HOLINESS: Its Importance and Place in the M.B.C. Church ~ by Wm. H. Yates

(The following is part of an article from the Gospel Banner, May 22, 1930. It was the official publication of the Mennonite Brethren in Christ, which is a significant part of the Missionary Church heritage.)

Each person of the Trinity is co-operative in the work of Entire Sanctification.

God the Father wills it.

Jesus Christ makes provision for it.

The Holy Ghost accomplishes it.

Its Importance and Place in the M. B. C. Church.

It is important because:

(1) God has provided it for us and demand it of us.

(2) We cannot meet God’s idea of salvation in its completeness without it.

(3) It is the only thing that will completely satisfy the souls of our people.

(4) It will give us power with God and man.

(5) It prepares men for life and heaven.

(6) Because it is the greatest need of the church.

(7) Because it is a necessity to the greatest Christian usefulness.

We as ministers cannot be at our best without the experience. Nothing else can take the place of it. Men lay great stress on education, culture and training, which are good in their place, but the great qualification for the ministry is The Baptism of the Holy Ghost. Without this we become mere ornaments, just simply filling a place, and entertaining our people. We believe that the success of our church, and ministry in the past is attributed to the stand we have taken on this important subject. We must continue to give this truth a prominent place in our preaching and teaching. It is not only essential as an article in our creed, but we must teach it, and preach it, so as our people can understand it, and see the importance of seeking the experience. Oh! Let us enjoy it, and preach it, so that our people will become hungry for it, that we will have many press their way into the blessing.

I sometimes wonder if we have not let down somewhat, in giving this truth to our people. How many holiness meetings do we have in a year? Where are our holiness conventions gone that we used to have? Were they of no benefit? Are they too much out of date for these modern days? To my mind no doctrine is of more importance than the doctrine of Entire Sanctification. All other doctrines point to this, and all other doctrines are intended to lead to this. This should be the great end of all our church teaching.

God’s method for saving the world is by and through the sanctification of His people. Jesus commanded His disciples that they should not depart from Jerusalem, but wait (how hard it is to wait) for the promise of the Father. Then He also said, "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto me, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost parts of the earth."

Many a time our heart’s cry as workers and ministers is “O God revive thy work again.” We see the great need of this all over our church. We see the great need of extending our borders, and branching out, and opening up new work. We see the need of more workers at home and abroad. We see the lack of finances to send out more workers. Oh! the appalling need of our church and of a lost world facing us in this day. What is the remedy? What can meet the need?

Brethren and Sisters, the only thing that will meet the great need, is a genuine old time revival of Bible Holiness, among us as preachers and workers, as well as among our laity.

Our mission as a church is to promote Holiness. All our church work ought to be that end.

The Bishops of the M. E. Church (Methodist Episcopal Church) in 1824 said that in an address to the general conference. “If Methodists give up the doctrine of Entire Sanctification, or suffer it to become a dead letter, we are a fallen people. Holiness is the main cord that binds us together. Relax this and you loosen the whole system.”

This can be said of our own little church in this present day. Let us as workers together, enjoy it, teach it, preach it, and live it. Urge our people to seek it and I am confident that our work as a church will flourish and grow, and blessed revival will be the outcome.

THE SECRET OF SPIRITUAL POWER by G. D. Watson

The late Dr. J. A. Huffman, Missionary Church historian, pointed to G.D. Watson as having greatly contributed to the understanding of the doctrine of holiness in the formative days of the denomination. "The Secret of Spiritual Power" was one of the writings of G. D. Watson that had wide distribution during those years.

A great deal has been said and written upon the subject of spiritual power, and perhaps I can add nothing original upon the subject, but may help to stir up some pure minds by way of remembrance.

While attending a holiness convention in Star Hall, Manchester, England, one day, there opened up to my mind a series of thoughts as to the secret of God's power in man. In the. first place, the secret of spiritual power consists in the union of the Holy Ghost with the purified faculties and natural energies of the human soul, and, on the human side, it consists in the utter abandonment of the soul to, and a hearty cooperation with, the Holy Spirit. It is not eloquence, nor style, nor personal magnetism, nor psychology, nor the natural energy of the human soul, not even the energy of a purified soul. The soul may be purified, and yet as a mere creature, the creature faculties and creature powers do not have the power of God in soul-saving, in aggressive spiritual work, in bringing sinners to repentance, or believers into holiness. It is true that a human soul free from sin, as a mere creature, has a marvelous power above other unsaved souls, but as a creature, though it be holy, yet in itself does not possess that secret energy which can communicate conviction and lead to salvation. So that, however holy a man is, there must be joined on to him a divine current, a supernatural energy which is emphatically divine, and of which he is the vehicle and conductor.

