By Steve Bray
God’s historical work of delivering the nation of Israel Egypt
And all these, having obtained a good testimony
through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something
better for us, that they should not be made perfect {in God’s life of love}
apart from us {in this age of fulfillment}. (Heb. 11:39)
{You may} know the love of Christ which passes
knowledge {when Christ manifests His Kingdom-life within your heart}; that you
may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Eph. 3:19)
We can identify three different phases in God’s work
of salvation by examining the Old Testament account of how God planned to take
His people out of Egypt Canaan
of perfect love that can now be revealed within our heart.
First, we can see how the Jews averted death when they
placed the blood of the lamb on the frame of their doors. Prior to actually
being delivered from Egypt
The same principle applies to everyone who now trusts
in Christ’s shed blood. When these believers in the Lord truly desire to come
out from their old way of life and they possess a faith that is able to look to
Him as their Savior, truly trusting in His shed blood as the only means for
their justification, they can be forgiven for their sins. This is the beginning
of their salvation.
We should note that the Jews continued to fear the
Egyptians until they were miraculously taken across the Red Sea . As a spiritual type, it teaches us that people who first turn to the
Lord will continue to have a fear of loosing their salvation until they have
gained a real victory over their old attachments to the world. This second
great miracle is what set God’s called-out people free from their old life and
enabled them to be led by the Spirit {the cloud by day and the pillar of fire
by night}.
The deliverance at the Red Sea could not take place until the people were prepared to begin “walking
by faith.” There needed to be sufficient faith to trust God completely with
their lives. Only then were they prepared to step out into the unknown. It was
then that they received the Spirit to guide them on their journey into the life
of promise.
John Fletcher refers to the first state of Christian
experience as the “age of the Father.” These believers, as they begin to learn
of God’s laws, will do their best to obey. If they have been properly
instructed and truly realize that God requires holiness, they will find
themselves living by law in fear of being disobedient to God. They will
effectively find themselves in the kind of life that Paul describes in Romans
seven. As the law exposes their carnality and double-mindedness, they are
driven ever closer to the life of faith that will enable them to surrender
fully to a Spirit directed life. Fear of their sinful tendencies will back them
up against the Red Sea where their only option apart from losing their life
to the Egyptians, is to yield themselves fully to a Spirit-directed and
Spirit-empowerd life. Only then are they prepared for the miracle that results
in the gift of the Holy Spirit and a real sense of power over sin.
Until this point in their salvation is reached and
they are miraculously taken through the Red Sea , these Christians will need constant reassurance from others. Pastors
today must spend much of their time reassuring these members of their flock
because the “Egyptians”—their worldly tendencies—are still threatening their
lives.
Like many of the early holiness people, Bishop Willard
F. Mallabieu does not believe the people we have described as first-phase
Christians have ever received justifying grace. In a moment we will show how
John Wesley came to differ from this view. And we will agree that the justified
state can be easily lost while living in this condition. Brother Mallabieu
described the condition with these words:
Some souls are under conviction for their sins for
years. They are enlightened by the Spirit, and know the way of duty, and feel
the burden of sin, and have desires for deliverance, and they seek to ammend
their lives and succeed in this to some extent [they turn from all gross sins],
and they perform many religious duties and observe many of the Divine
requirements; but they do not [completely] turn to God in genuine repentance;
they do not forsake their sins [they continue living for themselves in many
ways]; they fondly cling to some heart-idol; they refuse to consecrate
themselves to God’s service; they do not renounce absolutely every other hope
and refuge, and by faith take Christ as their present and all-sufficient
Savior.
These Christians, even if they did have a justifying
faith in the beginning, are obviously on very unstable ground. They cannot
survive in this state for long. Although God will be patient with them for a
while, there will come a time when their resistance to known light causes Him
to take away the convicting work of the Holy Spirit. If they are not broken in
time they will grow more and more hardened to sin. Once they lose their
tenderness to the convicting work of the Holy Spirit, they will lose their hope
of salvation.
