The Problem of Holiness

Holiness is a complicated concept and as such is open to misinterpretation. It is this misinterpretation that can lead to problems within our lives and the life of the community we worship in. You see holiness when not understood within the context of our humanity can lead to hypocrisy and at worse it can lead to pride and arrogance. We dearly want to avoid this because holiness can be the centre point of our faith if applied well.
Rather then ignoring it, we must remember that the bible says that we are to be Holy as God is Holy. Its an important part of being a follower of Christ, so regardless of its complexities we must try to understand it.
The Salvation Army believes "holiness" is justification worked out in the daily life of the believer. It is a divine work for wholeness that requires human response, in a lifelong process that includes crisis. Basically its what you do as a Christian day to day.
As soon as holiness begins to be talked about, our minds can wander to imagine people of great spiritual depth and saints such as mother Theresa or William booth etc. Yet holiness is a matter which according to the scriptures has been given to us from God and as followers of Christ can have access to. It is hard to imagine that as human as we are, that we can be Holy. This is due to the misconception of what holiness is.
This has been taken to extremes through various enthusiastic believers activities to be Holy. Monks lived in the desert starving themselves trying to remove every earthly desire so as to be holy. In the medieval age flagellation was very popular as a means to be holy. These are outcomes of genuine people trying to be true to their understanding of what holiness is, but probably have lost the plot a little…
It sounds odd, but pursuing holiness can lead us to sin. When we read the scripture the word sin has several different meanings – but the vast majority of its use has the meaning of missing the point – the Hebrew word refers to an archer who takes aim but misses the desired target. So when we sin and when the bible talks about this sin, it is about us missing the point.

It is quite common begin to have a list of ‘don’ts’ as our holiness check list: don’t swear, don’t smoke, don’t drink, don’t be rude, don’t wear a unironed shirt on Sunday…. It is the beginning of morality rather then holiness. And while morals are not necessarily a bad thing, they can move us away from true holiness and make us miss the point. It is very easy to mistake morality for holiness. God operates outside of morals. The Spirit of God is not limited by any boundary - which is the Hebrew definition of Holiness – Living without bounds….If we live with the spirit we do not need a list of things to do or not to do, because the spirit of God is within us, guiding us and directing us, as indviduals within our own context.

As uniform wearing Salvationists, we can fall into the appearing Holy trap. We don’t drink, smoke – but if these were pre-requisites for holiness then most catholic and Anglican priests could never be holy, as they are able to do both. There is a reason we don’t drink and smoke etc. but it is not about our holiness or our standing with God. Understand what I am saying – I’m not saying that we should not have a personal standard of living – but holiness is more then these things.
When we become pre-occupied with what we think we see and what is presented as holiness we can miss the truth when we see it.

There are people who go to church on Sunday, do the obligatory church based activities during the week, pray loud and long, don’t swear, give their tithe and can’t wait to grab someone to gossip about whoever is their target that week. Not only friendly banter gossip, which is at best unhelpful, but real ugly and severe tearing people down gossip. The kind of talk that can rot communities. The words – you will know them by their love for each other certainly doesn’t apply in these cases. And unfortunately holiness is used as a cover for this viciousness.

Transformation comes from the inside out, not the outside in. Holiness is complete transformation within ourselves and resulting in action. The fruit of the Spirit is the revelation of the Holy life - "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control." (Galatians 5:22).
We are all humans. We make mistakes, we fall, we hurt people. That is part of who we are. Yet through Christ, that is not all we have to be. We can share love and peace, bring hope and kindness, show patience and self-control in tough times, faithfulness and goodness to others who are hurting. Joy when there is none. This is what holiness is. Holiness is not the denial of our humanity, in many ways it’s the embracing of it – remember Jesus was called a drunkard and glutton, and wept when he had to leave this life. Being human is more then ok – it is good. Our experiences of being human shapes who we are and how we treat others and understand God. It is vital that we stay connected to our humanity. But we can be more. Too often we think to be holy we need to deny our humanity – this is what many monks have done for hundreds of years. But if we embrace our humanity and the spirit which works in us, we can be Holy people of God, despite the fact that we will fall, all the while showing the fruit of the Spirit and the transformation Jesus has brought about in us.

So what is Holiness…Holiness is who we are in Christ day to day. The real you – transformed by the power of Christ into someone who produces fruit. Holy people are people who create, build and give love. Holiness is giving love and service despite the mess that surrounds us.