ENTIRE SANCTIFICATION AND THE BAPTISM WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT ARE SIMULTANEOUS

A -- OUTLINE

Scripture Reading:--Acts 10:19-33, 44-48; 15:6-11.

Introduction

Entire sanctification and the baptism with the Holy Spirit are simultaneous -- identical in time but not necessarily in meaning.

The efficient cause of entire sanctification is the baptism of Jesus with the Holy Spirit.

Does the saved man have the Holy Spirit? This question should be answered in the affirmative. Nevertheless, the converted man does not have the Holy Spirit in the same sense in which the entirely sanctified man has Him.

There are many types or degrees of the Holy Spirit's presence. He sustains the physical being of all men, the sinner as well as the righteous. He speaks through conscience, and conscience is universal. He is active in special conviction, conversion, and entire sanctification. It is only in the latter, entire sanctification, however, that His presence is complete or full. In this case His sovereignty becomes absolute through the free choice of the individual.

I. The Arguments from the Authority of the Bible

1. The temporal identity of entire sanctification and the baptism with the Holy Spirit has been suggested by much that has been given in the preceding chapters.
2. Those who separate entire sanctification and the baptism with the Holy Spirit usually become advocates of a third blessing, as well as of other forms of fanaticism.
3. Entire sanctification and the baptism with the Holy Spirit are different phases of a single act. This is what we have in mind when we assert that they occur at the same time but are not identical in meaning. From the standpoint of the latter, entire sanctification is the negative or cleansing aspect, while the baptism with the Holy Spirit is the filling or empowering aspect.
4. Cornelius, a saved man (Acts 10:2, 22), received the baptism with the Holy Spirit (Acts 10:44). When the Holy Spirit fell upon Cornelius, his heart was purified or sanctified (Acts 15:8, 9).
5. The sanctifying agency of the Holy Spirit in His climactic baptismal function is certainly suggested in Romans 15:15, 16, if these verses are taken in their full ceremonial significance. Paul likens himself to a priest that presents his converts as an offering to the Lord who, upon their consecration and faith, sanctifies them.
6. Another passage which has suggestive value in this connection is II Thessalonians 2:13. Here the Spirit is set forth as the active or efficient agent of entire sanctification.
7. In Matthew 3:11, 12 the temporal identity of cleansing and the baptism with the Holy Spirit is clearly and definitely declared. The Holy Spirit baptism thoroughly purges the floor and burns up the chaff with unquenchable fire.

II. The Arguments from Reason

1. These arguments, to a large extent, rest indirectly on scripture. This is due to the fact that the doctrine of the person and work of the Holy Spirit is almost wholly biblical in character.
2. Pentecost as described in Acts 2 is the answer to the great high priestly prayer of Jesus for the sanctification of His disciples (John 1:7). If such were not the case, we would have no reason to believe that Christ's prayer was ever answered.
3. The central fact of Pentecost, the baptism with the Holy Spirit, can be repeated in the heart of the individual believer. When the Holy Spirit comes in in His fullness, He destroys the sinful nature, for He cannot abide in an unclean heart.
4. In the New Testament the Holy Spirit is primarily the Spirit of holiness. His work is not to equip for miraculous feats, as it was chiefly in the Old Testament, but to purify and indwell. Thus His activity now is principally moral or ethical and His objective is the creation of a holy nature and the development of a sanctified character.
5. The Holy Spirit, the third person in the Trinity, proceedeth from the Father and the Son. This is His day or dispensation and through Him the Triune God is made at home in the human personality by His cleansing efficacy.

III. The Arguments from Experience

1. My mother obtained the baptism with the Holy Spirit before she heard about entire sanctification. When she heard the latter preached she sought it only to have God inform her that she had received this blessing when she had been baptized with the Holy Spirit. Many others in the past have had the same experience. They have had an inner intuition that the baptism with the Holy Spirit and entire sanctification are identical in time.

