Below is the daily devotional from Miles Stanford for today. It is, I think, a fair representation of the oringinal teaching of the Keswick/identification movement. This is what was meant, as I understand it from my reading. However, the Holiness Movement that came from those origins morphed into something that would have been abhorrent to the original proclaimers of "Keswick" theology.
I have put in bold what I thought were the main truths of this article. That is, that we must know (cognitively) our position as dead with Christ, raised to new life with Christ, and in the heavenlies with Christ; and then, we must learn (practically) to walk in the victory which we have been given positionally. This is why it is called "identification", because all this is based on being "with Christ."
Thus, the original teachings of Keswick teaches were not that believers reached some new higher plane where they no longer sinned; but rather that they learned more fully to walk in the position that they truly had with/in Christ. Thus, while they still sinned, they had learned to seek and to know the victory which Christ had bought for them. When it's put in these terms, I don't think it sounds quite so wild as some people say, but hey, to each their own.
Champ
"I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 3:12).
To know our position in the Lord Jesus is necessary so that we may understand His ways and rest in His means. Then, by processing through the years He slowly narrows the discrepancy between our heavenly position and our personal condition. Truth is received in the mind, assimilated in the heart, and manifested in the walk.
"First, the believer, like a bird, flies at once to the top and sees everything accomplished on his behalf, and then he, as it were, comes back and creeps up every inch of the way. It is like ascending a ladder of grace.
"The first step is, we believe that the Lord Jesus was sent of the Father; second, that in the fullness of His work we are justified; third, we make His acquaintance, fourth, we come to see Him in heaven–we know our association with Him there, and His rest here, fifth, we learn the mystery, the great things we are entitled to because of being in His Body, His Bride; sixth, that we are seated in heavenly places in Him; seventh, we rejoice in wonder and in praise in the knowledge of Himself." -J.B.S.
"As the result of the work of His Cross and resurrection, eternal life is received complete by those who believe. But while that life is itself victorious incorruptible, and indestructible, the believer has to come by faith to prove it, to live by it, to learn its principles, to be conformed to it. The life in itself in the believer needs no addition, so far as its quality and quantity are concerned. So far as its power, its glory, its potentialities are concerned nothing can be added to it. But the course of spiritual experience, of spiritual life, is to discover, to appropriate, and to grow in all that the life represents and means." -T. A-S.
"Rooted and built up in Him, and established" (Colossians 2:7).
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