Precious Treasures of Understanding

If you examine the scripture with a ready mind you will see for yourself that having a fallen nature has nothing to do with physical genetics. There was a spiritual change in our original parents as soon as the forbidden fruit was eaten: "Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings".Genesis 3:7  Examine the verses that follow this, and you will see that at the same time that they became haunted by their own  nakedness and guilt, they began to be unhealthily separated from God. They were not capable of this dysfunction before, but now they cannot help themselves since they now possess a nature that had never been on earth before. A fallen nature.

But now this malignant fallen nature rules the world, and is hidden within every person on earth, (saved and unsaved) except those in His Rest... They have been cleansed from it by His stripes. 

"10 And the brethren immediately sent away Paul and Silas by night unto Berea: who coming thither went into the synagogue of the Jews. 11 These were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness of mind, and searched the scriptures daily, whether those things were so. 12 Therefore many of them believed; also of honourable women which were Greeks, and of men, not a few." Acts 17:10-12

There is much treasure here, but it takes some digging.  So be noble, be ready of mind......        Earnest Seeker


The Heritage of Holiness
All our churches have lost the way to heart-purity and fallen into the ancient deception of Antinomianism. This error is the cause the regular occurence of acts of sin amongst believers and of many slowly losing devout ground as they age -instead of obaining the magnified Godliness hoped for.  True understanding of the place and function of God's perfect law in our lives is as rare as it is crucial.    25 page PDF by H. E. Jessop  Two column layout. (See also Fletcher's famous "Checks to Antinomianism" in the Classics section of the History page.)

The Carnal Mind and How to Cure it
This is a brief and exceptionally clear document.  Others will have more scripture, or more colour, or get into more detail, or be more personal, but regardless, this one is very hard to beat for an overview of the carnal mind and what to do about it. Contains perhaps the best description of what the carnal mind actually is on this website.  31 page PDF by H. A. Erdmann.  Very lightly edited by Earnest Seeker.  Two column layout.

A Presentation of Perfection           
The Holiness Movement has a long heritage that displays great spiritual wealth and diversity of approach. The authours below  represent many different periods of history and a variety of doctrinal perspectives. Some of you may wish to objectively understand where these authours stand in the broad historical  sweep of thought within the movement.  Dr Mark Eckhart's recent doctoral thesis does just this for us, with charts and all! "An Historical Look at Sanctification in the American Holiness Movement and Specifically in the God's Revivalist"    118 pages by Dr. Mark Eckhart   (long 393 KB download excerpted from the Wesleyan Heritage Library CD in such a way as to illustrate the exact format of the CD.)

Pentecostal Sanctification
A list of thirty-one special scriptures exactly on sanctification with a pithy paragraph comment attached to add light to each by the illustrious Rev. Beverly Carradine. (1848-1931)  Each one is on a different sub-topic.  9 pages  (enhanced by ES)


Holiness -Is It Worth The Cost?
Extraordinarily clear and brief descriptions of the four main benefits of entering His Rest as experienced by one from before Asuza Street.  But these days there is another one: His Rest is the ideal stable foundation for the Holy Spirit to work from. No fuss, no muss, no variance. 4 pages by Joseph Gray (enhanced by ES)


 On to Perfection
A clear point-by-point scriptural exegesis of sanctification and the sanctification experience that is given to “furnish a foundation for a faith to secure a pure heart out of which will flow a holy life in the sight of God”.  This superb short article expands upon some explicit scriptures that are not often used in this context.   Dynamite.   6 pages by Benjamin Franklin Neely (enhanced by ES)


The Two Covenants
This is absolutely the best study of God's Covenants that I know of.  
"My one great desire has been to ask Christians whether they are really seeking to find out what exactly God wants them to be, and is willing to make them. It is only as they wait, "that the mind of the Lord may be showed them," that their faith can ever truly see, or accept, or enjoy what God calls "His salvation." As long as we expect God to do for us what we ask or think, we limit Him. When we believe that as high as the heavens are above the earth, His thoughts are above our thoughts, and wait on Him as God to do unto us according to His Word, as He means it, we shall be prepared to live the truly supernatural, heavenly life the Holy Spirit can work in us the true Christ life.
May God lead every reader into the secret of His presence, and " show him His Covenant."  51 pages by Andrew Murray  in 1898 -some testimonies are included.
Please note: this article was witten before Asuza Street, and so often uses the term "Baptism in the Holy Ghost" as a synonym of sanctification and entering His Rest.


