Being Made Holy

By one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. Hebrews 10:14, NIV

NOTICE WHEN THESE THINGS happened: He “has made perfect” —something that’s already been done. Those who “are being made holy” —something that’s happening right now. The perfection has been accomplished in the past, yet the process of being made holy is continual.

So in what way are we perfected? Our slates have been wiped clean. We’ve been completely forgiven. Our debts have been paid. Because we are in Christ, legally we stand before God with no cause for condemnation. He doesn’t count our sins against us. We are covered, not in the spots and stains left behind by our failures and mistakes, but in the robes of righteousness given to us by Christ in place of our sin-spotted rags.

So if we’re perfect, why do we need to continue to be made holy? Because while our sinless standing before God is made secure by the righteousness of Christ, we know that is not the reality in our lives. We still have a long way to go before holiness characterizes us from day to day.

But the good news of the gospel as we continue to stumble over some of the same old sins is that we are being made holy. The Spirit is at work in us by his Word so that we are becoming closer to what we’ve been declared to be in the courtroom of heaven. The gap between who we are in Christ and who we are in our flesh is closing as sins are identified, confessed, and forsaken. We are becoming in reality what we’ve been declared to be by joining ourselves to Jesus.

Are we celebrating the increasing holiness that we see in our children? Somehow it comes much more naturally for us to point out what needs to change. But to publicly praise God for his work in our children and to affirm our children for the change we see in them is to welcome and celebrate God’s sanctifying purposes.

Lord, I praise you for being a God who is relentless about holiness. You are holy, and as we submit to you, you are making us holy.