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The Doctrine of Holiness
A Christocentric Perspective
by Major Alan Harley
Synopsis
Holiness of life cannot be divorced from the Person and Work
of Christ.
To
do so is to create a dualism
in our understanding of salvation whereas the New Testament
sets forth a ‘full salvation’.
Christ taught that his followers were to lead holy lives
He
himself lived such a life in a human body and with an
authentic human nature
His redemptive work was focussed on a ‘full salvation’
He
modelled holiness and by his abiding presence in the Spirit
enables his followers to live in a sanctifying relationship
with himself.
Introduction
Most Christians believe that they should have a code of
conduct which reflects their belief in Christ. For some this
amounts to pursuing good works and religious activities. For
others it is an attempt to ‘imitate Christ’. For a significant
number, whose company – sometimes small - can be traced in
unbroken lineage through the centuries back to New Testament
times, the special mark of Christ’s people is holiness of
life.
This company can be found in all of the church’s historic
traditions – Eastern, Roman, Lutheran, Reformed, Puritan,
Pietist and Wesleyan. Most would agree with John Calvin: “We
cannot be justified freely by grace alone, if we do not at the
same time live in holiness.”
This study will use the incarnation, teachings, example and
redemptive work of Jesus Christ as its basis. It will
endeavour to relate this Christological framework to
subsequent teaching on the subject.
It
has been common practice amongst teachers of the holy life to
speak of ‘the blessing of holiness’ or ‘the blessing of a
clean heart.’
Holiness of life is indeed a blessing. But it needs to
be noted that in Scripture all Christian experience is
derivative – it comes directly from the living Christ by the
presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Further, it is
relational – it is the result of living in union with the Holy
One.
Thus in this study we are looking not at an abstract
‘blessing’, even though there is no greater blessing or
privilege than to ‘participate in the divine nature (2
Pet.1:4). Rather, as suggested above, we shall consider the
Christological basis
for the living of a holy life. Jesus lived a holy life, he
taught his disciples that they (and we) should be holy, and he
made provision for those who follow him to share his holiness.
Jesus the Teacher of Holiness
The teachings of Jesus as found in all four Gospels set forth
a quality of life which is not only different in general from
that of most people, but in particular of the overtly
religious. He laid stress on a righteousness which exceeded
‘that of the Scribes and the Pharisees’ (Matt. 5:20). These
words, contained in the Sermon on the Mount, follow his
beatitudes (3-12) and his teaching on being the world’s salt
and light (13-14). But not only in the Sermon, but throughout
his teachings, he is setting forth a standard for his
disciples which is in reality that of a holy life. It is
marked by
A
century ago Professor J. G. Tasker summarised what Jesus
taught regarding the sanctification of his disciples:
It
need occasion no surprise that even to His disciples our Lord
should not speak directly concerning holiness until His
farewell prayer. He asked that the men called to continue His
mission might share His consecration. The reason for His
reticence is that ‘in Him, and for them, imported (i.e.
‘signified) something – far more and other than it did in
the religion of the day….Only as they saw the Lord devote His
person in the consummating sacrifice would they be prepared to
realise what their Christian consecration involved’ (Findlay,
Expositor, VI, [1901] iv.5). It is also significant
that the prayer for His disciples’ holiness should immediately
follow the discourse in which our Lord expounds in welcome
detail what is involved in the promise of the Spirit whose
gracious indwelling is the secret of holiness.
The Gospels are …. The supreme revelation of holiness. The
imitation of Christ is the royal road to holiness; His
teaching concerning union with Himself and the bestowment of
the Holy Spirit reveals the secret of holiness. The writers of
the Epistles, under the guidance of their promised Teacher,
unfolded the implications of their own experience and the
purpose of the Incarnation, the Passion, the abiding
Priesthood of the Son of God.
