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FULL BACKGROUND
HOLINESS — in the highest sense belongs to God (Isa. 6:3; Rev. 15:4), and to Christians as consecrated to God’s service, and in so far as they are conformed in all things to the will of God (Rom. 6:19, 22; Eph. 1:4; Titus 1:8; 1 Pet. 1:15). Personal holiness is a work of gradual development. It is carried on under many hindrances, hence the frequent admonitions to watchfulness, prayer, and perseverance (1 Cor. 1:30; 2 Cor. 7:1; Eph. 4:23, 24). (See SANCTIFICATION.) 1
SANCTIFICATION — involves more than a mere moral reformation of character, brought about by the power of the truth: it is the work of the Holy Spirit bringing the whole nature more and more under the influences of the new gracious principles implanted in the soul in regeneration. In other words, sanctification is the carrying on to perfection the work begun in regeneration, and it extends to the whole man (Rom. 6:13; 2 Cor. 4:6; Col. 3:10; 1 John 4:7; 1 Cor. 6:19). It is the special office of the Holy Spirit in the plan of redemption to carry on this work (1 Cor. 6:11; 2 Thess. 2:13). Faith is instrumental in securing sanctification, inasmuch as it (1) secures union to Christ (Gal. 2:20), and (2) brings the believer into living contact with the truth, whereby he is led to yield obedience “to the commands, trembling at the threatenings, and embracing the promises of God for this life and that which is to come.”
Perfect sanctification is not attainable in this life (1 Kings 8:46; Prov. 20:9; Eccl. 7:20; James 3:2; 1 John 1:8). See Paul’s account of himself in Rom. 7:14–25; Phil. 3:12–14; and 1 Tim. 1:15; also the confessions of David (Ps. 19:12, 13; 51), of Moses (90:8), of Job (42:5, 6), and of Daniel (9:3–20). “The more holy a man is, the more humble, self-renouncing, self-abhorring, and the more sensitive to every sin he becomes, and the more closely he clings to Christ. The moral imperfections which cling to him he feels to be sins, which he laments and strives to overcome. Believers find that their life is a constant warfare, and they need to take the kingdom of heaven by storm, and watch while they pray. They are always subject to the constant chastisement of their Father’s loving hand, which can only be designed to correct their imperfections and to confirm their graces. And it has been notoriously the fact that the best Christians have been those who have been the least prone to claim the attainment of perfection for themselves.”, Hodge’s Outlines. 1
HOLINESS, HOLY, SAINTS. There is probably no religion without a distinction between holy and profane, and in most, if not indeed in all, the religious man is the one to whom something is holy. This receives impressive illustration in Scripture.
The principal words are Heb. ????????? in the OT and Gk. ?????? in the NT, both words of uncertain derivation. If the main root ???? is derived from the simple root ??, meaning to cut or separate, it denotes apartness, and so the separation of a person or thing from the common or profane to a divine use. The NT terminology suggests the distinction between the holiness which is God’s very being and the holiness which marks out the character of his people. The terms ??????, that which invokes reverence (1 Tim. 3:8), ??????, sacred, having relation to deity (2 Tim. 3:15), and ??????, that which is pure or chaste (2 Cor. 11:2), are used with reference to God’s people, while the terms ?????? (Rev. 15:4) and ?????? (Jn. 17:11) are applied in the first instance to God, as denoting a character that is in absolute antithesis to that of the world.
a. Holiness as separation and ethical purity
It is clear that, in Scripture generally, holiness means separation, and the term is used with reference to persons or things that have been separated or set apart for God and his service. Thus we have in Exodus mention of holy ground (3:5), holy assembly (12:16), holy sabbath (16:23), holy nation (19:6) and holy place (29:31), to mention but a few. In these and similar cases the word does not directly imply ethical attributes, but mainly consecration to the Lord and his service, and so separation from the common sphere. It is God who causes this separation and so conveys the holiness that may be implied by the separation. For example, the 7th day was designated holy, negatively because it was separated from the other 6 days of the week, and positively because it was dedicated to God’s service. When the word is applied to a certain place it is because of a divine association with that place. There was given to Moses at Horeb, before the burning bush, the injunction: ‘Put on your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground’ (Ex. 3:5). The ground was holy because it was at that moment the place of divine revelation. Similarly God sanctified the people of Israel by separating them from all the nations of the earth and entering into covenant with them, but this involved giving to them a knowledge of the divine law, moral and ceremonial. Thus the ethical is imparted. These two aspects of holiness are generally present, since it was understood that being holy meant not only living a separate life, but bearing a character different from that of the ordinary man. Thus the word attained a distinct ethical implication. Holiness is therefore recognized as belonging to what has been chosen and set apart by God and given a character that conforms to God’s law.
b. The holiness of God’s character
From what has already been said it becomes clear that holiness is not so much a relation of the creature to the Creator as of the Creator to the creature. In other words, it is the holiness of God that underlines that separation of life and distinctiveness of character that belong to God’s people. This gives point to the distinction noted above, that different terms are applied to the holiness of God and that of his people. Holiness belongs to God as divine, and he would not be God without it. In that respect ‘there is none holy like the Lord’ (1 Sa. 2:2). The ethical quality in holiness is the aspect most commonly to the forefront when the word is applied to God. It is basically a term for the moral excellence of God and his freedom from all limitation in his moral perfection (Hab. 1:13). It is in this respect that God alone is holy and the standard of ethical purity in his creatures.
