Isaiah 29:23 But when he sees his children, the work of my hands, in the middle of him, they shall sanctify my name… They - God's redeemed and sanctified ones - "shall sanctify my Name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob." This thought, in its New Testament form, may be found in the words of the great High Priestly prayer, "And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth." Christ, the Model of the sanctified ones, honors God, and redeems and purifies man. Two things need consideration. I. GOD'S SANCTIFIED ONES. "Sanctify" is a familiar term to godly people. It is a word bearing several distinct meanings, or, it would be more exact to say, several distinct parts of meaning. Sometimes one of these parts is set in prominence, and sometimes another part; and it is always worth while to use religious terms with care, precisely apprehending the senses in which they are employed. "Sanctify" may mean "make actually pure and holy." This is indeed the more common and usual meaning of the term, which comes at once to our minds. We think that for us to be sanctified must be for us to be made "perfectly holy." The word seems to express our "meetness for the inheritance of the saints in the light." When we are wholly sanctified we shall be ready for presenting faultless before the presence of God. Some of us think that such "holiness" may be attained in this life; while others of us feel that the testing death-time must come ere the sanctification can be complete, and the full bloom can rest on the sacred fruitage of our life. But by putting this side of meaning into undue prominence, we lose sight of other ideas which lie in the word - ideas of even more practical importance to us. The Jews had thoughts about this word "sanctify" which brought it more helpfully within the sphere of their actual life and labor. To them to sanctify a thing was to take it away - to separate it from common uses, and devote it wholly, consecrate it, to Divine and holy uses. A person or a thing was sanctified when it was given over wholly to God and God's service. A lamb separated from the flock for sacrifice was said to be sanctified. Samuel, taken by his mother away from the home-life, and left with Eli at the tabernacle, was sanctified - lent to the Lord, given over wholly to the Lord's service, for so long as he might live. The Levites were a sanctified tribe, because they were taken from the other tribes, and devoted wholly to the tabernacle service. The Jewish idea of the word comes out very fully in the ceremony of the consecration of a Levite. The priest touched with the blood of a sacrificed animal the Levite's right hand, right eye, and right foot. This was the Levite's sanctification. It devoted every faculty and every power - of seeing, hearing, doing, walking, the right-hand faculties, the best and the choicest - to God's peculiar service. He was a man set apart. This is the side of sanctifying which we may realize, and in this sense our Lord could declare, "I am," daily, continuously, "sanctifying myself." We, too, must be "sanctifying ourselves" for the bearing and the doing of God's holy will and service. And "sanctifying self" means (1) the full and hearty devotion of all our powers to God's work; (2) the patient and anxious culturing of the inner life; (3) hearty and entire separation from all self-seeking interests. Of Christ's school it may be said, "Here we learn to serve and give, And, rejoicing, self deny." II. THE SANCTIFYING POWER OF THE SANCTIFIED ONES. This is the only real fitness of a man for doing God's work in the world. It ensures the highest and best power for the doing, because it brings all the force of the man himself to bear upon his work. It is not a man's knowledge blessing his fellow-men, nor a man's experience, nor a man's genius, nor a man's efforts; it is a man blessing men. It is a regenerate, divinely endowed man, blessing men. It is a Christly man continuing Christ's work of grace. It is a man who has seen Christ telling his vision to others. It is the man become a saint, and therefore an apostle. "That self-sanctifying of the Lord Jesus Christ was 'for our sakes,' and it has power on us. It is the inspiration of an example. It is more than the realization of our ideal. There is the noblest, the loftiest manhood; there is the truest, the meekest piety; there is the perfection of human sonship; - there, in that sanctified Man, who kneels before God and says,' For thy sake, O Father, I am sanctifying myself'. For their sakes, O Father, I am sanctifying myself.'" And there we learn that most blessed lesson that "sanctity is power" - power to honor the Divine Name, power to redeem and uplift our fellow-men. - R.T. Parallel Verses KJV: But when he seeth his children, the work of mine hands, in the midst of him, they shall sanctify my name, and sanctify the Holy One of Jacob, and shall fear the God of Israel. |
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