Wholly Sanctified

And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 THESSALONIANS 5:23

Simpson wrote a small book on this single verse, and the title he gave it is the word he would not let go of: Wholly Sanctified. The emphasis falls on the adverb. Paul does not pray that the Thessalonians be partly sanctified, or sanctified in their religious department. He prays for the whole person, and then names the parts in case anyone should misunderstand: spirit, and soul, and body.

What the word means

Simpson began where the Old Testament begins, because the vocabulary comes from there. To sanctify is to set apart. When the vessels of the tabernacle were sanctified they were not morally improved — a bowl has no morals. They were transferred from ordinary use to God’s use. That is the root idea, and it is the reason sanctification is not primarily about the removal of faults.

If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honour, sanctified, and meet for the master’s use, and prepared unto every good work. 2 TIMOTHY 2:21

There are two movements in it, and Simpson insisted on both. There is separation from — the withdrawal of the vessel from common service. And there is consecration to — its dedication to the owner who will now use it as He pleases. A great deal of holiness teaching stops at the first, and produces Christians whose religion is chiefly a list of things they do not do. Separation without consecration yields an empty vessel, scrupulously clean and used for nothing. The point of taking the bowl off the common shelf is to put it on the altar.

Spirit, soul and body

Paul’s threefold naming gave Simpson his structure, and he applied it concretely. The spirit is sanctified when a man’s deepest life is turned Godward — when his communion, his conscience and his intuitive sense of God’s will are governed by the Holy Spirit rather than by his own preferences. The soul is sanctified when the mind, the emotions and the will come under Christ. Simpson gave particular attention to this middle region, because it is where most Christians live and where most of the trouble is. A sanctified mind is not merely a mind that thinks correct doctrine; it is one whose habitual imagination has been cleansed. Sanctified emotions are not suppressed emotions; they are affections attached to what deserves them. A sanctified will is not a broken will but a surrendered one.

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. ROMANS 12:2

The body is sanctified when its members are placed at God’s disposal — the eyes, the tongue, the appetite, the hands, the hours. Simpson took this literally and unsentimentally, and it is the point at which his teaching on holiness runs directly into his teaching on healing: the body is not a regrettable container for the soul but a temple bought at a price.

What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you …ye are not your own? For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body. 1 CORINTHIANS 6:19–20

The One who does it

Now the sentence that Simpson regarded as the whole security of the doctrine, and which is almost always left off when the verse is quoted.

Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it. 1 THESSALONIANS 5:24

Paul does not command the Thessalonians to sanctify themselves wholly. He prays that God will do it, and then adds that God is faithful and will. This is the guard against the two diseases of holiness teaching. It prevents despair, because the outcome does not rest on the believer’s capacity. And it prevents pride, because a work God performs leaves nobody anything to boast about. Simpson’s counsel was accordingly simple. Present the vessel; God will fill and use it. Our part is the handing over; His part is everything that follows.

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. ROMANS 12:1

Wholly, and therefore now

One further observation, and it is the practical sting of the chapter. The word wholly exposes the arrangement most of us actually operate. We have consecrated regions. There is a part of life we have handed over — usually the explicitly religious part — and there are territories that have never come up in prayer at all: how money is spent, how a spouse is spoken to, what is watched alone, what is done with anger, how a business treats those who cannot complain. Simpson’s question was not whether you have surrendered, but whether there is anything you have quietly kept off the list. And he noticed that most believers can name it within a few seconds of being asked, which suggests they have known about it for some time.

There is a mercy hidden in the word preserved in this verse, which Simpson pointed out and which is easily missed. Paul does not merely ask that the Thessalonians be sanctified; he asks that they be preserved blameless until the coming of Christ. The One who sets the vessel apart also keeps it. That is a longer commitment than any of us would make about ourselves, and it is offered by Someone who does not tire.

Keeping the surrender

A consecration once made does not stay made without attention, and Simpson was realistic about the leakage. The New Testament image he used was the altar. The sacrifice is laid on it in a definite act — but Paul’s phrase is a living sacrifice, and a living sacrifice can get down. Nothing holds it there but its own continuing consent.

If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. LUKE 9:23

Daily. The word is in the text, and Simpson would not let it be softened into a general disposition. The handing over is renewed each morning, usually before anything has happened to make it feel necessary. He recommended a specific practice, and it is worth adopting because it takes about ninety seconds. On waking, before the day’s demands arrive, present the day: the hours, the people, the interruptions not yet known, the temper not yet tested. Not a long devotion — a definite transfer of ownership, made in words, before the ownership is contested.

O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee. PSALM 63:1

The reason for doing this early is practical. By ten o’clock the day has taken shape, several small decisions have been made on autopilot, and the surrender is now being attempted against resistance rather than in advance of it. Simpson’s observation was that most believers who lose ground do not lose it in a crisis. They lose it in the accumulation of mornings on which the transfer was simply not made.

FOR REFLECTION AND ACTION

1. Name the territory you have never brought into prayer. You will know it immediately. Bring it now. 2. Check whether your holiness is chiefly separation from things. If the vessel is clean and unused, that is only half the doctrine. 3. Take Paul’s three areas in turn and name one specific thing in each — spirit, soul, body — that needs to be handed over. 4. Rest on 1 Thessalonians 5:24. Where you have despaired of change, remind God of His own promise to do it. 5. Present the vessel again this morning, and then get on with the day instead of monitoring yourself.

A PRAYER

God of peace, sanctify me wholly — not the religious part, not the part that shows, but all of it.

Take my spirit, and make my communion with You real. Take my soul — my mind with its wandering, my feelings with their disorder, my will with its insistence. Take my body, my eyes and tongue and appetite and hours.

There is one place I have kept back, and You know what it is. I bring it now.

Faithful is He who calls me, who also will do it. I rest on that, because I have proved I cannot do it myself. Amen.