Conclusion -- Specific -- Lesson Five

1. Christ was called "Immanuel, God with us." This is the fundamental meaning of the coming of Christ to the world. It is to be realized only as man's heart becomes God's habitation. The sanctifying baptism with the Holy Spirit brings this to pass.
2. To bridge the gulf between God's holiness and man's sin, the ethical or moral separation of God and man, is the outstanding objective of the plan of redemption. This has to do with God's ethical or moral transcendence and not with His natural transcendence -- His superiority over man as to intelligence, power, and other natural characteristics. This ethical distance between God and man is eliminated when the converted man's heart is freed from sin by the sanctifying baptism with the Holy Spirit. Thus God is made morally immanent or the moral immanence of God is once more established in the human personality.
3. We can never hope to have God naturally immanent. In other words, we can never participate in the all-wisdom and all-power of God directly as we can in His holiness. On the other hand, if God is ethically immanent or if His holiness has been imparted to us, through prayer and faith we are placed within reach of His infinite resources in wisdom and power. Thus we can come into possession of a God who is at least indirectly immanent from the natural standpoint. Thank God for a holy heart and the glorious divine resources which it guarantees!

Conclusion -- General -- The Five Lessons

1. Man cannot be entirely sanctified when he is saved, because he cannot meet the conditions of consecration and faith for this experience at the same time that he is repenting and believing for the remission of his actual transgressions. Entire sanctification is a second blessing, an experience which is subsequent to regeneration.

In the second place, he who denies that entire sanctification is instantaneous excludes the possibility of the supernatural or the immediate activity of God. He who advocates that we grow into this experience of entire sanctification substitutes the natural for the supernatural.

Thirdly, if sin in the heart can only be held down or suppressed and not eradicated, then the blood has not provided full deliverance and God is not all-powerful. This means that suppressionism, if carried to its logical conclusion, really implies a finite God and a limited atonement.

Fourth, entire sanctification as attainable in this life, complete and personal victory over sin here and now, is the best assurance of final victory over sin. It provides the surest basis for optimism as over against pessimism in this present sinful world.

Fifth and finally, the Triune God is brought into the human heart, is made ethically immanent, by the baptism with the Holy Spirit unto sanctification. Thus God is with us in the highest and best sense by being in us. The gulf made by sin has been destroyed. This moral immanence of God places us within reach of the natural resources or powers of God. God is made naturally immanent for the human heart in this indirect way. The indwelt and holy individual has an access to the power and wisdom of God which is beyond the reach of the ordinary Christian.

2. The authority of character or of a holy heart and a holy life is the only thing which really gives standing to the professed Christian today. Profession by itself has little value in the present. The same may also be said of position.

LESSON FIVE STUDY

Scripture Reading:

Acts 10:19-33 While Peter thought on the vision, the Spirit said unto him, Behold, three men seek thee. 20 Arise therefore, and get thee down, and go with them, doubting nothing: for I have sent them. 21 Then Peter went down to the men which were sent unto him from Cornelius; and said, Behold, I am he whom ye seek: what is the cause wherefore ye are come? 22 And they said, Cornelius the centurion, a just man, and one that feareth God, and of good report among all the nation of the Jews, was warned from God by an holy angel to send for thee into his house, and to hear words of thee. 23 Then called he them in, and lodged them. And on the morrow Peter went away with them, and certain brethren from Joppa accompanied him. 24 And the morrow after they entered into Caesarea. And Cornelius waited for them, and had called together his kinsmen and near friends. 25 And as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him, and fell down at his feet, and worshipped him. 26 But Peter took him up, saying, Stand up; I myself also am a man. 27 And as he talked with him, he went in, and found many that were come together. 28 And he said unto them, Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath showed me that I should not call any man common or unclean. 29 Therefore came I unto you without gainsaying, as soon as I was sent for: I ask therefore for what intent ye have sent for me? 30 And Cornelius said, Four days ago I was fasting until this hour; and at the ninth hour I prayed in my house, and, behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing, 31 And said, Cornelius, thy prayer is heard, and thine alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God. 32 Send therefore to Joppa, and call hither Simon, whose surname is Peter; he is lodged in the house of one Simon a tanner by the sea side: who, when he cometh, shall speak unto thee. 33 Immediately therefore I sent to thee; and thou hast well done that thou art come. Now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God.

Acts 10:44-48 While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word. 45 And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the Gentiles also was poured out the gift of the Holy Ghost. 46 For they heard them speak with tongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter, 47 Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the Holy Ghost as well as we? 48 And he commanded them to be baptized in the name of the Lord. Then prayed they him to tarry certain days.

