Progressive Meetness For Heaven
by Octavius Winslow
“And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the
Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee. I will not drive them out from
before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the
field multiply against thee. By little and little I will drive them out from
before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.”
—EXOD. 23:28-30.
Sanctification—or
heavenly meetness—is an initial work in the great process by which God prepares
the soul for glory. Justification, that imminent act of His free grace by which
the soul is brought into a state of Divine acceptance, is a present and a
complete work. The moment a believing sinner accepts Christ, and is clothed upon
with His imputed righteousness, that moment he is in possession of the Divine
title-deed to the inheritance of the saints in light. Thus, justification,
because it is an imputed, and sanctification, because it is an imparted act,
though cognate doctrines, are distinct works, and must not be—as the Papacy has
done, and as many Protestants, with scarcely more light, blindly do—considered
as identical. By one act of faith in Christ we are justified; but it is by a
gradual work of the Spirit that we are sanctified. It is a solemn declaration,
“Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.” There is no vision of God, either
present or future, save through the medium of holiness. A holy God can only be
seen with an enlightened and sanctified eye. The spiritual vision must be
“anointed with eye-salve.” The Divine Oculist must couch the moral cataract,
must remove the film of sin, ignorance, and prejudice from the mental eye, ere
one ray of Divine holiness can dart in upon the retina of the soul. As one born
blind cannot see the sun, so the soul morally blind cannot see God. Therefore
our Lord said to Nicodemus, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the
kingdom of God.” He cannot see it, because he is not a subject of the new and
second birth. We have remarked that this work of holiness is initiatory, and
therefore not complete. It is real, but progressive; certain, but gradual; and
although in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, God can fit the believer for
heaven, it yet goes forward little and by little until it reaches the
culminating point, and then the door of glory opens, and receives to its bosom
the soul fitted for its purity and bliss.
In supplying the reader with a few helps heavenward, we plant his feet upon one
of the lowest rounds of the ladder, when we, at this early stage of our
subject, direct his thoughts to progressive meetness for heaven. And we the
more advisedly and earnestly do this because of the crude and imperfect views
of heavenliness which many, especially young Christians, entertain, and in
consequence of which are involved in much legality of mind and distress of
soul. We have selected, as illustrating this important doctrine, an incident in
the early settlement of the Israelites in Canaan. It was God’s arrangement that
they should colonize the land amidst its many and idolatrous inhabitants; who,
so far from sympathizing with their habits and worship, presented an
antagonistic and formidable aspect: so that, while it was a land of rest and
affluence, it was yet a scene of perpetual invasion and conflict, demanding on
their part the watchful eye and the furbished weapon. Now the God who planted
them in the promised land could as easily have exterminated their foes; not
so—but, for reasons which His wisdom would dictate, and which His goodness
would justify, He permitted the inhabitants to continue in possession, until,
by a process gradual and progressive, Canaan should be decimated of its
idolatrous population, and His own people should go up into its length and
breadth, and fully possess the land which the Lord their God gave them. “By
little and little I will drive them out from before you.” How strikingly are
the two cognate yet distinct doctrines of the glorious gospel—justification and
sanctification—illustrated here;—the planting the children of Israel in Canaan
illustrates the present justification of the Church of God; their protracted
conquest of the land illustrates the gradual subjugation of the believer’s
sinfulness to the supremacy of holiness, or, in other words, his progressive
meetness for heaven.
Now let us trace more fully the analogy between this part of Israel’s history,
and the spiritual experience of the Church of God, and of every individual
member of that Church. Oh that the Divine Spirit may be our Teacher, His grace
our anointing, Christ the first, the centre, and the last, and our advanced
meetness for heaven the personal and happy result of our meditation upon this
sacred truth! And if, child of God, heaven shall be brought nearer to your
soul, and your soul’s meetness for heaven be promoted, we shall thank our
heavenly Father for this advanced step; and, strengthened and cheered, we shall
seek another and yet another, and so ascend, until, reaching the highest round,
we find ourselves in heaven.
Canaan was a land of rest: it was that good land in which the Israelites were
to terminate their long and wearisome march in sweet and delightsome repose.
The moment a poor believing soul is brought to Jesus, he is brought to rest.
