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Who
May Have Sanctification?
For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are
afar off even as many as the Lord our God shall call. —Acts 2: 39.
The penitent sinner can not, from the very nature of the
case, comprehend the need and the nature of sanctification.. He is too much
absorbed with the feeling of his own guilt and the need of forgiveness to
comprehend his need of cleansing from native depravity. It is after an
acquaintance with God and a more intimate acquaintance with his own moral nature
and with the plan of redemption that he feels the need of a "more abundant
life" (John 10: 10), comprehends the nature and the existence of depravity,
and longs for the complete infilling of the divine Spirit.
It was after the disciples at Ephesus had believed
that they were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. "In whom ye
also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of
your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with
that Holy Spirit of promise" (Eph. 1: 13).
Again, the Holy Spirit is given to the obedient (Acts 5:
32). The disobedient need justification; the obedient may be sanctified. God
gives the Holy Spirit to those who ask (Luke 11: 9-13). It is probable that the
miraculous descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost found the
disciples in prayer (Compare Acts 1: 14 and Acts 2:1).
To sum up, then, it is the justified believer, whose sins
have been forgiven, the soul who has become acquainted with divine things, the
obedient who ask and believe, that may be sanctified.
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