1 Thessalonians 5:23

WHOLLY SANCTIFIED

‘The very God of peace sanctify you wholly.’

1 Thessalonians 5:23

Has God, the God of peace, taken possession of our whole spirit? Have we given Him our spirit? Nay, have we ever even truly got hold of the spirit within us, so that we have been able to give it away? Do we know anything about a true inner worshipping in our spirit, hours of prayer in the spirit before God? And do we know of an outflow of spirit which gushes out of our inmost depths and flows through all our lives, making them fruitful?

Our spirit, which is a ‘vassal’ of the great God, the King of kings, is at the same time itself a king in us. And it reigns over two kingdoms, soul and body, and consequently wears a double crown. Well, these kingdoms shall be consecrated to God by the spirit, itself consecrated to Him.

I. The soul is to be consecrated.—Our ‘soul’—what a wonderful kingdom, not the less so that we have the soul to a certain point in common with a multitude of other beings. Still, the human soul is something singularly wonderful. What a multiform life it is, what an ocean of powers! There is in it a world of images and thoughts, of desires and longings, feelings, remembrances, and hopes. These are, as it were, the inhabitants of the kingdom of the soul, each one in a way independent. But they must now all in absolute obedience be subject to the spirit—that is, to the spirit which itself is governed and occupied by God. And the spirit shall learn how to take possession of this dominion. It may not, like a weak king, allow the soul-life to go its own way, may not let a single one of its emotions loose, without control. The spirit must pervade all. This is the ‘sanctification of the soul.’ This is easily said, it is true, but it is hard to realise.

And now comes the turn of the second kingdom of the spirit—the body.

II. A ‘human body’ also is a kingdom, a world of wonders.—Go to the anatomist or the physiologist, and he will describe to you this world of wonders, with its capital, its officers in authority, and its servants, its roads, rivers, and canals, its centre of business—nay, even its mob and its roving freebooters. Or go to Socrates of old, and you shall hear him with admiration praise the formation of the human body. But this kingdom also would fain be independent, and, if possible, reign over both soul and spirit. But how pitiable is a man of whom one must say such a thing as that he is all ‘body’—for instance, that ‘his God is his belly’! Thus the bodily life must be penetrated by the spirit, the renewed spirit. This is the ‘sanctification of the body.’ The Holy Scripture is most rigorous in its demands on this sanctification. ‘Present your bodies a living sacrifice unto God,’ says an Apostle. And again, ‘Neither yield ye your members as instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, but yield yourselves unto God, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God.’ Ay, not only our thoughts, desires, and feelings, but our tongue, hand, and foot, our dress, our walk, our bodily work, our sexual life, all shall be God’s by being spiritual. Our members are ‘the members of Christ,’ our body ‘the temple of the Holy Ghost.’

Illustration

‘How comprehensive is this work of sanctification! “ Our whole being” must be sanctified. And how rich, manifold, and wondrous is our being—spirit, soul, and body, the three intertwined, and each containing a multitude of powers! Man has sometimes been called a “machine,” and certain learned men of our days seem to be specially fond of this appellation. We remember an expression by a French scholar, Baron von Holbaeh, “ L’homme de machine.” Well, let us appropriate this apparently anything but creditable epithet, and make use of it for our purpose. A machine is, as we very well know, not made by itself; it is the creation of another, and at the same time a work of art, often a work of genius, and moreover intended for and serving the higher reasonable purposes of him who made it, or of others like him. Even so it is with man.’