Practicing Life-Giving Holiness
The Practice of Life-Giving Holiness Demonstrates Our Love For God And Each Other
As a child, it was quite easy to identify the women in our community who attended churches that embraced the ‘Holiness Movement’. They wore long dresses, no makeup, had natural unprocessed hairstyles, and always wore a hat or a scarf. For them, outward appearance, and separation from a sinful world were central to their Christian identity.
But is this God’s expectation of life-giving holiness in Christians? What about Social Holiness (caring for the needs of others), of which John Wesley was an advocate? Holiness means a life that is completely devoted or dedicated to doing only the will of God. The commonly used derived meaning of Holiness as “separated unto God” may have led to a dualistic Christian culture in which much more spiritual value was attributed to personal holiness than social action. This dualism may have also contributed to a major emphasis being placed on our personal relationship with the Lord rather than an equal emphasis on our relationships with each other (1John 5:2-3). Jesus demonstrated that personal and social holiness are of equal importance and are not mutually exclusive (Matt. 22: 36-40). Loving others demands social action. Loving God is demonstrated in our actions towards our neighbors.
God created humans so we may have fellowship with Him and each other (Gen 3: 8-9). The Holy Spirit empowered, life-giving holiness is made manifest through God’s spoken words and God’s loving touch. It is important to note that while God spoke and commanded light and the cosmos into existence, humans were created by his hands. Humans were formed by the loving and compassionate touch of God. Speaking and touching are the two key attributes by which God established an intimate life-giving holy relationship between himself and his creation. Perhaps, the importance of each of us having an intimate fellowship with God was also demonstrated by God requiring the children of Israel to present the fellowship or peace offering to him by their own hands and not by the priest. (Lev. 7: 28-30)
Jesus understood the importance of obedience in demonstrating the life-giving holiness of the Father to others through his words and touch, unlike Moses and Aaron, who disobeyed God and dishonored his life-giving holiness in the “eyes of the Israelites” by striking the rock rather than speaking to the rock as God commanded. (Num. 20:8-12). Jesus, the anointed Messiah, the Holy One, came to address not only the spiritual but also the social needs of those, Jews and Gentiles, who seek a relationship with him and the Father (Luke 4: 18-19). Through his spoken words, empowered by the Holy Spirit, Jesus healed the servant of the Gentile centurion after proclaiming he had found no one else in Israel with such great faith as the centurion. He touched the leper (Matt. 8: 1-4), the woman that was bleeding for twelve years touched him (Matt. 9: 20-22) and they were both healed. He touched Jairus’s dead daughter and raised her from the dead (Matt. 9: 18, 23-26). According to the Old Testament laws, such touching should have made Jesus ceremonially unclean (Lev. 5:3; 15: 19-30; 19:11-12), yet Jesus did not separate himself for purification after these signs. In the same way, anyone who touches the altar and vessels in the tabernacle becomes holy, anyone Jesus touches or who touches Jesus becomes holy, while Jesus remains holy and pure (Ex. 30: 29-30). Christians should therefore have no fear of a sinful world, instead, be much more concerned with being obedient to the leading of the Spirit with our speech and the people we touch, in our efforts to lead them into a relationship with the Lord.
Obedience to God forms the bedrock for the Holy Spirit empowered life-giving holiness. Obedience to God honors him as holy and strengthens God’s relationship with his people. Jesus commanded us to go into the world and lead people into an eternal relationship with him and the Father (Matt. 28: 17-20), not to separate ourselves from the world. The anointing of the Holy Spirit makes us holy and empowers us with the holy love of God that infuses our relationship with God and each other.