“We which have believed do enter into rest.” The instant that he crosses the
border that separates the covenant of works from the covenant of grace, the
moment that he emerges from the wilderness of his doings and toil—his “going
about to establish a righteousness of his own”—and enters believingly into
Christ, he is at rest. The true Joshua has brought him into Canaan, has brought
him to Himself; and his long travelling, weary soul is at peace with God
through Christ. “For he that is entered into his rest, he also hath ceased from
his own works, as God did from his.” Behold the rest! It is Jesus. His finished
work—His blood and righteousness—His law-fulfilling obedience—and His
justice-satisfying death, give perfect rest from guilt and condemnation and
sorrow to him that simply enters—though it be but a border-touch of faith—into
Jesus. Oh, art thou a sin-burdened, a wilderness-wearied soul? Art thou seeking
rest in the law, in convictions of sin, in pious duties, in churches and
sacraments?—each one exclaiming, “It is not in me!” Turn from these, and bend
your listening ear to the gentle voice of your gracious Saviour—“Come unto me,
all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” What
wondrous words are these! Tell me not that you are too sinful, and unworthy to
come; that you are too vile to lay your head upon that sacred bosom; too guilty
to bathe in that cleansing stream; too poor to clothe you in that Divine
righteousness. I reply, Jesus bids you come. Can you, dare you, refuse? The
instant that you cease to labour, and enter believing savingly into Christ,
that instant you are safe within the City of Refuge, beyond the reach of sin,
and condemnation, and the law’s curse, and the uplifted arm of the avenger of
blood: in a word, you are at rest. “Being justified by faith, we have peace
with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.” The present tense—we have peace.
But notwithstanding this perfect state of pardon, justification, and rest, into
which the believing soul is brought, is sin utterly and totally extirpated from
his bosom? In other words, because forgiveness is complete, and acceptance is
complete, is sanctification complete? Far from it, beloved. It is a good land
and a wealthy, a land of peace and rest, into which grace has led us, but it
is, nevertheless, a land besieged by foes—for the Canaanites still dwell
therein—and of consequent warfare. The believer has to fight his way to heaven.
In the soul, in the centre of the very heart where perfect rest and peace are
experienced, there dwell innate and powerful corruptions, ever invading our
peaceful possessions, seeking to disturb our repose, and to bring us into
subjection. “O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of
this death?”
Observe, too, these inhabitants of the land interposed a powerful barrier
between the Israelites and their full possession. They were at best but
borderers. They had, indeed, passed the confines of the desert, and pressed the
soil of the promised land, but how small a portion of the vast territory did
they as yet occupy! Far beyond them, stretching in luxuriant beauty, were
vine-clad hills, and flowing rivers, acres of wheat and barley and
pomegranates, fountains and depths that spring out of valleys, which they had
not as yet explored. Is not this a picture of our spiritual state? How much
interposes between us and our spiritual possessions! What keeps us from the
“abundant entrance” into the kingdom of grace, but our ever-present and
ever-sleepless enemy, unbelief? What prevents a more full and cordial
acceptance of the righteousness of Christ, but a constant dealing with our own
unrighteousness? What keeps us from enjoying more of heaven upon earth, but the
too absorbing influence of the world? What causes us to live so far below the
privilege of our high vocation—bedwarfs our Christianity, lowers our
profession, shades the lustre and impairs the vigour of our holy religion—but
the depravity, the corruption, the sin, that dwelleth in us? These are the
spiritual Canaanites which prevent our going up to possess the good land in its
length and breadth. What an evidence this, that, though our Lord Jesus has put
us into a state of present and complete acceptance, we have not as yet attained
unto a state of perfect and future holiness—the Canaanites still dwell in the
land! We are called to “fight the good fight of faith.” Not only do we war with
flesh and blood, but we “wrestle against principalities, against powers,
against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness
in high places.” But why should this check our advance? Why should the
existence and ever-threatening attitude of our foes prevent us from living upon
a full Christ, a present Christ, a loving Christ, day by day, hour by hour,
moment by moment? Clad in our invincible armour, why should we not carve our
way through the serried ranks of our foes, and penetrate into the heart of
Canaan, and pluck thence the grapes, and gather the honey, and drink of the
fountains, and explore the hidden things which God has treasured for us in the
covenant of grace, in the fulness of our Surety Head, in the infinite greatness
of His own love, and in the unsearchable riches of His gospel—His revealed
truth? Oh, how much of the good land remains yet to be possessed! Truly, “eye
hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the
things which God hath prepared for them that love him.” Well might the grateful
Psalmist exclaim, and each believer in Jesus respond, “O how great is thy
goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee!”