The stress laid on the positive idea, which is probably the
primary conception of holiness, may serve to guard Christians
against the error of supposing that holiness may be acquired
by withdrawals and negations or by compliance with external
regulations. Holiness means the attainment of the Divine
Likeness, and this consists in moral qualities which are all
comprised in holy love. The motive to holiness increases in
strength as God is more perfectly known. In proportion as the
Holy Father is known as He is, will be the gladness of our
response to His claims, and the ardour of our desire to be
like Him in this world. Into the world Christ sent the men for
whose consecration He prayed, and His promise, “Ye shall know
that ye are in me’ (John 14:20), conveyed to them His
assurance that ‘in the world’ they should attain to holiness.
Life in Christ is holiness.
Jesus – the Incarnation – and Holiness
a. The Paradox of Incarnation
The Christian faith is founded on Jesus Christ, described by
John in the prologue to his Gospel as “the Word who was
God and who was made flesh and dwelt among us.” This
remarkable statement affirms at one and the same time: Jesus
Christ is God; God was made flesh.” From Bible times to the
present “God” and “flesh’ have for many devout souls been seen
as mutually exclusive terms. God is holy. Flesh is sinful.
Holiness and ‘the flesh’ have nothing in common and indeed can
never have any point of contact. But the New Testament writers
persisted with this revolutionary (and for many, blasphemous)
idea.
Faced with the paradox of the Incarnation the author of the
Pastoral Epistles exclaimed, “Great is the mystery of
godliness: God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim. 3:16). Paul
says that God sent “his own Son in the likeness of sinful
flesh” (Rom.8:3). The writer to the Hebrews says that Christ
“partook of the same nature” as those whom he came to save
(Heb. 2:14). And prior to his birth it was said to Mary, “the
child to be born will be called holy, and the Son of God”
(Luke 1:35). He would ‘be born’, i.e. he would be truly
human, and he would be truly ‘holy’.
b. The Purposes of Incarnation
To
Reveal God’s Holiness to Humankind
T.
F. Torrance observes
It
is only by keeping close to Jesus Christ, the Incarnate
Offspring of the Father’s Nature, that we may in some measure
know and speak of God in accordance with what he is in his
Nature in a way that is both godly and accurate.
In
Jesus we encounter God. He is the final Revelation of God
(Heb. 1:1,2). Thus we are in error if we seek that revelation
outside of Christ. Even God’s handiwork in creation cannot
provide it to us. Thus we must not look outside of Christ to
understand the holiness of God. At times that holiness, as
revealed in Jesus, elicited much the same response as when it
was encountered in Old Testament times (compare Isa.6:5 “..I
am a man of unclean lips, for my eyes have seen the Lord” with
Luke 5:8 “depart from me for I am a sinful man, O Lord”.).
To
Build a Bridge between God and Humankind
Karl Barth says
Certainly in Jesus Christ, as He is attested in Holy
Scripture, we are not dealing with man in the abstract: not
with the man who is able with his modicum of religion and
religious morality to be sufficient unto himself without God
and thus himself to be God. But neither are we dealing with
God in the abstract: not with one who in His deity exists only
separated from man, distant and strange and thus a non-human
if not indeed an inhuman God. In Jesus Christ there is no
isolation of man from God or of God from man. Rather, in Him
we encounter the history, the dialogue, in which God and man
meet together and are together, the reality of the covenant
mutually contracted, preserved, and fulfilled by them.
Jesus Christ is in His one Person, as true God, man’s
loyal partner, and as true man, God’s. He is the
Lord humbled for communion with man and likewise the Servant
exalted to communion with God. He is the Word spoken from the
loftiest, must luminous transcendence and likewise the Word
heard in the deepest, darkest immanence. He is both, without
their being confused but also without their being divided; He
is wholly the one and wholly the other. Thus in this oneness
Jesus Christ is the Mediator, the Reconciler, between God and
man. Thus He comes forward to man on behalf of God
calling and awakening faith, love, and hope, and to God
on behalf of man, representing man, making
satisfaction and interceding. Thus He attests and guarantees
to man God’s free grace and at the same time attests
and guarantees to God man’s free
gratitude.
To
Provide a ‘full’ Salvation
God, in Christ, was “made flesh” in order to accomplish his
redemptive purposes. The early church Fathers understand this
when they affirmed “that which is unassumed is unhealed.”
But in addition to this remarkable truth there is something
more. “God was manifest in the flesh” (1 Tim.3:16). It
was God himself who appeared ‘in the flesh’. This is
the God of absolute holiness (Isa. 6).
