The Meaning of "Holiness"
March 12, 2009

Apart from God nothing is holy in itself. For objects or people to be holy, God must sanctify them (set them apart). He must make them holy. Just as the legendary King Midas had the power to touch something and turn it into gold, so God's touch transforms men from the commonplace to something special, different, and set apart.

That's exactly what he's done to every Christian. Through faith in Jesus, we've been identified with him in his death, burial, and resurrection. Because of this, the apostle Paul said we are the temple of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). That means God's Spirit now lives within us. Peter said, "But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God" (1 Peter 2:9).

There is a sense in which we will never be holier than we are the moment we first trust Christ. Theologians call this "positional holiness." Our responsibility is to allow what is on the inside to work its way out in our lives--this is referred to as "progressive holiness."

When a fax machine receives a message, once the transfer of information is complete, the fax machine possesses all the data it will ever receive from that transmission. But only after the transmission is complete does the invisible message get transferred onto paper so it can be seen. That process illustrates the relationship between positional and progressive holiness.

The moment we trust Christ as our Savior, God makes us righteous--holy--in his sight. We spend the remainder of our lives allowing the holiness we possess in him to be transferred onto the paper of our thoughts, words, and deeds.

Our goal should be a perfect correspondence between God's unseen holiness within us and evident holiness in our lifestyle. We progressively become living expressions of the holy God who lives within us. The degree to which we understand our new identity is the degree to which we will think and act like Jesus and others will see him in our lives. Our thoughts, words, and deeds reveal the depth of our comprehension of all we are and have in Christ.

As holy men, we must allow our minds and bodies to be used in a pure way. Nobody would put on a five-hundred-dollar suit before mowing the grass or working in the garden. Similarly, we have been made holy by God. As holy men we should live consistently with our new nature.

Peter emphasized this when he said, "As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: 'Be holy, because I am holy' " (1 Peter 1:14-16).

True masculinity isn't found in gratifying our base desires for money, power, and sex. That's nothing more than denying our new identity and allowing our flesh to rule our heart. True masculinity is found in the person of Jesus Christ and our identity in him. Every day of our life we must grow in the knowledge of our holy God. And every day we must fight against our fleshly appetites that drive us to conform to our culture rather than to the holiness of the God who indwells us.