On Holiness of Heart (Rewritten)

 In our previous post, we talked about the Hidden Life — that deep, interior life of communion with God. A natural question follows: How do we enter into this kind of life? What path leads us there?

The gospel clearly presents the Christian life as a journey. It begins with forgiveness and acceptance — foundational and essential realities — but it does not end there. God intends for every believer to grow beyond those first steps into a deeper work of renewal and sanctification.

The apostle points to this progression in Hebrews 6, urging believers to move beyond the basics and “go on to perfection.” The question, then, is straightforward but searching: What direction should we take if we want to move past spiritual beginnings and walk in close, uninterrupted fellowship with God?

The Hidden Life (Rewritten)

There is a form of religious experience that can rightly be called The Hidden Life. When someone first becomes aware of their sin and, however imperfectly, puts their faith in Christ as a Savior, they truly begin a new life. Even if that faith feels weak or uncertain, it marks a real turning point.

But that new life is only a beginning. It carries within it the seed of something far greater — a restored and renewed existence that will, over time, grow into deeper understanding and stronger spiritual feeling. At first, though, it is still fragile. It struggles constantly with the old, natural way of living and often seems like little more than the faint light of dawn before the full day arrives.

The Hidden Life

"Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God." — Col 3.2, 3.

My life is folded in the life of Jesus,
No longer mine, but purchased by that tide,
That crimson tide, which shed on Calvary, frees us
From those dark stains that in our hearts abide.
MY LIFE IS HID WITH CHRIST and I am His.
Whate'er his will, that am I bound to do;
If He doth call me to far lands and seas,
I hear his summons, and his steps pursue.
Where'er He goes, I cannot stay behind;
In what He does, my hand shall have employ;
Whene'er He suffers, sorrow fills my mind;
When He rejoices, I partake the joy.
He bought me by his blood, and I am his;
I have no other will, no other grief nor bliss.

— The Religious Offering  XXVIII.

Recognizing the Spirit's Guidance: Promoting God's Glory

It is an evidence, that a person is guided by thy Holy Spirit, whose whole conduct, whether considered in its particulars or in its general outline, has a distinctly favorable bearing on the promotion of God's glory in the world. The end of all things is the glory of God. In the promotion of this great object, God, the Holy Ghost, co-operates with God the Father, and God the Son. The Holy Ghost, therefore, recognizes and enforces the great truth, that all subordinate tendencies, that all inferior and private interests, whenever they receive a corrected and sanctified direction, will always converge to the same center, and will never reach their TERMINUS, if we may so express it, except in the bosom of the adorable Infinite. To this great result, all his interior and individual teachings infallibly tend. To know all things and to love all things in God; to annihilate self in all the various forms of creature-love and of self-will, and to make God the great center of our being; this only is true wisdom and everlasting life. He, therefore, who is led by the teachings of the Holy Ghost, will be taught that he must think for God, feel for God, will for God, act for God; and that the great reality of God, which is the true beginning and completion of all religious life, must be received into the soul as the paramount motive; and with a power to expel all subordinate motives, and to reign there forever with supreme dominion.

The Hidden Life

"Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead, and your life is  hid with Christ in God."  Col. iii. 2, 3.

My life is folded in the life of Jesus,
No longer mine, but purchased by that tide,
That crimson tide, which shed on Calvary, frees us
From those dark stains that in our hearts abide.
MY LIFE IS HID WITH CHRIST, and I am His.
Whate'er his will, that am I bound to do;
If He doth call me to far lands and seas,
I hear his summons, and his steps pursue.
Where'er He goes, I cannot stay behind;
In what He does, my hand shall have employ;
Whene'er He suffers, sorrow fills my mind;
When He rejoices, I partake the joy.
He bought me by his blood, and I am his;
I have no other will, no other grief nor bliss.

— American Cottage Life (1850) XIII.

The Value of a Personal Faith

If we possess an appropriating faith, and if our faith be operative and strong as it should be, we shall not only gain the victory over the various temptations which beset us in the present life, but shall find ourselves rapidly forming a new and wonderful acquaintance with God. It is here, in connection with this form of faith, that we find the great and effective instrument of progress and of victory in the Interior Life. In the present life a strong and operative appropriating faith is the key which unlocks the mysteries of the divine nature, and admits the soul to a present and intuitive acquaintance with its exceeding heights and depths of purity and love. No man, who has not this faith or has it not in a high degree, can be said to live in true union with the divine mind, with God and in God. Hence we consider it important to say distinctly, in endeavoring to sketch some of the traits and principles of the interior or hidden life, that those persons will have no true and experimental knowledge of the things which we affirm, who merely believe generically and not specifically; in other words, who believe for others rather than themselves; who, in the exercise of a sort of discursive faith which embraces the mass of mankind, cannot be said to possess it individually and personally, and for their own soul's good. Let us, then, begin to learn the great lesson of faith; of faith in its general nature; of faith in its various modifications; and particularly the indispensable lesson of appropriating faith. Well has Martin Luther somewhere remarked, that the marrow of the gospel is to be found in the pronouns MEUM and NOSTRUM, MY and OUR.

— adapted from The Interior of Hidden Life (2nd edition, 1844) Part 1, Chapter 5.

Holiness Does Not Depend on Circumstances

The hidden life, which God imparts to his accepted people, may flourish in solitudes and deserts; far from the societies of men and the din and disturbance of cities. From the cave of the hermit, from the cell of the solitary recluse, the fervent prayer has often arisen, which has been acceptable in the sight of God. But it would be a strange and fatal misconception, that religion, even in its most pure and triumphant exaltations, can flourish no where else. The home of holiness is in the heart, irrespective of outward situations and alliances; and therefore we may expect to find it, if there are hearts adapted to its reception and growth, in the haunts of business as well as in the silence of retirement; in the palaces of Rome, as well as in the deserts of the Thebais.  It is a fatal mistake to suppose that we cannot be holy except on the condition of a situation and circumstances in life such as shall suit ourselves.  It is one of the first principles of holiness to leave our times and our places, our going out and our coming in, our wasted and our goodly heritage entirely with the Lord. Here, O Lord, hast thou placed us, and we will glorify thee here.

— Religious Maxims (1846) XIII.

The Hidden Life

There is a modification or form of religious experience which may conveniently, and probably with a considerable degree of propriety, be denominated the Interior or Hidden Life. When a person first becomes distinctly conscious of his sinfulness, and in connection with this experience, exercises faith in Christ as a Savior from sin, there is no doubt, however feeble these early exercises may be, that he has truly entered upon a new life. But this new life, although it is in its element different from that of the world, is only in its beginning. It embraces, undoubtedly, the true principle of a restored and renovated existence, which in due time will expand itself into heights and depths of knowledge and of feeling; but it is now only in a state of incipiency, maintaining, and often times but feebly maintaining a war with the anterior or natural life, and being nothing more at present than the early rays and dawnings of the brighter day that is coming.