What holiness is not:
- It’s not mere rule-keeping. Holiness it not less than obeying commands but godliness is more than basic morality and niceness.
- It’s not generational imitation. Regarding every generation, it takes wisdom to learn from the good and avoid the bad.
- It’s not generic spirituality. True spirituality is found in being transformed by the Spirit of God.
- It’s not finding your true self. To find yourself is to come to understand and know the God of the Bible
- It’s not the way of the world. The world is opposed to God, so holiness is not aligning yourself with the ways of the world.
What holiness is:
- It looks like the renewal of God’s image in us. Through the work of Jesus we’re being transformed into the image of the Creator.
- It looks like a life marked by virtue instead of vice. Christian put off sin and put on Jesus.
- It looks like a clean conscience. We must always be mindful of God’s voice speaking to us through a tender conscience informed by the Word of God.
- It looks like obedience to God’s commands. Christians are redeemed so that we might obey God’s law.
- It looks like Christlikeness. Since holiness looks like a Christian living out the character of God in their life than it would stand to reason we’ll be more like Jesus since Jesus is the image of the invisible God.
[1] Kevin DeYoung, The Holy In Our Holiness: Filling the Gap between Gospel Passion and the Pursuit of Godliness (Wheaton: Crossway, 2012).
Nathan,
Thanks for posting these thoughts. Have you ever listened to Peter Gentry talk about his view of what the word Holy means? It is food for thought and a view that I am coming to agree with more and more. The way Gentry unpacks holiness, in terms of consecration or devotion and not primarily separatness, would seem to fit will with DeYoung’s emphasis above.
http://www.sbts.edu/resources/lectures/no-one-holy-like-the-lord/
I remember us talking about this…I’ll read it and get back to you. Thanks for passing it along…