Grace Thoughts
Teaching Notes: Holiness!! (Part Two)
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.]
II. What is holiness?
A. Holiness is likeness to God. Let me say that again. Holiness is likeness to God – likeness to His moral character!!! Leviticus 19:1-2 says, “And the Lord spake unto Moses saying, Speak unto all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say unto them, Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy.” All of the Old Testament is summed up in this one verse – Leviticus 19:2 .. “Ye shall be holy.” God’s purpose for His children has not changed. Ephesians 1:4 says, “According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.”
B. If holiness is “God-likeness,” then just what is it to be like God? The Scripture teaches us that God is Spirit, Light, and Love.
- God is essentially Spiritual, so the first mark of holiness is a corresponding spirituality – in outlook, attitude, desire, and sense of values. Genuine holiness is spiritual-mindedness.
- What light is to the natural world, God is to the spiritual world. Only in light can se see; yet light cannot be seen – it is transparent. Light is also manifesting. It reveals the things which are, making them visible to natural sight. The analogy – God is light, means that holiness, a moral likeness to God, is:
- such purity of mind as exposes in sharp distinguishment the beauty of goodness and the ugliness of evil.
- a sheer transparency – of motive, purpose, and desire. “Holiness is transparent purity and sincerity of the mind.”
- God is love.
- His love is not passive, inward emotion, but an active outreaching benevolence.
- His love is not a self-contained, complacence, but a self-emptying otherism.
- His love is not a contemplative sublimity of feeling, but a redeeming compassion toward the unworthy and unlovely, the defiled and deformed; a love which gives and gives and gives again!
- God so loved the world that He gave …
- God proved His love us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died …
- Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed …
- Hereby perceive we the love of God, because He laid down His life for us.
- Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son.
Let’s summarize:
Christian holiness is, 1) spiritual-mindedness of outlook, appraisal, desire, and choice; 2) transparent purity of aim and motive; 3) self-forgetting outreach to bless others.
To know what true holiness is, we must somehow be able to see it. We need not only to have it described, but have it revealed. JESUS CHRIST IS THAT REVELATION!! Jesus was intensely spiritual, perfectly natural, and thoroughly practical. He was pure holiness manifest in flesh.
I think now that we can expand our definition a bit more by saying that holiness is likeness in heart and life to Christ.
- In the Old Testament, holiness is demanded.
- In Christ it is provided.
- By the Holy Spirit it is imparted.
- Holiness inwrought in us from God, through Christ, by the Holy Spirit.
Inwrought holiness is a progressive renewal, correction, purification, refinement, and renovation of all the qualities, tempers, urges, propensities, and functionings of the mind, the emotions, and the will. Holiness is restoration – it is a renewing of our body and soul. Holiness is not abrogation, but completion.
Next Time
In the next part of our Teaching Notes series we will answer another question. What are the means and the extent of holiness?
[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.]
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Founder & Director of GraceLife Ministries View all posts by gracelifethoughts
