Holiness and Redemption — B.H. Clendennen

Holiness and Redemption in Scripture

I want you to turn with me this morning. Our message, we're dealing with the subject of holiness. And our message today, holiness and redemption. And I want to read in Numbers chapter 3, Numbers chapter 3, verse 13, and Numbers chapter 8 and verse 17.

Here in 3 and 13, because all the firstborn are mine, for on the day that I smote all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, I hallowed unto thee all the firstborn in Israel, both man and beast. Mine shall they be.

I am the Lord. Then in the eighth chapter of the book of Numbers, and verse 17, 8 and 17, for all the firstborn of the children are mine, both man and beast. On the day that I smote every firstborn in the land of Egypt, I sanctified them for myself.

Now, another verse of Scripture I just want to give you here is in Leviticus chapter 9 and verse, chapter 9 and verse 45. For I am the Lord your God that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God.

You shall therefore be holy for I am holy. That's Leviticus 9 .45. In Isaiah, he spoke of Israel and he said, I have redeemed thee, thou art mine. I have redeemed thee. I believe it's Isaiah 58 and one, right in there.

But I have redeemed thee, thou art mine. Now, in our messages on this subject of holiness, we found that Moses at Horeb, there where God dealt with him about taking the shoes off his feet, we saw how the first mention of the word holy in the history of fallen man was connected with the inauguration of a new period in the revelation of God.

And that was of redemption, of redemption. The word holy was connected vitally. We saw that. We saw the first time that the word holy was used in the Bible was where God said he sanctified, that means made holy, the Sabbath.

The second time we find it here with Moses there at the Mount and how that that word was connected with this new era of redemption. Now, in the Passover, we have the manifestation, the first manifestation of what redemption really is.

The Passover as a Picture of Redemption

That's in the Passover, in the moving out of Egypt of Moses delivering the people. And here, the most frequent use of the word holy begins with the Passover. We find this word really begins to be accelerated and brought to us over and over twice.

Once in Genesis, not again until Exodus do we find this word. But from the Passover onward, we really begin to see the use of this word in the feast of the unleavened bread. We have the symbol of the putting off of the old and putting on of the new to which redemption through the blood is to lead.

We were there in the Passover. Now, the seven days we read these words. In the first day, there should be a holy convocation dealing with the Passover now and the leaving out of Egypt and the one they celebrated all the way through.

It was a type of Christ coming, redeeming. That Passover was kept as a part of the Jewish system of religion. And now they're back there. It's kept again. The sacrifices, I don't know, has it been offered again yet, the animal sacrifices, but there certainly will be again, all of it in the keeping of the Passover.

And in the first day, he says, there shall be what? A holy convocation. In the seventh day again, he says, there should be a holy convocation. Now the meeting of the redeemed people to commemorate its deliverance is a holy gathering.

That's what he's saying. Israel redeemed out of Israel. They are commemorating this. And of course, you know, all of the nations involved in the history of Israel, the very name and the place has great significance in the spiritual world.

Egypt is a type of the world. Ethiopia is a type of the darkened understanding. Tyre is the commercial Babylon. All of this has to do with those things that interfere with God's people being what they should be.

And now here, as we see Israel as a type, they're delivered out of Egypt and they gather together to commemorate the deliverance. And God says it's a holy gathering because he's there. They meet under the covering of the Redeemer, their Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel.

They meet under the covering of him. Now, as soon as the people have been redeemed from Egypt, God's very first word to them was this. Listen, in Exodus 13 and two, he says, sanctify, make holy unto me all the firstborn, it is mine.

That's the first words that God gives to them after they come out of Egypt. Sanctify or make holy the firstborn, it's mine. Now, this word reveals how proprietorship is one of the central thoughts, both in redemption and in sanctification, the link that binds the whole thing together, the ownership, God, amen, it is mine.

And it is here that we see it. And though the word is here only used to the firstborn, they're regarded as a type of the whole people. You know, the tithe, the giving of the tithe, if we really understood, amen, what God is saying with the tithe, you know, we say, well, that belongs to God, but that's the first fruit of everything that belongs to God.

