((?) St. John. — In St. John we meet the idea that the regenerate, in virtue of the Divine .seed abiding in them, cannot sin habitually (1 .In 3^ 5* '*, cf. 3''). ]5ut a progressive imriHcation of life, on the model of Christ's purity and as the conscience is en- lightened, is taught (irSs 6 ex"" ''')'' ^Xrr(5o TavT-qv iir' avT(^ ayvi^ei eavrop /ca^ws 4k€ivos dyifdi iaTiv^ '^'')* It does not, however, seem to iinjily actual sin as a condition of purification: for St. John writes, that his rea<lcrs may not fall into any single act of sin (iVa fir) aniprriTe, 2'). If, then, a man walk in the light of a good conscience illumined by the gospel, it is possible to have unembarra.ssed fellow- ship with God, on the abiding basis of the cleansing effected by the atoning blood of Jesus (!') — and that in spite of the presence of sin as a latent force within the soul (1* apiapTlav ex"")- The initial consecration which brings free access (the rapprjaia of He 10''-') suffices to neutralize sin, in the sense of a nature prone to sin ; while the power of the Divine seed may avail, on condition of the will's abiding in Christ, to ward off actual sin, and that indefinitely. Meantime .sanctilication, in the sense of the effacing of old evil habits and self-consecra- tion to new forms of love, will go forward uninter- ruptedly on the model of Chrisfs purity (1 Jn 3^).
C. C'DNNECTKD Sc.M.\[.vi:v. — In Biblical religion, as elsewhere, the religious conception of holiness precedes the ethical; the idea of special relation to God and His service antedates the idea of intrinsic human goodne.ss. The former is at first conceived as a matter of ritual duly performed, which places the worshipper in a state of objective sanctity. At a certain stage, however, the Divine will became defineii in terms largely concerned with morality : henceforth the religious relation or state of holiness could be measured and tested by obedi- ence to such divinely sanctioned forms of human conduct. And as moral aition was felt to derive its value from internal volition, religious holiness lost something of its strictly objective character,
and became bound up with the subjective state ol man's heart or volition. This is the stage, roughly speaking, to which the prophets brought the idea of sanctification in Israel. As, moreover, any striking result in the direction of the Divine will was traced to the action of the Divine Spirit, the loyalty of heart found in Israel was traced to the Spirit of Holiness proceeding from Jehovah. It does not seem, however, that even in the prophets the piety and morality of the ordinary individual were directly traced back to the Sjiirit. The first suggestion of this profound idea may be found in Ps 51, where the taking away of God's Holy .Spirit seems to be regarded as precluding the possibility of the 'clean heart' or 'stedfast spirit,' for which the psalmist supplicates. Yet in one special instance, that of Messiah Himself, the .spiritual qualities which mark His consecrated life are traced to the action of the Spirit of Jehovah, Is 11-. When we add that an ethical sense by this time attached to holine.ss in God, and was thence transferred to the holiness in- cumbent upon His worshippers ('Be ye holy, for I am holy'), we have already all the rudiments of a doctrine of sanctification such as emerges in the NT under the creative influence of Jesus the Christ.
The decisive advance, whereby each individual is sealed as a hallowed member of God's new Israel, appears as early as St. Peter's address on the Day of Pentecost ; and not long after, the same apostle sees in the gift of the Spirit to Gentile believers the token of their hallowing also unto God's kingdom. But there is little or no sign that any one before St. Paul saw in the Spirit the very principle of the consecrated life in Christians, alike in its inception and in its development. His thought here was bound up with another most dis- tinctive conception, viz. the mystical indwelling of Christ as the essence of the believer's life. How closely these twin ideas were related may be seen in the great passage, Eph S"""''^, in which he treats the strengthening of the inner man by the Holy Spirit as the condition of Chri.st's inclwelling, in such wise that the believer is filled with His love, and so with the very fulness of God (cf. Jn 14-17). Here we notice, in passing, that the tenses em- ployed point to the possibility of such an experience being attained at a definite stage subsequent to conversion. It answers to that more conscious and deliberate self-surrender to God's sanctifying grace which we have already recognized, on its human side, in such passages as Ro 12'. But we observe in particular the fact that love seems to be to St. Paul (cf. 1 Co 13, Eph 1<, Col 31*), as to St. John, the all-inclusive ethical equivalent of personal holiness, as a state well-pleasing unto God, and indeed parti- cipation in His own es.sential life ('unto all the fulness of God,' cf, 2 P 1*<).
Thus sanctification begins subjectively as faith (cf. Ac 20'*), or trustful self-abandonment to God's revealed will ; and ends as love. Attitude pa.sses into character, the soul becoming assimilated to its object, the God to whom it is consecrated. This means that Justification, which involves regeneration, is implicit Sanctification ; and actual Sanctification means the subjective attitude of the justified become explicit in moral life. Of the relation between the Divine and human facti>rs active in sanctification as a process the NT gives no formal theory — any more than in the case of Faith itself, on which Sanctification, no less than Justification, is made to turn. It, too, begins and ends in faith : St. Paul might well have written 6 fi7ios 4k TrliTTfui s'TjifeTai. But the reality of each factor is .strongly affirmed. JIan is urged to ' work out ' the grace within ; yet with an awful .sense that God Himself is already at work, prompting