LAWTON CHURCH OF GOD, LAWTON, OKLAHOMA

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06 SANCTIFICATION A SECOND BLESSING

“Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for it; that He might sanctify and cleanse it.” Sanctification was never provided for nor promised to the world, but to the church; the church is not made of sinners, but of true believers who have been born again.

Mr. John Wesley, in writing to Miss Jane Hilton, in 1774, said, “It is exceedingly certain that God did give you the second blessing, properly so called. He delivered you from the root of bitterness, from inbred as well as actual sin.” (Vol. 8, p.45.) He used the same phrase with reference to sanctification on other occasions. Mr. Charles Wesley called it “that second rest.” Martin Luther referred to it as a “second conversion;” Andrew Murray has referred to this grace as a “second crisis.” Paul, in writing to the church at Corinth , spoke of a “second benefit,” or as the margin gives it, “a second grace.” (2 Corinthians 1:15.)

But why call it a “second blessing”? Because such it is. We have frequently heard the objector say, sneeringly: “I have not only received the ‘second blessing,’ but I have received hundreds of blessings.” And yet, strange to say, this same person was averse to the preaching of a “second blessing” and became offended when other people sought and professed the same. A man who could lay claim to a hundred blessings certainly should not object to those who insist on having at least a “second blessing.” The facts are, a man may have a hundred blessings and not have “the second blessing, properly so called.” Indeed a sinner might boast of a hundred blessings, and still be without hope, a lost soul. Life, health, food, Christian parentage, an open Bible, church privileges, conviction, etc., etc., should all be counted as blessings.

Sanctification is the “second blessing” exactly in the same sense that justification is the first blessing. Justification is the first blessing that changes our moral condition and our personal relation toward God. In justification we are changed from the attitude and relation of enemies and rebels toward God into that of obedient children. It certainly is a blessing—but it is more, it is a grace that transforms and transposes into a permanent state and experience. Until this experience, all other blessings left the individual in the same moral condition they had found him. So, after a person is fully justified, he may receive not only many temporal, but many spiritual blessings—prayer meeting and camp meeting blessings—which will greatly refresh, and help, and encourage, and yet they will not eradicate inbred sin, (sinfulness) and make him holy; if he was given to fear or impatience or doubt, or any other carnal manifestations, those same conditions will continue to exist after the “hundreds of blessings” have come and gone.

Exactly as justification is the first blessing that effects a permanent inward change, so sanctification is the “second blessing,” hence, “properly so called.” While justification comprehends pardon, regeneration and adoption, making us children of God, sanctification refers to the full eradication of the carnal mind, the inbred sin, and anointing with the Holy Ghost, making us kings and priests unto God. Whereas justification delivers us from sins committed, sin as an act, sanctification delivers us from the evil-nature, inherited-sin as a principle; justification delivers us from guilt and condemnation while sanctification delivers us from unholy appetites.

Just as certainly as justification marks a distinct epoch and crisis in the life of those receiving it, just so certainly sanctification marks a second epoch, a second crisis, a second experience, and therefore is a “second blessing, properly so-called.”

Again, it is urged that the term “second blessing” is not in the Bible and therefore must not be used. While we admit that this exact phrase is not in the Bible, we do insist that the equivalent, that which can mean nothing else, is in the Bible. Such it is in every case where sanctification, holiness, perfection, etc., is urged upon the church—which is made up of those who are already “in Christ.” Who would think of objecting to the terms, “the new birth,” “salvation from sin,” “a child of God,” etc, and yet these exact phrases cannot be found in the Bible; however, we have their equivalent over and over. Therefore these terms are perfectly proper. Seeing that sanctification is a “second blessing, properly so called” there can be no reasonable objection to the use of the term.