There is one view of this truth exceedingly helpful to Zion’s travellers; we
refer to the facts that God is never unmindful of the trying and critical
position of His people—dwelling in the midst of their enemies, and their
enemies dwelling in the midst of them. He knows all your corruptions, your
infirmities, your easy-besetting sin, weakness, and frailty. He has, too, His
unslumbering eye upon all the stratagems and assaults of Satan—never, for an
instant, losing sight of, or ceasing to control and check this subtle and
sleepless foe. Never does thy Lord forget that the body He has redeemed is yet
a “body of sin and death,” and that the soul He has ransomed with His most
precious blood, is still the seat of principles, passions, and thoughts
inimical to its perfect holiness, and ever seeking to subjugate it to the body.
Did not Jesus recognize this truth when He said to His disciples, “Behold, I
send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves.” What expressive words! Sheep
in the midst of wolves! Who can save them? The Shepherd who gave His life for
them, the “Lion of the tribe of Judah”—He will keep, shield, and preserve them.
Oh, take the encouragement and comfort which this truth gives—that thy Lord
knoweth thy exposure to, and thy conflict with, the enemies of the land,—that
you have on your side, allied with you in this spiritual warfare, His loving
heart, His watchful eye, His outstretched arm, and all His legions of angels
sent forth to encircle you with chariots of fire. Ah! the world may taunt you
with your infirmities, the saints may chide you for your haltings, your own
heart may condemn you for its secret declensious, but God, your Father, is very
pitiful, and remembers that you are dust; and Jesus, your Advocate, is very
compassionate, and prays for you within the vail. The saints judge, the world
censures, the heart is self-abased; but Christ says, “I condemn thee not: go,
and sin no more.”
But we have the promise of conquest. God assured the Israelites that He would
drive out the Canaanites from before them. Have we an assurance less emphatic,
or a hope less joyous? What is the promise of this, which appears one of the
brightest constellations in the glorious galaxy of the “exceeding great and
precious promises” of God? It is, “He will turn again, he will have compassion
upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all our sins into
the depths of the sea.” What a largess, what an accumulation of blessings, what
blest encouragement and heart-cheer to the downcast traveller! “He will turn again.”
Again! He has turned His loving eye, His outstretched hand, a thousand times
over; what! will He “turn again?” After all my baseness and ingratitude; my
sins without confession; my confession without repentance; my repentance
without forsaking; my forsakings so reluctant, so partial, and so short—what!
will He turn to me again, bend upon me once more that loving eye, that
forgiving look, that dissolves my heart at His feet? Oh, who is a God like unto
thee! And what, when He turns again, will He do? He will drive out the
Canaanites from before us. In other words, “He will SUBDUE our iniquities.”
What encouragement this to fall down at His feet—the feet that never spurned a
humble suppliant—and cry with His people of old, “Lord, we have no might against
this great company that cometh against us; neither know we what to do: but our
eyes are upon thee.” With such faith, and such an appeal, what sin will not God
pardon, what iniquity will not Christ subdue, against what confederate host
will not the Spirit of the Lord lift up a standard?
