n the closing paragraphs of the First Epistle to the Thessalonians, Paul charges the custodians of that letter to read it unto “all the holy brethren” (1 Thessalonians 5:27).  From the same epistle we have from the author himself his own gauge of the meaning of the word “holy.”  In chapter 3:13, he prays that the church in general may be established “unblamable in holiness before God.”  In 4:3, Paul declares that their sanctification “is the will of God.”  In 5:23, his prayer is that “the very God of peace sanctify you wholly,” and that this sanctification reach to “body, soul and spirit.”  So then, we understand that sanctification was for this life, and that some of the Thessalonian church were “holy.”  But how came they to be so?  Various answers are given; let us note them in order. [continue reading…]

Advance as Effected by Habit

Over and over again,
No matter which way I may turn,
I always find in the book of life
Some lesson I have to learn.
One doing will not suffice,
Though doing is not in vain,
And a blessing failing me once or twice
May come if I try again.

The path that has once been trod
Is never so rough to the feet,
And the lesson we once have learned
Is never so hard to repeat.
Though sorrowful tears may fall,
And the heart to its depths be riven
By storms and tempest, we need them all,
To render us fit for heaven. ¹ [continue reading…]

Public Domain¹

Chapter 5 of Soul-Help Papers
by
Isaiah Reid

“The inside joy shines out
with attractive power.”⁴

What does this mean? This: the seeing power is in us, not in that which is to be seen. Like a coal miner, I carry the light I see by. Wanting a book the other evening, I carried a lamp into the dark room and by the lamp found the book. The light I found the book by was not in the book, but with me; though the book had light in it. Our lamp of comprehension gives the admeasurement⁵ of our view. “In thy light shall we see light.”⁶ “And cannot see afar off,” says the Word.⁷ Why? Some did. “If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!”⁸ Christ’s “beam pulling”⁹ furnishes the answer. The “evil eye” cannot see what other eyes see. Many have eyes, but not all see. There is a man in Southern Iowa who can’t see any good in holiness. But his wife and daughter see in it what they would not give in exchange for a whole world. Why? All have good natural eyes. All have a very good degree of intelligence. All know the rudiments of salvation.

[continue reading…]

Public Domain¹

Chapter 21 of Soul-Help Papers
by
Isaiah Reid

“If the soul relaxes, and advance ceases,
then the life atrophies
and perhaps even fossilizes.”²

Noah, David, and Solomon are fair samples of a dangerous period of the latter half our earthly years—postmeridian³ life. Each of these men seemed to have a fair record from the early part of his life. There was not an early period of “sowing wild oats,” and then a break as a consequence. Yet breaks came. As to both David and Solomon, we have early records of Divinely-attested character. In early life they were men “after God’s own heart.”⁴ It was in later life when the falls came which marred character. The only break that came in Moses’ life was not in youth, nor in his forty years of schooling in Egypt, or his term in God’s Wilderness University, but in the heat of the battle in the last section of his remarkable years. [continue reading…]

e do not deny that sanctification at conversion is divinely possible.  But not all things which are divinely possible happen at conversion, and sanctification at conversion is one of those things which usually does not happen then.  If it ever does so occur, several things will be true concerning it; it will be the same in kind and fruitage as sanctification after conversion. [continue reading…]

The Attrition of One Soul on Another

And you shall be a blessing.

Zechariah 8:13

If you will not hear, and if you will not lay it to heart, to give glory to My name, says the Lord of hosts, I will even send a curse upon you, and I will curse your blessings.

Malachi 2:2

The soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul.

1 Samuel 18:1

And David said to Abigail, “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me; and blessed be your advice, and blessed are you, who have kept me this day from coming to shed blood, and from avenging myself with my own hand.”

1 Samuel 25:32-33

But there was none like Ahab, who sold himself to work wickedness in the sight of the Lord, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.

1 Kings 21:25

I have learned by experience that the Lord has blessed me for your sake.

Genesis 30:27

And it came to pass from the time that he had made him overseer in his house, and over all that he had, that the Lord blessed the Egyptian”s house for Joseph”s sake; and the blessing of the Lord was upon all that he had in the house and in the field.

Genesis 39:5

can’t tell you everything, even some things that I would like very much to say to you.  You are aware, doubtless, that there are some things upon which, though we do not quite understand them ourselves, light comes as we try to tell them to others.  I found this the case the other day when in conversation with a sister.  I was led to say some things upon which my mind had been turning, and found that in trying to give her some of these passing thoughts, new light on them seemed to come in with the voicing of them for her.  The fact is, there are many questions that I long to have someone who has comprehension that way come and sit down by me and read and talk over.  There is a helpfulness of this kind which comes from God directly, though it is delivered through the medium of some human soul.  In fact, human souls are nearest and the easiest way that God has to reach us, save by his Spirit directly.  Humanity is His chosen agency to reach humanity.  Not even angels could be well substituted.  God chose man to be His medium of redemption, and made no mistake.  Even now, communication with angels would not be so beneficial. [continue reading…]