Such holiness is not merely an attribute of God. God’s very
nature is holiness. God does not ‘possess’ holiness; He is
holy. Thus there was a time when true, perfect, ultimate
holiness, was seen here on earth. And it was not seen by the
repudiation of the ‘flesh’ but in and through that flesh.
This is the starting point for our understanding of the life
of holiness. In the context of an authentic human life, one
which was “at all points tempted as we are” (Heb. 4:15),
perfect holiness was ‘fleshed out’. The great paradox of the
Incarnation is that Jesus Christ was and is “truly and
properly God and truly and properly man.”
As
a man he experienced suffering, sorrow, joy, disappointment,
temptations, peace, anger, joy, loneliness and all the other
emotions and life experiences that are known to us.
At
the same time he lived a consistently holy life so that those
who looked at one who was “made flesh” and who “dwelt among”
them could say that as they observed his life they “beheld his
glory, the glory of the only Son from the Father, full of
grace and truth” (John 1:1-14).
The incarnation says, holiness and ‘the flesh’ are compatible.
It says that a human being can be holy. It says that holy
living is for this life as well as the next.
Because of this Jesus is rightly seen as our example (John
13:15; 1 Pet. 2:21; 1 John 2:6).
Jesus – Redemption – and Holiness
The Cross, and Cleansing
Since the dawn of Christianity good people have asked, “Why
did Christ die?”. Numerous theories of the atonement have been
advanced. Some have risen to the ascendancy and have gained
general support of some denominations and theological systems.
None has been universally endorsed as the one ‘official’
position of the Church.
Suffice for our purposes to affirm that in his life, death and
resurrection Jesus accomplished something that has forever
changed our relationship with God. This atoning and redeeming
work, brought into focus in the cross, makes possible our
reconciliation with God, the forgiveness of our sins, our
admission into God’s family, and the assurance of eternal
life.
But a fact frequently overlooked is that, at the heart of the
work of atonement is God’s plan to so bring us into vital
fellowship with himself that we might be enabled to lead lives
marked by holiness. As P. T. Forsyth has written, “The same
holiness which satisfies God, sanctifies us.”
This is taught in numerous biblical passages, e.g. Titus
2:11-14. In this passage Paul makes it clear that God’s saving
grace, which brings salvation to all, has as its direct
objective the raising up of a people who are not only
‘redeemed’ from their past sins, but further ‘purified’ with a
view to renouncing ‘impiety and worldly passions’ and leading
‘lives that are self-controlled, upright, and godly’ and who
are ‘zealous for good deeds.’
Here then are two sides of the atonement – redemption and
purification. When an earlier generation of teachers within
the Wesleyan tradition spoke of a ‘second blessing’ they were
on to something. The New Testament sets forth Christ’s saving
work in terms of two dimensions, that which delivers us from
our past guilt and stain, and that which enables us to lead
lives marked by godliness. Salvation is more than ‘imputed
righteousness.’ It is to be infused with the very life of God.
This deeper dimension of the atonement is spoken of in Eph.
5:25 – 27 where Christ’s redeeming work is linked to the
purifying of the Church so that she might be “holy and without
blemish.” Some argued that this passage is of eschatological
significant (as also 1 Thess. 5:23). It would, however, seem
that this redemptive purpose finds at least partial fulfilment
in this life. Jesus uses similar language to that found in
the Ephesian passage when he tells his disciples that they are
made ‘clean through the word’ he has spoken (John 15:3). He
then prays for their sanctification, linking it to his own
(John 17:17).
