22 You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. 23 And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them. 24 But I have said to you, “You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey.” I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples. 25 You shall therefore separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the unclean bird from the clean. You shall not make yourselves detestable by beast or by bird or by anything with which the ground crawls, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean. 26 You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.
Galatians 5:16–25
16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. 17 For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other, to keep you from doing the things you want to do. 18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. 19 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, 21 envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. 22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
Today we are concluding our short series on the holiness of God, as we consider God’s call to His people: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
What a daunting task that is, but God would not call us to holiness if it were not possible. 1 Thessalonians 4:7 says, “God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.” And Hebrews 12:14, “Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”
In six of his letters to the Churches in the New Testament, the apostle Paul calls the members of these Churches “saints.” We tend to connect the term saint with only the super spiritual, but the word in this context simply means holy ones, or those who are set apart for God’s purposes. The Roman Catholic Church has mistakenly used the term saint as a title for some people who have been canonised into a special list of spiritual heroes, but this was not Paul’s intention when greeting his fellow Christians as saints.
John MacArthur says that when Paul addresses ordinary Christians as saints, he is merely referring “to everyone who by salvation has been sanctified, that is, set apart from sin in Christ Jesus.”
The New Testament saints were the holy ones. Now this can seem a bit strange, because Paul is writing to Christians who were struggling with all kinds of sin issues. In fact, in most of his letters, just after calling his readers saints, Paul immediately takes them to task for their sinful behaviour.
However, this doesn’t mean that there is some kind of conflict here. As Christians we are called saints or holy ones not because we are already pure (that will only come when we are in glory), but we are saints because we are a people who are set apart and called to purity. Now, of course, there is a vast difference between the holiness of God, and the holiness that we are called to. When we use the word holy to describe God, we are not only talking about how infinitely different or other He is to us, but we are also taking about His perfect, pure and holy nature. As we saw last week, holy is His name.
So what do we mean when we speak about Christians being set apart to holiness? How can the Bible possibly call us “holy ones?” In order to try and answer that question, we need to go to the Old Testament. When God led Israel out of slavery in Egypt, He made them a special nation, and He set them apart. They were His chosen people and He called them to holiness. “Be holy, because I am holy” is a phrase we read throughout the Bible, but the first time we see it is in Leviticus 11.
The Israelites were at the foot of Mount Sinai, and through Moses, God gave them His law, and in the midst of these detailed instructions on how they were to be different to the nations around them, He said, “I am the Lord your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground. For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” (Leviticus 11:44-45)
This might be the first time in the Bible where we see God’s people were called to holiness, but it was not new. The original call to holiness was given to Adam and Eve. Holiness was the original purpose of humanity. We need to remember that because we were created in the image of God, we are to mirror and reflect God’s nature. Holiness is our original purpose and mission. The fact that sin has made such a mess of our lives does not alter God’s original purpose for us. He still calls us to be holy because He is holy.
Now, because of our sinful nature, living a life of holiness is a struggle, but it is still our call. The theologian JC Ryle who died in 1900 wrote, “The plain truth is that there is no literal and absolute perfection among true Christians, so long as they are in the body. The best and brightest of God’s saints is but a poor mixed being. Converted, renewed, and sanctified though he be, he is still compassed with infirmity.”
The apostle Paul put it this way in Romans 7:15-24, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” The answer to that question is, of course, Jesus Christ.
But here Paul perfectly sums up the struggle of every Christian. Non-believers are not offended by their sin, but as Christians we know we are called to a higher standard, and this is why, convicted (not condemned!) by the Holy Spirit, our sin offends us because we know that God is offended by our sin.
We know that we are called to be holy, and we are not, so again, if we are not holy, how can the Bible call us saints?