Public Domain¹

Chapter 6 of Soul-Help Papers
by
Isaiah Reid

“What pains He has taken to secure us
from anxious fretting, forethought and worry!
Just one day at a time.”²

“As thy day, so shall thy strength be.” Not as my day or the day of someone else. Not as yesterday. Not as tomorrow. Each day for itself. Each individual for himself. Life is not a repetition, nor a return to its past self. Life is a continuity, and yet ever new—coming out of the past, and yet always going on into a future unlike that which has been. Life’s “now-ness” is a perpetual characteristic which forever keeps it from being tired of itself. [continue reading…]

his is a favorite theory many people.  It is to be noted that it contra­dicts the two methods already spoken of, for if people expect “to grow into it,” it is a plain confession that they neither received it by being “born so,” or at their “conversion.”  It is hardly worthwhile to take space here to show the large percent of professed Christians who hold to this theory, when they can be met almost anywhere, if one commences talking about full salvation.  Properly speaking, this theory should be defined as gradualism. [continue reading…]

Tarrying for the Shine And patience, experience.

Romans 5:4

And hope does not make ashamed.

Romans 5:3

The path of the just is as a shining light.

Proverbs 4:18

And oil to make his face to shine.

Psalm 104:15

A man’s wisdom makes his face to shine.

Ecclesiastes 8:1

I have learned by experience that the Lord has blessed me for your sake.

Genesis 30:27

Arise and shine, for your light has come.

Isaiah 60:1

For God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, has shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

2 Corinthians 4:6

eart purity—sanctification—is one of the means to the great end.  It is not a finality in the soul’s advance; heart purity only ends carnality.  As entire forgiveness, which is the only kind the Holy Spirit can witness to, is the end of all actual transgressions, so entire sanctification is the end of all uncleanness.  But God is by no means done with us when He has sanctified us, as many mistaken souls think. [continue reading…]

Public Domain¹

Chapter 7 of Soul-Help Papers
by
Isaiah Reid

“It appeared to men
as if God had changed His mind…”²

An infinite mind must needs adapt His language to the comprehension of a finite mind, since the finite cannot fully comprehend the infinite. God speaks to us in the language of men. He puts things as we see them. He cannot repent of a thing as we do, for the God of all the earth cannot do either a wrong thing³ to repent of or an unwise thing to change. All His attitudes towards wrongdoing and right doing are fixed and settled. He changes not,⁴ for He needs not. When He speaks of changing and of doing what He said He would do, the language is from the human point of view; that is, looking at it as we see it. [continue reading…]

his is the theory of holiness by Imputation without Impartation.  The unvarnished statement runs thus, “As a saint, he is now ‘not in the flesh,’ though the flesh is in him; but he is in the Spirit, and is responsible for the uprisings and sins of the old man.” ¹  At a glance it is evident that this at once denies the removal of the carnal mind, which is the very question at issue.  It is a bold denial of the experience of entire sanctification, and yet at the same time positive claiming of it.  But this is not all of the statement.  It further declares,

He is henceforth pardoned as a son, according to the value of the blood presented before God for him; the person, the individual, now becomes a Christian, the man possessed of these two natures, who should be walking “in the Spirit,” though ever and anon he is made to stumble through the power of the “flesh.”  Thus the saint does not advance in sanctification, by a change being effected in the character of either nature, but in the gradual development of “the new man” by means of the in-working of the Holy Ghost, and in the daily mortification of the members which are upon the earth.  The man is thus gradually sanctified and made more like Christ. Grace and Truth p. 187.

[continue reading…]

Sanctification Not Obtained by Growth

Not by works of righteousness which we have done.
Titus 3:5

eople who are not in the experience of holiness are often hindered and defeated in obtaining the blessing by seeking it in some impossible way.  Satan helps them in this, for so long as he can so deceive them, he hinders them from having the experience.  One of the most plausible of these deceptions is that one who is not holy may become holy by “growth.” [continue reading…]

Public Domain¹

Chapter 8 of Soul-Help Papers
by
Isaiah Reid

We are not to pitch our tent
where we did last night,
but rather a day’s march nearer home.²

“Go forward.” Death was behind Israel in the shape of the flower³ of the Egyptian army; or if not death, then slavery. They could not stand still.

The three disciples could not remain on the mountain of transfiguration;⁴ there was need for them at the foot, where the throngs of needy men were congregated.⁵

The eleven on the slopes of Olivet stood looking into the vacant heavens, where their blessed Lord had just swept through the clouds to His home at the throne. But they could not stay there, even while trying to retain the sweet memory of that wonderful vision. Jesus sent his angel to say to them, “Why stand ye gazing up into heaven?”⁶ Nothing wrong in the loving gaze so far as that is concerned. But neither could they stay there. [continue reading…]