A
similar emphasis is to be found in Colossians 1:21-23 where we
are told that “God has now reconciled (you) in his fleshly
body through death, so as to present you holy and
irreproachable and blameless before him – provided that you
continue securely established in the faith ……”
Constant Cleansing
John tells his readers that ‘the blood of Jesus Christ
cleanses from all sin” ((1 John 1:7). “The blood” could be
John’s way of speaking of Christ’s atoning work. The cleansing
is seen by some to refer to our justification, but this
explanation does not seem to fit the context as well as the
one which sees it as referring to the actual cleansing of sin
in the lives of believers. On this verse, and with particular
reference to the term ‘cleanse’, Anglican scholar Alfred
Plummer says
Note the present tense of what goes on continually, that
constant cleansing which even the holiest Christians need. One
who lives in the light knows his own frailty and is
continually availing himself of the purifying power of
Christ’s sacrificial death ….. Note also the ‘all’; .there is
no limit to its cleansing power; even grievous sinners can be
restored to the likeness of God, in whom is no darkness at
all.
The Ephesian passage (5:25-27) is, of course, concerned with
the Church – not primarily individual believers. Nevertheless,
the state of the Church cannot be divorced from that of its
members. Thus Paul applies the same thought to the spiritual
state of the Church’s members (Titus 2:14). In its context
this verse reflects the apostle’s vision of a purified people
and the surrounding verses refer to the spiritual state of
‘older men’ (2), ‘older women’ (3a), ‘young women’ ((4), and
‘young men’ (6). These verses all speak of the present life,
not the eschatological goal.
Salvation – Past,
Present, Future
In
the Titus passage Paul says that Jesus died both to redeem us
and purify us. In fact the atoning work of Christ has to do
with the sins of our past lives, cleansing and victory in the
present, and our final redemption when we enter heaven.
He died that we might be forgiven (justification)
He
died to make us good (sanctification)
That we might go at last to heaven (glorification)
Saved by his precious blood.
This understanding of the atonement, in which the whole of our
Christian life and experience are purchased by Christ’s death,
is absent from many theological writings and teachings.
Instead a dualism is presented which separates the work of
Christ on the cross from the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost.
The grand work of redemption involves justification,
regeneration, conversion, adoption, sanctification and final
glorification. But many (particularly in ‘Holiness’ circles’)
have reduced it to two experiences: The ‘Calvary’
work of “getting saved”, and the subsequent ‘Pentecost’ work
of “getting sanctified.”
Holistic Salvation
The believers of the Reformation understood salvation from
this ‘holistic’ perspective. They affirmed
They who are effectually called and regenerated, having a new
heart and a new spirit created in them, are farther sanctified
really and personally, through the virtue of Christ’s death
and resurrection, by his word and Spirit dwelling in them; the
dominion of the whole body of sin is destroyed, and the
several lusts thereof are more and more weakened and
mortified, and they more and more quickened and strengthened
in all saving graces, to the practice of true holiness,
without which no man shall see the Lord.
Jesus – Human Nature – and Holiness
A Patristic Understanding
“That which is unassumed is unhealed”. This principle was the
basis for the early church’s understanding of atonement. Jesus
is able to save us because he is one of us and one with us.
The Incarnation is concerned with the healing of human nature.
Paul uses a ‘healing’ word in 1 Thess. 5:23, where he speaks
of believers being “sanctified wholly” (holokleros).
The only other place where this word appears is in Acts 3:16
in which it is said of the man healed at the Beautiful Gate,
“the faith which is through Jesus has given the man .. perfect
health (holoklerian).”
Jesus – Authentic Humanity
He is “truly man”. Jesus assumed human nature as it truly
was; human nature scarred by the Fall. He lived a holy life in
the truest sense of the term but he nevertheless “humbled
himself and (was) born in the (authentic) likeness” of
humankind (Phil. 2:7). He was truly one of us. “the Word,
though remaining what it was, became what it was not.”
Why was this? He became a partaker of our human nature (Heb.
2:14) that we might become partakers of his divine nature (2
Pet. 1:4). He became like us so that we might become like him.
By
assuming human flesh Jesus sanctified it, i.e. he set it apart
as a worthy vessel for God’s holiness to find expression. It
is thus quite wrong to view the flesh with distain as have
some devout people in every age. Such a view drove many to
mutilate the body, reject marriage, view sexual activity as
intrinsically sinful, and see the human body as an evil thing
to be subjugated and as a prison house from which an early
release would be most desirable.
The Fathers of the Eastern Church spoke of the Christian’s
‘divinisation’ or theosis. Most Protestants have
recoiled from such an idea. Among the few who haven’t was
Charles Wesley. He kept alive a view which was part of the
spiritual heritage of the English church, that of
participation in God.
