“Life Can Be Holy”
The Scriptures tell us “As obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance; But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy: for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:14-16). But can life be holy? From a practical standpoint, “How can I lead a holy Life? Is it truly within my grasp to live a holy life here on earth?
Well, the answer to that question is an emphatic “Yes!” The Apostle Paul shares the secret with us in Romans 7:25-8:5:
25. Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin. 8:1. Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. 2. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death. 3. For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4. so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.”
Paul outlines four truths that if recognized and followed can assure the living of a holy life. The first truth is TO RECOGNIZE YOUR OWN IMPOTENCE. Andrew Murray was once quoted as saying, “It is the man who is conscious of his own impotence as a believer who will learn that by the Holy Spirit he can lead a holy life.” Usually through much struggle, disappointment and loss, a Christian reaches that conclusion. The truth is a Christian has no power within and of himself alone to live a godly life. A Christian’s sincerest and hardest fought efforts only caused him to fall short, to feel dejected, defeated and to even doubt his faith in Christ. But there is rich joy in store when one realizes the simple truth of Psalm 62:11: “Power belongeth to God.” As Christians, we are powerless to live a holy life unless we appropriate God’s power by faith through Jesus Christ our Lord. Paul has reached this conclusion in Romans 7:25a when he said, “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! Similar to how we have to admit we are sinners and repent to obtain salvation in Christ, we have to admit we are powerless and repent of self-effort to find power in Christ.
Only by recognizing we are powerless to live a holy life can we put ourselves in a position to know what it means to experience heaven here and now. This, of course, leads to the second truth for living a holy life, which is TO REALIZE OUR RESPONSIBILITY TO CHOOSE. What does Paul mean in verse 25b when he says, “So then, on the one hand I myself with my mind am serving the law of God, but on the other, with my flesh the law of sin”? Paul understands, that as a Christian, he is still tempted by the law of sin and death. The law of sin and death is still present in us and can be yielded to at anytime we choose to feed the flesh (the old nature) rather than the Spirit (the new nature). So, although we have victory over the grave and the sting of death is removed in Christ, God will not violate our free will. Therefore, every desire on my part or yours to do right is met by an equal urge to do wrong. And since God will not violate our free will, we must choose which dog waging war within us that we are going to feed – the flesh or the spirit. That is why Jesus said in the High Priestly prayer, “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world but that thou shouldest keep them from evil.” (John 17:15). Thus, temptation is still present in us. However, as Christians, our view of temptation must change.
Temptation becomes a necessary part of the process of learning how to refuse evil and choose good. Have you ever thought of temptation that way? God doesn’t tempt man. James 1:13 makes that clear: “Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man.” So, God doesn’t tempt man but he does allow man freedom to choose. James goes on to tell us, “But every man is tempted, when he [not God] is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.” (James 1:14). So man is responsible when he yields to temptation but God in His love and mercy toward us can cause (Romans 8:28) temptation to play a meaningful role in our maturing process.
The Lord doesn’t want us to serve Him like puppets on a string. He wants us to love Him and by faith appropriate His life moment by moment. Therefore, our obedience to His Word becomes the food that feeds our new life in Him. The Scripture tells us, “For ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God.” (Colossians 3:3) So go ahead and bring out by faith the heaven that is hid in your life! “Therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creature; old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (2 Cor. 5:17) If we are crucified with Christ, we died with Christ. But with this death, Paul proclaims in Galatians 2:20, “…nevertheless I live; yet, not I, but Christ liveth in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
Living by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me, is a lifelong process and an endurance race. Paul tells us, “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving (Colossians 2:6-7).” This abounding with thanksgiving is a good segue to the third truth for living a holy life, which is: TO ACCEPT YOU ARE NO LONGER REJECTED OR CONDEMNED. This speaks of our position in Christ. Romans 8:1 says, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” If you are in Christ all condemnation and all rejection from God – past, present and future – has been removed from your life. You may falter – you may fall in your daily walk but all condemnation and all rejection has been removed because you are in Christ.
Paul tells us why in verse 2: “For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.” PTL, you are already (past tense) set free from the law of sin and death by the sweet Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. As the Apostle John records, “If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.” (John 8:36) Yet, many Christians live under a cloud of doom and gloom today. They have bought into the enemy’s lie that they are not worthy and that God has rejected them for their failed attempts. That is why we must have the mind in us that is in Christ Jesus. The enemy is out to kill, steal and destroy not only God’s character but also our position in Christ. Thus, we must reject and condemn the enemy’s lies and stand on the unchanging truths and promises of God’s Holy Word.