I mean, I give my tithe, I bring my tithe into the storehouse of God. And I give that, I'm saying that I pledged the whole 90, the rest of it to God also. I'm his, so the bulk of that has to go to keep body and soul together, he knows that.

But it's his, and if we understand that, that we're his, so whatever we have is his, then there's no problem in God getting from us what he uses of ours. And so though this is the firstborn, here it is also representative of the whole people of God.

We know how all growth and organization commence from a center around which is ever-widening circles in the life, as the life of the organism spreads, it begins, and if holiness in the human race is to be true and real, free as that of God, it must be the result of a self-appropriating development.

It must be, if holiness is going to be. Now, as we see this, and what it is in redemption, what a marvelous thing. So the firstborn are sanctified. Afterward, the priests in their place as a type of what the whole people is to be, as God's firstborn among many nations, and his peculiar treasure is an holy nation, a holy nation, that is a nation that God can live in.

The Church as a Holy Nation and God's Dwelling

Now, Peter talked about the church as being a holy nation, because the church is to be the habitation of God. And we saw this over and over again, that the only thing that makes holy is God being in that very thing.

Whatever God joins himself to is holy, is that right? And so it is a holy nation that we have here. Now, the idea of ownership or proprietorship as related to redemption and sanctification comes out with special clearness when God speaks of the exchange of the priest for the firstborn in Numbers 3, verses 12 and 13.

He said, the Levites are wholly given unto me. Instead of the firstborn, have I taken them unto me, for all the firstborn are mine. In the day of it, I smote every firstborn in the land of Egypt, I sanctified them for myself.

I separated that firstborn for myself. Now, God now has taken the Levites in that place unto himself, the Levites, the priests. You see, now, if we could try to realize here the relation existing, the relation now existing between redemption and holiness.

Now, in the garden or in paradise, we saw what God sanctifying the seventh day was. That is, God entered into it and rested. We saw how God went out of himself and for six days created. On the seventh day, he came back into himself.

The Bible said, used the term for us, rested. But it don't mean he'd lay down and took a nap because God never slumbers or sleeps. He doesn't get fatigued or tired in that way, but meant God entered into it.

That's what made it holy. Now, he took possession of it, that seventh day. He blessed it, he rested in it, and refreshed himself, so to speak. Now, where God enters and rests, there is what? Holiness.

Wherever God enters and rests, there is holiness. Now, the more perfectly the object is fitted for him to enter and dwell, then, of course, the more perfect the holiness. That certainly applies, then, to the church as it moves into the spiritual, the more perfect.

Now, the seventh day was sanctified as a period for man's sanctification. This is, that's what it was all about, that he come and gave himself on that day holy unto God. They stoned a man to death for picking up sticks on the Sabbath day.

That's not just a violation of a day, but that's a violation of the very holiness of God, you see. That's the reason the punishment was so severe under that human being, because God had entered into that.

And now, when a man, that Sabbath day was given to man as a period for man's sanctification, and to violate that was to violate the very holiness of God. Now, at the very first step God took to lead him to his holiness, the command not to eat of the tree, the very first command that God gave man to lead him into that holiness was that.

Command not to eat of the tree. Man fell. Man fell, he failed the test, he fell, but God did not give up his plan, but how now to pursue it along a different and a slower path to sanctification, one that involved a lifetime of a human being, the total sanctification of that human.

Sanctification as Conformity to Christ

I said to you that now, sanctification and holiness are convertible terms. It's the same thing. The word saint means holy. We're called to be saints simply means that we're called to be holy. Sanctification is both progressive and instantaneous.

Christ is our sanctification. In redemption, we receive Christ, but it's a lifetime of walking with him to be made into his likeness. So, it is a more slower path. After 25 centuries, slow but needful preparation, he now reveals himself as the redeemer, as the redeemer of people whom he had chosen and formed for himself.

He gives up to oppression and slavery that their hearts may be prepared for a long and welcome deliverer, 2 ,500 years. And during the course of time, he allowed those people to go into slavery, bondage and misery that they passed through.

You know, the more that I contemplate the thought, God says, I will supply your every need. You know what the need is for? Conform you to Christ. There is nothing else incorporated in that, folks. What every takes to conform us to Christ is a need that God will supply.

