‘The privilege of all believers’
‘We believe it
is the privilege of all believers to be wholly sanctified and that their whole
spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord
Jesus Christ’ (the Army’s Tenth Doctrine).
Note some
working definitions of
‘sanctified’:
-
given to God absolutely and
filled with his Spirit;
-
holy and belonging to God;
-
a life of victory over sin;
-
a life free to live for God and
not enslaved by sin.
Take the image
of a rock in a stormy sea. The saved person has clung on to the rock or is
sitting on its edge, half in and half out of the water. The sanctified person is
firmly established on the rock and will not be dislodged.
Let me pinpoint
three words from the Tenth Doctrine: ‘privilege’, ‘all’, and ‘wholly’.
Privilege
A privileged
person is favoured, advantaged, honoured in some unusual way. A privilege is
something to be enjoyed, and that is why our former Song Book rightly had a
section entitled ‘Holiness Enjoyed’ (now replaced by one headed ‘Praise and
Thanksgiving’ for reasons not immediately clear). Recently I heard a TV
presenter talking about a special appeal for charitable funds. She said, ‘The
only ingredient we haven’t got yet is fun!’ Now sometimes our view of the holy
life is like that. The Bible passage this morning from 1 Thessalonians 5: 1-24
was about being joyful and giving thanks.
All
In secular society
privileges are for the few. In the holy life, and in the great possibility of
belonging to God, all are invited and counted precious. This means that
holiness can be lived out in the everyday life and in a secular setting, not
only in a convent or monastery. It is not only for the General or the
Archbishop or the Pope, but for the corps officer and the Home League Tea
Server too. It is for the nine-year-old and the ninety-year-old. It is for the
highly educated and also for the educationally challenged person with learning
difficulties. It is for the literate and the illiterate.
Wholly
Time and again
in speaking or reading of the holy life we come across absolutist words and
phrases, like ‘altogether’, ‘entirely’, totally’, ‘thoroughly’, ‘completely’,
‘every inch’, ‘unequivocally’, ‘undividedly’. The same tone comes through the
words of the holiness songs in our Song Book. They deserve to be read and
re-read as the testimonies of the writers. We cannot truly worship and honour
Jesus Christ if it is a matter of giving half to him and holding back the rest
for ourselves. We must recognise, and resist by grace, the pull of the world
which tells us to safeguard our status, hold on to our power, and protect our
own interests. Instead we go all out for Christ, for victorious living. I
recall the testimony of an aircraft pilot who said, ‘It is too dangerous to fly
low, hedge-hopping, for eventually you will crash. Fly higher, in free air, and
if ever you do dip down, Christ will at once lift you up again.’
I exhort all
here tonight, officers and soldiers alike, to give again your lives entirely
and without reserve to Christ, asking him for complete victory over the things
that would drag you down and despoil your relationship with him.
We will sing
Song 543 with its repeated ‘Victory for me’. See especially verse 2 where the
sacred matters spoken of tonight are expressed:
Here,
Lord, I yield thee the whole of my heart,
Victory
for me, victory for me;
From
all that hinders at last I will part,
Victory
for me, victory for me.
Called
to thy service, I gladly obey,
Humbly
my all at thy feet now I lay,
Trusting
and fighting till life’s latest day;
Victory
for me, victory for me.
A prayer like
this, made sincerely from the heart, cannot leave you unchanged, for all the
blessings described in verses 3 and 4 (‘cleansed’, ‘held’, ‘filled’, etc.)
belong to you.
Commissioner Helen Clifton
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