Holiness Must Be Preached Part 4

153. Is it wise to use the phrase "second blessing"?

We can see no objection to its use, nor any great demand for its use. It has been in use among Methodists for over a hundred years, as Mr. Wesley and the early Methodists frequently used it. Mr. Wesley writes thus: "It is exceedingly certain that God did give you the second blessing, properly so called." ... "One found peace, and one found the second blessing." -- Vol. vii. p. 45.

Charles Wesley put it into his hymns, and without caviling over it, millions have sung for a century:

"Give us. Lord, this second rest."

Speak the second time, be clean."

Let me gain that second rest."

Even the calvinistic Augustus Toplady wrote:

"Let the water and the blood,

From thy wounded side which flowed,

Be of in the double cure,

Save from wrath, and make me pure."

Sin is of two kinds, wrong acts, and wrong states, as a "transgression of law," and as a defilement or "unrighteousness." Salvation has a double or twofold aspect: pardon and purity, justification and sanctification. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God." "The blood of Jesus Christ, his Son, cleanseth us from all sin."

Pardon applies to guilty actions, and cleansing to polluted states. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." Pardon, as we see in this scripture precedes the cleansing. The two blessings are presented in the declaration: "Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases." It is also set forth in the great prophetic declaration: "In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin, and for uncleanness." This twofold blessing runs all through the scriptures, and is taught by precept, promise, and history. Ancient Israel typified them in crossing the Red Sea, and the Jordan; in leaving Egypt, and in entering Canaan.

Rev. B. W. Gorham says: "The attainment of heart purity is, and must be held to be, a distinct epoch in the Christian life. It is the point up to which all grace received performs the office of saving, and beyond which it performs the office of endowing." -- Gods Method with Man, p. 248.

St. Paul asserts in Rom. xv. 29, his possession of "the fullness of the blessing;" which must mean more than simply the blessing," just as "entire sanctification" means more than "sanctification," "perfect love " more than "love," "full assurance of faith" more than "faith," and full salvation, more than salvation.

The apostle also teaches this "second grace" in 2 Cor. i. 15 "And in this confidence I was minded to come unto you before that you might have a second benefit," (margin, "second grace.") The original word, Barin, here translated "benefit" is translated "grace" one hundred and thirty-one times in the New Testament, and is never rendered "benefit," only in this single instance, and then is corrected by inserting "grace" in the margin. Here the inspired apostle uses the very form of expression used by teachers of distinctive holiness, and which is so distasteful to some people. McKnight translates it "That ye might have a second gift of the Spirit as soon as possible." AMEN!

To those who make sarcastic flings at the use of this term to express perfect love, we commend the following from the address of Rev. Dr. Pope at the British Conference:

"I have sometimes very delicately scrupled at this, that, and the other expression, and I have wondered whether it is right to speak of a 'second blessing;' and I have taken a text in which our Saviour takes a blind man and partially restores him his sight, and then, holding the man up before us for a little while, that we may study his state, which is a great advance upon what it was, that we may watch him in this state of struggle between sin and the flesh. He touches him again and he see every man clearly. In the face of that, text, and in the face of the experience of multitudes of our fathers, in the face of the testimonies of multitudes now living, and in the face of the deep instinct, the hope and desire of my own unworthy heart. I will never again write against the phraseology referred to."