We have just seen that the Spirit operates in the work of sanctification in connection with belief of the truth on our part. And with this agree the words of our Lord in His intercessory prayer. “Sanctify them through Thy truth. Thy word is truth.” The word here is not the eternal Logos, but God’s revealed truth as given in Holy writ. And it is a statement of the highest importance, made by Him who is the truth, that the medium or means of our sanctification is in the truth of God as made known to us in the gospel of His Son. Here, again, the Apostle Peter gives expression to the same sentiment when he says: “Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises; that by these ye might be partakers of the Divine nature having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” If we are favored to escape the corruption that is in the world, we are sanctified wholly, and this is effected, Peter says, not by works of righteousness, not by resolutions or penances, not by striving to do holiness, before we seek to be holy, but by faith in the promises of God. These promises are very numerous, and varied in character on the pages of the Bible. By seizing upon them as written specially for us, we make them our own, and they become in and by Jesus Christ yea and amen, that is to say, we realize them in our own experience to be the truth, and thus when we read “This is the will of God even your sanctification,” or, “The very God of peace sanctify you wholly,” or, “I will circumcise your heart,” or “I will put my Spirit within you and cause you to walk in my statutes,” immediately the truth is impressed upon our hearts as a glorious reality, and we are enabled to reckon ourselves dead, indeed, unto sin, and alive unto God, and to realize that the Saviour’s prayer is answered and we are in His own blessed words, sanctified “by the truth.” If any reader will take a concordance and look for the word truth, and search out the passages containing it, he will be convinced that, however men may look at it, we have to do with the Lord God of truth, and that His estimate of truth is so high that He will by no means countenance any person or anything that liveth or maketh a lie. And if we would honor Him, we must honor His truth, the truth that is to make us free from the bondage of inbred sin, the truth which we are commanded to buy, whatever may be the price, and sell it not, the truth which the Lord desires in the inward parts as well as upon the lips, the truth of God, the truth of holiness, the truth by which we are sanctified, the truth of the word.

And then we shall find in our own experience that “A God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is He,” that He will send out His light and His truth that they may bring us to His holy hill and to His tabernacle, that He has given us a banner, even the banner of holiness to the Lord, to be displayed because of the truth, and we must never let it trail in the dust, that His truth shall be our shield and buckler, and that while the law was given by Moses, grace and truth came by Jesus Christ.

Glory be to His precious name forever, who is the truth.

Chapter XV.