Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2902
“Holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord.” Hebrews 12:14.
ONE feels most happy when blowing the trumpet of jubilee, proclaiming peace to broken hearts, freedom to the captives and the opening of the prison to them that are bound. But God’s watchman has another trumpet which he must sometimes blow, for thus says the Lord to him, “Blow the trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm in My holy mountain.” There are times when we must sound the alarm—men must be startled from their sleep, they must be awakened to enquire, “What are we? Where are we? Where are we going?” Nor is it altogether amiss for the wisest virgins to look to the oil in their vessels and for the most sound Christians to sometimes be constrained to examine the foundations of their hope, to trace back their evidences to the beginning and make an impartial survey of their state before God. Partly for this reason, but with a further view to the awakening and stirring up of those who are destitute of all holiness, I have selected for our topic, “Holiness, without which no one shall see the Lord.”
There has been a desperate attempt made by certain Antinomians to get rid of the injunction which the Holy Spirit here means to enforce. They have said that this is the imputed holiness of Christ. Do they not know when they so speak, that by an open perversion they utter that which is false? I do not suppose that any man in his senses can apply that interpretation to the context—“Follow peace with all people, and holiness.” Now the holiness meant is evidently one that can be followed like peace— and it must be transparent to any ingenuous man that it is something which is the act and duty of the person who follows it. We are to follow peace! That is practical peace, not the peace made for us, but “the fruit of righteousness which is sown in peace of them that make peace.” We are to follow holiness—that must be practical holiness, the opposite of impurity, as it is written, “God has not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.” The holiness of Christ is not a thing to follow. I mean if we look at it imputatively—that we have at once—it is given to us the moment we believe. The righteousness of Christ is not to be followed—it is bestowed upon the soul in the instant when it lays hold of Christ Jesus!
Our text speaks of another kind of holiness. It is, in fact, as everyone can see who chooses to read the connection, practical, vital holiness which is the purport of this admonition. It is conformity to the will of God and obedience to the Lord’s command. It is, in fine, the Spirit’s work in the soul by which a man is made like God and becomes a partaker of the Divine Nature, being delivered from the corruption which is in the world through lust. No straining, no hacking at the text can alter it! There it stands, whether men like it or not! There are some who for special reasons best known to themselves, do not like it, just as no thieves ever like policemen or jails—yet there it stands and it means no other than what it says! “Without holiness”—practical, personal, active, vital holiness—“no one shall see the Lord.” Dealing with this solemn assertion, fearfully exclusive as it is, shutting out as it does so many professors from all communion with God on earth and all enjoyment of Christ in Heaven, I shall endeavor, first, to give some marks and signs whereby a man may know whether he has this holiness or not Secondly, to give sundry reasons by way of improvement of the solemn fact, “Without holiness, no one shall see the Lord.” And then, thirdly, to plead hard, in Christ’s place, with those who are lovers of gain that they may consider this before time is over and opportunity past.
I. First, then, Brothers and Sisters, you are anxious to know whether you have holiness or not. Now, if our text said that without perfection of holiness, no one could have any communion with Christ, it would shut every one of us out, for no one who knows his own heart ever pretends to be perfectly conformed to God’s will! It does not say, “Perfection of holiness,” but, “holiness.” This holiness is a thing ofgrowth. It may be in the soul as small as a grain of mustard seed and yet not developed. It may be in the heart as a wish and a desire, rather than anything that has been fully realized—a groan, a pant, a longing, a striving. As the Spirit of God waters it, it will grow till the mustard seed shall become a tree. Holiness in a regenerate heart, is but an infant. It is not matured—it is perfect in all its parts, but not perfect in its development. Hence when we find many imperfections and many failings in ourselves, we are not to conclude that, therefore, we have no interest in the Grace of God. This would be altogether contrary to the meaning of the text. As it is not so much my present purpose to show what this holiness is as, what it is not, I think while I am endeavoring to undeceive those who have not this holiness, those who are not condemned may reasonably draw some comfortable inferences as to their own pursuit of this inestimable Grace.