The Gospel in Ten Words (14 page)

Holiness
means wholeness. To say “God is holy” is to refer to the wholeness, fullness,
beauty, and abundant life that overflows within the Godhead. God lacks nothing.
He is unbroken, undamaged, unfallen, completely complete and entire within
himself. He is the indivisible One, wholly self-sufficient, and the picture of
perfection.
When
the angels sing “Holy is the Lord,” they are not admiring him for his
rule-keeping or sin avoidance. They are marveling at the transcendent totality
of his perfection. To worship God in the beauty of his holiness is to be
awestruck by the infinite sweep and scale of his sublimity. It is to become
lost in the limitless landscape of his loveliness.

Holiness
is not one aspect of God’s character; it is the whole package in glorious
unity. It is the adjective that precedes all other attributes. Hence, the love
of God is a holy love; it is the whole and unrestrained love of the Trinity
spilling over into the hearts of humanity. His righteousness is a holy
righteousness; it is the habit of right action that flows naturally from One
who is in such harmony with himself that he is incapable of acting any other
way. His joy is a holy joy; it is the pure and unshadowed delight that
accompanies every expression of his love and goodness.

Holiness
is hard for us to comprehend because we have never seen its like. We are more
familiar with our needs than his fullness, our brokenness than his wholeness.
When the writer of Hebrews said, “Without holiness no one will see the Lord,”
he was not making a threat but describing a fact (Hebrews 12:14). Our experience
in a sick and broken world has not equipped us to relate to One who is healthy
and whole. We don’t even speak the same language. Our native tongue is the
language of lack and longing but Jesus came speaking the language of abundant
life.
“Be perfect,” said the Holy One. The word for
“perfect” means “complete” or “full grown.”
[47]
It means “whole.” Jesus was saying, “Be whole as your Father in heaven is
whole.” He was calling us to the life that is his.

Jesus is
the only one of us who lived undamaged by sin. He walked among the wreckage of
fallen humanity as a beacon of wholeness and health.

Jesus knew no sin yet the writer of Hebrews tells us he “learned
obedience” and was “made perfect.”
[48]
That sounds like a contradiction, as though Jesus started out as a disobedient
sinner but came good in the end. Perhaps he signed up for one of those
sanctification courses and sweated his way to sinlessness. No, that didn’t
happen. What the writer of Hebrews is saying is that the full beauty and
purpose of Jesus’ ministry was not realized until the cross. Before he died,
his ministry was incomplete or imperfect. But on the cross everything that
needed to be done to save and sanctify you was accomplished:

Later,
knowing that all was now
completed
, and so that the scripture would be
fulfilled
,
Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” … When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It
is
finished
.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John
19:28,30)

Look at the words used in that passage to describe the climax of
Jesus’ ministry;
completed, fulfilled, finished
. If Christ is your life,
this is the sort of language you should use to describe your own pursuit of
holiness:
completed, fulfilled, finished
. You don’t have to work to
become holy; you have been made holy through Jesus’ completed, fulfilled, and finished
work on the cross:

For by one offering he hath perfected forever them that
are sanctified. (Hebrews 10:14, KJV)

An astonishing thing has happened. Through an act of his will and
by the sacrifice of his body you have been sanctified for all time. This was
the purpose of his ministry. He was numbered among the transgressors so that
you might be numbered among the holy.
[49]

In all history only one person ever succeeded in sanctifying
himself, and he did it on your behalf. Jesus said “I sanctify myself, that they
too may be truly sanctified” (John 17:19). Was Jesus-as-high-priest made
perfect on the cross? Yes! Then you are well and truly sanctified. You are like
the newlywed who wakes up on the first day of the honeymoon and says, “I don’t
feel married
—
this is
all new to me
—
but
because of what happened yesterday I am well and truly married.” This is not a
gradual process requiring many years of slow laborious self-improvement. Just
as you are either married or unmarried, you are either holy or unholy. The
moment you said “I do” to the Holy One you entered into union with him and
became just as holy as he is.

“Really? I’m not sure I can believe that, Paul.” Well the good
news for you is that the unbelieving spouse is sanctified by the other.

“But
I don’t feel holy; in fact, I feel distinctly unholy.” Stop
living on the basis of your feelings and align your
thinking with God’s word. Go to language school if you must and acquaint
yourself with the new vocabulary of holiness. You are not a sorry sinner in
need of sanctification; you are a holy saint and the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Can you imagine the Holy Spirit living in an unholy dump? Of course not. Yet he
lives in you. You must be holy.

“You said holiness means completeness or wholeness. But I come
from a broken family and a broken marriage. I feel incomplete.” A husband or
wife won’t complete you and neither will raising children. We put unholy
pressure on others when we expect them to do what only God can do. “
You
are complete in him” (Colossians 2:10, NKJV). Jesus completes you. You were
broken, but in him you are whole. You were in lack, but he who has Christ lacks
no good thing. Your life was a sinful mess, but he gave you beauty for ashes.
Isn’t
that good news?
[50]

Practical
holiness is a term to beware of because it often hides a fishhook: “You’ve got
to work at your sanctification. You’ve got to strive to live by God’s holy
instructions.” This is false advertising. It is old covenant behavior
modification dressed up as a second work of grace
—
as if the first work of grace was
insufficient. Don’t fall for it. Jesus has already worked to sanctify you and
his work cannot be improved upon.

