Being Holy: Biblical Perspective, Part 1

We once again open our Bibles to see God’s perspective in the matter of holiness in the lives of Christians. Holiness and the lack of it, has always been and continues to be a matter of grave concern to me as well as to our Lord. My heart aches when I see and hear God’s people indulging in sin and being open about it. It saddens me when the church condones these acts and behavior. It is a continuing sorrow to me to see the lack or absence of reactive and proactive measures taken by the church in confronting, reprimanding, correcting, and ultimately banning the erring believer from being a part of the church. Because the church does not want to deal with these issues head-on, for whatever reasons, young men and women in faith continue to indulge, wallow and take pleasure in sin, lacking an understanding of God’s Word and God’s take in the matter of holiness. These believers continue to pander to their fleshly desires, impulses and emotions by distorting God’s Word and by taking refuge in Romans 7. These believers refuse to study God’s Word. Without having a full understanding of God’s Word, to their own hurt and destruction, they continue to indulge in sin and despise holiness in their personal lives. These unholy, sinful, disobedient believers, both young and old, then get involved in the activities of the church, are given prominent positions, duties, and recognition to the utter disregard of God’s call to holiness. These believers then exercise their influence over other immature believers and believers who are new to the faith, thereby dragging them too in their net. To address these issues, we’ll open our Bibles to see God’s perspective in this matter of Holiness in our lives.

Let me clarify at the very beginning that this call to holiness is only for the saved, redeemed. Only a saved, regenerated, transformed person has the source and the capability to be holy. Only a person who is saved, redeemed, regenerated, transformed by the blood of Jesus Christ will have a desire, longing to live a holy life, pleasing to God. It is due to the indwelling Holy Spirit that God is able to initiate the desire in the saved person to be holy. It is God who initiates a desire in us to shun evil, to pursue holiness. In Phil 2: 12-13, Paul commands the believers at Philippi, 'to work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.' Paul in this verse is not saying that we need to do ‘works’ to achieve salvation. How do I know? In Phil 1:1, Paul refers the letter to 'all the saints in Christ Jesus.' You do not become a saint unless you are a saved, right? So, what does fear and trembling means? I looked up few commentaries to understand what Paul meant when he used the words, fear and tremble. Pastor John MacArthur says, 'it is to live a life in full surrender and dependence of the Holy Spirit as Christ lived and live daily, moment by moment yield to the control of the Spirit, a process which we must carry out the remainder of our life on earth.'

The question Christians ask is how to live a holy life? That is a wrong question. That is a self-centric question. That question seeks personal achievement. The question should be how should I live a life that pleases God? That is a God-centric question, which focuses attention on God rather than us. We need to get our priorities right. It is to please God that we lead a holy life. An unsaved person may have a longing to do good works, would do good works also, take part in good works also, but in the words of Pastor John MacArthur, ‘His tongue is deceitful, his lips are poisonous. His throat is an open grave; his eyes are full of adultery. His ears are deaf to God's voice and truth. His hands do evil. His feet run to shed blood. His mind is depraved and reprobate. His heart is desperately wicked. His will is hard and unrepentant. He resists God. He refuses life. His conscience is evil. In and out he is polluted.’

For part 2 in the series, please click,