Grace Thoughts
Teaching Notes: Holiness!! (Part Three)
Teaching Notes are Bible studies we taught before GraceLife Ministries began publishing articles online in 1995. Some were presented as sermons, others as group studies.
Our hope is that these older studies will be a blessing to you in your life and ministry. Please use them in any way God leads you.
These teaching notes are from a series of studies from 1 Peter.
[These notes are from more than 45 years ago.]
III. What are the means and the extent of holiness?
In other words, How can I be holy and How holy can I be?
A. To be saved we needed certain things done for us and certain things done in us. Jesus Christ has effected all that needed doing for us; the Holy Spirit affects that that needs doing in us.
- Christ’s work for us covers all the judicial aspects of our salvation. The Holy Spirit’s work in us covers all the experiential aspects of our salvation.
- Through the atoning work of Christ we have justification and positional reconciliation. Through the interior work of the Holy Spirit we have regeneration and moral and spiritual sanctification.
- Christ’s work for us concerns our Godward relation. The Holy Spirit’s work in us concerns our inward renewal.
- Christ’s work for us has distinctively to do with our standing or position. The Holy Spirit’s work in us has distinctively to do with our state or condition.
- Through Christ’s work for us we have righteousness imputed (legal aspect). Through the Holy Spirit’s work in us we have holiness imparted (vital aspect).
Is holiness the filling of the Spirit? Not necessarily. It is is the renewing of the Spirit.
Is holiness spiritual growth and maturity? Not necessarily. It is spiritual and moral health.
Spiritual and moral health abounding! Holiness is not what you know, but what you are.
Example
Take for example a man who has wasted his money and his health on riotous living. He’s living in a back-alley gutter, full of disease and dying of malnutrition. Then, an unknown benefactor has him picked up and taken to a lovely house on a hillside overlooking a great field. The man is fed the best of foods, given plenty of rest and exercise, and takes a good amount of natural vitamins. In a few weeks he’s healthy and strong again and looking like his old self. This goes on for more than a year, until one day the man again returns to his old lifestyle of drinking, carousing, and gambling. He doesn’t eat, he doesn’t get enough sleep, and he doesn’t get any physical exercise. Because his body is health he is able to take this lifestyle for awhile, but soon finds himself back in the back-alley gutter again dying of malnutrition and liver disease.
This is one analogy of what happens to us spiritually. We were dead in trespasses and sins. We were sick with the disease of guilt wracking our body and mind. God found us in the back-alley gutter of life and picked us up to a new home overlooking a bright meadow of peace. We begin to eat plenty of spiritual food. We rest in the Spirit. We get plenty of exercise in the things of the Spirit. Our minds are renewed and our spirits given new and vibrant life. We become strong and healthy in spirit. We are holy and without blame. Then, we go back to our old way of living and thinking. We do the things that once almost ruined our souls. Because of our spiritual health it doesn’t show on us for awhile. However, within a short time we are again living in the valley of despair and gutter of sin. We’re still God’s children, headed for Heaven, but what has happened? We’re spiritually unhealthy. Positionally we are righteous, but we are not living holy lives. This is many times called backsliding, but I prefer to call it loss of spiritual health. Sin has again poisoned us and dealt a blow to our relationship with the Savior.
Holiness is the life of the Holy Spirit transfused and interpenetrating every part of our moral and spiritual being, transforming diseased impulses and responses, impure desire and inclination; unholy thought, motive, purpose, temper, and imagination, into fulness of moral health. Hatred becomes love, anger becomes kindness, impure desire becomes holy aspiration, selfishness becomes Christlike others, jealousy becomes sincere affection, perverted motive and purpose change into earnest ambition to fulfill only the will of God, evil temper and carnal imagination give place to equanimity and spiritual-mindedness, pride becomes humility, egocentricity becomes Christocentricity. The whole inner life becomes pure, gracious, and healthful.
Next Time
In the next part of our Teaching Notes series we will answer another question. What must one seek to be truly holy??
[Thank you for reading these teaching notes from more than 45 years ago. My prayer is they will be a blessing to you and your life and ministry.]
Published by gracelifethoughts
Founder & Director of GraceLife Ministries View all posts by gracelifethoughts