Acts 15:6-11 And the apostles and elders came together for to consider of this matter. 7 And when there had been much disputing, Peter rose up, and said unto them, Men and brethren, ye know how that a good while ago God made choice among us, that the Gentiles by my mouth should hear the word of the gospel, and believe. 8 And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; 9 And put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. 10 Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? 11 But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved, even as they.

The fifth and last cardinal element in the doctrine of entire sanctification is the belief that it and the baptism with the Holy Spirit are simultaneous. This means that they are temporally identical but not necessarily identical in meaning. Another way of stating this truth is that entire sanctification, which we have already shown is subsequent to regeneration, instantaneous, frees from sin, and is attainable in this life, is wrought in the human heart by the baptism with the Holy Spirit. The efficient cause of entire sanctification is the Holy Spirit; and it is this Holy Spirit in His most significant activity, His baptismal or Pentecostal function.

Before entering into the main discussion, let us consider a question which is often raised in connection with the baptism with the Holy Spirit. We are asked if we get the Holy Spirit when we are saved and if so how can we get Him any more when we are baptized with Him? The answer is that we obtain the Holy Spirit in a measure when we are converted. He is the efficient cause of regeneration as well as of entire sanctification, but in the latter case He comes in in His fullness, He baptizes the Christian with himself. In John 14:17, Jesus tells us that the world cannot receive the Holy Spirit as its Comforter or baptizer because it seeth Him not, neither knoweth Him.

In the same verse Jesus tells His disciples that they know the Holy Spirit for He dwelleth with them and shall be in them. "With" and "in" are important words in this verse but they are not to be interpreted spatially. They are spatial terms which signify a spiritual and not a physical relationship.

The Holy Spirit is present with the saved but He does not have complete sovereignty. In the case of those who are sanctified by the baptism with the Holy Spirit, the Third Person m the Trinity has full control. Inbred sin has been destroyed root and branch and the Holy Spirit is the absolute sovereign. Therefore, we can describe the individual as being filled with the Spirit.

Perhaps it will aid us in understanding the presence of the Holy Spirit with human beings if we go into this matter in more detail. The Holy Spirit is with men in many different ways or degrees. In Daniel 5:23 the following charge is made against a wicked king: "And the God in whose hand thy breath is, and whose are all thy ways, hast thou not glorified." Paul tells the superstitious Athenians in his sermon on Mars' Hill (Acts 17) that they along with him live and move and have their being in God. The worst of sinners is sustained moment by moment by the power of God through the activity of the Holy Spirit. Thus, and thus alone, is there breath in his physical body. Who shall say that such a person does not have the Holy Spirit in a certain sense?

The next stage in the presence of the Holy Spirit is in conscience, the light that hath appeared unto all men. Then there is the presence of the Holy Spirit in conviction as described in John 16 in the following words: "And when he is come, he will reprove the world of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment." This, if responded to, leads to repentance, faith, and conversion. Next, there is consecration and faith and finally the baptism with the Holy Spirit unto sanctification.

Thus there are several stages of or degrees in the presence of the Holy Spirit with human beings. The final effectiveness in each case depends ultimately upon the response of the individual. In entire sanctification the response is complete and the presence is complete or full, and the individual is described as being filled with the Spirit.

Now we are ready to proceed to a consideration of the real topic before us -- the claim that the baptism with the Holy Spirit and entire sanctification are simultaneous. Much that has already been presented in the four discussions which have preceded has pointed to a certain identity between entire sanctification and the baptism with the Holy Spirit. In proving the propositions which we have set forth we have drawn freely on scriptures that deal with the baptism with the Holy Spirit as well as with those having to do specifically with entire sanctification.

In addition, the claims of reason have reached out into both realms of doctrine. Nevertheless, it is necessary to give special attention to this subject, since there are those who misinterpret the Bible and lead some astray by separating entire sanctification and the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Those who do this often drift into a belief in a third blessing and from that into other forms of fanaticism. In fact, the notion of a third blessing is the erroneous belief which is set over against the view which is now before us that entire sanctification and the baptism with the Holy Spirit are simultaneous.

