What is Holiness?

Apr 28 2023 - Eric Buresh

Maybe I’m alone on this, but the concept of personal holiness is one of the subjects in our faith where, in my flesh, I would prefer not to talk about it. The fact that we, as believers, are to be holy (1 Peter 1:15-16; Ephesians 1:4; 2 Corinthians 7:1; Romans 12:1) is not my go-to line in polite conversation. Rather, this tends to be one of the areas where I am inclined to “help God out.” To put pillows around His Word so that (a) new believers or those that are exploring faith don’t have to confront the harder aspects or (b) so that we don’t have to confront those areas ourselves.  

The notion of holiness, which simply means set apart, is used Biblically in different contexts. For example, God is holy, holy, holy. I think we are generally comfortable thinking about God’s holiness. God’s infinite perfections. His characteristics that set Him apart from His created beings. His perfect love, mercy, goodness, and judgment in perfect balance. We love to praise God’s holiness, but we are less comfortable considering our own personal holiness.     

Part of the reason I think we shy away from the notion of personal holiness is that we don’t understand what it means. Personally, I spent many years listening to bad teaching that suffered from a near obsessive focus on branches instead of roots. Holiness was viewed as the presence or absence of certain actions (the branches) with little attention paid to the heart (the root). The result, for me at least, was a strong tendency to think of holiness as a long list of do’s and don’ts. Personal holiness through rule following. Or a lack of holiness by rule breaking. This understanding of holiness was spiritually destructive for me in many ways, and this legalistic approach is not a correct view of holiness.   

So, what is personal holiness? Love God above all else and love others as an overflow of our love for God! That’s it at the root. When our actions are consistently driven by a love for God and others, we are holy, or set apart for God. Paul gives us a critical connection in 1 Thessalonians 3 (among other places): “may the Lord make you increase and abound in love to one another and to all, just as we do to you, so that He may establish your hearts blameless in holiness.” (3:12-13). “So that” connects love toward others with personal holiness! Paul goes on, “But concerning brotherly love you have no need that I should write to you, for you yourselves are taught by God to love one another; . . . But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more . . . (4:9-10). To increase in love toward one another is to increase in personal holiness. 

Now that we have the root – love for God and love for others – in view, we can better understand the branches that grow from the root. For example, Paul says in the same passage, “that you should abstain from sexual immorality.” (4:3-5). Sexual purity is certainly a branch of holiness, but it is a branch growing from the root of love for God and love for others. As Paul tells us, the effect of sexual immorality, in any of its many forms, is to “take advantage of and defraud” another person (4:6) and to reject God (4:8). Again, we can see the connection between love for God and others (holiness) and the effects of that love (avoiding actions that will hurt others and reject God). The Bible certainly provides many examples of actions that are unloving (and harmful) to others and/or are an unloving rejection of God. But it is so important to keep the root of love at the forefront and let our actions and choices be driven by that love. When our actions and choices are consistently driven by love for God and love for others, we are set apart for God, and that is what it means to be holy!