Holiness, Sanctification, and Christian Perfection — Unit 1: "Be Holy, for I Am Holy": The Biblical Call

Key Verse

"but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, 'Be holy, for I am holy.'" (1 Peter 1:15-16, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain what the Bible means when it says that God is holy, and what the Hebrew word behind "holy" first means.

2. Describe how Leviticus 19 joins worship, honesty and love for the neighbor in one call to holiness.

3. Trace the promise of a changed heart from the Law and the Prophets into the teaching of Jesus and the apostles.

4. Name at least five New Testament passages that command or promise holiness, and say what each adds.

5. State the main objections to the Wesleyan emphasis on holiness and give the Wesleyan answer to each.

The Voice of This Course

This course is written from inside the Wesleyan tradition, for students who belong to it or wish to understand it. It is theologically conservative. It holds that the Bible is the inspired and authoritative Word of God and the final rule of faith and life. When it says "we," it means the evangelical Wesleyan family: Methodists who keep John Wesley's doctrine, and the Holiness churches such as the Church of the Nazarene, the Wesleyan Church and the Free Methodist Church.

The story of how Methodism began is told in Course 1, and we will not repeat it here. This course is about the doctrine itself. We state the views of other Christians fairly, and then we give our answer from Scripture. The apostle Paul wrote, "Test all things; hold fast what is good" (1 Thessalonians 5:21). On holiness, our tradition has a message it believes God gave it to carry, and it also has honest differences inside the family. Units 4 and 5 will set out two views among us, and this course leans toward the Methodist one.

Why Begin with the Bible

Whatever Methodists teach about holiness must come first from the Bible, not from Wesley's experience or from any revival. So Unit 1 begins with God, who says, "Be holy, for I am holy." The first thing to learn is that holiness starts with what God is like, not with what we must do.

The Holiness of God

The Hebrew word for "holy" is qadosh. Its root idea is being set apart, different, in a class by itself. God is holy first of all because He is not like anything He has made. In Isaiah's vision the seraphim cry, "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory" (Isaiah 6:3). The threefold cry points to the greatest holiness there can be.

Holiness is more than distance, however. In the Bible God's holiness includes His perfect goodness, justice and purity. Habakkuk says that God's eyes are too pure to look on evil (Habakkuk 1:13). His holiness is also full of love, for the Holy One is the God who comes near to save. This matters a great deal for the Wesleyan message. When we say that God wants His people to be holy, we do not mean that He wants them to be cold or proud. We mean that He wants them to be like Him, and He is love (1 John 4:8).

Holy People and Holy Things in the Old Testament

Because God is holy, things and people that belong to Him are called holy. At Sinai the Lord told Israel, "you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation" (Exodus 19:6). The tabernacle, the priests, the Sabbath and the offerings were all set apart for God. This is the first meaning of "sanctify": to set apart for God's use.

Some scholars say that in the Old Testament holiness is mostly ritual, a matter of clean and unclean things, and that the moral meaning came later. This is a fair question, and the answer is found in the text. Leviticus 19:2 says, "You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy." The chapter that follows is not only about ritual. It tells Israel to leave the edges of the field for the poor and the stranger (verses 9-10), not to steal or lie (verse 11), not to cheat a worker of his pay (verse 13), not to curse the deaf or put a stumbling block before the blind (verse 14), to judge fairly (verse 15), and not to hate a brother in the heart (verse 17). Then it says, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (verse 18). Worship, honesty and love are all part of one command. In the same way the psalmist asks who may stand in God's holy place, and the answer is the one who has clean hands and a pure heart (Psalm 24:3-4). When the prophets later attacked Israel, they did not attack the sacrifices as such. They attacked sacrifices offered by people who did injustice and did not care for the poor (Isaiah 1:10-17; Amos 5:21-24). In the Old Testament, holiness always had a moral and personal side.

