7 Fairly Useless Definitions of Holiness

An old tale is told about a group of blind men who touch an elephant to learn what it is like. One man touches the leg and concludes, "Elephants are like trees." "Oh no," says the man touching the ear. "Elephants are like fans." "You're both wrong," says the man touching the tail. "Elephants are like snakes."

What is true of elephants might also be true of holiness. God is holy, but what is holiness? It's like we have a bit of idea and from this bit we have formed a composite picture. "It's like this," says the theologian. "No, it's like that," says the Bible school student. We're like blind men feeling our way around something that is far bigger than we can imagine.

I am aware of seven definitions of holiness ÔÇô you may know of others ÔÇô none of which is particularly good. To be fair, each definition has an element of truth in it and can be backed up from scripture. But as we will see, none of these definitions can be used to describe a God who is holy.

Why does this matter? It matters a great deal. We are called to "be holy as the Lord is holy." But how can we be holy if we don't even know what holiness means? we will find that holiness is far better than what we've been led to believe. Just as elephants are more interesting that tree trunks and fans, true holiness will fry your mind.

But first, let's dispel a few myths. Here are seven misleading definitions of holiness:

1: Holiness is the avoidance sin

Yes I know all about those scriptures exhorting us to "wash and make yourselves clean" (Isa 1:16). And I know that Jesus plans to present us to Himself "holy and unblemished" (Eph 5:27). So what's the problem? The problem is we're defining a thing (holiness) in terms of something that is not the thing (sin). It's like defining light as the absence of darkness. It's technically true but it's not a good description. It doesn't actually tell us what holiness is. Neither does it describe a God who was holy long before there was any sin to avoid.

2: Holiness is being set apart from something

Didn't Paul say something about coming out and being separate from the world? He did (see 2 Cor 6:17-18).…Wasn't Jesus separate from sinners and undefiled? He was (see Heb 7:26). …So what's the problem with this definition? …Like much holiness preaching, this definition is apt to make us allergic to sinners. …Jesus was untouched by sin but He was also the friend of sinners. …He far spent more time in the company of sinners than most holiness preachers. Jesus didn't pray that we would be taken out of the world but that we would be sanctified in it (Joh 17:15-18).

True holiness runs from nothing.

3: Holiness is being set apart to God

This definition probably comes closest to the literal meaning of the Hebrew (qaÔòá├®doÔòá├®sh) and Greek (hagios) words for holy. It is certainly useful as an adjective for describing holy things like temples (Ps 11:4) …and mountains (Ex 19:23). …But how does this definition describe a holy God?…Is God dedicated to Himself? …Is God set apart for Himself? …How would He do that? That just sounds weird.

4: Holiness is moral perfection

This one is straight out of the old covenant (Lev 18:26-30) which means it's popular on the majority of those websites preaching holiness. It was certainly popular with Charles Finney. He said, …"Holiness is moral perfection, or moral integrity, that is holiness."…Since there are degrees of perfection, one might conclude that there are degrees of holiness.…Some are holier than others. This is why those who preach "practical holiness" like to provide 7 keys or 12 steps you can take to become holy. …(Good luck with that!)

What's the problem with this definition? You can't work your way to holiness! Didn't fourteen centuries of law-keeping covenant teach us anything? …You might as well try and climb to the moon. It's just not possible.

5: Holiness is righteousness

You would be surprised at how often holiness is defined as righteousness. Certainty Jesus is known as the Holy and Righteous One (Acts 3:14),…but do these two words mean the same thing? I think not. …It's like saying "Paul is witty and smart." Sure, there is considerable overlap but there's also a difference. God is holy AND God is righteous. They are not identical. So what is holiness?

6: Holiness is godliness

Again, this is not a bad definition and it is Biblical: "You ought to live holy and godly lives" (2 Pet 3:11). …But it is not a particularly useful definition. It's like saying God is godly which is redundant. …We might as well talk about flowery flowers or bananary bananas.

7: Holiness means worthy of devotion

I got this definition out of the dictionary. Yes, this one does apply to a holy God (finally!) ├ö├ç├┤ He is worthy of our worship. …(See Ps 99:9 if you need a scripture to prove it.) …But the angels are holy too (Mk 8:38). …Should we worship them as well? And what about us? We are a holy priesthood and a holy nation. …If holiness means worthy of devotion then we must be worthy of devotion and frankly we're not ├ö├ç├┤ at least not the sort of devotion that is due to a holy God. So either there are two kinds of holiness ├ö├ç├┤ one for God and one for us ├ö├ç├┤ or this is not a great definition.