In a great hymn on the Incarnation “Let earth and heaven
combine”, he wrote
He
deigns in flesh to appear,
widest extremes to join;
To
bring our vileness near,
and make us all divine;
And we the life of God shall know,
for God is manifest below.
He
appears in flesh to make us divine! That is precisely what the
early Fathers taught. This, they believed, is what it means to
be a partaker (lit. a ‘sharer-in’) of the divine nature. And
of all the positions regarding sanctification and Christian
living, the one that comes the closest to that of the Fathers
and the Eastern Church is that of the Wesleys. A. M. Allchin
says “In such a hymn we see how the doctrine of the
incarnation carries with it as a direct consequence the
doctrine of man’s deification.”
The Wesleyan understanding of holiness of life has since the
late 19th century been popularised by such writers
and preachers as Congregationalist Daniel Steele, Church of
the Nazarene teacher A. M. Hills, Salvationist S. L. Brengle,
Methodist W. E. Sangster and Baptist Oswald Chambers.
Designated by Wesley as ‘Christian Perfection’ and ‘Perfect
Love’ it has been linked to the teaching of ‘entire
sanctification’.
The Wesleys and the Early Church Fathers
In
these teachings Christians are called to experience entire
sanctification, a ‘crisis’ which enables them to lead a life
of Christian perfection. Terms such as these come very close
to the theosis of Eastern Church teaching. Unlike John
and Charles Wesley, few of the popularisers of this doctrine
have appreciated their indebtedness to the Eastern Fathers and
the Orthodox tradition. Indeed, it was not until when, in the
1970’s, American Methodist scholar Albert Outler and others
recognised the link between Wesleyan and Patristic
theology that view gained acceptance among Wesleyan scholars.
Wesley’s contact with the Fathers of the Eastern church can be
traced at least to his journey to Georgia on board the S.
S. Simmonds, in 1735. During the trip he encountered two
spiritual forces which were to have a profound influence on
his thinking in later years. The first was that of the
Moravian brethren on board ship, under the leadership of
Augustus Spangenberg. These earnest Christians introduced him
to experiential religion, evangelical faith, and warm-hearted
pietism. Each of these would become a part of what is now
termed Wesleyanism. The second was much older. He spent many
profitable hours reading, studying and translating the
writings of Macarius of Egypt, a fourth century monk. This
voice from the ancient east was to have a profound influence
on Wesley’s understanding of the holy life. Much of his
subsequent writing on the subject reflected that influence.
For example, Macarius wrote
As
iron, or lead, or gold, or silver, when cast into the fire is
freed from that hard consistency which is natural to it, being
changed into softness, and so long as it continues in the
fire, is still dissolved from its native hardness – after the
same manner the soul that has renounced the world, and has
received the heavenly fire of the Godhead, and of the love of
the Spirit, is disentangled from all the love of the world,
and set free from all the corruptions and affections; It turns
all things out of itself, and is changed from the hardness of
sin, and melted down in a fervent and unspeakable love for the
Heavenly Bridegroom.
A Wesleyan Understanding
Lack of interest in the Church Fathers and the faith of the
Post-Apostolic Church on the part of evangelical Christians
has cut them off from their true roots. Wesleyan believers
have at least since the mid-19th century, embraced
a hermeneutic which has in recent decades questioned by
scholars both in other traditions and their own. For example,
the popular use of ‘Pentecost’ language to describe the
experience of entire sanctification, e.g. ‘baptism of the
Spirit’, has been seen by many Wesleyan scholars as
inappropriate. It was certainly discouraged by Wesley himself.
So also
the building of dogma on metaphor (‘baptism’, ‘roots of
bitterness’, et al). Likewise the heaping up of proof
texts which contain aorist tense verbs- said always to refer
to a ‘crisis’ moment (!) - and which call Christians to make a
specific response, lumping them together and declaring that
herein lies the basis for a second work of grace.
