I Cannot Tell You When, but I Know I Am

by Captain Jeremiah Eisley

I recall a chapel service at the College for Officer Training where, in response to a sermon, we were all called upon to embrace and receive the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit. I wanted that power. I needed that power. I wanted the Holy Spirit to inject Himself as a lightning bolt within my heart, burning and incinerating any and all inclinations toward sin. In fervency and tears, I turned to the young cadet who would soon be my wife and said, unironically, “My heart is strangely warmed!”

Now I had heard this quote before. It was John Wesley, from his recollections of his famous Aldersgate experience. It’s embarrassing for me to recall this moment in chapel because, in hindsight, I wanted so desperately to share in this experience with glorified saints that I quoted one’s experience as my own. It’s a cringey memory — me with tears in my eyes, saying that to Katie, wanting so badly for this moment to forever be my reference point as to when and where the Holy Spirit had come. I left chapel and proceeded to lunch, carrying only my self-assurance that this was it! I was holy.

It wasn’t a temptation or an outright sin that changed my mind. There was no common anecdote of getting angry with someone, or raging behind the wheel of a car, or any other common pulpit trope. It was just me. I knew who I was, and I knew what I wasn’t. I can’t remember how long it took, but the paper sculpture of self-assured piety eventually crumbled under the pressure of a vacuum of emptiness. My heart was an empty concrete block of a room. There was no fire. It was so cold.

I wish I did have an Aldersgate experience, or Samuel Logan Brengle’s Boston Common experience — somewhere and some time to refer to as I speak to people about the experience of sanctification — if for anything, just to give a clear reference point for congregants to illustrate what I once was and what I am now. When I talk to people about holiness I hear a wide spectrum of experiences. Some can name the date, time, and place, so clear that it is memorialized in a scratched note made in a worn Bible. Many more people have shared stories with me that, if they were all broadly summarized, would say something like: I don’t know when, but I do know that, by God’s grace, I am.

Nicky Gumbel offered an illustration years ago on the subject of the salvation experience. Being that sanctification is doctrinally understood as the “second” work of grace, I believe that the same application could be given to the holiness experience: People are on a train traveling from Paris to Berlin, a journey of roughly 11 to 12 hours. Upon arrival to the station in Berlin, some people are awake to see the changing landscape and the entry to the covered train platform. Others may have nodded off on the way and wake up when the train comes to a halt. Some would be able to tell you exactly when they have arrived at Berlin; others would not be able to recount the exact moment of entry. Yet both groups of people could testify truthfully that they are no longer in Paris but in Berlin.

I cannot tell you when, but I know I am no longer where I was. The Holy Spirit speaks to us in such simple ways, and even though the might and awesomeness of God could never be fully comprehended or systematically bound by our own feeble understanding, He is so kind and gentle in the way He assures us of our salvation and of our sanctification. Christ purifies us through His Spirit and assures our mental faculties in a way that Catherine Booth beautifully articulates, that sanctification is “the simple reception of Christ as an all-sufficient Savior, dwelling in my heart, and thus cleansing it every moment from all sin.”

Simply put, when you receive Christ in His fullness, you trust Him to cleanse and live in the heart of your being. When we understand holiness in this way, we see truly the power of His presence. Holiness is not something that God gives us; holiness is Christ Himself possessing the whole person. I cannot tell you when it happened, but I can tell you how.

Jesus Christ, how merciful and beautiful You are to choose me as Your Spirit’s place of residence. You ultimately possess my life! By Your grace, You share with me what God requires of me and have instilled within me the desire to obey Him! Your perfect love, no longer a resisted guest but a reigning Presence. Hallelujah!