But let us not mistake our true position in this holy contest. It is both
aggressive and defensive. The children of Israel were not to allow the
inhabitants of the land to remain intact. They were to go up armed, and drive back
the foe. Thus is it with us. When our Lord, the “Prince of peace,” commanded,
“he that hath no sword let him sell his garment, and buy one.” He doubtless
intended it as significant of the spiritual conflict in which they were to be
engaged; for, the temporal sword He never authorized in defense or propagation
of His truth. We are to be aggressive upon the territory of sin and of error,
of ignorance and of the world. To these confederate hosts—the Canaanites of the
Church—we are to present a bold, united, antagonistic front. The Bible nowhere
ignores, but, on the contrary, everywhere recognizes, the individual
responsibility of the Christian. What means the exhortation, “Put on the whole
armour of God?” What the injunction, “Work out your own salvation with fear and
trembling?” What but that, dwelling in an enemy’s land—the Canaanite, and the
Ammonite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite and the Jebusite, all
combined against us—we are to “resist unto blood, striving against sin,” and
“to fight the good fight of faith,”—to “keep the body under, and bring it into
subjection,”—to “overcome the world”—to “resist the devil,”—to “keep ourselves
in the love of God”—and, “having done all, to stand”— standing with girded
loins, waiting and watching for the coming of our Captain. O child of God! be
not cast down and discouraged in this holy war. The Lord, He it is that fights
for you. By prayer, by vigilance, by the sword of the Spirit, which is the word
of God, by keeping out of temptation, by doubling the picket where you are the
most exposed to the invasion of the foe— above all, by bearing your conflicts
to Christ, linking your weakness with His strength, your infirmity with His
grace, the errings of your heart, the faltering of your feet, the hidden conflict
of your mind and will with evil, to His most tender, most reasonable, most
forgiving love; thus will He teach your hands to war and your fingers to fight,
and thus shall you exclaim, “With Christ strengthening me, I can do all
things.”
We have arrived now at a deeply-interesting and instructive part of this
chapter—the progressive meetness of the believer for heaven. “By little and
little I will drive them out from before thee.” If it so pleased Him, God could
as instantaneously mature our sanctification as He perfects our justification.
By one stroke of His arm He could have extirpated the idolatrous inhabitants of
Canaan, and have caused His flock to lie down in quiet places. But it was His
wisdom, love, and glory that they should be driven out “by little and little.”
We must resolve the circumstance of God’s permissive will touching the
indwelling of sin in the believer, into the same view of His character. His
wisdom appoints it—His will permits it—His love controls it. Where would be the
display of His grace and power in the soul, as it is now exhibited in the daily
life of a child of God, but for the existence of a nature partially sanctified?
How little should we learn of the mysteries of the life of faith,—how
imperfectly skilled in the heavenly war,—how stagnant the well of living water
within us—how bedwarfed and paralyzed every grace of the soul,—how partial our
knowledge of God,— how little our acquaintance with Christ,—how small a measure
of the indwelling power of the Holy Ghost,—how little holy wrestling with the
Angel of the Covenant,—how faint the incense of prayer,—and how distant and dim
an object to our spiritual vision the cross of Christ, but for the gradual
subduing of our iniquities, the driving from before us “by little and little”
our corruptions, the progressive advance of the soul in its holy, sanctified
meetness for heaven!
Yes, it is “by little and little” this holy work is done! Here the power of a
sin is weakened, there the spell of a temptation is broken; here an advancing
foe is foiled, there a deep-laid plot is discovered; and thus “by little and
little,” by a gradual process, aggressive and defensive, of spiritual encounter
and extermination, the spiritual Canaanites are subdued, and the soul becomes
“meetened for the inheritance of the saints in light.”
The subject presented in this chapter is replete with instruction,
encouragement, and help heavenward. Many of the Lord’s people are looking for
the full, the complete sanctification which the Lord has not appointed here,
and which is only attained when the last bond of corruption is severed. The
more deeply the children of Israel explored the good land, the more
intelligently and experimentally they became acquainted with the number and
power of their enemies. Thus it is we are taught. Ignorance of our own heart, a
false idea of the strength of our corruption, a blind, undue estimate of the
number and tact of our inbeing sins, is not favourable to our growth in
holiness. But the Holy Spirit leads us deeper and deeper into self-knowledge,
shews us more and more of the hidden evil, unvails by little and little the
chamber of imagery, teaches us “line upon line, here a little and there a
little;” and thus, by a gradual and progressive process, we are made meet for
glory. Are you, beloved reader, like the children of Israel, conscious of
impoverishment by the marauding incursions of the enemy? then, do as they
did—cry unto the Lord. Thus we read—“And Israel was greatly impoverished
because of the Midianites; and the children of Israel cried unto the Lord,”
(Judges 6:6.) Oh, besiege the throne of grace, and your foes shall be driven
back! Cry mightily unto Jesus, your Commander and Leader, the Captain of your
salvation, and He will defeat their plots and deliver you from their power.