In the first paragraph of this fifth chapter we emphasized the fact that entire sanctification and the baptism with the Holy Spirit are simultaneous or identical in time but not in meaning. That is, they are temporally but not logically the same. Thus we explain that entire sanctification is the cleansing of the sinful nature, the carnal mind, while the baptism with the Holy Spirit is the infilling, the empowering. One brings to us the thought of the thorough and complete cleaning of the house of the human person, while the other carries with it the idea of full possession. The former is the negative, while the latter is the positive aspect.

From this standpoint, entire sanctification and the baptism with the Holy Spirit, although logically distinct or separate in meaning, are only different phases of a single act. However, there is a sense in which they are even more closely related. We may correctly say that it is the infilling and empowering baptism which eradicates all sin from the heart. The Holy Spirit does the cleansing as He fills the heart with himself. This is enough by way of introduction. We must now proceed to a consideration of the arguments from the Bible or authority for the fact that entire sanctification and the baptism with the Holy Spirit are simultaneous.

One of the key passages in this connection is Acts 15:8 and 9. It reads as follows: "And God, which knoweth the hearts, bare them witness, giving them the Holy Ghost, even as he did unto us; and put no difference between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith." Peter is the author of these words and the occasion was the important Jerusalem Conference. The Christian Church, before it was hardly out of its swaddling clothes, was facing a major crisis. The question before it was as to whether the Gentile should be required to be circumcised.

In other words, would the Gentile have to become a Jew ceremonially before he would be received as a follower of Christ? Peter replied in the negative. Jew that he was, he was not in favor of imposing Judaism on those Gentiles who would become Christians. The reason Peter took the position that he did is given in the passage before us. God, under Peter's ministry, had given the Holy Ghost unto the Gentiles even as He had unto Jews.

The specific case that he has reference to here was that of Cornelius. The story is recorded in the tenth chapter of Acts. Under the preaching of Peter, Cornelius and his household, Gentiles, received the baptism with the Holy Spirit and their hearts were purified. They received this blessing in spite of the fact that they had not been circumcised. Thus God answered this question in the negative and Peter was ready to abide by the decision.

There is another question, however, which we must ask in dealing with the passage before us -- Does Peter here refer to the conversion or entire sanctification of Cornelius and his household? Nearly all of the Bible students in the Holiness Movement would hold that these Gentiles received heart purity, for the Scriptures clearly imply that they already knew God.

This is proven, they declare, by the description which is given of Cornelius in Acts 10:2 which reads thus: "A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much alms to the people, and prayed to God alway." Again, Cornelius is described as "a just man, and one that feareth God, and of good report among all the nation of the Jews" (Acts 10:22).

Add to this the words of Acts 10:44 to 46 where we are told that the Holy Ghost fell on Cornelius and his household and not merely that they were converted, and the picture is complete. It is the baptism with the Holy Spirit which comes to saved people, and it purifies their hearts or, in other words, frees them from sin. The writer cannot understand how any holiness preacher can reject this conclusion which has usually been accepted by those within the ranks of the Holiness Movement.

Further, there are many competent scholars outside of the ranks of the Holiness Movement who hold to this interpretation. If, then, this is the proper interpretation of what happened to Cornelius and his household, we have a clear-cut identification in point of time of the baptism with the Holy Spirit and heart purity or entire sanctification.

There is a significant passage in Romans 15:15 and 16 which has a ceremonial form but must go beyond mere ceremonialism. It closes with these words: "being sanctified by the Holy Ghost." The Holy Ghost is the sanctifying agent and it must refer to His baptismal function. H. C.

