Holiness is Our Birthright
God is holy. He is holy, holy, holy.
“I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of His robe filled the temple . . . and they were calling to one another: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is filled with His glory” (Isaiah 6: 1, 3).
“I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves, and be holy, because I am holy” (Leviticus 11: 44 NIV).
God’s holiness is His complete uniqueness, His distinctness. He has no beginning and no end. He is set apart, sovereign. God is transcendently separate, far above and beyond all of His creation – He is ‘other’, totally self-sufficient and self-existent. And yet, remarkably, He is near, involved in our lives; dwelling in the hearts of His followers (John 14). He is a pure, incomparable, unadulterated being. God is the Holy One – infinitely pure, morally and ethically perfect. He is absolute goodness and perfect light – there is no darkness in God. He is exalted, worthy of complete devotion and worship. God is ‘Being’, and because of Jesus and our faith in Him, we are ‘becoming’.
All of these attributes, and more, are inseparable from His holiness; they flow out of, and are subsumed by His holiness. God’s holiness is His highest quality, the overarching manifestation of who He is.
“We can’t use God – God is not a tool or appliance or credit card. Holy is the word that sets God apart and above all other attempts to enlist Him in our wish-fulfillment fantasies or utopian schemes for making our mark in the world. Holy means that God is alive on God’s terms, alive in a way that exceeds our experience and imagination. Holiness refers to a life burning with intense purity that transforms everything it touches into itself” (Eugene Peterson, Introduction to the book of Leviticus, The Message, pg. 133).
“He provided redemption for His people; He ordained His covenant forever – holy and awesome is His name” (psalm 111: 9 NIV).
God Wants to Make Us Holy
God is holy, and believe it or not, His ultimate purpose for us is to make us holy also. “But just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy” (1 Peter 15, 16).
“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into His likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from God, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3: 18 NIV).
“May God Himself, the God who makes everything holy and whole, make you holy and whole, put you together – spirit, soul, and body – and keep you fit for the coming of our Master, Jesus Christ” (1 Thessalonians 4: 23, 24 MSG).
M. William Ury writes about holy and holiness:
“Jesus said, “Sanctify them by the truth” (John 17: 17). This statement may be seen as the summation and purpose of the atoning work of Christ. He is not speaking about the endtimes but of a desire for the church to take on the likeness of the essential nature of God.”
“The moral and ethical results of this new realization of the consecrated will are radical indeed. Sexual purity within and without marriage, real and submissive lifestyle commitments that cause unbelievers to reflect on the nature of the Christian God, blamelessness of heart, good works, contentment, and constant praise are but a few of the results of the new nature God both imputes and imparts to the NT believer (Now!). There is no area untouched by the holiness of God, not as an external standard alone but as the impartation of the divine nature in all of its fullness. There is an inheritance for the people of God that includes not just eternal glories but the possibility of living a life that is good, one that is what God intended. Sobering is the thought that the final distinction recorded in Scripture in the judgment at the end of human history will be whether one is holy or not (Rev. 22: 11 – 15)” (Baker’s Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology in biblestudy tools.com/dictionary/holy-holiness).
Jesus did not just save us from sin and death; He saved us so that we can become holy and whole – to be transformed into His likeness, becoming brighter and more beautiful as God enters our lives and we become like Him – holy.
Jesus saved us to live with Him in a restored and redeemed new Heaven and new earth, the New Jerusalem, which will one day fill the earth with its glory.
“And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and He will live with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God” (Revelation 21: 3 NIV).
This is a description of heaven, the culmination of God’s great plan of restoration and redemption proclaimed throughout the entire Bible. All who enter this new Jerusalem will be holy. God’s purpose for His people is holiness; holiness that begins now, not just when we enter the New Jerusalem. And heaven on earth , although imperfect, can also begin now for those who trust Jesus and commit to follow Him.
“The Bible could not be any clearer, the reason for your entire salvation, the design behind your salvation, the design behind your deliverance, the purpose for which God chose you in the first place is holiness” (Kevin DeYoun).
“God has only one intended destiny for mankind – holiness. His only goal is to produce saints. God is not some eternal-blessing machine for people to use, and He did not come to save you out of pity – He came to save us because He created us to be holy” (Oswald Chambers).
God’s plan for our lives is to make us like Jesus. “He also destined from the beginning, foreordaining them, to be molded into the image of His Son, and share inwardly His likeness” (Romans 8: 29 AMP).
