How to Keep Sanctified

By Charles J. Fowler

Chapter 9

SANCTIFICATION OF OTHERS

If we keep sanctified we must needs give attention to others that they also may come into the experience of this great grace. Jesus said, "And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified," i. e., He consecrated or devoted Himself unto this end. In this sense we are to sanctify ourselves, or devote ourselves to the sanctification of others, To be indifferent to this means to forfeit what we have. This experience is for us to enjoy, to be sure, but for us to communicate to others as well and this should be, with us, a delight.

No single truth can be so dear to God as that of entire sanctification, since it makes one holy. Holiness is God-like-ness. God loves and must love that which makes one like Himself.

The holiness movement is a movement by itself. It is not a Church movement. We must be read here with care. We are not saying that it is anti-church -- opposed to the church -- for it is not; but we are saying that it is not a movement that the church, as such, has fathered and fostered.

To illustrate: The Y. M. C. A. movement, the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, etc., were not instituted by the Church. While they are made up to a considerable degree of people who are Church members, the Church as such did not found these and does not foster them. On the other hand the Baptist Young People's Union, the Epworth League, etc., were created by the Church and are cared for by it.

The holiness movement is made up, with the rarest exceptions, of Church members and reliable holiness associations demand that its members be related to some Church, yet no denomination of Christians formed this movement, and no denomination looks after it. It exists independent of all; and in many cases it exists, notwithstanding the wishes of many to the contrary.

If we get others sanctified it means that we appreciate the fact relative to the providential meaning of the holiness movement as such. It is this that brought us into the experience. We were not sanctified through the regular means and methods of the Church, but through the means and methods of the holiness movement itself. It was through some holiness convention, or holiness camp meeting or holiness evangelist, that the Holy Ghost got us sanctified, and if it was our pastor, he in all probability was himself brought into the experience through the means we have mentioned. So that at the farthest we are the grandchildren of the holiness movement.