"Jesus put forth His hand and touched him, saying, I will, be thou clean. And immediately his leprosy was cleansed." Matt. 8:3.
The miracles of Jesus are photographs of the operations of His grace. Some of them are types of pardon, others of cleansing, and others of glorification. The miracle specified in the text in a peculiar manner sets forth heart purification. Leprosy is nowhere a type of actual sin, but always emblematic of original depravity. Its perfect likeness to the carnal mind can be seen in the following items: It is hereditary and not so much contagious: again, it does not manifest itself so much in infancy as in later years; again, the offspring of leprous parents will inevitably have the malady; again, there is no known cure for it in the world, but it has been cured by miraculous mercy; again, in every instance where it has been cured, it was wrought instantaneously. In all these items it corresponds exactly with human depravity. The instantaneous cure mentioned in the text is worthy of special consideration, in connection with the operations of grace. Confounding the instantaneous and the gradual in Christian experience is the source of much theological nonsense, and of more objection to full salvation than all other things put together. In order to get a clear view of instantaneous heart cleansing, let us notice the following points:
1. It must not be confounded with the steps of entire consecration. Consecration is man's side of the work, which has various steps to it, and is gradual until the last item of it is reached. But purification is God's side of the work, and is wrought instantaneously. We work in time, in successive thoughts and feelings. Our faculties are so limited that they cannot all work at the same moment with equal intensity and concentration; hence there must be a series of acts in our minds, thought following thought, feeling succeeding feeling. Thus we approach a state of entire yielding to God by approximate steps. There is an increasing of conviction of our need, and increasing fervency of desire, and we yield ourselves in an itemized manner until the last point of consecration is reached. But God is not so limited in the operations of His Spirit, He does not have to think in successive thoughts. With Him, "one day is as a thousand years." We may be gradually approaching a telegraph office and gradually writing out our dispatch, but when the conditions are all met the electrical message goes instantaneously. In like manner, the gradual approaches to heart parity must not be confounded with the instantaneous cleansing of the Holy Spirit.
2. We must not confound heart cleansing with the process of natural law. Here is where many blunder, supposing that salvation is the out-working of some law. Salvation either in pardon or heart cleansing is never a process of law, but always a work of God, an act of the divine will, the result of an Almighty volition, that volition which is infinitely above law. In nature God works by an established order through agents and sub-agents which we call law. And in providence He uses manifold means and agents, but in saving a soul He goes above and beyond the laws of nature or the instruments of providence, and works directly on the subject; forgiving the sins of the penitent, and cleansing the heart of the perfectly consecrated by the action of His infinite will; speaking from His infinite self directly to the heart, "Go in peace, thy sins are forgiven," or "I will, be thou clean." Everywhere in the Scriptures we find salvation declared to be the direct work of God, and never of any law or agent. Thus we read, " I will circumcise thy heart," " I will sprinkle clean water upon thee," "I will purge away thy dross," "My Father cleanseth it," "Unto Him that loved us and washed us," in fact, there is not a verse in the Bible where salvation is delegated to ally angel, or saint, or Church, or ceremony, or law, or process, but always proceeding as an act of God. Men are so fond of magnifying nature and law that even in sermons and theological writings, in a thousand subtle ways, God has been dethroned, and some imaginary law or process or development, has been put in His place as performing the work of salvation; in every such instance salvation from sin is made gradual, whereas the action of the divine will is always instantaneous. We find no instance in Scripture where a divine act is spoken of as gradual.
3. All the Scripture emblems indicate that heart sanctification is instantaneous or occupies a very brief period. It is spoken of as a creation. " Create in me a clean heart." Creation is instantaneous. "He spake and it was done." It is spoken of as pouring out water, as washing, as circumcision, as purifying gold, as putting on clean robes, as crucifixion or making dead. Even the longest illustration used in Scripture does not include more than four or five hours; and most of them represent a work that takes place in a moment. But the old notion that prevails everywhere, that heart cleansing is a slow process, extending through months and years, is not even hinted in the Scriptures.
4. The act of heart cleansing must not be confounded with growth in grace. Growth and purification belong to two distinct realms of action. All growth belongs to the realm of nature and under the regimen of law; but purification is a divine act. The growth of the Christian previous to sanctification does not purify his heart, and on the other hand, after his heart is thoroughly cleansed, the soil of his nature is but prepared for continuous, rapid and unlimited growth in all the graces of the Spirit. In all the Scripture instances and emblems of growth, it is nowhere identified with the divine act of heart cleansing. The growth of a stalk of corn is one thing, but its purity of freedom from disease is quite another. All the stale illustrations and platitudes about the growth of the oak, and the broadening of the river, and the accumulation of muscle in the blacksmith's arm, and similar metaphors, are not to the point of heart cleansing. Purification has reference to the purity and health of the oak and not to its size, to the transparency of the liver and not to its enlargement, to the healthfulness and cleanness of the blacksmith's arm, and not to the size of its brawn.
5. Instantaneous heart cleansing is eminently essential to our state of probation. The very fact that salvation can take place only in this life, and that we are liable to (lie at any moment, makes it essential that salvation, whether in the work of regeneration or sanctification, should be an instantaneous work. Growth in grace can take place in the future world, and is nowhere stated in Scripture as a condition of admission to heaven; but the thought is repeated over and over again in many ways, that without holiness no man shall see the Lord. When we consider the brevity of our opportunities, the uncertainty of life, even for a day, the absolute necessity of having a pure heart before death, we see the infinite wisdom in arranging for us an instantaneous cleansing, and also the great presumption in our putting it off or relegating it to a slow, gradual process. It is very strange that there is such a widespread and inveterate prejudice against instantaneous purification. But the very fact of such prejudice is an infallible proof of a fallen, perverted state of mind. If we saw the truth in cloudless apprehension, we would rejoice that God has, in boundless mercy, provided a sudden sanctification as an emergency against sudden death.
Those who hold to gradual sanctification do not bear testimony to its experience, but those who have found the experience uniformly declare in harmony with the Scripture that "immediately their leprosy departed from them."