G. Moule, in his commentary on Romans, has this to say as to these verses (he first paraphrases and then interprets them):

"But with a certain boldness I have written to you, here and there, just as reminding you; because of the grace, the free gift of his commission and of the equipment for it, given me by our God, given in order to my being Christ Jesus' minister sent to the Nations (Gentiles), doing priest-work with the Gospel of God, that the oblation of the Nations, the oblation which is in fact the nations self-laid upon the spiritual altar, may be acceptable, consecrated in the Holy Spirit. It is a startling and splendid passage of metaphor. Here once, in all the range of his writings (unless we accept the few and affecting words of Phil. 2:17), the Apostle presents himself to his converts as a sacrificial ministrant, a "priest" in the sense which usage (not etymology) has so long stamped on that English word as its more special sense The "priest-working" here has regard, we find, not to ritual, but to the "Gospel." "The oblation" is -- the Nations (Gentiles). The hallowing Element, shed as it were upon the victims, is the Holy Ghost. Not in a material temple, and serving at no tangible altar, the Apostle brings his multitudinous converts as his holocaust to the Lord. The Spirit, at his preaching and on their believing, descends upon them; and they lay themselves "a living sacrifice" where the fire of love shall consume them, to His glory.

From our standpoint this interpretation would certainly not be out of line with the thought that the Holy Ghost Baptism is the sanctifying cause.

In II Thessalonians 2:13, Paul speaks of the sanctification of the Spirit which is, at least, suggestive of the fact that the Holy Spirit is the active or efficient agent in sanctification. If this be the case, it is not illogical to think of this sanctifying grace as wrought in the heart by the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Thus the baptism with the Holy Spirit and entire sanctification would be identical in time although each, from the standpoint of meaning, would constitute a different phase or aspect of the single act.

Another important scripture reference which emphasizes the truth before us is Matthew 3:11, 12. Here the baptism of Jesus with the Holy Spirit is connected with the cleansing or sanctifying work. There is no question as to the fact that the cause here is the baptism with the Holy Spirit and there can be no doubt as to the purifying result. The work of the Holy Spirit baptism is described thus: "Whose fan is in his hand, and he will throughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire."

Two facts in this statement suggest cleansing in a very emphatic manner -- the thorough purging of his floor and the burning up of the chaff with unquenchable fire. In this way the human heart, the scene of this activity, will be made clean by the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and the eleventh verse clearly indicates that this baptism with the Holy Spirit is a second work of grace because it follows John's baptism unto repentance.

Once again we have a definite reason for believing that entire sanctification and the baptism with the Holy Spirit are simultaneous.

The doctrine of the person and work of the Holy Spirit is so definitely a Christian belief that it is well nigh impossible to discuss any phase of it without some reference to the Bible. This will be evident in our consideration of the arguments from reason. They will indirectly, at least, rest on Scripture.

One of the most significant chapters in the whole Bible is Christ's high priestly prayer which is recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John's Gospel. Here Jesus prayed especially for the sanctification of His disciples. When was this all-important prayer of Jesus answered? There is every reason to believe that it was answered at Pentecost, the account of which is given in the second chapter of acts. The one hundred and twenty were baptized with the Holy Spirit on that day and by means of that, the prayer of Jesus for the sanctification of His disciples was answered. If this were not the case, then there is no evidence for the fact that the prayer of Jesus for His disciples was ever answered.

But we believe -- and many commentators would agree with us -- that the baptism with the Spirit on Pentecost brought to realization the burden of Jesus for His disciples as expressed in John 17. There was a sense in which Pentecost was the time and place of the formal inauguration of the Christian Church, but it was also the time and place when an individual blessing of great significance was bestowed on the followers of Jesus. The central happening of Pentecost, the baptism with the Holy Spirit, from the standpoint of the individual, can be repeated; and it brings with its coming the cleansing of the heart from its sinful nature.

In the Old Testament the Spirit came upon people in times of stress or crisis and enabled them to perform unusual deeds. This was the customary work of the Holy Spirit under the old covenant. In the New Testament, the situation has changed. The activity of the Holy Spirit is not chiefly that of the miraculous and marvelous or spectacular. As a rule, the Spirit is not merely the Spirit of power as was the case in the Old Testament. The Holy Spirit of the New Testament is primarily the Spirit of holiness. His chief function is to sanctify or make holy. In this case, His achievement may and should be permanent; He may and should dwell in the heart as its sanctifier, while in the instances where the main stress is upon the remarkable external feat rather than holy character, the Spirit's presence and help is temporary or intermittent.

This truth, then, that the task of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament is primarily ethical or moral certainly harmonizes with the contention of this chapter that the baptism with the Holy Spirit sanctifies or cleanses the heart from all sin.

