[The reader will observe that the term “Second Blessing” may or may not be used, but the pattern of entering into identification with Christ by faith is a much need blessing. Technically, the “life hid with Christ in God (Col. 3:1-4) is the personal appropriation of the blessings given spiritually at the new birth (Eph. 1:3; Rom. 6:10,11) – JBW].
In the life of the believer there sometimes comes a crisis, as clearly marked as his conversion, in which he passes out of a life of continual feebleness and failure to one of strength, and victory, and abiding rest. The transition has been called the Second Blessing. Many have objected to the phrase, as being unscriptural, or as tending to make a rule for all, what was only a mode of experience in some. Others have used it as helping to express clearly in human words what ought to be taught to believers as a possible deliverance from the ordinary life of the Christian, to one of abiding fellowship with God, and entire devotion to His service… I have indicated my belief that, rightly understood, the words express a scriptural truth, and may be a help to believers in putting clearly before them what they may expect from God. Let me try and make clear how I think we ought to understand it.[1]
I have connected the expression with the two Covenants. Why was it that God made two Covenants–not one, and not three? Because there were two parties concerned. In the First Covenant [Exodus 20] man was to prove what he could do, and what he was. In the Second [Jer. 31:31-35], God would show what He would do. The former was the time of needed preparation; the latter, the time of Divine fulfillment. The same necessity as there was for this in the race, exists in the individual too. Conversion makes of a sinner a child of God, full of ignorance and weakness, without any conception of what the whole-hearted devotion is that God asks of him, or the full possession God is ready to take of him. In some cases the transition from the elementary stage is by a gradual growth and enlightenment. But experience teaches, that in the great majority of cases this healthy growth is not found. To those who have never found the secret of a healthy growth, of victory over sin and perfect rest in God, and have possibly despaired of ever finding it, because all their efforts have been failures, it has often been a wonderful help to learn that it is possible by a single decisive step, bringing them into a right relationship to Christ, His Spirit, and His strength, to enter upon an entirely new life.
What is needed to help a man to take that step is very simple. He must see and confess the wrongness, the sin, of the life he is living, not in harmony with God’s will. He must see and believe in the life which Scripture holds out, which Christ Jesus promises to work and maintain in him [John 10:10b; Phil 4:13]. As he sees that his failure has been owing to his striving in his own strength, and believes that our Lord Jesus will actually work all in him in Divine power, he takes courage, and dares surrender himself to Christ anew. Confessing and giving up all that is of self and sin, yielding himself wholly to Christ and His service, he believes and receives a new power to live his life by the faith of the Son of God [Rom. 12:1,2]. The change is in many cases as clear, as marked, as wonderful, as conversion. For lack of a better name, that of A Second Blessing came most naturally. When once it is seen how greatly this change is needed in the life of most Christians, and how entirely it rests on faith in Christ and His power, as revealed in the Word, all doubt as to its scripturalness will be removed. And when once its truth is seen, we shall be surprised to find how, throughout Scripture, in history and teaching, we find what illustrates and confirms it.
Take the twofold passage of Israel through water, first out of Egypt, then into Canaan. The wilderness journey was the result of unbelief and disobedience, allowed by God to humble them, and prove them, and show what was in their heart. When this purpose had been accomplished, a second blessing led them through Jordan as mightily into Canaan, as the first had brought them through the Red Sea out of Egypt [Heb. 4:9; Matt. 11:28-30].
Or take the Holy Place and the Holiest of All, as types of the life in the two covenants, and equally in the two stages of Christian experience. In the former, very real access to God and fellowship with Him, but always with a veil between. In the latter, the full access, through a rent veil, into the immediate presence of God, and the full experience of the power of the heavenly life. As the eyes are opened to see how terribly the average Christian life comes short of God’s purpose, and how truly the mingled life can be expelled by the power of a new revelation of what God waits to do, the types of Scripture will shine with a new meaning [Heb. 10:19-25].[2]
Or look to the teachings of the New Testament. In Romans, Paul contrasts the life of the Christian under the law with that under grace, the spirit of bondage with the Spirit of adoption. What does this mean but that Christians may still be living under the law and its bondage, that they need to come out of this into the full life of grace and liberty through the Holy Spirit, and that, when first they see the difference, nothing is needed but the surrender of faith, to accept and experience what grace will do by the Holy Spirit [Rom. 8:15]. To the Corinthians, Paul writes of some being carnal, and still babes, walking as men after the flesh; others being spiritual, with spiritual discernment and character [1 Cor. 2:11-3:4]. To the Galatians, he speaks of the liberty with which Christ, by the Spirit, makes free from the law, in contrast to those who sought to perfect in the flesh, what was begun in the Spirit, and who gloried in the flesh;–all to call them to recognize the danger of the carnal, divided life, and to come at once to the life of faith, the life in the Spirit, which alone is according to God’s will [Gal. 2:20,21].
Everywhere we see in Scripture, what the state of the Church at the present day confirms, that conversion is only the gate that leads into the path of life, and that within that gate there is still great danger of mistaking the path, of turning aside, or turning back, and that where this has taken place we are called at once, and with our whole heart, to turn and give ourselves to nothing less than all that Christ is willing to work in us. Just as there are many who have always thought that conversion must be slow, and gradual, and uncertain, and cannot understand how it can be sudden and final, because they only take man’s powers into account, so many cannot see how the revelation of the true life of holiness, and the entrance on it by faith out of a life of self-effort and failure, may be immediate and permanent [3]. They look too much to man’s efforts, and know not how the second blessing is nothing more nor less than a new vision of what Christ is willing to work in us, and the surrender of faith that yields all to Him [Rom. 6:6-11]. I would fain hope that what I have written … may help some to see that the second blessing is just what they need, is what God by His Spirit will work in them, is nothing but the acceptance of Christ in all His saving power as our strength and life, and is what will bring them into, and fit them for, that full life in the New Covenant, in which God works all in all [Col 1:27;2:6;3:1-4]..
Andrew Murray (1828 – 1917) concluded this appendix to The Two Covenants with a quote from the introduction to the book, Dying to Self: A Golden Dialogue, by William Law. The Two Covenants (with this article) is available online at CCEL.org here.
[1] In his textbook, Launch Out: A Theology of Dynamic Sanctification, Dr. Gerlad McGraw makes a strong case for this spiritual breakthrough (described here by Andrew Murray), as occurring in an obvious, intentional manner subsequent to conversion. See the Doctrinal Statement of The Christian and Missionary Alliance: “It is the will of God that each believer should be filled with the Holy Spirit and be sanctified wholly,being separated from sin and the world and fully dedicated to the will of God, thereby receiving power for holy living and effective service.This is both a crisis and a progressive experience wrought in the life of the believer subsequent to conversion.”
[2] Even those who downplay the concept of a spiritual “secret” may concede that Paul uses the term “mystery” to describe the reality and potential of the indwelling Christ (Col. 1:27). Other “blessings” that should be appropriated–with great potential for increased freedom and progress in sanctification–include Believer’s Baptism (i.e. water baptism), The Lord’s Table, full surrender, and discovering one’s spiritual gift (Acts 2:38; Luke 22:19; Rom. 12:1,2; 1 Cor. 12:1-27). All the above can come under the umbrella of the exhortation to “be filled with the Holy Spirit” (Eph. 5:18)
[3] Murray speaks of this breakthrough as “permanent” in that one has a new perspective of his/her union with Christ and identity in Him. However, the Abiding Life is a fellowship to maintain through ongoing growth in the grace and knowledge of the Lord (2 Pet. 3:18)