Love Militant
A detailed comparison between the mixed state given by justification and the fullness found in entire sanctification.   "But a pardoned criminal is not necessarily a good citizen. Pardon has changed his relation to the law, but not his hostility toward the governor. A change must take place within him. He must be reconstructed. We now come to the second step in the conquest of the soul by love divine."  The Land of Beulah beckons us onward....           5 enhanced pages by Daniel Steele  (10/5/1824 - 1914) 


Beulah Land
O the flawless beauty of Beulah Land and the marvels of His Rest are Christ's legacy to His Church. "My peace I give unto you." Elsewhere this peace is described as the peace of God, because He is its source and origin. It is the peace which Christ had with the Father from the beginning, the peace in the heart of the Eternal, the stillness of eternity entering the spirit, causing a waveless, breathless calm. It lies not in the emotions, nor in the absence of the emotions. It is a peace not springing up in the course of nature, but handed down from heaven, and implanted in the believing soul."  9 enhanced pages by Thomas Cook

 The Call to Holiness
Sanctification is not attained; it is obtained. For it is of grace through faith and not of merit by works. It is without price, because it is priceless, and it is not of works, because it is beyond man's possibility. He who wills our sanctification is Himself the Sanctifier. "We do not grow into the experience of sanctification. But we grow in it; there is no perfection beyond which there is no perfecting. The holy have their fruit unto holiness. The branch in the vine is cleansed, that it may bring forth more fruit; the call to holiness is a call to a holy life. It is a tragedy when “holiness” people are not holy people. The act of God in sanctification is followed by the work of God in holiness of character and life."   4 pages by Samuel Chadwick .  (1860 - 1932)  enhanced

The Progress of Mr. Wesley’s View
Through the years of walking in as well as, seeing and interviewing thousands who obtained entire sanctification, Wesley’s view of the sanctification experience gradually matured, and strengthened although he had the right view from the beginning.   5 pages by Rev. D. A. Whedon    (1808 - ? )

Inspired Directions in Seeking
Matt. 5:6, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled" Hunger and thirst is the true sign of that new life on which those born of the Spirit have entered; and it is after righteousness, i.e., perfect conformity to the will of God.  Hunger has its reward.  This is a list of  key quotes on sanctification from 28 famous Holiness saints.              5 pages by L. M. Campbell

Selected Scriptures of Rest
This full listing of all meaningful scriptures that use the word “rest” reveals the Lord’s own view of His Rest.  It may surprise you!  Virtually nobody preaches this.  Mostly scriptures -with brief comments and context.                   7 pages  by Earnest Seeker

The Perfecting of our Faith
A holiness preacher lays out his formula for the perfection of faith.  This insightful article explores the very source and nature of faith itself as it relates to specific souls the authour has seen obtain His Rest.  Influences which effect the essential completeness of this faith must be addressed.                    10 pages by J. G. Morrison


Sanctification
After abiding in His Rest for just one year Rev. Carradine wrote this book to explain his new state of grace.  This apologetic work contains some of the best reader-sensitive explanations available for those who have not yet entered His Rest, but his later books give more complete entry directions.
"The writer once saw a man receiving brick. Several fellow-laborers were tossing two and three at a time to him. With an adroitness and expedition admirable to behold, this man caught the brick tossed toward him, and in a flash cast them from him in another direction on a neighboring pile. If he had paused long enough, he would have been covered up and walled in with brick; but the transferring movement saved him.
The illustration aptly illustrates that cares are coming to and threatening to fall upon all of us in this world. If we would allow them they would soon bury us alive. As it is, many Christians are covered up or borne down or heavy-laden by them for a greater or less length of time. Sanctification is the only life I know of that refuses to allow trouble to rest upon the soul; but with a faith movement, instantaneous as a flash of lightning, the man throws the mistake, trouble, besetment, annoyance, or disappointment at once upon the altar and leaves it there forever. No matter how they come and when and where, no matter how swiftly and abundantly they fall, the sanctified soul, refusing to bear their sad weight a moment, places them upon his Lord and goes free. Glory be to God for this heaven-sent power!"
 The language and idiom has been carefully enhanced for modern readers by Earnest Seeker. 57 pg PDF  by Rev. B. Carradine

