For the past few weeks, I have been reading about the work of some of the influential leaders in the formation of the early church in America. Two such leaders are Francis Asbury and Stephen Paxson, and one of the issues they addressed in their ministry was holiness.
For much of my formative years, I was exposed to “holiness” in some form or other. The church denomination in which my father was a minister was at one time known as the Holiness Christian Church. He also pastored a church in the Pilgrim Holiness Church. In my teen years we attended churches in the conservative holiness movement.
On some level, the word “holiness” seems repugnant. It almost seems to conjure up the notion of arrogance, “holier than thou,” or “holy rollers.” Holiness can also call to mind an extreme lifestyle entirely devoid of the pleasures of this world, such as a monk. Holiness can also define certain denominations in the Protestant Christian church or a sect within evangelicalism.
Although the concept of holiness may seem to be limited or in the minority, holiness has an important role in the Bible, and some time taken to understand what it means and why it is important would be very beneficial to us, particularly in strengthening our commitment to following Christ.
Holiness is a Biblical word. In the King James Version, holiness is used 43 times. In the New American Standard, 21 times, and in the New International Version, 24 times. Surprisingly, in the New Living Translation it appears in 37 verses.
In the Old Testament, “holiness” is used to describe the Lord or how the people of Israel were to relate to the Lord. The word “holy” very simply means set apart. Quite literally, to say the Lord is holy is to say the Lord is set apart. To say we are a holy people is to say we are a people who are set apart.
Set apart unto what? Set apart from what?
It seems strange to say that the Lord is set apart. It almost seems backward. Shouldn’t anything that is not of the Lord be set apart, as if to say that the Lord is the standard by which all things are measured? If we measure all things against the Lord, then should we not set apart (or set aside) anything which does not conform to Him? Yet when the Lord describes Himself, He chooses to distinguish Himself rather than to distinguish everything else. He uses the word “holy,” meaning that He is different.
This is first an acknowledgment from the Lord that we are fallible, finite humans who lack a complete understanding of the Lord. It is an expression of His mercy toward us. Second, it is the Lord’s way of demonstrating to us what it means to follow Him. The Lord comes to us in the midst of the fallen world and distinguishes Himself from it. We are fallen, and it is all we know. To come to the Lord requires that we adopt a new reality, one in which we view the world as fallen and the Lord as one who triumphs evil.
We are, thus, set apart unto the Lord and set apart from the world. The Lord’s holiness is unsearchable, yet we can begin to understand it by identifying all which is in the fallen world and separating it from the Lord. It is not of the Lord, thus, He is set apart from it.
A holy people are those who are different from the world, and we can quite simply say that holiness is “different” or “difference.” Galatians 5:19-23 outlines for us a beginning point in understanding the things of the world, that from which we are to be set apart, and what it looks like to be holy, that unto which we are to be set apart. Galatians 5:19-23 shows us what it means to be different.
The suffix -ness transforms the word into a noun to describe the state, condition or quality of something. Holy is an adjective we use to describe the Lord or a person. Holiness is a noun affixed to the Lord or a person which makes it a qualitative statement.
In the New Testament, holiness is used to mean moral purity, our obligation to live in moral purity, and our reverence and respect of the Lord. It is also used to refer to our consecration to the Lord, which is similar in meaning to the Old Testament understanding of “set apart.” Thus, we can say that holiness is that which is pure and tends toward reverence and respect of the Lord. We can also say that holiness is moral purity driven by a healthy fear of the Lord. Again, holiness is “to be different from the world.”
“There was nothing in their view, that could induce them thus to suffer, and support them under, and carry them through such trials. But although there was nothing that was seen, nothing that the world saw, or that the Christians themselves ever saw with their bodily eyes, that thus influenced and supported them, yet they had a supernatural principle of love to something unseen; they loved Jesus Christ, for they saw him spiritually whom the world saw not, and whom they themselves had never seen with bodily eyes.” Jonathan Edwards
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