That is what some of you were!

That is what some of you were!

(J. C. Philpot)

The Holy Spirit undertakes to sanctify the objects

of the Father’s eternal choice, and of the Son’s

redeeming death.

Sanctification is as needful, as indispensable

for the Church’s salvation, as redemption!

For O! how low was the Church sunk in the Adam fall! The

image of God, in which she was created–how defaced and

as if blotted out! Death spreading itself with fatal effect

over her every mental and bodily faculty! Sin, like a hideous

leprosy, infecting her to the very heart’s core! A thousand

base lusts plunging her deeper and deeper into a sea of

guilt and crime! Enmity against God boiling up in waves

of ceaseless rebellion! Satan tyrannizing over her with

cruel sway, sometimes drawing and sometimes driving,

but by one or the other dragging her without hope or

help towards the brink of the bottomless pit!

Hear that bold blasphemer!

See that drunken, raving prostitute!

Look at that murderer with his blood-red hand

stealing off from his mangled victim!

Or, if you shrink from such sounds and such sights, picture

to your imagination the vilest wretch who ever disgraced

human nature–and you see in that portrait the features of

the Church as implicated in the Adam fall–and sunk into

original and actual transgression!

What a work, then, was undertaken by that most gracious

and condescending Spirit, who solemnly pledged Himself,

in the eternal covenant, to sanctify such wretches, and

to fit and frame them to be partakers of holiness, and

live forever in God’s spotless presence!

It were easier for the wolf to dwell with the lamb, and

the leopard to lie down with the sheep–than for ungodly

sinners, unwashed, unregenerated, unsanctified, to dwell

forever before the throne of God and of the Lamb!

But O, the wonders of wisdom, grace, and love!

Sinners, the vilest sinners, the worst of wretches, the

basest of mortals–can and will enter through the gates

into the holy city!

Paul, having enumerated some of the vilest crimes which

stain human nature and sink it below the beasts that perish,

says, “And that is what some of you were! But you were

washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the

name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

Comments are closed.