Tell Him that you hate sin, and loathe yourselves because of its existence and
taint. Tell Him you long to be holy, pant to be delivered from the last remnant
of corruption, and that the heavenly voice that bids you unclasp your wings and
soar to a world of perfect purity, will be the sweetest and the dearest that
ever chimed upon your ear. O blessed moment! with what splendour has the hand
of prophecy portrayed it before the eye:—“In that day shall there be upon the
bells of the horses, HOLINESS unto THE LORD; and the pots in the Lord’s house
shall be like the bowls before the altar. Yea, every pot in Jerusalem and in
Judah shall be holiness unto the Lord of hosts; and all they that sacrifice
shall come and take of them, and see the therein: AND IN THAT DAY THERE SHALL
BE NO MORE THE CANAANITE IN THE HOUSE OF THE LORD OF HOSTS.” (Zech. 14:20, 21.)
O blessed day! when all false doctrine, and all superstitious worship, and all
indwelling sin, and all worldly temptation, and all self-seeking, and iniquity of
every name, and sorrow of every form, shall be utterly exterminated, and
HOLINESS TO THE LORD shall hallow every enjoyment, and consecrate every thing,
and enshrine every being. Speed, oh speed the day, blessed Redeemer, when every
throb of my heart, and every faculty of my mind, and every power of my soul,
and every aspiration of my lips, and every glance of my eye, yea, every thought
and word and deed, shall be HOLINESS TO THE LORD! “Oh, precious day of God,
when will it arrive? Shall the lovers of Jesus be indeed delivered from all
false pastors, all corrupt worship, and the Lord have turned to the people a
pure language, that they may all call upon the name of the Lord, to serve Him
with one consent? Shall my soul indeed be freed, not only from all the sorrows,
pains, evils, and afflictions of sin around me, but, what is infinitely better
than all, from the very being and indwelling of sin within me? Shall the
fountain of corruption, both of original and actual sin be dried up, so that I
shall never think a vain thought, nor speak an idle, sinful word any more? Is
there such a day in which the Canaanites shall be wholly driven out? Oh,
blessed, precious, precious promise! Oh, dearest Jesus! to what a blessed state
hast Thou begotten poor sinners of the earth by Thy blood and righteousness!
Hasten it, Lord. Cut short Thy work, Thou that art mighty to save, and take Thy
willing captive home from myself, and all the remaining Canaanites yet in the
land, which are the very tyrants of my soul” (Hawker). Welcome, oh welcome,
beloved, every circumstance, every dispensation, every trial that speeds you
homeward, and matures your soul for the heaven of glory Christ has gone to
prepare for you. It is “by little and by little,” not all at once, that
believers fight the battle and obtain the victory: “They go from strength to
strength, every one of them in Zion appeareth before God.” Your path to glory
shall be as the light, shining with ever-growing, ever-deepening,
ever-brightening lustre of truth, grace, and holiness, until you find yourself
lost amidst the splendours of a perfect and eternal day! Onward, traveller,
onward! From an earthly, you are passing to a heavenly Canaan, in which no foe
enters, and from which no friend departs,—where eternity will be prolonged, as
time began, in a paradise of perfect purity and love,—amidst whose verdant
bowers lurks no subtle serpent, and along whose sylvan windings treads no
ensnaring Eve. Shudder not to pass the Jordan that divides the earthly from the
heavenly Canaan. The Ark of the Covenant will go before you, upborne upon the
shoulder of your great High Priest, cleaving the waters as you pass, and
conducting you, gently, softly, and triumphantly, home to God.
“I saw an aged Pilgrim,
Whose toilsome march was o’er,
With slow and painful footstep
Approaching Jordan’s shore:
He first his dusty vestment
And sandals cast aside,
Then, with an air of transport,
Enter’d the swelling tide.
“I thought to see him shudder,
As cold the waters rose,
And fear’d lest o’er him, surging,
The murky stream should close;
But calmly and unshrinking,
The billowy path he trod,
And cheer’d with Jesus’ presence,
Pass’d o’er the raging flood.
“On yonder shore to greet him,
I saw a shining throng;
Some just begun their praising,
Some had been praising long;
With joy they bade him welcome,
And struck their harps again,
While through the heavenly arches
Peal’d the triumphal strain.
“Now in a robe of glory,
And with a starry crown,
I see the weary Pilgrim
With Kings and Priests sit down;
With Prophets, Patriarchs, Martyrs,
And Saints, a countless throng,
He chants his great deliverance,
In never-ceasing song.”