We have been set free from the jail cell called “the law of sin and death.” Jesus Christ, the holder of the “keys” unlocked the door that kept us in bondage. But we must decide to remain or leave the cell to a new life of freedom -- the power of choosing, remember, remains with us. Granted, it may not be as easy as the first step of salvation but The Good Shepherd will go before us to pave the way and be there to shape and mold us on our journey to Christian maturity. Sadly, some Christians stay confined in the cell because they cannot accept their own personal door has been unlocked. Instead of acting upon faith in God’s word, they rest upon their own emotions or feelings. They feel rejected or condemned when they falter or stumble. They don’t see a loving Father encouraging them to pick themselves up through repentance and keep walking. They live in fear of rejection and the thought of never quite measuring up to God’s standards.
Knowing I am not rejected or condemned but loved in the Beloved gives me the motive to keep going when the going gets tough. My motive for obeying God comes from knowing I am accepted. I don’t have to work to be accepted anymore and that is very liberating. I know no matter what happens, God’s love for me is unceasing and unchanging. It gives me the consistency I need in my life and frees me from the emotional roller coaster some Christians find themselves on. God’s love for us may be grieved but never does it reject or condemn us if we are in Christ. That is the position by grace through faith in Christ we hold – nothing could be more secure.
Now, when we deliberately decide to sin and like it, then God will discipline us. When we deliberately give ourselves back into sin once we have been set free from it, then, as a loving disciplinarian, God will sometimes correct us, and chastise us, and even scourge us, until we begin to see what has happened. But God does this out of love, just as an earthly father would. We must understand that true love never excludes discipline and true discipline never excludes love (Hebrews 12). But that is a different condition than the one we are facing here. In this passage, Paul is addressing the times when we want to do good, and we are trying to do good. But we are weak, and in a moment of temptation, we fail – and we fail again and again. But there is no condemnation to those that are in Christ Jesus. Even when we are being disciplined as disobedient sons, we still are not condemned. That remains true no matter what happens.
This leads to the final truth for living a holy life, which is: TO WALK IN THE SPIRIT. Romans 8:3-5 says, “For what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did: sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh, 4. so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. 5. For those who are according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.” The Law working through our sinful flesh has no power. It gives us the knowledge of right and wrong and even the desire to live godly but it lacks the power to help us. So God did for us what the Law could not do by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin. The Bible says, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:32) Bible teacher, Warren Wiersbe points out in verse 3 that God sent His own Son not just in the likeness of flesh but “in the likeness of sinful flesh.” Wiersbe says, “Jesus had a real body, a body like yours and mine. Since sin has been done in the body, it has to be judged and broken in the body. Therefore, Jesus had a body. It was like our sinful bodies, in that it was subject to infirmities (Jesus was weak and tired and hungry and weary), but there was no sin in Him.”
As an offering for sin Jesus condemned sin in the flesh. Paul alludes to this in 2 Corinthians 4:16: “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward is renewed day by day.” One day these bodies are to be redeemed – “raise a spiritual body” (1 Corinthians 15:44). Until then, we are delivered and empowered to live a holy life by walking in the Spirit. Romans 6:6 assures us that sin’s power over us has been superceded and rendered powerless by a greater power: “For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be rendered powerless, that we should no longer be slaves to sin.”
Christ fulfilled the Law so that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us, who walk according to the Spirit. Therefore, we must choose to live according to the Spirit by setting our minds on the things of Christ, believing what He says and acting accordingly. I close with a beautiful illustration from Bible teacher Rey Stedman that depicts the greater power Paul is describing in these verses:
Dr. Stedman once said he suffered from a visual condition called myopia which was completely corrected with glasses. He called the myopia, the law of myopia and the glasses, which solved the condition, the law of lens correction. He said that now the law of lens correction operates to cancel out the law of myopia – so that He can see with better than normal vision. All he had to do was to be sure that the lenses were being worn. He said, as he put them on each day he didn’t have to think about the law of myopia anymore. The law of lens correction was continually operating to correct his sight, and the law of lens correction set him free from the law of myopia. So too, the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus sets us free from the law of sin and death!
The question is whether you will put on “the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus?” It has the power to cancel out and render powerless all other laws. We can live a holy life because of what God does through us. The Scripture tells us “…we have this treasure in earthen vessels that the excellency of the power may be of God and not of us” (2 Corinthians 4:7). But we have a treasure within that, even in the midst of infirmities, is able to manifest itself. This is way the Apostle could say, “I glory in my infirmities, because when I am weak, then I know that the power of Christ rests upon me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10).
May your prayer and mine be that our lives, as Christians, are holy and pleasing to God. Remember, walk so close to God that nothing can come between. Jesus paid it all, all to Him we owe,
Give Him the Glory!