Rediscovering our Roots
With many questions raised concerning the teaching and few
clear answers forthcoming, there has been a substantial
decline in the emphasis on holiness of life within movements
whose official doctrines affirm the possibility of such a
life. To now call for a return to pristine Wesleyan thought
with its roots in the ancient and historic church (including
the concepts set forth in liturgical form in the Book of
Common Prayer) and based on serious exegesis of the
scriptures, is to call for a paradigm shift in our thinking.
Happily, there is amongst evangelicals an ad fontes
quest which seeks to build the faith and life of the ‘emerging
church’ on ancient traditions and teachings and by linking
them to the present and the future.
A
return to authentic Wesleyan thought is as much a return to
the beliefs of Charles Wesley as to those of his more
celebrated brother. Charles Wesley’s hymn, referred to
previously, reflects Patristic thought in linking a ‘deifying’
work of grace with the incarnation. As suggested, Christ’s
willingness “in flesh to appear” was God’s way of sanctifying
it and making it an appropriate vessel for his holiness. T. F.
Torrance writes
From his birth to his death and resurrection on our behalf he
sanctified what he assumed through his own self-consecration
as incarnate Son to the Father, and in sanctifying it brought
the divine judgement to bear directly upon our human nature
both in the holy life he lived and in the holy death he died
in atoning and reconciling sacrifice before God. That was a
vicarious activity which was brought to its triumphant
fulfilment and which received the verdict of the Father’s
complete approval in the resurrection of Jesus as God’s
beloved Son from the dead and the rebirth of our humanity in
him.”
A Patristic-Wesleyan Synthesis
Torrance holds that through his hypostatic union
with the Father and by his vicarious humanity as well as his
atoning death Christ gives to us both his negative
righteousness (forgiveness and remission of sins), and his
positive righteousness. The latter was expressed by Christ in
terms of total obedience, perfect love for humankind, and
unbroken fellowship with his Father.
The Nicene Fathers taught that Christ, the Father and the
Spirit share the same nature (homoousios). By
becoming human, Jesus is also of the same nature (homousious)
as ourselves. He thus has an ontological relationship with
all of humankind, and a saving with “to as many as receive
him” (John 1:12).
Christ has lived a truly holy life in the flesh. He was “made
our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification, and
redemption” (1 Cor. 1:30). We are called to share in his
nature (2 Pet. 1:4) and in so doing we share in the very life
of the one who said “For their sakes I sanctify myself, that
they also may be sanctified in the truth” (John 17:19).
He
assumed our human nature in order to heal it. The purpose of
this healing work was that the image and likeness of God,
defaced by sin, might be restored by grace (Rom. 8:29; Col.
3:10).
Jesus Christ is himself that image (2 Cor. 4:4; Col. 1:15;
Heb. 1:3) and by participation in his life we “are changed
into the same image” (2 Cor. 3:18). Fallen humanity comes into
vital contact with perfect humanity and healing takes place.
Some Biblical Perspectives
God in Christ came to make us ‘whole’. This was no new thing.
In the Old Testament God reveals himself as Yahweh
Mekaddishkem – the God who sanctifies (Ex.31:13; Lev.
20:8; 21:8, 15, 23; 22:9, 16, 32; Ezek. 20:12; 37:28). Jesus,
in turn, in bodily form reveals God to us (Col. 15, 19;2:9,
10). As such, he is the revelation of the God who sanctifies.
He is also the one demonstration of a human being who in every
sense was entirely sanctified. He is thus both the
sanctified and the sanctifier and those who are in fellowship
with him share his sanctification.
God’s holiness is a treasure in human ‘containers’. All glory
goes to God the sanctifier, not the person being sanctified (2
Cor. 4:7). Thus the holiness to which we testify is his, not
ours. It is the result of a relationship. It is the fruit of
the indwelling life of Christ by his Spirit. Nazarene scholar
Mildred Bangs Wynkoop writes
Holiness is the moment-by moment impartation of the life of
Christ to the human heart. In Him, not us, is holiness. This
treasure is in earthen vessels – “pots of clay.” In this,
Wesley concurred. The humanness of men is not the real
handicap, nor a matter for apology. Certainly it is not
something to be discarded, either in this life or in the next.
