A central theme throughout the New Testament, involving approximately 258 passages, is holiness. The Bible says that God is holy, Jesus is holy, and His children are commanded to be holy. Our physical body is called the temple of God and is the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit. Hebrews 12:14 states, “without holiness no man shall see the Lord”, and the Holy Spirit, through the Apostle Peter, modifies and quotes Leviticus, “Be holy for I am holy”, in the Greek aorist imperative as a command. Five related Greek words were translated into the various tenses of the words holy, sanctify, and saint. Hagios, the primary root, is translated “Holy” 162 times, and “Saint” 62 times, God indicating His expectation even in the name He gave His children... Saints!
Hagios, holy, means: to be clean, pure, blameless in heart and life, without blemish. Fundamentally, the idea is separation, consecration and devotion to God, sharing in God’s purity and abstaining from earth’s defilement. Holiness is God’s innermost nature, and has a moral content, standing opposed to physical or spiritual impurity. Anything God commands, grace enables. The Holy Spirit indwells man to encourage and empower godly choices: Holiness is the product of our submission and right choices.
The word holy appears in 554 Bible passages, mostly in reference to the Godhead and the elect. The predominate description in the Bible of the character of Christ, and His Bride, His Body, His Church, the Church He is coming back for, is Holy. The characteristic of God that stands above all else is “Holy” and in His Holiness we find love, faithfulness, power and all the other characteristics of God. God is Holy! It is clear from a multitude of scriptures that God wants His children, born again believers, to be Holy as He is Holy. This is not the external, clean the outside of the “cup” holiness of Matthew 23:25-28, but holiness that comes progressively from a transformed life. Transformation is the regenerating life process of “Crucify – Renew – Transform”, which completes the sanctification process of the Holy Spirit as the believer grows into Christlikeness... into holiness. In Transformation we willfully submit to the Lordship of Christ, recognizing our chains of enslavement to sin are broken, and we willfully die daily to Self and Self’s interests, while willfully setting our minds on things above... renewing our mind to reflect Christ’s mind. Notice these “willfuls” are all willful... purposeful acts. Holiness is not an imitation of Christ’s life; it is a participation in Christ.
Holiness is not that we don’t do things we think God disapproves of; it’s that we love Him so much that we like the same things He likes - we become like Him. We allow the Holy Spirit to change us, forming and manifesting Christ in us, and we count the things we give up as “dung” in comparison to the love of Jesus. We allow no habit, no desire, absolutely nothing of this life to have any hold on us, becoming people of one thing.
In Matthew 5:19-48 Jesus repeatedly evokes the higher moral standards Grace requires, part of the new covenant commandments of our lord, standards which address the heart thoughts that drive all our words and actions. Our obedience to our Lord’s commandments, to the extent of our understanding, not only demonstrates our love for Him, but paces our transformation into Christlikeness. “Therefore you shall be perfect”: “Perfect”, teleio, means spiritually mature, holy, Jesus wants us to be like Him. “Just like your Father in heaven is perfect”, and like our Daddy. And our response...
“NOT MY WILL BUT THY WILL BE DONE”
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