I
sometimes hear from believers who think the law shows us how to live holy. “We
are saved by grace and perfected through the law.” I tell them this is a recipe
for disaster for “the law made nothing perfect” (Hebrews 7:19). Although the
law is holy and good, it has no power to make you holy and good. The law is not
a
Saints’ Guide to Holy Living
; it is a signpost to Jesus.

Others
say we are sanctified by works. “We’ve got to keep the commands of Jesus. We’ve
got to follow the instructions of Paul.” Not to get holy you don’t. Nothing you
do can make you holy.

“Then
how do you explain all those New Testament verses calling us to be holy?”
Okay, let’s look at an example from Paul:

It is God’s will that you should
be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality. (1 Thessalonians 4:3)

A gym
instructor might use this scripture to tell you that you are not sanctified,
that you need to be sanctified, and that the way to get sanctified is to avoid
sexual immorality. Such an interpretation comes straight out of the old
covenant. Paul is not saying that at all. He is saying, “You are holy,
therefore be holy.” See the difference? One says do to become, the other says
do because you are.

Behavior
follows identity. A broken and damaged person who tries to live holy is like a
fish in a footrace. They are not going to get very far. If they succeed at
avoiding one kind of sin (e.g., sexual immorality) you can be sure they will be
undone by another (e.g., self-righteous pride).

The
avoidance of sin cannot make a broken person whole. But if you have already
been made whole by Jesus and have learned to look to him to meet all your
needs, you will avoid sin effortlessly. The good news is that even if you fail,
you are still holy. Do you understand
this? Since nothing you did made you holy in
the first place—you were sanctified through his will and his sacrifice—nothing
you do can make you unholy. Thank you, Jesus!

Holy living is normal for holy
people. It’s what holy people do. This is why the New Testament writers
consistently followed the pattern of establishing identity before giving
instructions on how to live holy. Paul was a master at this. Just look how he
begins his letter to the misbehaving Corinthian Christians: “To those
sanctified in Christ Jesus and called to be holy”
(1 Corinthians 1:2).
See the pattern? Identity first (you are sanctified in
Christ Jesus); behavior second (so be holy).

It was
the same message for the Thessalonians: “You are all sons of the light, so act
like it” (see
1
Thessalonians 5:5–6).

Similarly,
Peter exhorts us to “be holy in all you do” (1 Peter 1:15), before reminding us
we are a holy priesthood and a holy nation (1 Peter 2:9).
[51]

One more
time for emphasis: We don’t act holy to become holy but because we are holy. It
is in our new nature to live whole, to speak with a wholesome tongue, and to
think the best of
others.
A child of a holy God who acts in an unholy manner is a hypocrite. They are
acting contrary to their true nature. This can happen if they have been fed a
steady diet of lies and laws: “You’re not holy. Follow the commands of
God and strive to get holy.” It can also happen if they
are ignorant of their true identity, if they have been told, “You’re an unholy
work in progress.”
Perversely, this sort of holiness preaching does
nothing to promote holiness. Instead it inflames sin and stirs up the flesh in
a vain attempt to overcome it. It teaches people to trust in themselves rather
than the unmerited favor of God who has sanctified them.

What
is practical holiness? It is learning to walk in the reality that Jesus has
made you whole and given you everything you need for life and godliness. It is
learning to function as God intended you to function.

Holiness
is not something to strive for; like salvation, it’s something you have and
work out. Think of a toddler learning to walk. The toddler has within them
everything they need to walk, run, and jump. They just need to work it out.
That’s how it is with holiness. We are whole—God has given us everything we
need in Jesus—we just need to learn how to live whole. It’s a new and wonderful
experience for us. We have not been this way before but with our eyes fixed on
Jesus the Holy One, we cannot fail.

Much
damage has been done in the pursuit of holiness. We have been told we are
competing in an endurance race with the implication that the weak among us
probably won’t make it. “So try harder or die trying!” In the name of
sanctification we have been sold tickets for an endless pilgrimage to an
unknown destination without any guarantees we’ll ever arrive. But t
he good news of grace
declares that in Christ you have arrived already. The Christian race starts at
the finish line.

So
cancel the sanctification classes, throw out the gym membership, and stop
sweating for Jesus. Stop pretending you can finish what he started. Instead, be
confident that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion.
And don’t be discouraged by your mistakes. When you stumble, you are still
holy. You are progressing from glory to glory and
strength
to strength. Know that your Papa-God has delight in his eyes as he watches you
take
your first steps.

The gospel of
holiness is almost never preached in its full glory. The result is that many
Christians still struggle with sin despite their best efforts to avoid it. They
are like patients who won’t leave the hospital because they think they are
still broken. They do not know that Dr. Jesus has made them whole.

The
gospel is not a sign-up sheet for sanctification classes. The gospel is the definitive
announcement that in Christ you are holy indeed. Jesus took your broken down
and raggedy old life and gave you his whole life in exchange. You have been
called to the adventure of discovering who you are in Christ and presenting
yourself as a holy offering to the Lord. You are a living and beautiful
testimony of the transforming power of his holy grace. Holiness, or wholeness,
is the very definition of abundant life. Such is the life you already have in
him.