Holiness in Character and Life
By H. A. Erdmann
When holiness is wrought in the human soul, it will entirely transform the life and character of the one in whom it has been performed. Such a condition cannot exist without demonstrating its presence, not only to the consciousness of its subject, but also to all around. The outward as well as the inward man will be transformed.
When the soul is justified before God and renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit, there will be always, as a result, the transformation of the character and life. No man in this state will live in sin. He will keep the commandments of the Lord; he will be outwardly blameless. He is, as a justified and regenerated person, delivered from the dominion of sin, so that when the work of holiness is performed and its fruits are enjoyed, the outward change in these respects will not be so observant, because that change has been already in existence. In so far as honesty, justice, uprightness, truth, fidelity, and outward correctness of life are concerned, the change will not be so marked.
The painful fact is that, in too many instances, the ordinary life of the professed Christian is very far below that of the required life of a justified believer. It is this which cramps and cripples the effectiveness of Christendom. When those who are called Christians are seen at the theater, the circus, the rodeo, etc., and seldom at prayer Meeting, when they pour hours over a novel or in front of a TV set, and give scarcely moments to the Word of God, it is not to be expected that they should have much desire for "true holiness."
While these things are too true of many, yet there are those who, walking in the light, have not only seen their need of holiness but have actually come to its enjoyment.
When Christ becomes to the believer sanctification as well as justification, antagonizing elements are removed from the soul. The mists and clouds, the shadows and fogs, which so often blurred and obscured the soul, are dispersed, and the clear, steady radiance of the Son of righteousness shines ever upon it.
Troubles may arise and assail the sanctified soul; temptations may distress it; afflictions and adversities may fall in storms upon it; it may have to pass through a seven-times heated furnace; but, in the midst of all, there will be the consciousness of the divine approval—"The peace of God which passeth all understanding." Hence the prophet Isaiah says, "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee; because he trusted in thee." Holiness is not a mysticism; it is a reality. Holiness is religion shining. It is religious principle put into action. It is faith gone to work. It is charity coined into actions, and devotion breathing benedictions on suffering humanity.
Such a life will awaken the opposition of the formal, the hypocritical and carnal-minded in the ranks of Christendom. God has designed that the church should antagonize every form of evil, impurity and sin, and that it should come into direct conflict with the world and all forms of worldliness. This is the conflict of the ages. But holiness will triumph over sin, truth over error, and God over all His enemies.
Holiness is not only purity, and love, and peace. It is also power—power to defeat the devil, power to walk straight, power to live right.
The world and carnal church members may hate genuine holiness and persecute its possessors, but it cannot frown, or reason, or persecute, or crush it or them out of existence. It is the one great, all-convincing, overpowering and unanswerable argument for the truth of Christianity. Hell has never yet invented a weapon keen enough, or strong enough, to penetrate the “armour of light.” All its darts have fallen pointless from its shield and breastplate, all its lances have been shivered here, and all its legions have had to retire from this conflict defeated, crestfallen and overwhelmed.
It is when the church is “bright as the sun, and clear as the moon,” that it is terrible to its enemies "as an army with banners." It is then, on this chosen battlefield with a proclaimed hostility, an eternal and uncompromising antagonism against sin, worldliness, and unbelief, that the church, arrayed in its beautiful garments of a blood-purchased holiness and girded with the might of omnipotence, is to meet and hurl back all its foes and, not only to come off conquerors but more than conquerors, through Him who hath loved us.”
What a pitiable sight it is to see a church dallying with its foes and seeking to effect a compromise with them and, in turn, scorned, scoffed, and insulted for its cowardliness and pusillanimity, sitting in the dust, with the bandages of captivity upon its neck and its garments all bedraggled in the filth and mire of worldliness when it ought to be hurling disaster and defeat upon its enemies and bearing the crimson banner in triumph over the world. O that the trumpet-call of God would be heard throughout the church in America saying, “Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion: put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem.”