Amen. You can't make that just material thing. He said, I've never saw the righteous forsaken or a seed begging bread. They may be without caviar, but they'll have bread. Amen. He knows what we need. But God's need is what every takes to conform Job to Jesus Christ, to that image, whatever, or Clendenin, or Jerome, or whoever, whatever that need.

For Paul, it took a messenger of Satan. For Joseph, it took a trip to an Egyptian jail. Amen. All of this in God supplying the need. And we'll discover one day how merciful he was. No wonder he said, through much tribulation, we enter into the kingdom.

That's not the great tribulation. That's not God's wrath poured out on us, but that is the squeezing. God puts the gospel, the life, on the inside, and he puts the pressure on the outside, and there isn't any other way that it can work.

No other way that it can work. Now, God had chose him. He allowed him to go through the series of slavery and oppression. Then in a series of great wonders, he proves himself to be the conqueror of all of their enemies, and then in the blood of the paschal lamb on their doors now, teaches them what redemption is.

The Passover Blood and Deliverance from Judgment

Not only from the unjust oppressor upon this earth, but from the righteous judgment that their own sins deserved. God teaches them there. They are no better than the Egyptians as far as their sins. They, if it had not been for that blood, then the firstborn of Egypt dies also.

The firstborn of Israel dies also without that blood on the door, amen. I know it's, you know, it's a difficult, you know, when we say I'm a sinner saved by grace, and I heard a man go to great lengths and say I'm not a sinner, you know, but it's simply because he wasn't understanding what's being said here.

If there is no blood on that door, when that death angel passed through Egypt, then that Jewish baby will die. The firstborn of every animal in that house will die. Everything will die and lift his blood there.

But they learned about redemption that night, not only from the hand of a cruel earthly tyrant, but also deliverance from their own sins for which they ought to have died. That blood, they are learning.

You see what I'm saying? Amen, that you and I, we learn about this holiness in redemption, amen. God shows them. Now, the Passover is to be to them at all time the transition from the seen and the temporal to the unseen and the spiritual.

That's what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to minister this, revealing God not only as the mighty, but as the Holy One, freeing them not only from the house of bondage, but from the destroying angel of death that's passing through that night.

This is moving from the seen to the unseen, from the temporal to the spiritual. That's the whole, that's what happened at Calvary. When Jesus said it's finished, it literally means it's perfected and man can move now from the temporal to the spiritual, from the seen to the unseen, to what we were speaking of a moment ago.

We are pilgrims and strangers here. What we look at in that world out there and deem good may not be good at all, folks, when it's the overall picture. That has to grip our minds or else we're always governed by the world about us, amen.

I just never had the revelation of Romans 8, 29 until recently. I knew it said all things work together for good to them that love God, amen. I realize now whatever it is, the tight money policy, the hard time policy, the difficulties, every single thing that comes and touches my life as I walk with God is good for me.

I do not have an enemy on this earth. Paul, three times he prayed, God, get this thing off of my back, amen. But God said to him, my grace is sufficient. I have supplied you with that messenger of darkness, amen, else you would be exalted and be lost.

So all the time in the jails, fighting the beasts of Ephesus, all of it is a part of it to keep the man sanctified so they can write over half of the New Testament scripture. Boy, that doesn't fit today's theology, does it?

My, my, that sure doesn't fit in with today's theology. That isn't the way it's said, but that's the way it is anyway, amen. Now, having thus redeemed them through that Passover, he tells them that they are now what?

Redemption Means Belonging to God

His own. He bought them, he brought them out. Moses didn't, God brought them out. What does he say to them? You are mine, the firstborn is mine. That just meant the people are mine. Said the firstborn of every animal out there is mine.

That meant everything you got's mine. He said the firstborn of an ass, you'll either redeem it or break its neck. That's because everything is mine. I bought you, you still belong to that Pharaoh down there, the devil, you'd never got out.

You'd be making bricks for him from now on, but I brought you out. And when he brought them out, redeemed them, he said to them, you're mine. That means he drove home to us, because we live like we are our own.

I said we live like we are our own, that our time is ours, that our money is ours, and what we do is of no business to God. But if you're saved this morning, you belong to God. If you're not saved, you belong to the devil, and you're doing what he tells you to do.