This view which temporally identifies the baptism with the Holy Spirit and entire sanctification fits into the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity. The Holy Spirit is a person and not an influence and His chief undertaking in the world as a person is to reveal Christ in His fullness in the human heart. God the Father and Jesus Christ the Son have had their day or dispensation and the present age is the dispensation of the Holy Spirit. Through Him and Him alone the Triune God is brought to man. The culminating act of the Holy Spirit's dispensation is His Pentecostal baptism. Paralleling that is the climactic achievement in the human heart, complete deliverance from the inborn nature of sin. The latter is brought to pass by the former, it does not have to await a third crisis or a later growth.

Many of the entirely sanctified have spontaneously identified this experience and the baptism with the Holy Spirit. My mother's testimony is typical of this group. I give it to you as I have heard her relate it.

She was reared in North Georgia. Her father-in-law (my grandfather White) was one of the first laymen in that section of Georgia to receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit. He was an active evangel in the propagation of this truth, both by testimony and by the distribution of literature on the subject. He contacted my mother by both of these methods and she received the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Some time after that, Miller Willis, a Methodist evangelist, came through those parts preaching entire sanctification as a second work of grace. My mother attended his meetings, and after preaching one night Willis asked all who wanted this blessing of entire sanctification to kneel just where they were. My mother immediately knelt indicating that she was a candidate for the blessing. This meeting was the first time that she had heard this experience preached as entire sanctification. According to her further testimony, she had no more than knelt when the Holy Spirit revealed to her that she had received this blessing of entire sanctification when she had, some months before, been baptized with the Holy Spirit. This revelation was so clear and definite that she immediately arose from her knees. There was no need for her to continue to seek that which she had already received. She also told that when she reached home that night she found my father and a neighbor discussing entire sanctification and wondering what it was that this man Willis was preaching. Immediately she informed them that she knew because it had been her happy privilege to obtain that blessing some months before.

This has often been the experience of those who have obtained this blessing as preached under one of these names and then later have heard it proclaimed under the other title. This, of course, does not happen in many instances today because those who preach the second blessing now use both of the above phrases in describing it. They also point out the relationship which exists between these two aspects of this experience.

In concluding this discussion, there is a very significant underlying thought that we shall present. It has to do especially with this sanctifying and indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit in the heart. One of the names which was given to Jesus Christ was Immanuel or God with us. This was the fundamental meaning of the coming of the Son of God. He was to make provision for God to be with man and the only way for Him to do this was to make it possible for man's heart to become God's habitation.

How could this be? Only by the baptism with the Holy Spirit, which sanctifies the inner man and makes it possible for the Triune God through the Holy Spirit to take up His abode there. The Holy Spirit proceedeth from the Father and the Son, and thus when He comes in in His fullness He brings them along with himself into the heart of man.

There is another way of approaching this thought. Theology teaches the transcendence of God. Christian theology also teaches the immanence of God. Thus God is both above the world and in the world. As a rule, when theology speaks of the transcendence of God it refers to natural transcendence, the transcendence of God from the standpoint of His natural attributes. God, for instance, is above man in that He has all-power and all-knowledge. Truly the difference between the finite and the infinite in regard to these characteristics is very great.

However, the Bible is not so concerned about this gulf between God and man. It has to do more with what may be called the ethical transcendence of God as over against the ethical immanence of God. Here is where the plan of redemption or the work of Christ comes in, and it, of course, is the great theme of the Bible. God is more concerned about the gulf between himself as holy and man as sinful than He is as to the wide gap which separates Him from man intellectually or from the standpoint of power. The unlikeness with reference to the latter is not nearly so disturbing as that with reference to the former. God has done nothing particularly about the second situation but He has done everything possible as to the first.

In other words, God is interested above everything else in making an ethically or morally transcendent God immanent. This is what the work of salvation will do if it is allowed to culminate in the baptism with the Holy Spirit unto sanctification. Thus the heart is made holy and prepared for the permanent abiding of the holy God. He becomes God with us, Immanuel, by dwelling in us or becoming immanent in the human heart.

In other terms, the ethical immanence of God is made real by the destruction of that which separates -- sin without and sin within, the acts of sin and the sinful nature. God is no longer a consuming fire but rather an abiding presence. This climactic experience is wrought in the heart by the sanctifying baptism with the Holy Spirit, the great objective of the plan of salvation.

