A good illustration of dispositional sanctification is the making of tea. When a tea bag is placed into plain water, it “teaifies” the water. When the tea bag is placed in the plain water and remains there for a period of time, the plain water becomes the same in essence, in nature, in appearance, in color, and in odor as the tea. The plain water becomes one with the tea because the tea gets into the water. The more the tea gets into the water, the more the water is teaified. Just as the plain water is teaified, we need to be sanctified, or “Christified.” The Holy Spirit comes into us to sanctify us with Christ, to Christify us. The Spirit puts more and more of Christ into us so that we become mingled with Christ just as the tea is mingled with the water. If the tea bag remains in the water for a long time, the teaification becomes intensified. We need to allow Christ to dispense Himself into us in a full way so that we are sanctified, or Christified, in an intensified way.
Romans 6:19 tells us that we need to present our members “as slaves to righteousness unto sanctification.” Holiness is the essence of God’s divine being. John Wesley interpreted holiness as sinless perfection, a perfection without sin. Holiness, however, is not sinless perfection. The way God makes us holy is to impart Himself, the Holy One, into us so that our whole being may be permeated and saturated with His holy nature.
To purify water and to teaify it are two different things. If you are going to serve me a cup of tea, you may purify the water first and then teaify it. Purification is included in teaification, but purification is not teaification. In like manner, sinless perfection is included in holiness, but sinless perfection is not holiness.
People who are under the concept that sinless perfection is holiness put themselves under many regulations. They may have outward regulations concerning their dress and conduct in order to make themselves “holy.” When I was a young Christian, I met with a group of Brethren believers who were very strict. The men had to cut their hair very short. If your hair was very short, you were considered a most spiritual person. Furthermore, the sisters were not supposed to wear anything modern. They all had to wear old-fashioned clothing. One day I realized that the unsaved people who lived in the countryside in China had the same outward practice that we did. The men cut their hair very short, and the women all wore old-fashioned clothes. Seemingly, they were as “spiriual” as we were. It was then that I realized that the teaching of holiness as sinless perfection was wrong.
Holiness is God’s divine essence, the essence of God’s divine being. For water to become tea, the substance of tea must be placed into the water. Holiness is when we are “teaified’’ with God as the divine tea. When something of God’s divine being is dispensed into us, we are sanctified, that is, we are made holy with God’s very essence. The sanctification of the Spirit is not an outward change, but an inward addition of God’s very essence into our being. A mortuary has the job of making dead persons look good outwardly. That is an outward beautification that has nothing to do with life. Our conduct or our outward beauty must be an expression of the inward life. The sanctification of the Holy Spirit is not something outward, but something absolutely inward of life.
The Spirit of life is also the anointing Spirit (1 John 2:27). The Spirit of life is liberating, transforming, renewing, sanctifying, and anointing. The anointing is the moving and working of the indwelling, all-inclusive, life-giving Spirit. The Spirit anoints us with all the divine elements of the divine Trinity. The anointing is like the repeated painting of some article. When coat after coat of paint is added to something, the elements of the paint are added to the thing painted. The Holy Spirit anoints us with the divine paint, with Christ, the embodiment of the Triune God. The anointing of the Holy Spirit is not merely a cleansing but a painting of the divine elements of Christ into our being. God’s desire is to add Himself into us, to dispense Himself into us. While the Holy Spirit is anointing us, He kills the negative things in our being, and He purifies and cleanses us with all that Christ is.
The holy anointing ointment in Exodus 30:23-25 is a full type of the compound Spirit of God with which we are anointed. The ingredients of this ointment include all that Christ is, all that Christ has accomplished, all that Christ has attained, and all that Christ has obtained. This all-inclusive, compound ointment is the very paint with which the Holy Spirit paints us. All the ingredients of the compound ointment are the essence of Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God. The more the Holy Spirit anoints us, the more we become the same as Christ in life and in nature.
If we want to change the color of a dark house to green, we need to paint it with green paint. We are like a dark house, and Christ is the green paint. Green signifies God’s rich life. The more the Holy Spirit anoints us with Christ, the more we become the same as Christ and the more we become Christ. We become Christ because the essence and the element of Christ has been anointed into us, has been added into us. The anointing is altogether a matter in life.
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