A QUESTIONING FAITH:“Opposite of faith is not doubt but certainty.”

A QUESTIONING FAITH:What does it mean to be “holy”?

Holy Fears?

“Most of us probably react negatively at first when we hear that Christians are supposed to be saints who lead holy lives. Our minds jump from ‘saint’ to ‘superhuman,’ from ‘holy’ to ‘holier-than-thou,’ from ‘sanctified’ to ‘sanctimonious.’ We think of very pious people who live by a long list of thou-shall-nots and are rewarded for their sacrifice of a normal life in the world by the assurance that they are superior to everyone else.”

What does the bible mean by “holy”?

Hebrew- qadosh Greek- hagios Hagios = holy, holy ones, saints All Christians are saints or holy ones Close derivative- hagiazo =

sanctification All Christians are in the process of

sanctification

Holiness in Old Testament

God is the holy one

“And one called to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.”

Isaiah 6:3

Derivative Holiness

The holiness of everything else is not innate but derivative of its association with God:

-Land (Canaan)-Persons (priests)-Place (Temple)-Time (festival days)

Called to a life of holiness

“Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them: You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy.”

Leviticus 19:2

Holy= separation from other people.

“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; I have separated you from the peoples…You shall be holy to me; for I the Lord am holy, and I have separated you from the other peoples to be mine.”

Leviticus 20:24,26

Holiness (separation) achieved by following torah

•Rejection of idolatry•Observation of Sabbath•Dietary rules

Implications of holiness

View #1- Basic Practice

Temple Activities Celebration of Festival Days Occasional Engagement:

PrayerAlmsgivingFasting

View #2- Being set apart

•Qumran community•Believed they were the holy remnant•Needed to withdraw from Jewish society

View #3- Democratize holiness

•Pharisees extended holiness of Temple into people’s daily lives•Temple/Priest central•Key issue was separation -Jew/Gentile -Pure/impure

Conflict with Jesus

Jesus challenged this view: -Sharing means with sinners -Contact with the

dead/impure -Interaction with

demonic -Healing on Sabbath

Gospel View

Does not talk about holiness much Jesus is the holy one Holiness is following Jesus Holiness is not separation but radical

inclusion

Paul on holiness

All followers of Christ are holy (saints)

“So you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God,…”

Ephesians 2:19

Holiness in daily life

•Called to be “in Christ”•Called to a life that is being transformed•Process is called sanctification

“You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.”

Ephesians 4:22-24

Holiness and Salvation

“Justification tells us how a person became a Christian. Sanctification tells us how a person grows in the Christian faith.”

Shirley Gutherie“

“Holiness, then, is the beginning, the process, and the culmination of salvation itself.”

Andy Johnson

Sanctification: Process or Reality

Reformed view“Q. 35 What is sanctification?

A. Sanctification is the work of God’s free grace, whereby we are renewed in the whole man after the image of God, and are enabled more and more to die unto sin and live unto righteousness.”

The Shorter Catechism

Wesleyan View

•Believed that we could keep growing spiritually•Reach “Christian perfection”•We would feel “all faith and love; no pride, no self-will, or anger”•The fully sanctified “cannot voluntarily transgress any command of God.”

Affirmations

Holiness is all about God“With what better foundation can it begin, that when it admonishes us that we ought to be holy, because our God is holy…And as a further incitement to us, it shows, that as God the Father has reconciled us to himself in Christ, so he has exhibited to us in him a pattern, to which it is his will that we should be conformed.”

John Calvin

Holiness is about grace

“God does not forgive, accept, and love us on condition that we become righteous, but God does forgive, accept, and love us in order that we may become righteous.”

Shirely Gutherie

Holiness is all about growth

“To be a Christian is not to have arrived at some state or condition of Christian existence. It is to be constantly having growing pains. It is not to be something but to be becoming something. It is not to have arrived but to be constantly on the way.”

Shirley Gutherie

Holiness is about community

“Human holiness is engendered by the Spirit first and foremost as an ecclesial reality from which individual holiness is then derived.”

Andy Johnson

Holiness is self-giving

“Thus the nature of true holiness for Paul might best be encapsulated in the word ‘cruciformity’ – becoming like Christ as agents of reconciliation who practice aggressive, self-giving love.”

Andy Johnson

Holiness is a balance

Tension of:Being set apart by GodBeing engaged with the

world

Living a life of moral purityEating with sinners

Final Words

“I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, 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 renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Romans 12:1-2

“Christian life becomes the communal practice of staying awake in the presence of God.”

Michael Battle