We are saints or holy ones because we have been consecrated to God. We have been set apart by God in order to fulfill His purposes for us. Essentially what this means is that when we compare the Christian life to that of the world, we should see a vast difference in so many ways. It’s a life of non-conformity. Paul puts it like this in Romans 12:1-2. “I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
As we know, in Old Testament times, worship by God’s people was all about the offering of sacrifices on the altar, and as we are told in Hebrews 10, the animal sacrifices in themselves had no power to atone for sins. They were signs that pointed forward to the one great sacrifice that would be made on the cross, and this final, perfect sacrifice was sufficient to cover our guilt. After Jesus, the perfect Lamb was slain, the altar sacrifices came to an end. I’ve said this before, but it is worth repeating: The Christian Church no longer performs sacrifices, and we do not have altars in the Church. The Communion table is exactly what its name says it is. It is a table around which a meal is shared. It is not an altar for sacrifices, because for us to continue sacrificing animals would be an insult to the perfect sacrifice of Jesus.
Whenever you hear a confessing Christian saying we should re-introduce the sacrificial system as part of our worship, what they are really saying is that the blood of Christ is not enough for us to be saved. Unfortunately I have heard that even from ministers in our denomination a few times over the years, one of them who holds a very senior position in the Church. This is what happens when we don’t know what we believe and why we believe it.
What Paul teaches in the opening verses of Romans 12 is that we are to give to God not our sacrifices, but ourselves. This new, living sacrifice is not an act of atonement. We no longer need to pay for our sins. Instead, the sacrifice of ourselves to God is a thank offering. You might remember from our series on Romans that there is a notable shift as we move from the first 11 chapters into chapter 12, and Paul begins it with the word “therefore.” This word connects all that has gone before with what is about to come. In the first 11 chapters Paul teaches in great detail just what God has done for us through the sacrifice of Christ, and now he comes to this conclusion: In light of all that God has done for us, the only logical response from believers is that we should present ourselves totally to God as walking, breathing, living sacrifices. In other words, as a holy people set apart to God and for God.
But what does a living sacrifice actually look like? Paul gives us the answer very simply in verse 2. “Do not be conformed to this world.” So the questions every Christian should ask of themselves are these: Am I what the world would call a nonconformist? Do others, especially non-Christians, see the outworking of the fruit of the Spirit in my life? Do they see evidence of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control? Not that they will see these things in perfection, but there does need to be spiritual growth in our lives.
And how do we do that? The answer is in Romans 12:2 - by the renewal of our minds, and that comes by studying and living by the Word of God. Remember that in Christ we are new creations. Everything changes now, and our lives are changed because our minds have been changed.
As a result of our call to holiness we have the high view of God that we should have. As we understand Him better, we will begin to see and understand what God has called us to be in this ever darkening world: salt and light as we reflect His holiness to the lost around us. The theologian and Bible teacher Steve Lawson said on Twitter just a couple of days ago, “We are called out of the world by the Gospel to go back into the world with the Gospel.”
Paul writes something in Romans 8:29 which should take our breath away. “For those whom He foreknew He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son.”
Don’t miss the significance of these words. As Christians we are being conformed into the image of Jesus Himself. Of course, this does not mean that we are to be like Him in the sense that we become little gods. There are people like Steven Furtick, Kenneth Copleland and Creflo Dollar who teach that heresy, but we are conformed into the image of Christ as we mirror and reflect the holiness of Jesus in this world.
1 Corinthians 2:16 says, “Who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ.” The context of this verse was spiritual discernment, which Paul was teaching to the Corinthian Church, and basically what he is saying is that we need to think as Jesus did. If we have the “mind of Christ” we will begin to love the things He loves, and hate the things He hates.
And the only way to learn what Jesus loves and what He hates, is to get into the Bible, and properly. Every Christian wants to know how we can grow spiritually, and the answer is a lot simpler than we might think. We need to become students of His Word, the Bible.
This is an essential part of the call to holiness we have been given. The non-believing world scoffs at the teachings we find in Scripture, but we know differently. This is the inerrant, inspired Word of God, and it is in this book where we find all we need for living a life of holiness. I love the way Justin Peters puts it. He says if you want to know what God is saying, read your Bible. If you want to hear Him audibly, read it aloud.
To be saints in the Biblical sense, to be the holy ones God calls us to be, we are to be separated from the world and all of the fleshly desires we all struggle with, and this leads us to the process of sanctification. We are justified by grace, but we also grow in grace in this growing pursuit of holiness. This is what sanctification is all about.