The Promise of a New Heart

The Law commanded holiness, but Israel often failed. The Law itself pointed to the cause: the problem was inside. Moses told the people that the Lord would one day circumcise their hearts so that they would love Him with all their heart and soul (Deuteronomy 30:6). Notice that this promise is about love. David prayed, "Create in me a clean heart, O God" (Psalm 51:10). Jeremiah promised a new covenant in which God would write His law on the heart (Jeremiah 31:33). Ezekiel heard the Lord say that He would sprinkle clean water on His people, give them a new heart and a new spirit, and put His Spirit within them, so that they would walk in His ways (Ezekiel 36:25-27).

These promises are at the center of Wesleyan teaching. They show that God's plan was never just to give a rule and then watch. He promised to change the people from the inside by His Spirit. Wesley preached an early sermon called "The Circumcision of the Heart" in 1733, which took its theme from Deuteronomy 30:6 and Romans 2:29. Long before he became famous for field preaching, he had already seen that holiness is a matter of the heart's love for God.

Jesus and the Call to Holiness

Jesus did not lower the call. He raised it by turning it to the heart. In the Sermon on the Mount He said, "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God" (Matthew 5:8). He taught that anger can be murder and that lust can be adultery (Matthew 5:21-30). He closed that section with the command, "Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:48). We will study the word "perfect" in Unit 3; for now it is enough to see that the Lord holds the Father's own character before us.

When asked for the greatest commandment, Jesus joined two texts from the Law. He said we must love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind, and love our neighbor as ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40). Wesley saw in these words the whole meaning of holiness. All the commands of Scripture, he taught, grow out of love. Jesus also prayed for His disciples the night before the cross: "Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth" (John 17:17). He prayed that His people would be made holy, not only counted holy.

The Apostles Teach Holiness

The apostles carried the same message to the churches. We list a few passages, and you should read each in your own Bible.

Romans 12:1-2. Paul urges believers to present their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, and to be transformed by the renewing of the mind.

2 Corinthians 7:1. Because of God's promises, believers are to cleanse themselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, "perfecting holiness in the fear of God." Here holiness is both a command and something that can be advanced.

Ephesians 1:4 and 5:25-27. God chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless before Him in love, and Christ gave Himself for the church so that He might present the church to Himself glorious, without spot or wrinkle, holy and without blemish. The goal of redemption is a holy people.

1 Thessalonians 4:3, 7. "For this is the will of God, your sanctification," and "God did not call us to uncleanness, but in holiness." Paul says plainly that holiness is God's will for each believer.

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24. Paul prays that the God of peace Himself would sanctify them completely, and he adds that the One who calls them is faithful and will do it. Holiness is God's work, and it is His promise.

Hebrews 12:14. "Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord." We are told to pursue holiness. It is not optional.

1 Peter 1:15-16. Peter quotes the Old Testament command from Leviticus and applies it to Christians. The call in Leviticus has not been cancelled. It has come to full strength in the new covenant.

Together these passages teach three things. Holiness is God's will for every believer, it is God's gift and promise, and it includes real change in conduct and in the heart.

Gift and Command

Two truths must be kept together. On one side, holiness is a gift. God sanctifies; we do not make ourselves holy. Paul says that believers "were sanctified" in the name of the Lord Jesus (1 Corinthians 6:11), and that Christ is made to us sanctification (1 Corinthians 1:30). Hebrews says that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all (Hebrews 10:10). On the other side, holiness is a command. We are told to pursue it (Hebrews 12:14), to perfect it (2 Corinthians 7:1), and to present ourselves to God (Romans 6:13; 12:1).

Wesleyans hold both truths at the same time. The command is never given without the promise, and the promise is never given without the call to respond. God gives grace to those who ask and obey. We believe that grace is not forced on us, because God made us able to answer. This is why Wesley could say that we work out our salvation because God works in us (Philippians 2:12-13). Unit 2 will begin to show how this works in the Christian life.

Objections and Wesleyan Answers

A pastor should know the objections that other faithful Christians raise.

