Isn't holiness up to me?
1 Corinthians 1 and 6, Galatians 5, and Philippians 1.
The short answer Settled
No. God does it. When a person believes, God sets him apart as holy, and from that moment He keeps making him holy by His Spirit. He will finish the work when Christ comes.
Set apart for God
To sanctify is to make holy: to set something apart for God. Scripture uses the word more widely than church talk does. Jesus spoke of "the altar that sanctifies the gift" (). A gift laid on God's altar belonged to God, though nothing in the gift itself had changed. A saint is a holy one, a person set apart in the same way.
Scripture uses sanctify in two ways. It speaks of something God did once, when a person believed, and of something God keeps doing until Christ comes. The first is the believer's standing: he belongs to God. The second is his life being brought into line with that standing. Both start the moment he believes.
Sanctified already
Paul tells the Corinthians, "you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God" (). Sanctified stands beside justified, and a person is justified when he believes. Jesus named the means: "sanctified by faith in Me" ().
Paul calls the whole church in Corinth "sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints" (). Yet he also had to tell them, "I, brethren, could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal" (). They were saints because God had set them apart, not because they had become unusually holy.
Being made holy
The holiness still missing from a believer's life is not left to him. Paul speaks of "sanctification by the Spirit" (), and says believers "are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord" ().
The Spirit opposes the old desires: "the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh" (). He produces what the believer cannot produce himself: "the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control" (). The believer's part is to go along with Him: "Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh" ().
How a believer learns where he falls short
God shows the believer where he falls short. The Spirit's sword is "the word of God" (), and Scripture is given "for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness" (). The Word teaches the conscience, which Paul says bears witness "in the Holy Spirit" (). Going against it is sin, because "whatever is not from faith is sin" ().
When a believer will not listen, God makes it plain. David said, "Your hand was heavy upon me" (). And the Father disciplines His children "for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness" ().
God will finish it
"He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ" (). Paul prays, "may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely," and then promises, "He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it" (). John says when: "when He is revealed, we shall be like Him" ().
A farmer who plants a fruit tree keeps watering and pruning it until it bears fruit.
The usual objection
Many people think of a saint as an unusually holy person, recognized after a lifetime of devotion. Many believers think of holiness the same way: God saves a person, and then it is up to him to make himself holy by his own effort. On this view only some believers become holy, and whether a believer ever does depends on himself.
Paul told the Corinthians, "you were sanctified," as something already done, and called every believer there a saint, though many were still living like ordinary men. The holiness still missing is God's work in the believer by His Spirit, who opposes the flesh and bears His fruit. God began the work, and He will finish it. Holiness is what God works in a saved person, not a condition for being saved.
The words behind it
| Word | Where | Form | What it shows |
|---|---|---|---|
| ἁγιάζον hagiazon, "sanctifies" (Strong's 37) | Present active participle | The altar makes the gift holy by setting it apart for God. | |
| ἡγιάσθητε … ἐδικαιώθητε hēgiasthēte … edikaiōthēte, "you were sanctified … you were justified" (37, 1344) | Two aorist passives, side by side | Both done to them, at a point in the past. | |
| ἡγιασμένοις πίστει hēgiasmenois pistei, "sanctified by faith" (37, 4102) | Perfect passive participle; noun | Sanctified, and still so, by faith. | |
| κλητοῖς ἁγίοις klētois hagiois, "called to be saints" (2822, 40) | Two adjectives | "Saints by calling": the word for saint is the word for holy. | |
| μεταμορφούμεθα metamorphoumetha, "are being transformed" (3339) | Present passive indicative | Being changed, and the change is done to them. | |
| καρπὸς karpos, "fruit" (2590) | Noun, singular | One harvest the Spirit produces. | |
| οὐ μὴ τελέσητε ou mē telesēte, "you shall not fulfill" (3756, 3361, 5055) | Two words for "not" | The firmest way Greek says "you will not." | |
| ἔλεγχον … ἐπανόρθωσιν elenchon … epanorthōsin, "reproof … correction" (1650, 1882) | Nouns | Exposing a wrong, and setting things upright again. | |
| ἐναρξάμενος … ἐπιτελέσει enarxamenos … epitelesei, "has begun … will complete" (1728, 2005) | Aorist participle; future indicative | Begun already, and He will finish it. | |
| ποιήσει poiēsei, "will do" (4160) | Future active indicative | A prayer turned into a promise. |
No textual variants affect the conclusion.
This study checks the Greek Received Text against the Majority Text, and the written Hebrew against its traditional reading. If a difference could change a conclusion, this note explains it. Otherwise it says that none does.