Yes, we remain sinners. There is no denying that. Perfection will not come while we are on this side of eternity, but we must remember what God has done for us through Jesus Christ. As we turn to Him in repentance and faith He declares us to be righteous. We have no righteousness of our own, so God instead clothes in the righteousness of Jesus Himself. And because of this, He is able to sanctify us. Now He is able to set us apart for His purposes, and this is how we become the living sacrifices Paul writes about in Romans 12.
God counts us righteous even when in and of ourselves we are not righteous. This is the Gospel message though. Because of who we now are in Christ, the pursuit of holiness is possible. You see, on the cross, Jesus does more than just die for our sins (as wonderful as that is), but He now enables us to grow in grace because He has given us the Holy Spirit, and this is how we are able to make sense of what Paul writes in Ephesians 2:8-10. “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
When we do the good works that God prepared for us beforehand, and when we are walking in them as we should, we are walking the path of holiness. Pamela McQuade, in her book on Romans, writes, “The Christian life is demonstrated by the faithful works of the believer. Though works cannot get us into heaven, they are the result of our knowledge of our final destination and a measure of our willingness to please our Lord.”
We know the words of James 2:17 very well. “Faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” This statement of James has created much confusion and debate over the years. He is not contradicting justification by faith alone. Rather, he is speaking of the fruits, the evidence of our salvation, the things which should be obvious in our call to be holy because God is holy.
Salvation comes by faith alone, but it is evident by the Christian’s faithfulness to obey God’s will. And what is God’s will for us? Be holy, because I am holy. Ephesians 2:10 again: “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”
Paul also writes in Ephesians 4:17-25, “Now this I say and testify in the Lord, that you must no longer walk as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their minds. They are darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them, due to their hardness of heart. They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity. But that is not the way you learned Christ! - assuming that you have heard about Him and were taught in Him, as the truth is in Jesus, to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbour, for we are members one of another.”
So, to sum up, how do we actually know if we are making any genuine headway in obeying God’s call to us to be holy? The Bible has the answers for us. The saints of God, the called out, holy ones are known by their fruit. We become holy by the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit who is constantly at work within us. This is good news, in that it is not up to us to work at becoming more holy. If you’ve ever tried that, you will know it doesn’t work. Instead, as we offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God, the Holy Spirit produces holiness in us. When the Spirit is at work within us, we will see the fruit.
Look again at the contrast between what Paul calls the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5.
“The works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:19-25)
This is where we will see the difference between those who are growing in holiness and those who are not. The Bible is very clear in teaching us what holiness is all about. We are to be holy because God has called us to a life of holiness, and as Paul writes in verse 25, “If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.”
We close with a quote from Martyn Lloyd-Jones, widely regarded as the greatest preacher of the 20th century. “Why is it that we are not thrilled at the thought of this, why doesn’t this bring us to our feet? Why doesn’t this fill us with a sense of exaltation and of rejoicing that we can scarcely contain? Why are we as we are? Why is the Church lifeless and lethargic? I suggest to you that these are the two main reasons: We haven’t beheld sufficient of His glory and we've never realised the depth of the iniquity and the darkness out of which He’s rescued us.”
Homegroup Study Notes
The Bible consistently teaches us about the depravity of sin, and how far we have fallen, yet it also teaches that God calls us to holiness.
How is this possible?
Read Romans 12:1-2
What does it mean when Paul says we must not be conformed to the pattern of this world?
What is your understanding of being transformed by the renewing of your mind?
What does it mean to you to be holy, and to live a holy life?
The reality is that we remain sinners, and even though we want to live the lives God has called us to, we often fail.
How does the Cross of Calvary help us in our times of weakness?
What can we do to guard against legalism in our quest to be holy?
Read Galatians 5:19-23
Discuss the radical differences between a life lived for ourselves and a life lived for God.
What have some of your struggles been in displaying the fruit of the Spirit in your attitudes and behaviour?
Close by thanking God that He equips us to live holy lives.