GOD’S PROVISION FOR HOLINESS.

‘To those that are made holy in Christ Jesus, called to be holy.’—1 Cor. i. 2.

‘To all the holy ones in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi. Salute every holy one in Christ Jesus.’1—Phil. i. 1, iv. 21.

HOLY! In Christ! In these two expressions we have perhaps the most wonderful words of all the Bible.

Holy! the word of unfathomable meaning, which the Seraphs utter with veiled faces. Holy! the word in which all God’s perfections centre, and of which His glory is but the streaming forth. Holy! the word which reveals the purpose with which God from eternity thought of man, and tells what man’s highest glory in the coming eternity is to be; to be partaker of His Holiness!

In Christ! the word in which all the wisdom and love of God are unveiled! The Father giving His Son to be one with us! the Son dying on the cross to make us one with Himself! the Holy Spirit of the Father dwelling in us to establish and maintain that union! In Christ! what a summary of what redemption has done, and of the inconceivably blessed life in which the child of God is permitted to dwell. In Christ! the one lesson we have to study on earth. God’s one answer to all our needs and prayers. In Christ! the guarantee and the foretaste of eternal glory.

What wealth of meaning and blessing in the two words combined: Holy in Christ! Here is God’s provision for our holiness, God’s response to our question, How to be holy? Often and often as we hear the call, Be ye holy, even as I am holy, it is as if there is and ever must be a great gul