It is the human which is the basis for fellowship, the means
for communication, the arena for displaying the reflection of
the glory of God. Jesus was man, God incarnate, the ideal
man, not the idealised man. In his own person he
brought God and man together and showed us what man ought to
be and can be by the grace of God.
Jesus – the Model of Holiness
Samuel Brengle wrote
The Bible teaches that we can be like Jesus.
We
are to like Him in our separation from the world. In purity,
in love, and in the fullness of the Spirit. This is holiness….
All that God asks is that the heart should be cleansed from
sin, and full of love. Whether it be the tender heart of the
little child, with feeble powers of loving, or of the
full-grown man, or of the flaming archangel before the Throne.
This is holiness, and this only. It is nothing less and it can
be nothing more.
Holiness
as Holy Love
Wesley’s doctrine of holiness has been misunderstood by some
of his most devout followers. For him holiness was perfect
love. He inscribed “God is love” on his coat-of-arms. His
favourite book was 1 John with its call to be “made perfect in
love”. He consistently defined holiness and entire
sanctification in terms of “pure love – love expelling sin and
governing the heart and mind of the child of God.’
Holiness is not Legalism
This is where some in the Wesleyan, pietistic and puritan
traditions got it wrong. Love gave way to moralism. True
holiness, which is true love, cannot drive Christians away
from sinful people; it must drive them to embrace such people
and share with them the Good News. True love cannot be
judgmental and critical of others. It is, in all its dealings,
a reflection of 1 Corinthians 13. It is Christ-like. Jesus
crossed the accepted boundaries and befriended those
considered to be beneath contempt by the religious crowd.
‘Holiness’ people who claim much in terms of God’s holiness
but display little in terms of his holy love fail to recognise
sin in their own lives. Sin is more than failure to observe a
known law (as Wesley once defined it). It is failure in holy
love. The moralists and the legalists have settled for
external issues as did many of the Pharisees, whilst failing
to observe ‘the weightier matters’ (Matt. 23:23). They are not
bad people; they are people impaired by ‘blind spots’. They
just cannot see the beam in their own eye. W. E. Sangster
writes
If
the critics of this doctrine have exaggerated the danger, and
fastened their attention on the sad and rare calamities rather
than on the blameless and lovely lives of those who have
adorned the doctrine, it still remains true that the danger is
there, that sin is peculiarly horrible in those who claim
perfection, and that it is not to be set down simply to the
common frailty of men. There is a particular reason for
this particular phenomenon.
If
a man is convinced that he is free from all sin: if, moreover,
by some freak of faith he is convinced also that to doubt his
freedom from sin is dishonouring to God and tantamount to
disbelieving the Bible, he will necessarily be less likely to
recognise the presence of sin when it rises in his soul. With
his own hands he has built a wall between himself and
self-knowledge. He puts a bandage around his eyes whenever he
looks inwards, though when he looks outwards on others it
often appears that his eyes are not only unbandaged but sharp
with censoriousness.
Holiness is not Libertinism
Reaction often produces error. This is never more so than when
people react against spurious holiness, the type produced by
rigid observance of regulations. Many of the Pharisees and
others during ‘the days of his flesh’ fell into the snare of
legalism as have many more since that time.
The extreme opposite of this in seen in Paul’s words regarding
continuing ‘in sin that grace may abound’ (Rom. 6:1). The
writer of Ephesians may have had this in mind when he spoke of
‘true righteousness and holiness’ (Eph. 4:24), with its
implication that there must be a ‘false holiness’. Indeed, the
verse speaks of being ‘created after the likeness of God’ –
something quite different from either a law-bound or a
law-less life. Neither legalism nor libertinism describe the
nature of God. God is Agape – holy love.
The love (Agape) which epitomises the spirit of
holiness is that of 1 Corinthians 13, which reflects a
lifestyle quite different from that of the antinomian person
who equates liberty in Christ with libertinism.