A corollary of the truth which we have just stated is what we may call the indirect natural immanence of God. If we are ethically one with God, that is, if God is morally immanent, we are placed within reach of the infinite resources of God from the standpoint of His natural transcendence. We do not become like Him in intelligence and power but we have the glorious and unhindered privilege of appropriating His knowledge and potency through faith, as we have need of them. Holiness of heart and life, as wrought in the inner personality of the human being by the baptism with the Holy Spirit, opens the floodgates of heaven. Sin no longer exists to bar the way to God's infinite natural resources. Ethical immanence provides the way for a wonderful natural immanence. Thank God for the baptism with the Holy Spirit which cleanses from all sin and brings an infinite God near unto us in power and wisdom!

This is our fifth and last study on the doctrine of entire sanctification, and it may not be out of place to summarize the weaknesses in connection with the four views which we have refuted. Those who deny that entire sanctification is subsequent to regeneration fail to grasp the fact that sin is twofold -- an act and an inborn state -- and that man is so limited that he cannot meet the conditions of consecration and faith for entire sanctification at the same time that he is repenting and believing for the remission of his actual transgressions. In this case, man limits the bestowal of God's grace because of his finiteness, and God knowing this arranged His plan of salvation in accordance with the same.

In the second place, those who would exclude the instantaneousness of the blessing of entire sanctification tend to deny the possibility of the supernatural or the immediate activity of God. They would make His work in sanctifying a natural process instead of a supernatural act. Like regeneration, it must always be thought of as a supernatural act -- something which is done directly by God himself. We believe that both the new birth and the gift of the Holy Spirit as sanctifier are spiritual miracles which are performed by God in a moment when the proper conditions are met.

In the third place, if sin in the heart can only be suppressed and not eradicated, then the blood has not provided full deliverance and God is not all-powerful. This means that suppressionism, if carried to its logical conclusion, really implies a finite God and a limited atonement. Such a God is not the God of the Bible. If the Bible teaches anything, it is that God can meet the deepest need of the human heart. This does not indicate that God meets this need unconditionally, but rather that when the conditions can be and are forthcoming on the part of man, God is able to do what is necessary. God and the Atonement are fully adequate for the cleansing of the heart or the crucifixion of the old man.

In the fourth discussion, we have shown that holiness of heart is the climactic proof for the fact of the final victory of righteousness over sin. It adds an experimental proof to the sinlessness of Jesus Christ and the promise of a coming millennium; and since it is personal, it in a sense outranks the other two. Thank God, there is something in the complete victory over sin within, which God has given me in His sanctifying grace, that guarantees universal triumph in the future. It is a mighty force in making me optimistic rather than pessimistic in this present sinful world.

Finally, in the present discussion, we have pointed out the fact that one name for Jesus was Immanuel or God with us. The truth which this name indicates is realized by the climactic act of the Holy Spirit in the human heart, the baptism with the Holy Spirit unto sanctification. Thus the holy or ethically transcendent God is made morally immanent, the heart which has been made holy is now indwelt by the Triune God. The naturally transcendent God can never become naturally immanent. We can never be all-wise and all-powerful as God is. Nevertheless, if God is ethically immanent, if the heart has been made holy so that He can come in and dwell, we can, then, through prayer and faith participate in God's omniscience and omnipotence. Thus, from a practical standpoint, the morally immanent becomes naturally immanent. Holy character places us within reach of the divine resources of power and wisdom.

And may I add another word, which is that the authority of character is the only potency that the Christian can rely upon today. Christianity used to give a certain prestige to those who professed it. Now, however, the profession of Christianity has become so common that it no longer holds this exalted position. If we get the respect of people because of our profession, it will have to be wholly because we have and live what we profess. Holy character and the life which arises in connection with it alone will give you and me worthwhile standing as Christians in the community or city in which we live.

This is especially true of preachers and Christian workers. They used to have a certain standing because of their position, but it is not so any longer. A special garb or a special call no longer has any value in this sophisticated and wicked age, unless they are backed up by a holy heart and holy living. If we want standing today, let us get the best that God has for us and then go out to live it day by day.