Holiness

“To ask that God’s love should be content with us as we are is to ask that God should cease to be God: because He is what He is, His love must, in the nature of things, be impeded and repelled by certain stains in our present character, and because He already loves us He must labor to make us lovable.”

C.S. Lewis

Kirk Cameron’s Comment

Before I knew the Lord, I wanted to be loved by the world and set apart for my own glory. Now, as a Christian, I want to be holy, loved by God, and set apart for Him and His glory. I think of “holiness” as living for an audience of One.

Questions & Objections

Lesson

The word “holiness” carries with it some unwanted baggage, thanks to “religion.” In the East, to be a holy man means to sit half-naked with your legs crossed, and having folks give you money in return for your blessing. Some holy men sit on poles for twenty years. Others stay off poles but they also stay away from any contact with a sinful world, in holier-than-thou legalism. Some live in monasteries and have a vow of silence.

Most of the church doesn’t live on poles or have a holier-than-thou attitude. They do, however, live in a monastery—one without walls. They too have a vow of silence. Few have physical contact with the world. Their association with humanity is strictly confined to the church. Fellowship is what they have on Wednesday nights, Sunday mornings, and Sunday nights. They are salt among salt, light among light.

True holiness is the opposite of the above. It means that we cut ourselves off from sin, but not from sinners. True holiness is to be like Jesus—“separate from sinners”—and yet He was accused of being a “friend of sinners.” The Scriptures admonish us with these thought-provoking words:

I wrote to you in an epistle not to company with fornicators: yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then you would need to go out of the world. But now I have written to you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat (1 Corinthians 5:9–11).

Can you see what the Bible is saying? If we separate ourselves from sinners, we won’t be able to reach them with the gospel of salvation. The only ones we are told to separate ourselves from are hypocrites. Look at these wonderful words from George MacLeod of Scotland:

I simply argue that the cross should be raised at the center of the marketplace as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves; on the town’s garbage heap; at a crossroad, so cosmopolitan they had to write His title in Hebrew and Latin and Greek ... at the kind of a place where cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble. Because that is where He died. And that is what He died for. And that is what He died about. That is where church-men ought to be and what churchmen ought to be about.

There is nothing “spiritual” about being holy. It just means a separation from sin. God is holy—He is sinless (see Isaiah 6:3; Revelation 4:8; 15:4). We too are called to be holy: “But as he which has called you is holy, so be holy in all manner of conversation” (1 Peter 1:15). See also Romans 6:19, 22; Ephesians 1:4; Titus 1:8. If you want to be an effective witness, remember Charles Spurgeon’s words: “In proportion as a church is holy, in that proportion will its testimony for Christ be powerful.”

It’s as simple as this—God has given us an umbrella in the Savior to shelter us from the reign of His wrath. God has given the covering, and we are told to stay under that covering of holiness. How can we best do this? We do this by reading God’s Word daily, by keeping a tender conscience, by having an obedient heart, and by living in the fear of God.

The next time you are witnessing to someone you know isn’t right with God, and he says, “Oh, I’ve been born again. I know the Lord,” ask him if he is “living in holiness.” More than likely he will say that he is. Then call his bluff. Ask him to define “holiness.” As he is straining his brain to come up with a definition, say, “The Bible says, ‘Without holiness, no man shall see the Lord.’” That means that we should be separated from sin and the world. Then ask him if he thinks he’s a good person. More than likely he will, so take the time to go through the Moral Law with him.

Preacher’s Progress

A sample witnessing conversation, written in the style of John Bunyan’s The Pilgrim’s Progress.

Feathers for Arrows

In 1976 in Britain, the army was called in to do the work of firefighters during a fireman’s strike. When a call came from an elderly woman whose cat was stuck up a tree, the army officers were immediately dispatched to the scene. After the cat was rescued, the grateful woman asked the officers into her home for tea and cookies. Afterwards, fond farewells were given. Then the army drove off ... over the cat and killed it.

When one studies the Christian faith, there seems to be a common denominator. Many were converted after a “ran over the cat and killed it” experience. Some terrible tragedy, financial collapse, or the loss of a loved one brought them to their knees. Sadly, most of us are so rebellious that it does take some traumatic experiences to cause us to stop in our tracks and look heavenward.

Questions

1. What does the word “holiness” mean to many?
2. Why do you think the church has become a “monastery without walls”?
3. What is “true holiness”?
4. Why do you think Jesus was a “friend of sinners”?
5. With whom does the Bible say that we should have no fellowship?
6. List four things you can do to cultivate holiness.

Answers to these review questions are provided in the back of the printed book / source PDF.

Memory Verse

“But as he which has called you is holy, so be holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be holy; for I am holy.”

1 Peter 1:15, 16

Last Words

Aldous Huxley (1894–1963), author and humanist: “It is a bit embarrassing to have been concerned with the human problem all one’s life and find at the end that one has no more to offer by way of advice than ‘Try to be a little kinder.’”

Aldous Huxley