Holiness is a Learned Experience

3 April 2011

Human beings are a complex species.

We are capable of noble good and totally competent of great evil. Within us lie a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde – an angel and a demon.

The Bible is clear that ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’ (Rom 3:23). In Isaiah 64:6 it says that “All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.”

Thus, by our own efforts and willpower, we cannot attain to holiness. We are made holy by and through Christ’s sacrifice on the cross. Though declared holy, we have to learn holiness. It is a discipline.

The great theologian, J. I. Packer says,
“Holiness, like prayer (which is indeed part of it), is something that, though Christians have an instinct for it through their new birth, they have to learn in and through experience. As Jesus “learned obedience from what he suffered” (Heb 5:8) — learned what obedience requires, costs, and involves through the experience of actually doing his Father’s will up to and in his passion — so Christians must, and do, learn prayer from their struggles to pray, and learn holiness from their battles for purity of heart and righteousness of life.”

God wills for us to be holy. Will His body bears the trademark of Christ, our head?