I mean, your whole life has been steered by him. Or else, if you're God's, then he says you're my own. Now during their stay at Sinai, in the wilderness, the thought is continually pressed upon them that they are now the Lord's people.

You go read that account again, and you'll see how much he pressed this upon that brain, that they are now the Lord's people, whom he's made his own by the strength of his arm, that he may take them and make them holy for himself, and as the scripture said, even as he is holy.

Not a different kind of holiness, but there to be holy as he is holy. God took them to himself. Now, he took possession of it, amen. He blessed it the seventh day because he got into it. Now he's brought them out, redeemed them.

They're the Lord's, they're his possession, and over and over again, God reminds them that they are to be holy as he is holy. Now the purpose of redemption is possession, and the purpose of possession is the likeness to him who is redeemer and owner, his holiness.

He possesses them to make them into his own image. The same holiness that is in God must be found in us, amen. Now, in regards to his holiness and the way it is to be obtained as a result of redemption, there is more than one lesson.

Redemption and Holiness Cannot Be Separated

The sanctifying firstborn, I believe, will teach us. As we look at Israel, the sanctifying. Now, first of all, you and I want to realize how inseparable redemption and holiness are. We have some kind of a grotesque creature that we want to call Christian today that is supposed to be saved, yet goes on serving the devil, hasn't made Christ his Lord yet.

Now, we've really led ourselves to believe that such a thing is possible. But let me remind you this morning that the narrow gate doesn't happen 10 years down the road. That's where you get in at. Holiness and redemption are inseparable.

You cannot separate the two. Neither can exist without the other. You cannot have redemption without holiness, and you certainly cannot have holiness without redemption. Is that right? There's no way that that can be.

Only redemption leads to holiness. If I'm seeking holiness, I must abide in the clear and full experience of being a redeemed person, and as such of being owned and possessed by God. I must ever remind myself that I am owned by another.

I'm not my own. I've been bought with a price from the hand of the devil, and I'm not my own. And as I seek after holiness, I must remember this. Redemption is too often looked at from its negative side as deliverance from, but its real glory is the positive element of being redeemed unto himself.

You know the reason we have trouble in our flesh with a message of self-denial, that's a repugnant thing to the carnal nature. But you know, when I realize that self-denial is simply my turning loose of the lesser that I may have the greater, there's no other grounds that I can have it on.

Amen. I must decrease if God is to increase. And the loosen of the lesser is only to gain the full. Full possession of a house means occupation, doesn't it? That means occupation. Yes, sir. If I own a house without occupying it, it may be the home of all that's evil and foul.

I had one time when I came here, I bought a little house. The Downey brothers had a model. They sold it to me for $3 ,000. Had a little lot, I moved it on, and we lived there. We built us a house, but I still for a long time owned that little house, and I rented it to a fellow.

And I'm telling you, when I finally threw him out, I had to pull a carpet up and throw it out. You never saw such a foul spirit been in that house. Amen. If I own a house and don't occupy that house, that house can be full with all kinds of foul and evil spirit, is that right?

God has redeemed me, made me his own with a viewing of getting complete possession of me, of occupying me, you. Is that right? Amen, a possession, he says, of my soul. It is mine, and he seeks to have his right of ownership, acknowledged, and made fully manifest by every last one of us.

Now, that'll be perfect holiness, where God has entered in to complete the entire possession. When all has been dealt with and moved, and God has total possession, that will be perfect holiness. It is redemption, and in redemption, and it is redemption, rather, that gives God his right and power over me.

You know, it's something when we act like we've done God a favor by letting him save us, and that's our attitude. You listen to testimony of some folks. I've been those that's run on testimony, and you hear them talk about all the money they've got, what a favor they've done God by letting him, by coming into his kingdom.

Before I was saved, I was a slave to the devil. You couldn't have told me that while I was out there, but the minute I got in that altar, I knew I was. The minute I took that package of cigarettes out of my pocket, I knew, because I put them back in there.

Amen, I fought darkness and demons, and still fighting hope that he's got in pocket areas of our lives. Is that right? A guerrilla warfare going on all the time, amen, inside of pockets and areas of that rotten world that we've been redeemed from, amen.