Holiness is like elephants

What is true of elephants may be true of holiness. Each definition above is partly true but wholly wrong. Each comes close-ish to the target without actually hitting it. So what is holiness? In my next post we're going to take the blinkers off and find out. Stay tuned!

What is Holiness? (It's Better Than you Think)

The last pice of the puzzle

"Holiness is avoiding sin. It's being set apart from the world and staying undefiled." …Or so we've been told. The problem with defining holiness like this is that it doesn't actually describe a God who is holy. God was holy long before there was any sin to avoid. He was unblemished long before there were blemishes.

WE looked at seven fairly useless definitions of holiness. …All of them have a measure of truth but none of them contains the whole truth. …None of them actually tells us what holiness is. And this is a problem because we are called to be holy as He is holy. How can we do that if we don't even know what it means?

So what is holiness?…Holiness means wholeness.…To say that "God is holy" we refer to the wholeness, fullness, beauty, and abundant life that overflows within the Godhead. God lacks nothing. He is unbroken, undamaged, unfallen, entirely complete within Himself. He is the indivisible One, wholly self-sufficient, and the picture of perfection.

Holiness is not just one aspect of God's character; it is the whole package in glorious unity. This is how Spurgeon describes it in his discourse on Psalm 99:5:

Holiness is the harmony of all the virtues. …The Lord has not one glorious attribute alone, or in excess, but all glories are in him as a whole; this is the crown of his honour and the honour of his crown. …His power is not his choicest jewel, nor his sovereignty, but his holiness. In this all comprehensive moral excellence he would have his creatures take delight, and when they do so their delight is evidence that their hearts have been renewed, and they themselves have been made partakers of his holiness.

Holiness means perfection in the sense of completion.… When Jesus the Holy One came exhorting us to "Be perfect," He was inviting us to a life of wholeness and holiness (see Mt 5:48). …The Greek word for "perfect" means "complete" or "whole." Jesus was saying, "Be whole as your Father in heaven is whole."…Jesus came to make broken people whole. He was calling us to the life that was His.…A holy and whole God stands in contrast to an unholy and broken world. …Because of sin and separation we live in a world of death and scarcity. …In our natural state we are consumed with our needs and lack. …We spend our lives trying to get what we don't have and trying to repair the damage of our drifting apart. …But the only cure for our brokenness is a revelation of a whole and holy God who lacks nothing and who has promised to supply all our needs out of His overflowing sufficiency.

Those in Christ ought to know better. We are to worship God in the beauty of His holiness yet much of what passes for worship is nothing more than grizzling about our ugliness.…To the degree that we are conscious of our needs over His provision, we don't get it. …We don't understand all that Christ accomplished on our behalf. …The Bible declares we were sanctified (1 Cor 6:11); we have been made holy through His sacrifice and perfected forever (Heb 10:10,14); and we are complete in Christ (Col 2:10). In Him we lack absolutely nothing. …Yet we run here and there to trying to gain what we already possess and speaking the faithless language of lack and longing.

We need to change our vocabulary. We need to start walking in our true identity of holiness. We need to thank Him for who He is and what He's done. …Here is a simple idea to help you do that. Whenever you read the words "holy" or "sanctified" in scripture, replace them with the heavenly language of wholeness and completion. This will give you a clearer insight into what Jesus has accomplished:

Jesus gives us a picture of a whole and holy life, unbroken and unstained by sin. Everything Jesus does is prefaced by holiness. …His is a holy love, a holy righteousness, a holy joy.

Holiness, or wholeness, is the very definition of abundant life. Such is the life you already have in Him.

