Holiness, Sanctity, Righteousness, Love: These attributes stand together as good fruit on the good trees of Jahveh’s planting, growth, and maturity. They are all essential characteristics and attributes of all who confess Jesus as Lord and Savior. If you possess eternal life, you possess these qualities. If you are sustaining gold, silver, and precious stones upon the firm foundation, Jesus, you have these qualities. If you are building with wood, haw, and straw upon the firm foundation, Jesus, and will enter into Paradise, yet so as through fire, you still possess these qualities, albeit, of a weak, childish, and non-regal nature.
In this message I am focusing on holiness, both as the means and goal to standing in Jesus Christ before God. Know and remember this from the outset: “without holiness no one will see the Lord!” – author of Hebrews.
Sanctification stands with holiness like kindness stands to goodness and like honor stands with glory! The fundamental meaning of sanctification is “different from”, “unlike”. Who defines these words? Who explains the “difference that is unlike” the other, which shows such disciples to be holy? Jahveh does in His Son Jesus Christ by His Holy Spirit! The dishonorable condition is that the super-divided people of God have been receiving their definitions from the world. Those positions become fatal when they are, in reality, works of the flesh. In this case, once the world sets what it formerly viewed as taboo and/or obscene as the norm, the church world assimilates the same as its own. It is here that the dividing line arises. It is the Spirit of God Who defines behaviors for His people, not the world, nor the church world.
Jahveh is Holy and does not change. The way in God and the result in God is sanctification (the process) and holiness (the goal). There are many places in the Scriptures which demonstrate this. I will list a few.
Paul (Ephesians)
The means: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him.”
The goal: “Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the assembly and gave Himself up for her, so that He might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, that He might present to Himself the assembly in all her glory, having no spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she would be holy and blameless.”
Paul (Colossians)
The means and the goal: “For in Him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross - through Him - whether things on earth or things in heaven. And although you were formerly alienated and enemies in mind and in evil deeds, now He reconciled you in the body of His flesh through death, in order to present you before Him holy and blameless and beyond reproach.”
Peter (1st letter)
The means: “Therefore, having girded your minds for action, being sober in spirit, fix your hope completely on the grace to be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, not being conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your conduct; because it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy’.”
Jesus (The Revelation)
The goal: “And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great and high mountain and showed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, having the glory of God...And the nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. And its gates will never be closed by day, for there will be no night there; and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it. And nothing defiled, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”
Jesus (The Revelation)
The means: “Let him who is unrighteous still be unrighteous; and he who is filthy, let him still be filthy; and he who is righteous, let him still practice righteousness; and he who is holy still be holy.”
The goal: “If anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his part from the tree of life and from the holy city, which are written in this book.”
Isaiah (Consummation prophecy)
The goal:
And a highway will be there and a way,
And it will be called the Way of Holiness.
The unclean will not pass by on it,
But it will be for him who walks in that way,
And fools will not wander on it.
No lion will be there,
Nor will any violent beast go up on it;
These will not be found there.
But the redeemed will walk there,
And the ransomed of Jahveh will return
And come with joyful shouting to Zion,
With everlasting gladness upon their heads.
Joy and gladness will overtake them,
And sorrow and sighing will flee away.
From this purview of required holiness as essential fruit of the people of God, my plan is to write essays on the fruit of the Spirit (holiness) and the works of the flesh (defilement). I plan to write these essays in a juxtaposed fashion. For example, under Fruit of the Spirit I will start with love, and under the Works of the Flesh I will start with fornication. I will move sequentially this way through the lists.