The War Between the Flesh and the Spirit # 3

The War Between the Flesh and the Spirit # 3

I take some scriptures to prove it. Isaiah was the saintliest man of his time. If any man could claim to be a sinless man Isaiah could have made that claim, but on one occasion God permitted him to get close to Him. Listen to the record: "In the year that King Uzziah died I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. Then said I, "Woe is me! for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."

Take Job. In the common acceptation of the word, the ordinary worldly acceptation of the word, God has said that Job was a perfect man, and he was a better man than any that I have ever known who claimed sinless perfection. And yet Job was not sinlessly perfect. He contested with pride anything that his friends could say to him, but when the Almighty spoke to him out of the whirlwind, and he stood face to face with infinite holiness, he said, "I abhor myself and repent in sackcloth and ashes."

And that is one of the marks that you are becoming sanctified. It is that feeling of deep humility, that sense of your unworthiness, that absence of all proud assurance, arrogance, boastfulness; that lowliness of mind and heart that would enable Paul, the nearer and nearer he got to holiness, to say, "I am the chief of sinners." He would see his own littleness and unworthiness the nearer he got to God.

To recapitulate: First, I answered the question when it started. Then I showed what it was an unfolding and developing of the principle of life imparted in regeneration, then how it is unfolded, and what principles operated in the unfolding. Now, in conclusion, I squarely meet the question as to its consummation.

When is it consummated? For that every one of God's children will one day be wholly sanctified, I haven't a shadow of doubt, but the question is, when? I will ask Paul to answer. He says: "Brethren, I have not yet attained it, neither count I myself yet perfect. Not yet. But there is one thing I do. I forget the things which are behind, and I press forward to the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. I am going after that." What is that high calling? What is the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus? It is that your spirit is to be made absolutely perfect, and that your body is to be made absolutely perfect, and that the united and glorified spirit and body, so made perfect, shall be without spot, or blemish or wrinkle, or any such thing, in the presence of God.

Now then, when? In the twelfth chapter of the letter to the Hebrews we find an answer to a part of it. Paul says to these Hebrews, "You are coming (you are not there yet, but you are coming) to God, the Judge, to an innumerable company of angels, to Jesus, the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the spirits of the just made perfect." Where? Yonder. You are not there. Yonder the spirit of the saint is made perfect.

I mean to say that when the soul of the Christian is separated from his body, that spirit is then perfected and so enters heaven. This side of death you cannot find it. The other side of death you see it and you are invited to approach unto it. But this is only a part of sanctification. The marriage is not come yet, and the marriage will not come until the whole man is without spot, or blemish, or wrinkle or any such thing.

Well, when is the rest of it consummated? Paul says, "Behold, I shew you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump." Here is the change that takes place in the bodies of those that shall be alive when Christ comes. Those who live at that time, the Christians who are alive when He comes, instantly experience a change, a marvelous change of body. Corruption puts on incorruption, and mortality puts on immortality. Death is swallowed up in victory, and the body is glorified and made like unto the glorified body of our Lord.

At the same time, the bodies of those spirits made perfect the spirits perfect in heaven and their bodies imperfect in the dust - then the omnipotent power of God passes upon the realms of death, and wakes the sleeping saints. They rise; they go forth; they put on immortality and glory; and there is the sanctified body. Now Christ brings with Him, says the scripture, the sanctified spirit when He comes, and puts the sanctified spirit into the glorified body, and then, and never until then, is the sanctification completed. Then ring the bells of heaven. The marriage is come and the bride is made ready. There is now no blemish in her. There is no spot in her. She is unblamable in holiness, then, at the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, and then presented. Christ loved the church and gave himself for it, that He might present it to Himself as without blemish, or spot, or wrinkle or any such thing, unblamable in holiness.

That is the Bible doctrine upon that subject, and it is a glorious and a wonderful doctrine. But it is a sad thing that the minds of children should be poisoned with a view that would make a sinful man, yea, even while he is lying, claim to be sinlessly perfect. It is an awful thing. Brethren, I do think that there ought to be a waking up such as has not been in our history, upon the subject of teaching the true doctrines of God to our children! 

~B. H. Carroll~

(The End)