrigibility of the flesh must be realized before one is ready to turn altogether from self to Christ for sanctification, as he has already done for justification. Two conclusions are therefore drawn (in vers. 16, 17) as a result of carefully weighing the first part of this great lesson.
First, I consent that the law is good; and, in the second place, I begin to realize that I myself am on the side of that law, but there is a power within me, with which I have no desire to be identified, which keeps me from doing what I acknowledge to be good. Thus I have learned to distinguish "sin that dwelleth in me" from myself. It is a hateful intruder, albeit once my master in all things.
So I have got this far (in verse 18), that I know there are two natures in me; but still, "how to perform that which is good I find not." Mere knowledge does not help. I still do the evil I hate, and I have no ability to do the good I desire. Nevertheless I am a long way toward my deliverance when I am able to distinguish the two laws, or controlling powers, of the two natures within my being.
After the inward man, I delight in the holy law of God. "But I see another law (or controlling power) in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members" (ver. 23).
So wretched am I made by repeated failure, that I feel like a poor prisoner chained to a dead body—which nevertheless has over me a terrible control. "O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" This is the cry that brings the help I need.
I have been trying to deliver myself. I now realize the impossibility of this, and I cry for a Deliverer outside myself. In a moment He is revealed to my soul, and I see that He alone, who saved me at the beginning, can keep me from sins power. "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord." He must be my sanctification as well as my redemption and my righteousness.
In myself, with the mind, or the new nature, I serve the law of God: but with the flesh, the old nature, the law of sin. But when I look away from self to Christ, I see that there is "no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death" (chap. 8:1,2).
I will not therefore struggle to be holy. I will look up to the blessed Christ of God and walk in the Spirit, assured of victory while occupied thus with Him who is my all. "For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit" (vers. 3,4).
What a relief it is, after the vain effort to eradicate sin from the flesh, when I learn that God has condemned it in the flesh, and will in His own good time free me from its presence, when at the Lord's return He shall change these vile bodies and make them like His own glorious body. Then redemption will be complete. The redemption of my soul is past, and in it I rejoice. The redemption of my body is yet to come, when the Lord Jesus returns, and this mortal shall put on immortality.
For the present, walking in the Spirit, the believer sins not. His life is a righteous one. But he needs ever to watch and pray lest in a moment of spiritual drowsiness the old nature be allowed to act, and thus his testimony be marred and his Lord dishonored.
I conclude with an illustration often used, which may help to clear up any difficulty remaining as to the truth set forth in 1 John 3. A man has an orchard of seedling oranges. He wishes to grow Washington navels instead. He therefore decides to graft his trees. He cuts off all branches close to the parent stem and inserts in each one a piece taken from a Washington naval tree. The old fruit disappears entirely, and new fruit is now on the trees in keeping with the new nature of the Washington navel inserted in them. This is a picture of conversion.
A few years roll by and we are taken by this gentleman for a walk through his orchard. On every hand the trees are loaded with beautiful golden fruit.
"What kind of oranges are these?" we ask.
"These are all Washington navels," is the answer.
"Do they not bear seedlings now?" we inquire.
"No," is the reply; "a grafted tree cannot bear seedlings."
But even as he speaks we catch sight of a small orange hanging on a shoot low down on the tree.
"What is that? is it not a seedling?" we ask.
"Ah," he answers, "I see my man has been careless; he has allowed a shoot to grow from the old stem, and it is of the old nature of the tree. I must clip off that shoot;" and so saying, he uses the knife.
Would any one say he spoke untruthfully when he declared that a grafted tree bears Washington navels only? Surely not. All would understand that he was speaking of that which was characteristic.
And so it is with the believer. Having been born again, the old life, for him, is ended. The fruits of the flesh he is now ashamed of. The old ways he no longer walks in. His whole course of life is changed. The fruit of the Spirit is now manifested, and he cannot be sinning, for he is born of God.
But the pruning-knife of self-judgment is ever needed. Otherwise the old nature will begin to manifest itself; for it is no more eradicated than is the old nature of the seedling- tree after having been grafted. Hence the need of being ever in subjection to the word of God and of unsparing self-judgment. "Watch and pray lest ye enter into temptation." To deny the presence of the old nature is but to invite defeat. It would be like the orchardist who refuses to believe it possible that seedlings could he produced if shoots from the old trunk were allowed to grow on unchecked. The part of wisdom is to recognize the danger of neglecting the use of the pruning-knife. And so, for the believer, it is only folly to ignore that sin dwells in me. To do so is but to be deceived, and to expose myself to all manner of evil things because of my failure to recognize my need of daily dependence upon God. Only as I walk in the Spirit, looking unto Jesus in a self-judged and humble condition of soul, will my life be one of holiness.
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