This divine power is a secret unknown to the world, uncomprehended by the most learned sinners, misunderstood by carnal professors, utterly beyond the grasp of philosophers or scientists. Let us notice some Scripture proofs. Jesus had a pure soul; from the very initial of His being He was perfectly free from the fallen nature of Adam, and, as a mere man, He was superior in moral strength to all the men of the world. And yet it was not by His holy creature-strength that He did the works of His father. The power that Jesus used in working miracles, in preaching sermons, in healing diseases, in casting out demons, in saving souls was not the power of His sinless soul, but it was the power flowing from the baptism of the Spirit upon His pure humanity. This is distinctly marked in the two periods of His life. From His infancy to His baptism in Jordan He was entirely holy, but wrought no miracles, but when the Holy Ghost descended on Him, from that time on, He was the Anointed One, and worked under the perpetual unction that flowed through Him from the Holy Spirit. So that in addition to His holy creature-faculties, God poured into Him the fullness of the Spirit. We are told that when Jesus had gotten through with the temptation of the wilderness, He "returned to Galilee in the power of the Holy Ghost." This expression of returning in the "power of the Holy Ghost," implies that there was added unto Him a power which He did not possess as a mere pure man.

We sometimes hear it said that "holiness is power," and that all the power we need for the work of God is heart purity, but these remarks are not entirely correct according to the Word of God. It is true that heart purity is power in the creature sense of power, but it is not the power of the Holy Ghost in the Scripture sense of it. Jesus is our example, and we read that He received in addition to His pure humanity the power of the Holy Ghost, and that it was "through the eternal Spirit He offered Himself without spot unto God," and that it was "through the Holy Ghost He gave commandment unto the apostles." And He so often affirms, "The words I speak unto you I speak not of Myself," that is, the words did not proceed from His merely pure humanity. Now, if Jesus needed the Holy Ghost united with His holy creature nature in order to give Him the peculiar secret of power in His mission, and if He is our example, how much more do we need that we should have our sanctified hearts and our mental faculties in vital union with the Holy Spirit, that by that union we may do the work of God. So that we cannot depend On the natural energies even of our saved souls. We cannot depend on ourselves in any form, nor on any creature, or number of creatures however holy they may be.

Another proof text is, Jesus says, "Ye shall receive the power of the Holy Ghost coming upon you." The old version says, "Ye shall receive power after that the Holy Ghost has come upon you." But it is more correct to take the marginal reading. According to the thought in the old version, the power is a something which is detached from the Holy Ghost, but according to the margin, the power is identified with the Holy Ghost, and is spoken of as a current or wave which gushes out from the conjunction of the Holy Spirit and the human soul. Just as the current of water in the wilderness did not gush from the rock of itself, nor did it gush from the rod, but when the rod touched the rock, from the union of the rod and the rock, the stream poured forth, so the current of divine power does not go forth from the Holy Ghost apart from the human soul, nor does it proceed from the merely purified soul, but when the sanctified soul and the Holy Ghost are united, from that ineffable union there goes forth what is scripturally called the power of God. Thus the secret of power is in having the Holy Ghost unite Himself to our souls, cleansing, filling, inspiring us, supplying us according to each emergency with supernatural light, energy, wisdom, courage, tact and zeal, to do the will and work of God. This power is something that God puts within the soul, which the soul itself does not comprehend, so that a person under its enduement does not break down with discouragement, does not break down under a thousand things that would break down the human soul if it were left by itself.

One of the best illustrations of this secret power is a current of electricity, of which the sanctified faculties of man form the negative pole, and the Holy Ghost the positive. If these are separated there is no current, but united there goes forth a shock to startle the slumbering, to awaken sinners, to cause the hearers to break down in penitential weeping, to reveal to Christian people as by a flash of lightning the original impurity in their hearts, and to move congregations toward the Saviour with earnest cries for salvation. The scarcity of these celestial shocks is because professedly Christian workers trust to creature strength, or to the mere orthodoxy of their words. "Cursed is the man that trusteth in man," and especially cursed is he that trusteth in himself.