Rediscovering Holiness: Know the Fullness of Life with God

by J.I. Packer

Scripture insists so strongly that Christians are called to holiness, that God is pleased with holiness but outraged by unholiness, and that without holiness none will see the Lord. But the shift of Christian interest away from the pursuit of holiness to focus on fun and fulfillment, ego massage and techniques for present success, and public issues that carry no challenge to one’s personal morals, is a fact. To my mind it is a sad and scandalous fact, and one that needs to be reversed.

all life and relationships must become “holiness to the Lord.”

Isaac’s action reflects two simple spiritual principles that apply here in a very direct way: 1. The recovering of old truth, truth that has been a means of blessing in the past, can under God become the means of blessing again in the present, while the quest for newer alternatives may well prove barren. 2. No one should be daunted from attempting such recovery by any prejudice, ill will, or unsympathetic attitudes that may have built up against the old truth during the time of its eclipse.

Holiness, like prayer (which is indeed part of it), is something that, though Christians have an instinct for it through their new birth, as we shall see, they have to learn in and through experience. As Jesus “learned obedience from what he suffered” (Heb. 5:8)—learned what obedience requires, costs and involves through the experience of actually doing His Father’s will up to and in His passion—so Christians must, and do, learn prayer from their struggles to pray and holiness from their battles for purity of heart and righteousness of life.

We must be clear in our minds that whatever further reasons there may be why God exposes us to the joys and sorrows, fulfillments and frustrations, delights and disappointments, happinesses and hurts, that make up the emotional reality of our lives, all these experiences are part of His curriculum for us in the school of holiness, which is His spiritual gymnasium for our reshaping and rebuilding in the moral likeness of Jesus Christ.

Why is it that in the school of holiness, as in the schools to which we send our own children, some move ahead faster than others? How are the different rates of progress to be explained? Fundamentally, the factor that makes the difference is neither one’s intelligence quotient, nor the number of books one has read nor the conferences, camps and seminars one has attended, but the quality of the fellowship with Christ that one maintains through life’s vicissitudes.

Some who trust Jesus as their Savior have formed the habit of going to Him about everything that comes up, in order to become clear on how they should react to it as His disciples. (“Going to Him” is an umbrella phrase that covers three things: praying; meditating, which includes thinking, reflecting, drawing conclusions from Scripture, and applying them directly to oneself in Jesus’ presence; and holding oneself open throughout the process to specific illumination from the Holy Spirit.)

“Holy” in both biblical languages means separated and set apart for God, consecrated and made over to Him.

In his great book Holiness (published in 1879, still in print, and going strong), the Anglican Bishop John Charles Ryle set out in simple biblical terms a classic twelve-point profile of a holy person. (Being a Victorian, he said “man,” but he meant woman, too.) His description runs as follows: 1. Holiness is the habit of being of one mind with God, according as we find his mind described in Scripture. It is the habit of agreeing in God’s judgement, hating what He hates, loving what He loves, and measuring everything in this world by the standard of His Word. . . . 2. A holy man will endeavour to shun every

known sin, and to keep every known commandment. He will have a decided bent of mind towards God, a hearty desire to do His will, a greater fear of displeasing him than of displeasing the world, and . . . will feel what Paul felt when he said, “I delight in the law of God after the inward man” (Rom. 7:22). . . . 3. A holy man will strive to be like our Lord Jesus Christ. He will not only live the life of faith in Him, and draw from Him all his daily peace and strength, but he will also labor to have the mind that was in Him, and to be conformed to His image (Rom. 8:29). It will be his aim to bear with and forgive others . . . to be unselfish . . . to walk in love . . . to be lowly-minded and humble. . . . He will lay to heart the saying of John: “He that saith he abideth in [Christ] ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked” (1 John 2:6). . . . 4. A holy man will follow after meekness, longsuffering, gentleness, patience, kind tempers, government of his tongue. He will bear much, forbear much, overlook much, and be slow to talk of standing on his rights. . . . 5. A holy man will follow after temperance and self-denial. He will labour to mortify the desires of his body, to crucify his flesh with his affections and lusts, to curb his passions, to restrain his carnal inclinations, lest at any time they break loose . . . [Ryle then quotes Luke 21:34; 1 Cor. 9:27].

