I Am Holy

I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling place will be with them, I will be their God, and they will be my people. Then the nations will know that I the LORD make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.

—Ezekiel 37:26–28

My sharp response surprised even myself. One moment I was smiling. The next I was fuming.

What happened in the moments before wasn’t necessarily earth shattering. The short of it is this: in front of a large group of people, someone I valued made a joke. At my expense. As a result, I felt humiliated in front of my peers, and not a little betrayed by someone I thought I could trust.

Twenty minutes later, out of earshot of the group, I pulled my friend aside and launched into a rebuttal. No benefit of the doubt. No patient dialogue or discussion of feelings. Instead, a full-on reaction to the wound I’d suffered.

Some might say I was justified. But I’m not so sure sharp words are ever justified. What horrified me most was how quickly anger bubbled to the surface and flew right out my mouth. “For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of,” Jesus said (Luke 6:45). All it took was a friend’s foolishness to bring out the ugly within.

That incident happened years ago. Unfortunately, I don’t have to go so far back in time to see more evidence of my unholiness. If I count back a short seven days from today, I can unearth a mass of indicting evidence: I gossiped. I judged. I snapped and misspoke. I entertained vindictive thoughts. I resisted forgiving someone. I swore. I withheld love. Need I continue?

I’m far too familiar with myself to accept Ezekiel’s proclamations of my holiness without protest. Holiness sits as far from my reach as going to sleep as a girl and waking up as a fish.

And yet God, through prophetic words, claims He not only holds the power to make me holy but also has made it so. Mind blowing.

Perhaps part of our struggle with personal holiness is that, over time, we’ve reduced being holy to following a set of rules. Merriam-Webster defines holy as “connected to a god or religion; religious and morally good.” We’ve made holiness and morality interchangeable words, both meaning doing all the do’s and avoiding all the don’ts.

In the process, we’ve cheapened the very meaning of holy. As a result, we fear it, shudder at the concept, knowing full well we have no power to obey a set of impossible rules.

The biblical definition of holiness is quite different from Merriam-Webster’s. According to the Bible, to be holy is to be set apart or dedicated to God. To belong to Him, first and foremost. Although morality is certainly part of the equation, it’s more a response to God’s work than a precursor to it. Holiness is first and foremost about relationship.

“I the LORD make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.”

When my sanctuary is among them forever.

I grew up thinking the sanctuary was that long, steepled room lined with hard wooden pews. I sat there every Sunday morning, eyes front and center on the pulpit and choir loft. That’s a sanctuary, right?

Not exactly. In the Old Testament, the Israelites carried around with them a portable tent—a tabernacle—which was the place where God dwelled. It was a literal place, a sanctuary or “house” for God.

Then Jesus came. The actual dwelling of God in human flesh. He became the tabernacle for us, the human house for the presence of God with man. Thus Isaiah called Him “Immanuel, God with us” (7:14).

Wait. It gets better.

When Jesus told the disciples He needed to leave to return to the Father, their response was panic. If Jesus left, that meant God was leaving. They’d waited their whole lives for God to come to them in the form of the Messiah.

And now He planned to take off?

Jesus explained: “But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you” (John 16:7).

This promised Spirit—the one Jesus said would come when He left—is the presence of the Holy Spirit in us.

Go ahead. Read that again.

The presence of the living God in us.

The tabernacle is no longer a portable tent in the desert. It’s not even the human flesh-and-blood body of Jesus. The sanctuary is us. We carry around the living presence of a holy God in the form of His Spirit, until the day you and I stand in the throne room of heaven and see our God face to face.

Glory!

The Holy Spirit. In us.

Which, my friends, makes us holy.

Not because we earned it. Not because we followed a set of moral rules.

But because of the mercy of God, who made it so.

Chances are I’ll collect plenty more evidence of my unholiness before tomorrow. Another impatient response or selfish decision. No matter how hard I try, I can’t escape my humanity.

But as a follower of Jesus, I can’t escape His holiness either. He lives in me, in both my moments of shame and my moments of success, changing me, helping me to grow. He won’t subject me to public ridicule. Instead, He’ll fill me with Himself, making me holy one day at a time with Himself.

If we would ripen in grace, we must live near to Jesus—in His presence—ripened by the sunshine of His smiles. We must hold sweet communion with Him. We must leave the distant view of His face and come near, as John did, and pillow our head on His breast; then shall we find ourselves advancing in holiness.

—CHARLES SPURGEON, MORNING AND EVENING