“What does the Bible say about holiness? What does it mean to be holy?”……In 1 Peter 1:13-16, Peter writes to believers, “Therefore, prepare your minds for action, keep sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. 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 behaviour; because it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.'” Peter is quoting from Leviticus 11:44 and Leviticus 19:2.……First, let’s look at God’s holiness. What does it mean that God is holy? Passages like 1 Samuel 2:2 and Isaiah 6:3 are just two of many examples of passages about God's holiness. Another way to say it is absolute perfection. God is unlike any other (see Hosea 11:9), and His holiness is the essence of that "otherness." His very being is completely absent of even a trace of sin (James 1:13Hebrews 6:18). He is high above any other, and no one can compare to Him (Psalm 40:5). God's holiness pervades His entire being and shapes all His attributes. His love is a holy love, His mercy is holy mercy, and even His anger and wrath are holy anger and holy wrath. These concepts are difficult for humans to grasp, just as God is difficult for us to understand in His entirety.……Next, what does it mean for us to be holy? When God told Israel to be holy in Leviticus 11 and 19, He was instructing them to be distinct from the other nations by giving them specific regulations to govern their lives. Israel is God’s chosen nation and God has set them apart from all other people groups. They are His special people, and consequently they were given standards that God wanted them to live by so the world would know they belonged to Him. When Peter repeats the Lord’s words in 1 Peter 1:16, he is talking specifically to believers. As believers, we need to be “set apart” from the world unto the Lord. We need to be living by God’s standards, not the world’s. God isn’t calling us to be perfect, but to be distinct from the world. First Peter 2:9 describes believers as “a holy nation.” It is a fact! We are separated from the world; we need to live out that reality in our day-to-day lives, which Peter tells us how to do in 1 Peter 1:13-16.……Finally, how can we become holy? Holiness only results from a right relationship with God by believing in Jesus Christ as Saviour (accepting His gift of eternal life). If we have not placed our faith in God’s Son alone to save us from our sins, then our pursuit of holiness is in vain. So, we must first make sure we are born-again believers (see John 3). If we truly are believers, then we recognize that our position in Christ automatically sets us apart from the world (1 Peter 2:9). After all, we have a relationship with the living God! Then we must daily live a set-apart life, not trying to “blend in” with the world, but instead living according to God’s Word as we study the Bible and grow in it.

“How can I live a holy life?”……In order to address the question of how to live a holy life, we must first understand what holy means. To be holy means to be set apart or separate from sin and evil. God is holy-completely separate from everything that is evil (1 John 1:5). God calls us to be holy, just as He is (1 Peter 1:16, quoting Leviticus 19:2), but it's vital to understand that apart from God this is impossible. We must have the Holy Spirit indwelling us and filling us with His holiness. We can only live a holy life through the power of the Spirit; thus, the first step to living a holy life is to accept Jesus as Savior (Ephesians 1:13).……Once we have taken that step of salvation, we are declared righteous (Romans 5:1). But what does it look like to be actually righteous-to live a holy life? In 1 Thessalonians 4:3├ö├ç├┤8, Paul emphasizes sexual purity as part of holy living: "It is God's will that you should be sanctified: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control your own body in a way that is holy and honorable, not in passionate lust like the pagans, who do not know God" (verses 3├ö├ç├┤5).……Beyond avoiding sexual immorality and keeping sex within God's design for marriage, we can live a holy life by being obedient to God in all areas of life (1 Peter 1:14├ö├ç├┤16). Knowing and obeying God's Word is key (John 17:17). Hiding God's Word in our hearts keeps us from sin (Psalm 119:11). When we live in obedience to God, we are staying separate from evil. We are offering our bodies as "living sacrifices" to God (Romans 12:1├ö├ç├┤2). The purpose of living a holy life is to glorify God and display His nature to those around us (Matthew 5:16). Living a holy life of obedience to God is living in true freedom from the bondage of sin (Romans 6:6).……It's not always easy to choose obedience to God, especially if we're trying to do it all on our own. Satan would love nothing more than to bring us back into bondage through disobedience. …But we have the promise, "You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world" (1 John 4:4). The Holy Spirit will produce Christ likeness in us, and, as we yield to Him, we can live a holy life (Galatians 5:16).……Here is the mindset we should have: "Count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus" (Romans 6:11). Any time we face temptation, we should say, "I'm dead to that! That was part of my old life! I am a new creation in Christ!" (see 2 Corinthians 5:17). To live a holy life, to separate ourselves from sin, we must see ourselves as God does-as born-again children of the Most High, clothed with the righteousness of Christ.……We also have the benefit of being part of the Body of Christ. Fellowship with other Christians and making ourselves accountable to them is a great source of strength in living a holy life. As Christians, we are called to encourage one another in this matter (Hebrews 10:24├ö├ç├┤25).……Remember, we are not trying to live a holy life in order to earn salvation; living a holy life is a natural outgrowth of being saved by God's grace and filled with His Spirit.

It is also important to not give up when we mess up. When we fail, our response should be to confess the sin and keep moving forward in our Christian walk (1 John 1:9). Romans 8:1 says, "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus."

God's grace doesn't go away when we make mistakes.