If we just realize that it is in redemption that God's right of ownership comes, because he bought you back from the devil. He bought you, he paid a price for you. That means he owns you. It is redemption that sets me free for God now to possess and bless.

Is that right? It is redemption realized and filling my soul and spirit that'll bring me the assurance and experience of all his power will work in me. The reason that you and I as a church do not perform as Jesus performed is just one reason.

Christlikeness as the Goal of Sanctification

That's because we are not what he was. Sanctification, the process of it, is to make us what he was. And to the degree that we're made what he was, we'll do what he did, because what he did didn't come out of merely what he said.

It was out of what he was. Anybody could repeat his sermons. Why, those preachers in the ninth chapter of Mark couldn't cast that devil out. They tried, they saw him do it. I'm sure they went through the same routine he did.

Yes, sir, come out, but he didn't come out. So it wasn't words, it's what he was. When they stood there as Christ, the devil come out. When they said, why couldn't we cast this one out? And that question was, we did it before, why can't we do it now?

Because you lost something, that's what he was saying. You're trying to do it in your own name, your own name. In God, redemption and sanctification are one. Oh, if you don't hear nothing else this morning, hear that.

In God, redemption and sanctification are one, amen. Redemption, is sanctification begun, the sanctifier comes in. But in sanctification, then regeneration is continued until one day I awake in his likeness.

Oh, hallelujah. My, my, that's the excitement of Christianity. Thank God one day, awake in his likeness. Amen, the more redemption as a divine reality possesses me, the closer I'm linked to the Redeemer God, the Holy One.

The more that redemption possesses me, and that's the process of sanctification, then the closer I come to the Holy One. And just so, only holiness brings the assurance and enjoyment of redemption. Only holiness does that.

If I'm seeking to hold fast redemption on the lower ground or lower level, oh my, I may be deceived, probably will be, if I'm trying to hold it there, amen. If I become unwatchful or careless, I ought to tremble at the idea of trusting in redemption, apart from holiness as its object.

Ought to be a great fear, take a hold of us. Just coming to church on a Sunday morning, ain't gonna make it, folks. I must have the end results of redemption must be holiness. Amen, set apart under God, which just simply means possessed by God.

God entered into that Sabbath, he sanctified it. God enters into me, he sanctifies me. And the whole process is to possess you, amen. Possess you, make you totally, absolutely his own, amen. Oh my, if we could know, to God, to Israel rather, God said, I brought you up out of the land of Egypt, therefore you should be holy, for I am holy.

It is God, the Redeemer, who made us his own, who calls us to be holy. Let holiness be to us the most essential and the most precious thing of redemption. I said, one thing we must repent of, we have made happiness a greater criteria than holiness.

We've been more concerned about being happy than we have about being holy, amen. A second thing that I believe, a lesson rather, that's suggested in the connection between God and man's working in sanctification.

God's Work and the Believer's Response in Sanctification

Listen, to Moses, the Lord speaks, sanctify unto me all the firstborn. Afterward he says, I sanctified all the firstborn for myself. Now what God does, he does to be carried out and appropriated through us.

God said to Moses, sanctify the firstborn unto me. But he said, I have sanctified the firstborn unto myself. That's just saying to you and I, God has sanctified you unto himself, but he leaves it up to you to carry that out.

His purpose must be carried out by us. Through our carelessness we can lose it or else we can have it, amen. When he tells us that we're made holy in Christ Jesus, that we're his holy ones, he speaks not only of his purpose but what he's really done.

That's not only, as far as God is concerned, that's what he's done. We've been sanctified in the one offering of Christ or we'll never be sanctified at all. We have been sanctified in the one offering of Christ and in our being created anew in Christ Jesus, amen.

But this work has a human side. Do you believe that? I said this work has a human side. To us comes a call to be holy. God said we're made holy in Christ, but then becomes a call to be holy, to follow after holiness, to perfect holiness.

This is all a part of it from our side. When God sees us in Christ, then God reckons the experience of Christ to be ours. And as we abide there, that's the sole thing we must do, as we abide there, then God works it out, hallelujah.