John Wesley has taught this same truth. In various
passages found in his writings (e.g., Works, vol. vii. 199-201) he describes
how the Methodists had erred at the outset by declaring that those who did not
yet possess a faith that resulted in a sense of divine freedom within their
hearts were not yet saved. In the following passage (Works, vol. vii. 235) he
explains both the reality and the nature of the faith which most Christians
possess before they are miraculously taken across the Red Sea —taken from a state of fear into a state where they experience their
adoption as sons. After describing the powerful work of the Holy Spirit in
convicting men of sin {the work that will take place in Egypt to prepare them
to look to the blood and desire to escape from their sins}, he explains how
even here there is the beginning of faith and salvation:
But all this conviction implies a species of faith;
being “an evidence of things not seen”; nor indeed possible to be seen or
known, till God reveals them unto us. Still, let it be observed (for it is a
point of no small importance), that this faith is only the faith of a servant,
and not the faith of a son. Because this is a point many do not clearly
understand, I will endeavor to make it a little plainer. The faith of a servant
implies a divine evidence of the invisible and the eternal world; yea, and an
evidence of the spiritual world, so far as it can exist without living
experience. Whoever has attained this, the faith of a servant, “feareth God and
escheweth evil”; or, as it is expressed by St Peter, “feareth God and worketh
righteousness.” In consequence of which he is, in a degree, as the Apostle
observes, “accepted with him.” Elsewhere he is described in these words: “he
that feareth God and keepeth his commandments.” Even one who has gone thus far
in religion [an Old Testament form of salvation], who obeys God out of fear, is
not in anywise to be despised; seeing “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of
wisdom.” Nevertheless, he should be exhorted not to stop there; not to rest
till he obtains the adoption of sons; till he obeys him out of love, which is
the privilege of all the children of God. Exhort him to press on, by all
possible means, till he passes…from the faith of a servant to the faith of a
son; from the spirit of bondage unto fear to the spirit of childlike love.
God drove the Jews out of Egypt Red
Sea . This represents the
supernatural experience that occurs when God breathes the Spirit into His
children. He backs them into a corner where they see there is no hope of real
freedom while they are still trying to live by law. Coming to the conclusion
that Paul reached at the end of Romans seven, they depend on Jesus to give them
His Spirit and take them into a Spirit-guided and Spirit-empowered way of life.
Fletcher refers to this second phase of Christian
experience as the “age of the Son.” It is described in Romans eight. “There is
therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk
according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit
of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.” (v.
1-2)
We know the Spirit was with the first disciples while
Jesus walked with them in this world. They lived in a forgiven state. For
example, we can read how people were being forgiven for their sins before Jesus
even came upon the scene: “John came baptizing in the wilderness and preaching
a baptism of repentance for the remission of sins.” (Mark 1:4) Once forgiven,
they could remain justified in the sight of God by continuing to “bear fruits
worthy of repentance.” (Luke 3:8) They effectively lived in fear as they sought
to obey God. It was not until His resurrection day that Christ was able to
breathe His Spirit into His first disciples and enable them to experience a
deep sense of peace with God. (John 20:21-22)
The Spirit is “with” believers before they receive Him
as an indwelling presence. (John 14:17) He is only given as an indwelling gift
to those who are willing to yield to God’s ways and bear fruits worthy of
repentance. “And we are His witnesses to these things, and so also is the Holy
Spirit whom God has given to those who
obey Him.” (Acts 5:32
Emphasis added) Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments. And I will
pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with
you forever—the Spirit of truth…” (John 14:15-17) It is this gift of the
indwelling Spirit that provides “times of refreshing” and stabilizes the
Christian walk.
There are many Christians who have mistaken this gift
of the Holy Spirit as God’s work of entire sanctification. They do not seem to
realize that their reception of the gift of the Spirit, which they refer to as
their “second blessing,” was God’s miraculous work of figuratively taking them
across the Red Sea . As Wesley and Paul have explained, it was the point
in their salvation when God delivers them from the bondage of fear and they
begin to experience the adoption as sons. “For you did not receive the spirit
of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we
cry out, ‘Abba, Father.’ The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that
we are children of God.” (Rom.
But this miraculous deliverance still leaves God’s
children in a desert wilderness where they will continue to pass through real
dry spells in their Christian walk. Yes, God does take them to glorious wells
of refreshment, but there are still times when they begin to wonder if He has
left them to die in the desert. While they are now able to devote themselves to
serving the Lord with a real sense of freedom, they can sense that Christ’s
living water is not continually welling up from within their inner being into a
manifestation of His eternal life of perfect love. (John 4:14)
Even though these Christians are fully committed to
serving the Lord, self is still down at the bottom their works. The Spirit
gives them power to suppress the “old man,” but he will periodically show
himself when they find themselves confronted with certain trials. If these
believers were truly sanctified fully, a state that permits Christ to manifest
His Kingdom-life of perfect love from within their heart, this old man would be
dead. We know that the flesh-life is unable to live in His presence.
