"Husbands love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. This is a profound mystery--but I am talking about Christ and the church."
Ephesians 5:25-27&32
The truth is: Jesus is coming for a pure, holy, and blameless church. Revelation 19:7 says, "Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made herself ready." This is a profound mystery, because it involves the work of Christ at the cross, and all of us working out our salvations with fear and trembling before God.
Jesus loved the church so much that he died for her, literally giving himself up. All of us have been made righteous by the blood of Christ. "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." (1 John 1:9). As we are faithful to confess our sin to him, he is always faithful to forgive. The result of this process is righteousness. You and I have it, and the church has it through the blood of Jesus.
Holiness is another matter. Do this little exercise to aid you in understanding: Hold your left hand above your head, as if you were measuring the height of a tall person. Then hold your right hand in the same position but at your waist level. Your left hand represents our position in Christ. This is who He says we are. We have right standing with God. This is the righteousness that he has freely given us. Your right hand represents where your daily life is. Maybe you continue to fail in certain areas. You continue to be involved in the same sin. This hand represents our testimony. Our life-long endeavor is to raise this right hand to the level of the left. In other words, we want our life to match the righteousness that Christ has given. We should be on a quest for holiness.
The church today, needs to become holy. It doesn't just happen, people must choose to become holy. We must defeat sin in our lives and set our sights squarely on holiness. We tolerate far too much sin. It has become easy to continue in sin, yet sit comfortably in the church on Sunday. You and I are the church, and we must be moving toward being spotless and pure. We cry out, "God, make us holy as you are holy!" In reality, it is incumbent on us to defeat sin and endeavor to live the same kind of life that Christ did. Revelation 19:7 says, "His bride has made herself ready." We sometimes, cry out to God, when we need to be forsaking sin and moving on in our testimonies.
I am not speaking of legalism. We can make rules...and then we will break them. Legalism simply binds us and imprisons us. We are shackled to a set of rules. True freedom in Christ is to confess sin, repent of it, conquer it, and move deeper into a holy lifestyle. In the times when we slip, his grace is sufficient. Jesus showed us how to live. Now, we must follow through and choose to live that way. We don't have to do this on our own. The Holy Spirit is in us, helping to move us toward holiness.
We are the church. We need to put away sin that entangles us and prepare ourselves for the greatest event that has or will ever take place. Church, become holy. We have a wedding to participate in, a glorious celebration to attend. And we are the radiant bride!
"I am not speaking of legalism. We can make rules...and then we will break them. Legalism simply binds us and imprisons us. We are shackled to a set of rules. True freedom in Christ is to confess sin, repent of it, conquer it, and move deeper into a holy lifestyle."
ReplyDeleteThis all seems pretty ambiguous. Not sure I see much difference between legalism and what you describe as holiness. Don't they both boil down to keeping a certain behavioral code? Do this, don't do this? If not, then what does holiness really look like, and how do we obtain it? How do we truly "conquer sin"?
Please note that I don't really disagree with you. I think too often we are (I am) content to wallow in our sin. But as a movement, Holiness seems like legalism wrapped in cotton, looking soft and loving on the outside, but ultimately becoming another way for us to compare ourselves to others.