Holiness
as Holy Living
The answer to such distortions is to understood both that the
Incarnation made possible the living of a holy life ‘in the
flesh’ and that Jesus Christ, in his incarnate state, gave us
an example of what it is to be holy. The Gospels leave us in
no doubt as to the disparity between ‘Christ-likeness’ and the
harsh, legalistic and often joyless religion evidenced by
those to whom Sangster refers. “In the days of his flesh”
Christ is depicted as evidencing not only total obedience to
the Father and utter purity of life but also
·
Self-Denial and Humility (Phil. 2:1-8)
·
A Servant Heart (Matt.
20:28; Mk. 10:45; John 13:1-15)
·
Compassion for People in need – both spiritual
and physical need (Matt.9:36;
14:14; 15:32; 20:34; Mk. 6:34; 8:2, etc.)
·
Peace and Joy (John
14:25; 15:11)
·
A Genuine Capacity to Befriend People, including
children, the irreligious, society’s ‘rejects’ (Matt.
11:19; Mk. 10:14; Lk. 7:34; 18:16; 19:2f, etc.
Holiness as Relationship with Jesus (and
others)
Union
As
we see in the verses cited above, the holiness of Jesus was a
holiness measured in terms of
-
its relation to God (obedience and purity)
-
its relation to others (compassion and service).
This was stressed in early Methodism both in its emphasis on
small groups for nurture in holy living and service to others
both as an expression of the Spirit’s presence and as a means
of grace to one’s own soul.
-
its relationship to one’s self (peace and joy)
Paul links these three concepts in Romans 14:17, 18, a passage
frequently set forth by John Wesley as his understanding of
holiness of life.
Samuel Brengle said,
There is a union with Jesus as intimate as that of the branch
and the vine, or as that of the various members of the body
with the head, or as that between Jesus and the Father. This
is sown by such scriptures as that in which Jesus said, “I am
the vine, ye are the branches,” and in His great intercessory
prayer, where He prays, “that they all may be one in Us.” This
union is, of course, not physical, but spiritual, and can be
known to the one who has entered into it by the direct witness
of the Spirit; but it can be known to others only by its
effects and fruits in the life.
Participation
Jesus Christ, God incarnate, invites us into such a
‘participation’ (John 15). He has sanctified human flesh and
human nature so that they may ‘contain’ God’s holiness as a
treasure in a vessel of clay (2 Cor.4:7). In that
‘participation’ the fruits of holiness spring forth (Jn. 15:2;
Rom. 6:21; Gal. 5:22,23; Eph. 5:9; Phil.1:11; Jas. 3:18).
Thus once more God’s holiness is “made flesh”, making it
possible for people of every age to say, as they observe the
lives of Christ’s followers, “and we beheld his glory
…. full of grace and truth.”
Thus Paul counsels his Roman readers, “Clothe yourselves with
Jesus Christ” (Rom. 13:14, NIV). He tells his readers in
Galatia that he is “in travail until Christ be formed” in them
(Gal. 4:19). And he tells them of his own experience: “It is
no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” Indeed, at
the heart of Paul’s teaching is the recurring term “in Christ”
and it cognates. All of the components of the Christian life
are “in him’ (1 Cor.1.30).
Transformation
The New Testament teaches that the believer may live in such a
relationship with the Lord as to reflect his likeness (eikona),
and be increasingly and gloriously transformed (metamorphoumetha)
by the power of the Spirit (2 Cor. 3:18).
Russian Archbishop Anthony writes
…just as God became man, just as His holiness was present in
the flesh in our midst, living, acting and saving, so now,
through the mystery of the Incarnation, the Church
participates in the eternity, in the holiness of God, and at
the same time in the salvation of the world. The holiness of
the Church must find its place in the world in an act of
crucified love, in an active and living presence. But
essentially, it is the holiness, the presence of God, that we
should manifest in the world. This is our vocation. This is
what we are for.
Holiness is nothing more than this. And, dare we say it? It is
nothing less. Brengle wrote
The whole earth is waiting for the unveiling, the revealing,
‘the manifestation of the sons of God’, waiting for men and
women, the boys and girls, who live in Christ and in whom
Christ lives. When the world is filled with such men or
controlled by them, then, and only then, will strikes and
wars, and bitter rivalries and insane hatreds, and disgusting
and hellish evils cease, and the promise and purpose of
Christ’s coming be fulfilled.
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