The purpose of the desert testing period is to strip
away the independent and self-sufficient nature that everyone inherits from
Adam. God will not permit the fleshly human works of man, even when they are
devoted to working for the Lord, to live in His presence. There needs to be a
complete surrender of all pride before Christ will manifest His Kingdom-life of
perfect love within the eternal soul.
We must come to the place where we are willing to stop
trying to live by human strength before we can live by the kind of pure faith
that will permit Christ to manifest His Kingdom-life and works through us. His
resurrection power can only be manifested through our body when we have truly
become weak in self. (2 Cor. 12:9) It involves a complete resting from our own
works. (Heb. 4:10) Because this is a hard lesson to learn, it often takes time
to get through the wilderness stripping process. We cannot walk by the kind of
dependent faith that we will need while we are still living in our own
strength. It is this root of pride, which naturally leads us to believe that we
do the work of God, that must die before we can find the Kingdom-life of our
Lord. {We can determine when we are still working for the Lord in our own
strength by the way we desire to be recognized for what we have done.}
The full sanctification described by the holiness
people in years past is different than the sanctification that we find being
taught today. While we both speak of two works of grace, modern holiness people
generally refer to the first two phases of God’s work of salvation. In
contrast, as Wesley explained, many in the past only recognize the second and
third phase in God’s work of salvation. In other words, in days past they did
not accept anyone as being justified until they had actually received the gift
of the Spirit. If the believer had not fully overcome sin, where they sensed a
real sense of freedom from the Egyptians, they were told they had not yet
experienced their “passover.” They were told to press forward in their faith
until they were enabled to live above sin. They said there could be no
remission of sins until this deeper work had occurred. As previously noted,
Wesley believed this was an error.
Today we error in another way. We erroneously assume
that everyone who has looked to the blood of Jesus has also received the spirit
of adoption and the gift of the Spirit, even though they do not experience the
reality of the work. This naturally leads us to mistakenly believe that these
believers have received the fullness of the Spirit {entire sanctification} when
God finally takes them through a miraculous Red Sea experience and provides them with freedom over sin.
The following contrast between receiving the
indwelling Spirit and being filled with Christ’s Spirit will provide a deeper
understanding of God’s work of entire sanctification. We should note that
everyone who receives the gift of the Holy Spirit has been set apart or
sanctified to God. It is sanctification begun, and it is real. But you will
find that it has not yet become complete in every corner of the heart.
The indwelling Holy Spirit {after this first
experiential blessing is received} will turn you away from all outward sin. In
other words, it provides the power to suppress the old man and his tendency to
sin.
The fullness of
the Spirit {the second “experiential” blessing, which is entire
sanctification} will save you from all the inward stirrings of the “carnal
mind.”
The indwelling Holy Spirit will turn you away
from scolding and getting “out of patience” when things go wrong. Even when the
feeling is sensed within, the Spirit gives you the needed power to hold back the
outbreak of this condition.
The fullness of
the Spirit replaces the natural impatience of the old man with God’s nature
of perfect love. While God Himself expressed an impatience with the rebellion
of His called-out people in the Old Testament, and the Son revealed this same
expression over the lack of faith in His disciples, the reaction was not a
selfish response of the flesh. He was expressing a loving concern about their
slow progress in spiritual matters. On the other hand, He never responded impatiently
to people even when they did the most harmful things to Him. For example, “when
He was reviled, {He} did not revile in return; when He suffered, {He} did not
threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously.” (1 Pet. 2:23)
The indwelling Holy Spirit will give you the
needed power to avoid saying harsh, cutting words when pressed or in a hurry.
You will have the power to repress unloving feelings and to remain kind and
patient when reproved or contradicted or misunderstood. Everyone who is walking
in the light as sons will keep these things suppressed.
The fullness of
the Spirit, because it takes away all desire to Lord it over others, will
keep you from feeling a sense of resentment when your will has been crossed.
Your heart will remain naturally meek and mild. Your heart will be filled with
Christ’s Spirit of “longsuffering” and “kindness” and “goodness” and
“gentleness.”
The indwelling Holy Spirit will turn you away
from gossiping about the faults and failings of others.