6. A holy man will follow after charity and brotherly kindness. He will endeavour to observe the golden rule of doing as he would have men do to him, and speaking as he would have men speak to him. . . . He will abhor all lying, slandering, backbiting, cheating, dishonesty, and unfair dealing, even in the least things. . . . 7. A holy man will follow after a spirit of mercy and benevolence towards others. . . . Such was Dorcas: “full of good works and almsdeeds, which she did”—not merely purposed and talked about, but did . . . (Acts 9:36). 8. A holy man will follow after purity of heart. He will dread all filthiness and uncleanness of spirit, and seek to avoid all things that might draw him into it. He knows his own heart is like tinder, and will diligently keep clear of the sparks of temptation. . . . 9. A holy man will follow after the fear of God. I do not mean the fear of a slave, who only works because he is afraid of punishment and would be idle if he did not dread discovery. I mean rather ...

more evil in his own heart than ...

in the world. . . . 11. A holy man will follow after faithfulness in all the duties and relations in life. He will try, not merely to fill his place as well as others who take no thought for their souls, but even better, because he has higher motives and more help than they. . . . Holy persons should aim at doing everything well, and should be ashamed of allowing themselves to do anything ill if they can help it. . . . They should strive to be good husbands and good wives, good parents and good children, good masters and good servants, good neighbours, good friends, good subjects, good in private and good in public, good in the place of business and good by their firesides. The Lord Jesus puts a searching question to his people, when he says, “What do ye more than others?” (Matt. 5:47). 12. Last, but not least, a holy man will follow after spiritual-mindedness. He will endeavour to set his affections entirely on things above, and to hold things on earth with a very loose hand. . . . He will aim to live like one whose treasure is in heaven, and to pass through this world like a stra...

I speak of the heart here in the biblical sense, according to which it means, not the body’s blood pump, but the center and focus of one’s inner personal life: the source of motivation, the seat of passion, the spring of all thought processes and particularly of conscience. The assertion that I make, and must myself face, is that holiness begins with the heart. Holiness starts inside a person, with a right purpose that seeks to express itself in a right performance. It is a matter not just of the motions that I go through but also of the motives that prompt me to go through them. A holy person’s motivating aim, passion, desire, longing, aspiration, goal, and drive is to please God, both by what one does and by what one avoids doing. In other words, one practices good works and cuts out evil ones. Good works begin with praise, worship, and honoring and exalting of God as the temper of one’s whole waking life. Evil works start with neglect of these things, and coolness with regard to them. So I must labor to keep my heart actively responsive to God.

So asceticism, as such—voluntary abstinences, routines of self-deprivation and grueling austerity—is not the same thing as holiness, though some forms of asceticism may well find a place in a holy person’s life. Nor is formalism, in the sense of outward conformity in word and deed to the standards God has set, anything like holiness, though assuredly there is no holiness without such conformity. Nor is legalism, in the sense of doing things to earn God’s favor or to earn more of it than one has already, to be regarded as holiness. Holiness is always the saved sinner’s response of gratitude for grace received. The Pharisees of Jesus’ day made all three mistakes, yet were thought to be very holy people until Jesus told them the truth about themselves and the inadequacies of their supposed piety. After that, however, we dare not forget that holiness begins in the heart. Who wants to line up with those Pharisees?

Temperament, we might say, is the raw material out of which character is formed. Character is what we do with our temperament. Personality is the final product, the distinct individuality that results.

• the sanguine (warm, jolly, outgoing, relaxed, optimistic); • the phlegmatic (cool, low-key, detached, unemotional, apathetic); • the choleric (quick, active, bustling, impatient, with a relatively short fuse); and • the melancholic (somber, pessimistic, inward-looking, inclined to cynicism and depression).

Thus, Antony withdrew into the Egyptian desert for twenty years. Simeon Stylites mounted his pillar and lived on top of it for thirty years. There was much of this kind of thing.

“If you can keep your head when all around you are losing theirs and blaming it on you . . . you’ll be a Man, my son!”