Behold His Holiness

Holy

We bow our hearts

We bow our lives

We bow all before our King

For You alone are worthy

For You alone are wonderful

You alone are holy

For You alone are beautiful

No longer striving

In grace now abiding

We are surrendered at Your feet

Holy

Holy

As You are holy

So make us holy

As we come

Surrendered to You

Devotional

“‘Holy’ is the Bible word for all that makes God different from us, in particular his awesome power and purity.” This is how J.I. Packer defines the holiness of God (1 Samuel 2:2). But, if the holiness of God is the very thing that makes me different from Him, surely it reflects an impossibility to then ask of Him: “as You are holy, so make us holy”? As contrary as that request may sound, it is actually the very thing each of us should be pursuing in life: to glorify Him because He is holy, and to grow in our likeness to Him (ultimately displaying His holiness) because He is holy (see also: Leviticus 19:2, 20:26; 1 Peter 1:15-16; 1 Thessalonians 4:7).

The second line of the Lord’s Prayer is as follows: “Hallowed be Your name”. What man or woman could possibly pray such a thing? According to Packer, it is the man or woman for whom the holiness of the name of God is above all else – someone whose life is oriented around that very fact. This is why we bring our hearts, our lives, our all, into submission under God. Our all should be directed in pursuit of our goal in life: to glorify Him and to be constantly growing in our likeness of Him. The man for whom that second line of the Lord’s Prayer is easy, is one obsessed with the glorification of His God. This relentless pursuit was the cry and the hope of the Apostle Paul for his brothers and sisters in Christ: “present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1). 

The second part of that goal or pursuit – growing in likeness to Christ and thereby magnifying Him – can be summarised in one word: sanctification. 

We can understand sanctification as operating in two different spheres: positionally and experientially. The first refers to the standing or position in the faith that believers gain through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. At that moment, we became fellow saints and we were sanctified “for all time” (Hebrews 10:10).

This means that when Christ offered His body on the cross, His body became an eternal offering for sin – powerful enough to atone for every sin that had ever been our debt to pay – and guaranteed our access to the Father through the Son. However, though we may now be positionally sanctified – set apart for the works of Christ – this does not mean that, experientially, we are holy in our daily lives, nor that we are without sin. This is the second form of sanctification: experiential sanctification. We are still also actively being sanctified. In addition to Paul’s exhortation in Romans 12:1, we can see this aspect of continuing growth towards holiness in Paul’s epistle to the Ephesians. He writes of the body, which “grows into a holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:19-22).

It is to this end that Paul appeals to us to be living sacrifices unto God, to be entirely yielded to His will. The task is daunting to our finite human frames. Through Christ, though, we have great hope, for we have the very Spirit of God indwelling us and bringing about our daily separation from sin, and the atonement of sins by the most pure blood of Christ (Romans 9:10-14).

Only through the perfect holiness of Jesus Christ is the atonement for our sins and our service to a living God possible.

It is because of the beauty of His holiness and the laying down of His life that we yield completely to Him. 

May His holiness be ever before our eyes. May we seek to magnify Him continually. May we pursue His likeness unceasingly. 

May we pursue the One who has already pursued us and made us His own (Philippians 3:12). 

Reflections  

1. Do you ever feel like God’s holiness is incompatible with, or contradicts, His love, mercy, or grace? The cross of Christ is where we can clearly see these attributes of God completely working together. In light of the cross, how can you grow in understanding of His holiness in relation to the love, mercy, and grace of God?
2. According to Ephesians 1:4, we were “chosen before the foundation of the world” to be “holy and blameless before Him”. How does knowing God’s intention for you to be holy and blameless change the way you perceive suffering and trials? 
3. Ephesians 2:19-22 also emphasizes the communal aspect of sanctification (“…Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God…”). How does the sanctification of believers play out in the local church, and how can you be a part of it?