THE CHARACTER OF THE SAVED ONES

All that are on the road to heaven are not only a justified people, but a sanctified people. This was God’s end in choosing us. “Whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son.” If any man be chosen to salvation, it is through sanctification of the Spirit. He has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world, but we should be holy. This was Christ’s great end in dying for us, that He might make us a holy nation. “Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it by the washing of water through the Word.” He laid down the unspeakable price for this. He became a man, He became a curse, for this. He groaned, sweated blood, was bruised, bowed His head, gave up the ghost, for this— that He might have liberty to make us free, humble self-denied, loving, pure as He Himself is pure. This is the Holy Spirit’s end in dealing with us. It would not be righteous in Him to dwell in an unjustified soul. It is no rest for the dove of heaven. He, therefore, awakens the soul —discovers to the man his guilt, depravity, loathsomeness. He glorifies Christ in the man’s soul—destroys the face of the covering that is over the carnal heart. He softens the rocky heart, and inclines and engages the will to cleave to the Lord Jesus Christ alone for righteousness. Then He sees no iniquity in that man. He says of that soul, “This is my rest; here will I dwell, for I have desired it.” He writes all the law in that heart.—Jer. xxxi. 33. He does not omit one of the commandments. The man cries out, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man,” Rom. vii. 22. And not only does He give him the will, but the ability to serve God: “It is God that worketh in you both to will and to do of His good pleasure.”—Phil. ii. 13. “I have now made a new question,” says Rutherford, “Whether Christ be more to be loved for giving sanctification or for free justification? And I hold He is more and most to be loved for sanctification. It is in some respect greater love in Him to sanctify than to justify; for He maketh us most like Himself, in His own essential portraiture and image, in sanctifying us; justification doth but make us happy, which is to be like the angels only. God be thanked for ever that Christ was a told down price for sanctification.” O my soul, art thou one of those that do His commandments? Have I come into the bonds of the new covenant, and got the law put in my inward parts, and written on my heart? Does Christ stretch forth His hand to me, saying, “Behold my mother and my brethren. For whosoever shall do the will of my Father, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother?”—Matt. xii. 50. On this my eternity hangs. If I receive an unholy gospel, I shall perish. They are ungodly men who “turn the grace of God into lasciviousness.” The branch that bear no fruit He taketh away. They that are saved are they that do his commandments.

“Had I a throne above the rest,
Where angels and archangels dwell,
One sin unslain within my breast
Would make that heaven as dark as hell.”

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