January 23

Read: II Corinthians 6:16–7:1

Since we have these promises, beloved,, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, and make holiness perfect in the fear of God (H Corinthians 7:1, R.S.V.).

Scriptural Holiness

Because the experience of being filled with the Holy Spirit is so directly related to holy living, we often speak of entire sanctification as though it were equivalent to a holy life. Technically this is not true. But there is an important sense in which such an identification is correct. The Bible teaches that there is only one way a man can fully meet God’s requirements of holiness in his inner life and conduct. He must be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Not every verse in the Bible which speaks of holiness is a direct proof text for the doctrine of entire sanctification. But because the experience of Christian holiness is so directly related to holy living, every reference to the holy life is relevant to the experience of holiness. And every scriptural reference to holiness in man is either direct or indirect evidence for the crisis experience.

It is this central place of entire sanctification in God’s basic purpose for men which leads Dr. H. E. Jessop to say: “There is no passage of scripture, viewed in relation to its historic background, examined in the light of its widest context, and read and interpreted in accord with the general teaching of the writer, which does not teach either the need, possibility or possession of the experience for which the Wesleyan doctrine so uncompromisingly stands.”

Since this second blessing is the indispensable prerequisite to God’s requirements, every scriptural exhortation to holy living — when read or heard by the unsanctified — becomes an exhortation to the second blessing. And the sincere Christian heart responds:

Bid my inbred sin depart, And I Thy utmost word shall prove, Upright both in life and heart, And perfected in love.

— Wesley’ s Hymns