A passion for Holiness.

At last week’s meeting of the Home Group that I attend, one of the members quoted the title of a book by J.I.Packer – A Passion for Holiness. Holiness, of course, is one of those qualities about which there are many misconceptions.

Many have the idea that it is something to be shunned – having heard/read the words that Robert Burns puts into the mouth of “Holy Willie” in Tam O’ Shanter. However, this is a poem that was written about a certain Willie Fisher who was an elder in the Parish church of Mauchline, in Ayrshire. Fisher was a hypocrite and himself a sinner who spied on people and reported them to the minister if he thought they were doing wrong. The poem is, in fact, a condemnation of religious hypocrisy and self-righteousness.

Others see holiness as something that may, indeed, be acquired by dint of our own efforts to keep the law – both of man and of God.

Yet others consider holiness to be synonymous with perfection and, therefore, to be totally unobtainable by “ordinary” men and women.

However, the basic meaning of holiness is “separated-ness”. Thus, the vessels used in the services in the Jewish Temple were holy, because they were separated – set apart – for that particular use, and no other. They were separated to YHWH. We refer to the Bible as the Holy Scriptures – literally, the writings that are different because they are the Word of God. The Jewish Sabbath is a holy day – a day that is different from the other days of the week.

The same is true of the disciple of the Lord, Jesus Christ. We are called to be holy – different from the world (society that has rejected/ignored God). Peter’s first letter to the church has much to say about holiness. For example, he writes: "But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God – Who chose you to be His children – is holy. For He Himself has said, ‘You must be holy because I am holy’." (I Pet.1:15-16)

One problem that I see about much of even the evangelical church, is an emphasis on “conversion” that does not lead to discipleship and holiness. Perhaps we, who dare to call ourselves Christian, need to develop a passion for holiness, that we might be seen to be different. Is this, perhaps, one of the reasons why the church grows in situations in which it is persecuted – because those who acknowledge the Lordship of the Christ are seen to be “different”?

I have heard church members state that they don’t say much about their beliefs because they don’t want to “stick out like a sore thumb”! Perhaps that is the very thing that we should be doing – displaying our holiness, not that we might be praised (unlikely, anyway!) but that glory be given to the Father in heaven (see Matt.5:16; I Pet.2:12).

For a much deeper consideration of Holiness, I commend this link http://www.ccel.org/ccel/ryle/holiness.iii.iii.html (copy and paste!)