Since holiness embraces every distinctive attribute of Godhead, it may be conceived of as the outshining of all that God is. As the sun’s rays, combining all the colours of the spectrum, come together in the sun’s shining and blend into light, so in his self-manifestation all the attributes of God come together and blend into holiness. Holiness has, for that reason, been called ‘an attribute of attributes’, that which lends unity to all the attributes of God. To conceive of God’s being and character as merely a synthesis of abstract perfections is to deprive God of all reality. In the God of the Bible these perfections live and function in holiness.
For these reasons we can understand why holiness is expressly attributed in Scripture to each Person in the Godhead, to the Father (Jn. 17:11), to the Son (Acts 4:30), and especially to the Spirit as the one who manifests and communicates the holiness of God to his creatures.
c. The holiness of God in relation to his people
The OT applies the word ‘holy’ to human beings in virtue of their consecration to religious purposes, e.g. priests who were consecrated by special ceremonies, and even to the whole nation of Israel as a people separated from the nations and consecrated to God. Thus it was relationship to God that constituted Israel a holy people, and in this sense it was the highest expression of the covenant relationship. This idea is not altogether absent from the NT, as in the passage in 1 Cor. 7:14, where the unbelieving husband is sanctified in virtue of his relationship to the believing wife and vice versa.
But as the conception of holiness advanced, alongside the progressive revelation of God, from the outside to the inside, from ceremonial to reality, so it took on a strong ethical significance, and this is its main, and practically its exclusive, connotation in the NT. The OT prophets proclaimed it as pre-eminently God’s self-disclosure, the testimony he bears to himself and the aspect under which he wills his creatures to know him. Moreover, the prophets declared that God willed to communicate his holiness to his creatures, and that, in turn, he claims holiness from them. If ‘I am holy’ is the divine self-assertion, lifting God immeasurably above his creatures, so ‘Be holy’ is the divine call to his creatures to ‘share his holiness’ (Heb. 12:10). It is this imparting of the divine holiness which takes place in the soul of man in regeneration and becomes the spring and foundation of holy character.
Christ in his life and character is the supreme example of the divine holiness. In him it consisted in more than mere sinlessness: it was his entire consecration to the will and purpose of God, and to this end Jesus sanctified himself (Jn. 17:19). The holiness of Christ is both the standard of the Christian character and its guarantee: ‘He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified have all one origin’ (Heb. 2:11).
In the NT the apostolic designation for Christians is saints (??????), and it continued to be used as a general designation at least up to the days of Irenaeus and Tertullian, though after that it degenerated in ecclesiastical usage into an honorific title. Though its primary significance was relationship, it was also descriptive of character, and more especially of Christlike character. The NT everywhere emphasizes the ethical nature of holiness in contrast to all uncleanness. It is represented as the supreme vocation of Christians and the goal of their living. In the final assessment of human destiny the two categories known to Scripture are the righteous and the wicked.
d. The eschatological significance of holiness
Scripture emphasizes the permanence of moral character (Rev. 22:11). It also emphasizes the retributive aspect of the divine holiness. It involves the world in judgment. From a moral necessity in God, life is so ordered that in holiness is welfare, in sin is doom. Since the divine holiness could not make a universe in which sin would ultimately prosper, the retributive quality in the divine government becomes perfectly plain. But retribution is not the end; the holiness of God ensures that there will be a final restoration, a palingenesia, bringing to pass a regeneration of the moral universe. The eschatology of the Bible holds out the promise that the holiness of God will sweep the universe clean and create new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness will dwell (2 Pet. 3:13).
BIBLIOGRAPHY. A. Murray, Holy in Christ, 1888; R. Otto, The Idea of the Holy, 1946; ERE, 6, pp. 731-759; W. E. Sangster, The Path to Perfection, 1943; H. Seebass, C. Brown, in NIDNTT 2, pp. 223-238; TDNT 1, pp. 88-115, 122; 3, pp. 221-230; 5, pp. 489-493; 7, pp. 175-185. 2
1. Easton, M. G., M. A. D. D., Easton’s Bible Dictionary, (Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.) 1996.
2. The New Bible Dictionary, (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.) 1962.
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