QUES. 16.-Please explain 1 Pet. 4 :1. Does the suffering in the flesh and ceasing from sin refer to our accepting Christ's death judicially for us, as in Romans ; or to our accepting a path of suffering in the world, necessitated by the presence of sin and resisting it ?-a path to which we are sanctified by His having trodden it first.

ANS.-It is the latter. Peter does not give us position before God in Christ. He gives us the practical effects of the path with Christ through the wilderness journey. " He that hath suffered in the flesh " is the man who has cast in his lot with Christ. It is henceforth being on God's side concerning sin in every form, especially in myself. Hence it is suffering. Worthy sufferings, whose end is eternal glory!

QUES. 17.-Are there not two sides to sanctification taught in the word of God-one, absolute and unchangeable; the other, changeable and progressive ?

ANS.-Yes. The first is by what Christ is for us before God and what we are in the eye of God as linked with Christ by the Spirit:it is the purpose of God according to His own will, through redemption.

The other is our gradual and growing conformity to Christ, which, though still the work of grace, as all that is of God must be, has to do with our responsibilities and daily walk with God.

1 Cor. 1:30 is a plain statement of the first. It declares Christ to be our sanctification as well as our righteousness. Of course, if Christ is made that to us, it is absolute and unchangeable. Heb. 10 :10 is another plain passage. It is evident that it cannot be applied to the work of the Spirit in us, but only to the work of Christ for us. By that work, accomplished once for all, every believer is sanctified-set apart to God-once for all, and forever. 'In six days God made all the creation, then He sanctified-set apart-the seventh to rest. It is not because that day is different from other days, but because God gives it that place among the other days. The same with Matt. 23:17:"Ye fools and blind:for whether is greater, the gold, or the temple that sanctifieth the gold ? " That gold, fastened upon the walls of the temple, was not " sanctified " because of any superiority to other gold, but because of the place and use grace had given to it, separating it from all the other gold in that glorious calling.

In the same sense, you will find God's people usually called His "saints." It is not because of their holy ways He calls them by that name, but because, like the gold of the temple, of the place "in Christ" His grace has given them. In John 17:19 Christ says, "For their sakes I sanctify myself" :it is riot, we surely believe, a holier state, but a new place. Many other scriptures might be adduced, but these will suffice to make the matter plain.

Now, as to the other side,-the progressive sanctification,- Scripture is equally clear. 2 Cor. 3 :18 is a striking passage. The first stroke of the work of the Spirit in us is a work of " glory "; and this goes on "from glory to glory" to the end. It changes the man day by day. It transforms him. The apostle knew well the lascivious character of the Greeks. He writes, therefore, to the Thessalonians thus:" For this is the will of God, even your sanctification, that ye should abstain from fornication." But mark what follows, and see that this sanctification is not the eradication of sin from man's nature, but "that every one of yon should know how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor; not in the lust of concupiscence, even as the Gentiles which know not God" (1 Thess. 4:3-5).

At the end of his epistle he desires they should be wholly sanctified, 1:e., that the motions of the spirit, the outgoings of the soul, and the activities of the body, should be such that the Lord may be able to commend all at His coming. Oh that this may be the burning desire of every one of His people!