The Holy of Holies
Behind the second veil is a hidden place where His silence remains stainless, His light shines undimmed, and His life abides unabated.  We are clearly called to Tabernacle in this glory beyond all earthly sorrow.  The sanctified authour clearly illustrates the peerless principles involved.                   6 precious pages by John Marvin Hames

John 17
W. B Godbey, a famous Holiness preacher wrote a full and authoritative Biblical Commentary: here is how he understands the famous Chapter of John 17; line-by-line.          4 heavily insightful pages by the astonishing W. B. Godbey  (6/3/1833 -? )

Entire Sanctification
Adam Clarke was an early  pioneer Wesleyan itinerant preacher (1760-1832) in England that was also a scholar of distinction that added greatly to the foundation under Wesley’s teaching on holiness.  In this article he refutes many misunderstandings regarding sanctification with a devastating exegesis. Confusion on these important issues is so perennial that it needs to be read today more than ever!!   19 amazingly challenging pages by Adam Clarke ( 1760 or 1763 - 8/26/1832)

The following three documents are especially important to those who have lived clean lives and stayed out of trouble. Those of us who have spent years being "prodigal sons" seldom have trouble recognizing the fact that trouble remains within even after we are saved. Better behaved sons often need special revelation before they can recognize their need for a second work of His grace, but still everybody tends to avoid this reality -which we need to be fully convinced about.

Sanctification and its Synonyms
Do you have theological training? Do you have an especially sharp mind? If so, you may find this incisive scholarly overview of Wesleyan second blessing theological assumptions to be exceptionally helpful for its deep insights.

Most writing on this website is evangelistically oriented, and so tends to omit nuances in favour of getting the simple message accross. I also do this, and tend to use vivid adjectives in order to communicate to jaded pentecostals. Purkiser is not like this at all. His concepts are plain and razor-thin in their distinctions.  

W. T. Purkiser (1910-92) was a prolific writer, respected scholar, and well-loved preacher within the Church of the Nazarene who also had a significant voice in the larger evangelical Christian community. He authored and contributed to some of the most widely disseminated and enduring works in the more recent Wesleyan-Holiness tradition.  31 pages by W. T. Purkiser

Eradication
This is a detailed and very well written scholarly discussion of "What is Eradicated by Entire Sanctification?" from a more recent Nazarene source. "The Wesleyan position as to entire sanctification cannot be held without admitting that something takes place in man which cannot be described in mild terms. The grace of entire sanctification is a radical work and cannot be designated with anything less than radical words. What is asserted as to Wesley’s teaching must also be granted as to the Bible doctrine of entire sanctification. Its position as to entire sanctification is uncompromising, and will not permit being watered down. Entire sanctification on its negative side signifies the complete destruction of something. This is exactly what eradication means. It indicates nothing less and nothing more."
The Nazarenes of the past more often preached about how horrid the fallen nature was than how wonderful is the glorious freedom within His Rest. The former approach encourages preachers to shout fearsome "hellfire and damnation" sermons while the latter encourages them to sweetly woo hearts to Him. As the name of this website suggests, I prefer the latter approach.  Honey catches more flies than vinegar.  I include this article for your edification. 7 pages by Dr. Stephen Solomon White  -Slightly enhanced for modern readers.



Regaining His Rest
Some people make mistakes while walking with God, and truly lose their salvation (if the plain truth is told) -sometimes repeatedly.  Do people in His Rest make mistakes also? If so, what happens to them?  24 pages of excerpts compiled by Earnest Seeker




The Holiness RoundTable