Holiness
Whatever happened to it?

Approximately a dozen years ago, 1200 miles from the Eastern Continental Divide, I was having lunch at a well know Christian para-church ministry. Across the table from me sat a devote Christian brother who belonged to a Nazarene church. I was expounding to him why I believed the Doctrines of Grace most completely embody and explain the Biblical faith professed by a believer. His comment: “Yes, but in Reformed circles where is the holiness?” Check!

It was neither the time nor place to engage in debate, but his point was well taken. “Once saved always saved” is a characterization of Calvinism. However, there is a whole lot of belief not followed by behavior that is, in reality, no belief at all. Holiness is a matter of the heart. Heart in the Biblical sense as the center or focus of your life; from whence springs all your thinking that leads to action. When we see one who is a “holy man/woman”, that person is holy at the core of his/her being.

Holiness is not the keeping of God’s law or man’s law to show how formal and better we are than others. Holiness is not living the live of an ascetic in austerity and separation from the world. Holiness is not doing all manner and sorts of religious activities to prove to you and the world that you are in the Kingdom of God. Holiness is first about being…Be holy because I am holy [1 Peter 1:16]. Holiness is about doing but always as the response of a thankful sinner for the grace that has saved him.

We are all familiar with the statistics that show Christians with divorce and abortion rates the same as non-Christians. Where is the holiness? It is in short supply today. My friend at lunch was correct, but the lack of holiness is evident not just in the Reformed, but in a large majority of the Christian community. J.I. Packer says holiness in a person is:

“…a matter of Spirit-led law keeping, a walk, or course of life, in the Spirit that displays the fruit of the Spirit (Christ-likeness of attitude and disposition.). It is matter of seeking to imitate Jesus’ way of behaving, through depending on Jesus for deliverance from carnal self-absorption and for discernment of spiritual needs and possibilities."

Why has holiness gone? In large part it has disappeared because instead of living in the Spirit, we live in the flesh; instead of imitating Jesus, we seek to imitate the world; instead of being delivered from self-absorption we are constantly looking for self-fulfillment. And, this by those who are professing Christians! One of the important issues we will look at during August is holiness and recovering it in the Christian life.