Objection 1: Holiness is only a position in Christ. Some Reformed and other evangelical teachers say that sanctification means chiefly that Christ's holiness is counted as ours. We stand holy in Him, and we should not expect to be changed much in this life. They fear that a stress on holiness turns the gospel into works.

Our answer. We agree that all holiness comes from Christ and that we never earn it. We also rejoice in the verses about being sanctified in Christ. But Scripture does not stop there. It commands us to pursue holiness and says that without it no one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14). It prays that we be sanctified completely (1 Thessalonians 5:23) and describes believers as being transformed (2 Corinthians 3:18). A holiness that never touched conduct would not match these texts. The Wesleyan teaching is not holiness by works. It is holiness by faith, from the Spirit, producing works of love.

Objection 2: God's commands show our weakness, but they are not meant to be obeyed. Some say that the high commands are there only to drive us to Christ for mercy, because no one can keep them.

Our answer. The commands do drive us to Christ. But Scripture also joins them to promises: God says He will put His Spirit in us so that we walk in His ways (Ezekiel 36:27), and Paul says the One who calls us will do it (1 Thessalonians 5:24). It would be strange if the Lord gave commands He never meant to help us keep. We believe that God gives what He commands.

Objection 3: Holiness teaching is a Wesleyan invention. Some historians say that Wesley made up the stress on holiness, or took it from his own time and not from the early church.

Our answer. Wesley said he found his teaching in the Bible. He also said that as a young man he was helped by older writers who stressed a life wholly given to God: Jeremy Taylor, Thomas à Kempis and William Law. Wesley named them himself in his Plain Account of Christian Perfection. The Wesleyan accent was new in its zeal and in the way it was organized, but the call itself is the call of Leviticus, the prophets, Jesus and the apostles. Course 1 told how the societies and classes helped it spread.

Objection 4: Preaching holiness leads to pride or to despair. Some pastors have seen people who claimed holiness become proud, and others who tried and failed become hopeless.

Our answer. The danger is real. Our answer is not to stop preaching holiness but to preach it as love and humility, not as achievement. Later units will show how Wesley guarded against both errors.

Pastoral Application

A young pastor in a village church wants to preach on holiness, but an older deacon says, "Pastor, we are saved by grace. Holiness is for monks and saints. Let us not burden the people." The pastor does not argue. He first agrees with the deacon that we are saved by grace alone. Then he opens Titus 2:11-14 with him and asks what the grace of God teaches. Together they see that grace teaches us to deny ungodliness. Next he reads 1 Thessalonians 4:3 and Hebrews 12:14. Last, he tells the deacon that he will preach holiness as God's gift, with the promise of 1 Thessalonians 5:24, and not as a load. The deacon agrees to listen. The pastor then plans a series that starts with the holiness of God and the love of Christ, and moves toward the Christian's life.

Summary

God is holy, and the Hebrew word qadosh begins with the idea of being set apart. In the Bible God's holiness includes goodness, purity and love. God's people are called to be holy because He is, and the call in Leviticus 19 joins worship, honesty and love of the neighbor. The Law and the Prophets promise a new heart: circumcised to love God, clean, and filled with the Spirit. Jesus raised the call to the heart, taught the two great commandments, and prayed that His people be sanctified. The apostles repeat the call in many passages, among them Romans 6 and 12, 2 Corinthians 7:1, 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5, Hebrews 12:14 and 1 Peter 1:15-16. Holiness is both a gift and a command. We answer those who say it is only a position, those who say the commands cannot be kept, those who say it is a Wesleyan invention, and those who fear pride or despair, always from Scripture and with humility.

Further Reading

• The Bible: Leviticus 19; Isaiah 6; Ezekiel 36:22-32; Matthew 5; Romans 6 and 12; 1 Thessalonians 4-5; Hebrews 12.

• John Wesley, "The Circumcision of the Heart," in his Sermons (a primary source).

• John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (1766).

• John Wesley, Notes on the New Testament, on the passages listed above.

• Charles Wesley, hymns on holiness and perfect love.

• Holiness Through the Ages (Coleman, Danielson and Parry), the Master's textbook for this course.

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