Made Holy!

A friend of mine made the following observation about holiness after his participation in a discussion board about the subject.

" But my point of view is that holiness is imputed to us in the same way our justification, righteousness and sanctification is.. church often tells us to be holy but it seems to me that making something holy is Gods business.. We can adopt certain behaviors and call it holiness.. we can wear robes, shave our heads, etc… but are we holy on account of that or by participating in some ritual? (sic)"

That is one of the main problems of the modern day Church. We are holy simply through faith in Christ. When you talk about "how do we get holiness" your natural tendency is to determine what to do and what not to do. It is law repackaged. In today's Church, unfortunately, holiness is determined based on the individual denomination or school of thought one subjects themselves to. How many Christians spend their entire lives trying to gain through obedience what they already have been given by God through faith in Christ? I don't know if this misunderstanding of holiness is because people aren't saved, thus don't know the truth or if they never take the time to read the scriptures so readily available to them. I won't judge the hearts of believers, but when it comes to issues like the holiness of believers, if you don't know you are already holy why don't you know?

The Bible clearly talks about the holiness of the believer as a present possession of ours through faith in Christ. It is not something achieved through diligent self-effort through obedience to rituals, laws, tenants, doctrines or anything else designed to modify our behavior. In fact the Bible talks of something quite different. In 1 Peter 2 we read that "you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ... But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light (1 Peter 2:5, 9)." This is a description of people who are already holy in God's eyes. There is nothing written here to indicate what must be done to achieve holiness. The inheritance of a believer, established as the result of the death of Jesus Christ, is full of many things that we can only receive through faith.

Often times we here the attempt to achieve holiness hidden within spiritual sounding language. One of the most popular terms thrown around within Christian circles is "Progressive Sanctification." Progressive Sanctification is described as the journey of producing less and less the acts of the sinful nature. Now, I agree that as a Christian matures in the faith they should see sin diminishing in their life. However, the goal of the Christian life is not to stop sinning and call it becoming holy. If it is you have to ask one question, "How do I become more holy?" There in lies the trap of Satan. In order to become increasingly holy you must define what to do and what not to do as I mentioned earlier. This is putting yourself under law because the law deals with matters of the flesh. And scripture is clear that "The law was added so that the trespass might increase (Romans 5:20)." In other words, when you are under law sins will increase. This is the exact opposite result those who teach progressive sanctification believe in. You can't produce less and less the acts of the sinful nature by trying not to produce the acts of the sinful nature. Why? "For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace (Romans 6:14)." I don't think one would mistake sin being your master as becoming more holy!

Rather, Christians are already seen completely holy by God. We are called saints. Saints comes from us being sanctified. And sanctified is another way of saying holy! As we trust in Him we will not seek out sin because we know that it cannot give to us what we already have in Christ. "And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Hebrews 10:10)." We "have been made holy." This is written in the past tense to prove to us that our holiness is something we already have received, not something to achieve through self-effort. "And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God (1 Corinthians 6:11)." We "were sanctified." Again, a reference to something that has already taken place in our lives. Our holiness is something we have imputed to us through faith in Jesus Christ. It is imperative that Christians realize that we don't become who we are through progressive sanctification (holiness training). We become who we are through trust and dependence on the guidance of the Holy Spirit. God has given us everything and sees us as holy so we would get our focus off of ourselves and squarely on to Him. This is the only way we can be used by Him to reach the world with the message of salvation in Jesus Christ.