Our holiness begins when we are born again – justified, made righteous, declared “not guilty”. But justification is not the end, it is not God’s final, sole purpose. It is a means to an end – our sanctification. If we stop with justification, we are falling far short from God’s amazing plan for our lives. Justification is just the first, although necessary, step on a journey of sanctification. As I like to say, “Justification is necessary, but not sufficient.”
The Latin word, sanctus, means ‘holy’. Sanctified means ‘made holy’, and sanctification is the process or journey toward ‘being made holy’.
When we confess Jesus as Lord and believe that God raised Him from the dead, we are saved – synonymous with entering the Kingdom of God. In that moment, we receive and are sanctified by the Holy Spirit. On the road to Damascus, Jesus spoke to Paul:
“I am sending you to them to open their eyes and turn them (to repent) from darkness to light, and from the power of satan to God, so that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified by faith in me” (Acts 26: 18 NIV).
Paul wrote, about entering the Kingdom of God, “But now He has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death (on the cross) to present you holy (sanctified) in His sight, without blemish and free from accusation” (Colossians 1: 22 NIV).
When we believe and enter the Kingdom of God now, which is the beginning of eternal life, we receive the indwelling Holy Spirit – the Spirit of Christ, power, Spiritual gifts, and as Paul writes, we are holy, blameless, and without accusation.
But in a letter to the church in Thessalonica, Paul writes:
“May He strengthen your hearts so that you will be blameless and holy in the presence of our God and Father when our Lord Jesus comes with all His holy ones” (1 Thessalonians 3: 13 NIV).
“It is God’s will that you should be sanctified . . . For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy life” (1 Thessalonians 4: 3, 7 NIV).
“May God Himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul, and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The One who calls you is faithful and He will do it” (Thessalonians 5: 23, 24 NIV).
So, while I am sanctified by faith and the Holy Spirit – I am holy and blameless in God’s eyes when I believe – Paul is also telling me “I will be blameless and Holy”; it is God’s will that “I should be sanctified”; and He will do it! Which is it? Am I holy and blameless or will I be holy and blameless? It is both. I am sanctified (holy and blameless) and I will be sanctified; I am, and I am becoming.
The author of Hebrews makes this point when he wrote: “By one sacrifice (the cross) He has made perfect (justified) those who are being made (or becoming) holy” (Hebrews 10: 14 NIV). We are becoming who we already are!
I am three parts – spirit, soul, and body. I am holy and blameless now; I am sanctified in my spirit where Christ and the Holy Spirit now live. That is justification or ‘made righteous’. I am being sanctified in my soul where my sinful flesh is constantly at war with the Spirit living in me. Here, in my soul, empowered by the Holy Spirit, I must confess and repent – turn my heart away daily from the things of the world I have chosen, over a lifetime, to give me security, value, and comfort – and turn to Jesus. This is a process, this is the journey of sanctification connected to repentance; a journey to build my house on the rock, to use the metaphor from a previous post.
In theological terms, sanctification upon conversion is called ‘positional’ or ‘definitive’ sanctification. The journey of sanctification is called ‘progressive’ sanctification.
The purpose of sanctification is not moral purity and perfection – we will never achieve that short of heaven. The purpose of sanctification is growing, a little bit each day, into a real, powerful, vital union with Jesus – to be ‘in Christ’, living with a ‘whole’ heart – becoming like Jesus. “Becoming like Jesus” means loving God the Father and others, the way Jesus did; serving like Jesus, walking in humility like Jesus, and sacrificing our lives like Jesus. Holiness is living joyfully, peacefully, and hopefully like Jesus. Holiness is worshiping the Father and not the world. Holiness is a gift.
Only God can sanctify me. I cannot make myself holy! Jesus has to touch me – every part of my life that is touched by Jesus will be made holy. God uses Jesus to transfer holiness from Him to me.
“Then one of the Elders asked me, “These in white robes – who are they, and where did they come from?” . . . And he said, “These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb” (Revelation 7: 14 NIV).
I cannot act, work, or think my way into holiness. Jesus, by His blood, can make me holy. But I have a role to play.
How do I participate with the Holy Spirit in this journey of progressive sanctification? First, instead of perfection, God wants passionate believers. Bring your passion to Jesus. Second, I believe the journey of sanctification only begins after we, in partnership with the Holy Spirit, consecrate ourselves to Jesus. My next post answers the questions: What is consecration and is it really so important?
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