Is Only God Holy?
Who Else Can Be?
To kick off this week, I wanted to answer a question that I, and many others I know have had since we’ve ever learned about holiness. That question of course is ‘Is only God holy?’. If you are anything like me and you grew up in church, or even just started attending, you may sing worship songs every week about how God and God alone is holy. And this all seems good and dandy to us until we read the scriptures and realize that we are called to be holy as well. As we’ve seen earlier this month, 1 Peter 1:14-15 tells us, “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior;” So how do we decipher this? Got Questions has a great take on this and they mention, “The difference between God and us is that He is inherently holy while we, on the other hand, only become holy in relationship to Christ and we only increase in practical holiness as we mature spiritually.” In essence, God is the final and ultimate level of holiness, while we ourselves are maturing and growing in it daily. Let's go to God's Word and see how this is confirmed.
It’s Required
For starters, we can see right away that holiness isn’t just something that one camp believes we can be and the other doesn’t. Hebrews 12:14 says, “Pursue peace with all people, and the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.” If it is true that no one will see the Lord without holiness and it’s also true that we cannot achieve holiness, then we’re all in big trouble. Thankfully enough though, we can. This passage just goes to show that being ‘set apart’ as God’s people isn’t impossible, even though some may think it is. The biggest thing we can’t do is assume that just because God is perfectly holy, the first time we try to be set apart, we will be at that level too. If that were the case, there would be no reason to ‘pursue’ holiness, it would just be something to throw on like a jacket. Holiness would be no work for us at all if it was just a one-time decision to be holy. If that were the case, we would be like God Himself, which is just not possible. So, while on one hand, holiness separates God’s people from the rest of the world, holiness also separates God from all other beings entirely. We are called to pursue and grow in holiness, but only He has achieved perfect holiness in Himself. This is why we can say that no one is like God in all of His holiness and at the same time claim that we too are to be holy as well. But how is this holiness achieved? Can anyone just wake up and decide to pursue holiness?
This Is The Way
It seems a whole lot easier said than done when we read about holiness in our Bibles. However, when we look to God’s Word and see that holiness is required in order to see the Lord one day, one thing we know for sure is that if God said this, there is a way to achieve it. God would not have the plan of the gospel in place if He knew that no one could ultimately accept it or be saved because they never achieved holiness. In fact, that's the very answer to how we even achieve holiness in the first place. The gospel. This is an amazing thing to realize when you see how our holiness and the gospel of Jesus Christ go hand in hand. The reason why Peter can even say in the first place that those who aren’t holy won’t see God is because holiness is an effect of the gospel itself. Once we are saved by Christ, we begin to see the work of the Holy Spirit in us as He sanctifies us to be made more holy. We see this in multiple areas of scripture like when Jesus is praying in the book of John. John 17:18-19 says, “Just as You sent Me into the world, I also sent them into the world. “And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, so that they themselves also may be sanctified in truth.” Jesus sanctifies us and continues to shape us in holiness with the truth. This is what is so beautiful about serving a God who is perfect in holiness. We know that we will not be perfect in holiness like He is, but He has not abandoned us to try and achieve godly character on our own.
He has sent us His Son to save us and His Spirit to sanctify us, as we are made more and more holy each day. One of my absolute favorite passages of scripture where this is seen in a great light is in 1 Corinthians 6:11 “Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.” Paul does a great job here of not just describing how the Holy Spirit sanctifies us, but how we are separate from the rest of the world. We see earlier in this chapter that Paul is listing out a bunch of habits and sinful practices that if we continue in, we will not inherit the Kingdom of God. And yet, what does Paul say at the beginning of this passage? ‘Such were some of you’. Friends, before you were saved and sanctified by God, you were lost, just like the rest of the world. But God led us by His Spirit to be saved and sanctified so that we may live holy lives that are separate from the rest of the world. What a beautiful plan and picture of sanctification that our Lord has given us as we continue to grow to be more like Christ. Yes, only God is perfect in holiness, but He still calls us to grow in holiness the more and more we follow Christ. And this growth isn’t dependent upon ourselves, otherwise this goal would be impossible. God has given us His Spirit to sanctify us and lead us back to Christ time and time again, so that we may pick our cross daily and follow Christ in our pursuit of holiness.
Sources
[1] Blue Letter Bible. (n.d.). Blue Letter Bible. https://www.blueletterbible.org/
[2] GotQuestions.org. (2022, January 4). GotQuestions.org. https://www.gotquestions.org/being-holy.html
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