The fullness of
the Spirit, or perfect love, “thinks no evil.” It will save you from all
evil surmisings and uncharitable suspicions.
The indwelling Holy Spirit will turn you away
from harboring jealousy and bitterness toward one another.
The fullness of
the Spirit will save you from ever feeling envy stirring within your heart.
The indwelling Holy Spirit will turn you away
from pouting and wanting to have your own way.
The fullness of
the Spirit will destroy the very principle that needs to be coaxed and
humored.
The indwelling Holy Spirit will take you to
wells of refreshment at times in order to provide a sense of deep peace and joy
in the Lord.
The fullness of
the Spirit will enable you to “rejoice evermore,” and “in everything give
thanks,” even in times of pressure, opposition and misunderstanding. Christ
will continually reveal His own heavenly life of love, joy and peace within
your heart. (Eph. 1:3) “My peace I give to you…” (John 14:27) “I will see you
again {as an indwelling life from heaven} and your heart will rejoice, and your
joy no one will take from you.” (John 16:22)
The indwelling Holy Spirit will keep you from
all trifling, jesting, and worldly conversation.
The fullness of
the Spirit will make your words “few” and well “seasoned with salt” so they
will always “minister grace unto the hearers.”
The indwelling Holy Spirit will turn you away
from the “love of the world.” You will stop following the worldly tendency to
use clothes, personal possessions and amusements as a means to build yourself a
“happy” spiritual life and to create an identifiable “image” for others to
regard. These are the things that we depend on, often innocent in themselves,
that need to be stripped away during the desert testing period before Christ’s
Kingdom-life of promise can be revealed within the heart. He is waiting for you
to depend wholly on Him. He can only reveal His divine life within those who
deny themselves and take His way of the cross. “If anyone desires to come after
Me {into the Kingdom-life of perfect love}, let him deny himself, and take up
his cross, and follow Me {through death into resurrection life}…whoever loses his life for My sake will find
it.” (Matt. 16:24-25 Emphasis added)
The fullness of
the Spirit will satisfy your soul as with the richest of foods and take away
your desire to look to the temporal things of this world for spiritual
sustenance. Because Christ’s living water, His life of perfect love, is
continually welling up from within to satisfy all your needs, you are free to
spend all your time pouring out this life of divine love in a service to
others. It will no longer be necessary to spend time looking for spiritual
sustenance from the things of this world. And you will never run out of
spiritual energy when you are sharing with Christ in His Kingdom-life from
heaven. “Whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the
water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal
life.” (John 4:14) There will be a manifestation of the eternal life of perfect
love.
The indwelling Holy Spirit will give you the
needed power to reject every “lust of the flesh.”
The fullness of
the Spirit will save you from every undue affection or secret stirring of
lust in the soul. Every natural desire becomes completely subject to the Spirit
of Christ.
The indwelling Holy Spirit will enable you to
overcome the peer pressure that tends to draw people away from the truth and
into worldliness.
The fullness of
the Spirit will completely save you from the fear of man and the tendency
to shrink from peer pressure. George Muller has explained the results of a
fully sanctified heart. He said, “There was a day when I died, utterly
died...died to George Muller, his opinions, preferences, tastes and will—died
to the world, its approval or censure—died to the approval or blame even of my
brethren and friends—and since then I have studied only to show myself approved
unto God.”
When we examine the differences between receiving the
gift of the Holy Spirit and being filled with Christ’s Spirit, we can see how there
are many “holiness people” who have misunderstood the true meaning of “entire”
sanctification. Their words and reactions to certain tests continue to show how
they are not as pure in love as they seem to think.
Even more fundamental still, the believer who still
finds himself divided between the ways of our Lord and the way of the world has
a need to seek out the gift of the Holy Spirit. He will be given to everyone
who fully surrenders themselves to be led by the Lord in all matters of life.
Even this first great experiential blessing will require a real consecration to
God. Similar to the way that Jesus’ early disciples gave up everything to
follow Him {they did it before the Spirit was ever breathed into them on the
day of His resurrection}, every disciple must surrender all to follow the Lord.
They must fully yield to His Lordship and be willing to follow Him wherever He
leads. Only in this way can He miraculously take their heart through a Red Sea experience and into a Spirit-empowered and Spirit-led way of life.