How marvelous that is, thank God. He says, I sanctified all to myself, you and I must do it. God has made us his own. He's allowed us to say that we're his, but he awaits for you and I now to yield him and enlarge entrance into the secrets of our inmost being, amen.

You know, it's a marvelous thing that even in your imperfect state, that God allows us to say to the world, I'm God's and God is mine. But on those grounds of letting us say that, God is waiting for us to open ourselves up for the greater work of holiness in our lives, that he can possess it totally, absolutely.

He's made us his own in sanctification or in redemption that he might make himself our own in sanctification, amen. This is God's way. Our work in becoming holy is the bringing of our whole life, every part of us, leaving not one hoof behind, amen.

No, no, not one hoof behind, but the whole of it into that act and subjection to the rule of a holy God. And that's exactly what he meant when he said, seek you first, the kingdom of God. That is to seek the absolute rule of God over every part of our life, the whole of our being.

It does not matter, amen. Nothing is to be left on the outside unsanctified. All is to be brought in. It doesn't matter. You know, I believe if my job won't allow me to be holy and live for God, then I must change that job.

Yes, sir. I cannot be governed by this world or anything by it. Why? Because I don't belong to this world. I have been bought. I have been bought, amen. You know, you own something. You are the one that govern.

Had a fella in the church here years ago. And you know, I'd been here and I had an old Nash. First, I'd have been better off with a bicycle. A fella had run into the side of, couldn't get out on my side.

Had to push it every morning to get it started. And I'd go visit folks, had to leave it running out in a drive because I couldn't get it going. And we struggled for years, you know, with all kinds of machines.

Finally, in 1962, amen, I got up enough faith and courage and I bought me a new car, a 1962 Buick Lesabre, amen. And a guy come to me and he said, we're going on a vacation and our car don't have an air condition.

And he said, one of you let us have yours. I said, I don't believe. I don't want to be ugly. But I said, I've sanctified this car to the Lord and I don't believe that I did. He got angry with me, but I still didn't believe that I'd done wrong.

I mean, if he needed it for emergency or something, that had been one thing. I'm just saying that is I own that car. Therefore, I have the right to tell him whether he could or could not have that car or anybody else for that matter.

Well, God bought me. He owns me and he has every right, every right to tell Bob Fontaine where he can go, what he can do, what he can't do. God has every right. If you don't allow him to do that, you are violating the terms on which you were redeemed on.

You're violating them and one day you'll have to answer to him, amen, about all this. He bought us. Now our work in becoming, as I said, bring the whole body, the whole life in absolute subjection. And this teaches us the answer to the question as to the connection between the sudden and the gradual sanctification.

Instantaneous and Progressive Sanctification

Now, between it being a thing once for all complete and yet imperfect and needing to be perfected. Isn't that right? I mean, on God's side, it's once and all finished. If you stay with God, it's assured to happen as that sun comes up.

So with God, it's an absolute thing. But with me, there's a lot of working out to be done on my side. So you have the absolute sudden eradication. The Bible says in the book of Romans, they that are Christ have crucified the flesh.

Is that what it says? But yet it says to you to mortify those things. You see, I believe that answers the question. It does to my heart in explaining some of the greatest folks I know have an instantaneous sanctification.

I discovered they're right. Amen. But they, you know, but they must discover also that I'm right in the progressiveness of it. Because on God's side, it's an instant. When you was born again, God looked at you.

There was a finished product on God's side. And if you stay with him, then the working of that in you brings you to that fullness. Hallelujah. Amen. God's side of it. When God sanctifies, what God sanctifies is holy with a divine and perfect holiness as its gift.

Man has to sanctify by acknowledging and maintaining and carrying out that holiness in relation to what God has made holy. Man has to do that. God sanctified the Sabbath day. Man has to sanctify it. That is to keep it holy.

Man had to. Amen. God sanctified the firstborn of his own. Israel had to sanctify them to treat them and give them up to God as holy. He sanctified them. But Israel, when that first calf was dropped, had to take it and give it to God.

You and I, he sanctified us holy, but I must give him everything about me. I believe that ought to clear it in our minds as to sanctification and holiness and redemption. God is holy. We're to sanctify him in acknowledging and adoring and honoring that holiness.