In His great high-priestly prayer of the 17th of John, our Lord says of the men given to Him by the Father, "They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them through Thy truth:Thy word is truth. As Thou hast sent Me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world. And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth" (vers. 16-19). This precious passage may well introduce for us the subject of practical sanctification-the ordering aright of our external ways, and bringing all into accord with the revealed will of God.

At the outset we shall do well if we get it fixed in our mind that this is very closely related to that sanctification of the Spirit to which our attention has already been directed. The Spirit works within us. The Word, which is without us, is nevertheless the medium used to do the work within. But I have purposely dwelt separately upon the two aspects in order to bring the clearer before our minds the distinction between the Spirit's sanctification in us, which is the very beginning of God's work in our souls, and the application of the Word thereafter to our outward ways. New birth is our introduction into God's family; but although born again, we may be dark as to many things, and need the light of the Word to clear our bewildered minds. But through the sanctification of the Spirit we are brought to the blood of sprinkling:we apprehend that Christ's atoning death alone avails for our sins. – We are sanctified by the blood of Christ, and able to appreciate our new position before God. It is now that in its true sense the walk of faith begins, and thereafter we need daily that sanctification by the truth, or the word of God, spoken of by our Lord.

It is evident that in the very nature of things this cannot be what some have ignorantly called '' a second definite work of grace." It is, on the contrary, a life-a progressive work ever going on, and which ever must go on, until I have passed out of the scene in which I need daily instruction as to
my ways, which the word of God alone can give. If sanctification in its practical sense be by the Word, I shall never be wholly sanctified, in this aspect of it, until I know that Word perfectly, and am violating it in no particular. And that will never be true here upon earth. Here I ever need to feed upon that Word, to understand it better, to learn more fully its meaning; and as I learn from it the mind of God, I am called daily to judge in myself all that is contrary to the increased light I receive, and to yield today a fuller obedience than yesterday. Thus am I sanctified by the truth.

For this very purpose the Lord has sanctified or set Himself apart. He has gone up to heaven, there to watch over His own, to be our High Priest with God in view of our weakness, and our Advocate with the Father in view of our sins. He is there too as the object of our hearts. We are called now to run our race with patience, looking unto Jesus, with the Holy Spirit within us and the Word in our hands, to be a lamp to our feet and a light to our path. As we value it, and are controlled by its precious truth made good to us in the Spirit's power, we are sanctified by God the Father and by our Lord Jesus Himself. For in the 17th of John He makes request of the Father, " Sanctify them through Thy truth." In Eph. 5:25, 26 we read, " Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the Word." Here it is Christ who is the sanctifier, for He could ever say, " I and the Father are one." Here, as in John, sanctification is plainly progressive; and, indeed, that water-washing of Ephesians is beautifully illustrated in an earlier chapter of John-the isth. There we have our Lord, in the full consciousness of His eternal Sonship, taking the place of a girded servant to wash His disciples' feet. Washing the feet is indicative of cleansing the ways; and the whole passage is a symbolical picture of the work in which He has been engaged ever since ascending to heaven. He has been keeping the feet of His saints by cleansing them from the defilement of the way-those earth-stains which are so readily contracted by sandaled pilgrim-feet pressing along this world's highways.

He says to each of us, as to Peter, " If I wash thee not, thou hast no part with Me." Part in Him we have on the ground of His atoning work and as a result of the life He gives. Part with Him, or daily communion, is only ours as sanctified by the water of the Word.

That the whole scene was allegorical is evident by His words to Peter, "What I do thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know hereafter." Literal feet-washing Peter knew and understood. Spiritual feet-washing he learned when restored by the Lord after his lamentable fall. Then he entered into the meaning of the words, " He that is bathed* needeth not save to wash his feet, but is clean every whit." *As many now know, this word means a complete bath, and differs from the word used later for " wash " in the same verse.*

The meaning is not hard to grasp. Every believer is bathed once for all in the "bath of regeneration" (Titus 3:5, literal rendering). That bathing is never repeated. None born of God can ever perish, for all such have a life that is eternal, and consequently non-forfeitable (John 10:27-29). If they fail and sin, they do not need to be saved over again. That would mean, to be bathed once more. But he that is bathed needs not to have it all done again because his feet get defiled. He washes them and is clean.

So it is with Christians. We have been regenerated once, and never shall be a second time. But every time we fail we need to judge ourselves by the Word, that we may be cleansed as to our ways; and where we daily give that Word its rightful place in our lives, we shall be kept from defilement and enabled to enjoy unclouded communion with our Lord and Saviour. " Wherewithal," asks the psalmist, "shall a young man cleanse his way?" And the answer is, " By taking heed thereto according to Thy Word."

How necessary it is then to search the Scriptures, and to obey them unqestioningly, in order that we may be sanctified by the truth! Yet what indifference is often found among professors of a "second blessing" as to this very thing! What ignorance of the Scriptures, and what fancied superiority to them, is frequently manifested!-and that coupled with a profession of holiness in the flesh !

In i Thess. 4:3 there is a passage which, divorced from its context, is often considered decisive as proving that it is possible for believers to attain to a state of absolute freedom from inbred sin in this world:"This is the will of God, even your sanctification." Who can deny my title to perfect holiness if sanctification means that, and it is God's will for me ? Surely none. But already we have seen that sanctification never means that, and in the present text least of all. Read the entire first eight verses, forming a complete paragraph, and see for yourself. The subject is personal purity. The sanctification spoken of is keeping the body from unclean practices, and the mind from lasciviousness. Think of calling upon men freed from inbred sin to do this! But it is quite in keeping as included in that sanctification that the Lord Jesus prayed we might know. He who lives upon the word of God will be characterized by a clean life, not a life polluted by fleshly lusts. H. A. I

(To be continued.)