Unless they have quenched the Spirit at some point in
the past, people who have the Spirit residing within them will be found living
wholly for the Lord. But this does not necessarily imply they are entirely
sanctified. This deeper work cannot take place until the old self-sufficient
spirit has completely died out.
People who have the Spirit breathed into them set out
to serve the Lord, but much of the work they do is in their own strength. The
desert testing period is a place that is designed to bring about a death to
this flesh-originated life. While the believer in the wilderness is able to
suppress the old man and walk in the Spirit, there will come a time, if he
persistently presses forward in His faith, when there is a desire to have him
completely done away with.
The following testimony helps us see the difference
between receiving the gift of the Spirit and being filled with the Spirit. We
should note the three distinct phases of her spiritual life. Do not be overly
concerned about the labels placed on the experience. They will often vary
depending on the background of the person speaking.
A TESTINONY OF FULL SALVATION
BY
ANNA M. HAMMER
I was born in the town of Pottsville Pa. Wilkesbarre Pa.
There came a time, in 1874, when, having become a
member of the Reformed Episcopal Church, I attended a female prayer-meeting
held every week in the vestry-room. Upon one occasion, a very rainy day, I
found but one dear woman at the meeting, and she told me how mightily the Lord
had blessed her soul, so that she cried out to Him to stay His hand. I was
completely captivated by this account. I never before had heard such an
experience. The next day I was lying upon my bed resting and thinking over the
wonderful story of the day before, when the thought came, “God is no respecter
of persons; what He has done for her He can and will do for me.” I knelt and
prayed, and asked for just what I wanted, and O, how God did pour His Holy
Spirit into my soul and give such a love for souls and hunger for work! I have
always spoken of that baptism as “my baptism for service.” I then consecrated
myself fully to the Lord, and especially temperance work. In this state I lived
an outwardly consecrated, purified life, having the grace given me to prevent
the outward manifestation of anger and kindred sins, so that even some of my
most intimate friends, who enjoyed the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a distinct
second experience, thought I enjoyed the same blessing. I sometimes agreed with
them, but oftener distrusted having had any such experience. Finally a great
hunger of soul came upon me. I knew there were in the corners of my heart
things known only to myself and God, and I realized that nothing short of the
“anointing which abideth” would satisfy my soul and fit me fully as a worker of
God.
In July, 1880, the first assembly of the Women’s
Holiness Camp-meeting was held at Camp Tabor , New Jersey
For hours, forgetting all my prejudices, I was
prostrated in the straw. The meeting broke up, but there I remained, a few
friends around awaiting the result. I am glad no one talked to me; my soul was
in quiet communion with God. Finally a dear minister of God came upon the
ground, and, seeing the unusual gathering, asked what it meant. Someone
replied, “An honest soul seeking the blessing,” and another added, She is an
Episcopalian.” With great heartiness, he responded, “Well, He is the God and
Father of us all.” Then the fatherhood of God peculiarly struck me, and I
raised my head to confirm the thought, when with the action the anointing came.
I was shaken as with a violent ague; over and over and over again the shock
came, finally leaving me so prostrated that I was helped over to the cottage,
where I lay on the lounge for hours bathed in glory. From that hour my Christian
life has been victory. I have grown year by year in the depth of experience
which becomes richer and deeper and sweeter as the years roll on. I have made
mistakes, but they are under the blood; I have had temptations, but early I
learned that they were not sin unless yielded to. But, O, the delights of a
life wholly given up to God!
I have no doubts as to my conversion, that I was “born
again,” that being “dead in trespasses and sins,” I was made “alive in God.” At
the time of my anointing by the Holy Spirit I was living a consecrated life of
faith and active service. My sanctification was a second actual experience, and
from that time my life has been changed, is deeper, stronger, steadier,
sweeter, richer.
Again, we want to note the three different phases of her Christian
experience. In the beginning, even after becoming an earnest Christian, she was
drawn away by the spirit of the world. There are many people within the church
who find themselves continually going through this struggle. It was the gift of
the Holy Spirit that grounded her Christian walk and resulted in a Spirit-led
life of service to the Lord. Many today refer to this experience as God’s work
of entire sanctification. But it was not until the “old man” had completely
died out that she entered into the experience of continuous victorious living
and was enabled to grow from “glory to glory” within the Kingdom-life of
heaven.
There are many holiness people who stop short of this
complete victory over the “old man.” While they generally keep him suppressed,
he still stirs within the heart. It produces an unpleasant feeling. They can
also find themselves occasionally being attracted by things in this world,
which tends to draw them away from their first love. They begin to slacken in
their devotion and service to the Lord.
The Lord remains an intricate part of the life of
these believers, but they have never entered into a state where they actually
live through Him. They do not abide in Him moment by moment, always depending
on Him to be the complete source of their life. They cannot honestly say, “I
have been crucified with Christ; it is no
longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.” (Gal. 2:20 Emphasis added)
Even in their service to the Lord, the words of these
Christians will inevitably reveal how much they are still depending on
themselves. In fact, few of them have ever learned to expect a revelation of
the life of Jesus Christ within them. They do not expect to see Christ until
they physically die or until He comes for His church.
Christ came into this world to reveal the Kingdom-life
of God. After His death He entered into a glorified state that enabled Him to
become a “life-giving spirit.” (1 Cor. 15:45) He is now able to manifest His
life through everyone who is willing to lose their self-life. “In this the love
of God was manifested toward us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into
the world, that we might live through Him.” (1 John 4:9) This is the only way
someone can be perfected in love and reveal the Kingdom-life of God in this
world. (1 John 4:17)
The reason why most Christians are never really
perfected in love is because they have never really begun to constantly look to
Christ to reveal His life through them. They have not yet realized that even
their most concerted efforts will never bear the fruit of perfect love. And He
cannot reveal His heavenly life through the temple of their body until they
have come to the end of their sense of self-sufficiency. We might say to them,
“Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect
by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things {which have been designed to
bring about the end of your sense of self-sufficiency} in vain—if indeed it was
in vain?” (Gal. 3:3-4)
We have taken a few verses from some songs that were
written by the Wesley’s to show how we should be looking for Christ to become
our life. These songs encourage us to place all our hope in Him. We need to
wait on Him to reveal His Kingdom-life of perfect love from within our eternal
soul. Then we will have a nature that will naturally fulfill all the
requirements of the law. This is the essence of pure faith and the only way to
“put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness
and holiness.” (Eph. 4:24) We close with these thoughts:
What is our calling’s glorious hope,
But inward holiness?
For this to Jesus I look up,
I calmly wait for this.
When Jesus makes my heart
his home,
My sin shall all depart;
And lo! He saith, I quickly
come,
To fill and rule thy heart!
Be it according to thy word!
Redeem me from all sin;
My heart would now receive
thee, Lord,
Come in, my Lord, come in!
Drooping soul, shake off thy
fears,
Fearful soul, be strong, be
bold;
Tarry till the Lord appears,
Never, never quit thy hold!
Murmur not at his delay,
Dare not set thy God a time,
Calmly for his coming stay,
Leave it, leave it all to
him.
Fainting soul, be bold, be
strong,
Wait the leisure of thy
Lord;
Though it seem to tarry
long,
True and faithful is his
word;
On his word my soul I cast
(He cannot himself deny)…
Draw with stronger influence
My unfettered soul to thee;
In me, Lord, thyself reveal,
Fill me with a sweet
surprise;
Let me thee when waking
feel,
Let me in thy image rise.
Let me of thy life partake;
Thy own holiness impart…
My heart, thou know’st, can
never rest,
Till thou create my peace;
Till, of my Eden
From every sin I cease.
Fruit of thy gracious lips,
on me
Bestow that peace unknown,
The hidden manna, and the
tree
Of life, and the white
stone.
Thy nature, gracious Lord,
impart!
Come quickly from above,
Write thy new name upon my
heart,
Thy new, best name of love.
More and more let love
abound;
Let us never, never rest,
Till we are in Jesus found,
Of our paradise possest;
He removes the flaming
sword,
Calls us back, from Eden
To his image here restored,
Soon he takes us up to
heaven.
Heavenly Adam, Life divine,
Change my nature into thine!
Move and spread throughout
my soul,
Actuate and fill the whole!
Be it I no longer now
Living in the flesh, but Thou.
O might I this moment cease
From every work of mine,
Find the perfect holiness,
The righteousness divine!
Let me thy salvation see;
Let me do thy perfect will;
Live in glorious liberty,
And all thy fullness feel.
O grant that nothing in my
soul
May dwell, but thy pure love
alone;
O may thy love possess me
whole,
My joy, my treasure, and my
crown!
Strange flames far from my
heart remove;
My every act, word, thought,
be love.
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