Honorable Manhood and Holy Culture
Taigen Joos
There is no godliness without holiness. And yet the Bible says that there is no one who is holy, except one. God is holy. He is majestically holy, completely separate from and far above His creation, sitting upon the throne of the universe as its Creator and Sovereign Majesty. God is also morally holy, completely separate from anything that is sinful, immoral, and against His character.
No human being is, nor can be majestically holy. However, the Bible provides a means of moral holiness before God. While ho human is morally holy on his own, when he receives Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, he is pronounced to be a saint, or a holy one, before God. Our position as believers is that of holiness through the merits and authority of Jesus Christ alone. We stand before God, accepted in Christ, as holy, pure, and righteous. What wondrous grace this is!
But our position before God does not match the reality of everyday living. So 1 Peter 1:15 commands us to be holy, like God is holy, in all manner of our conduct. Our conduct is our manner of living, our way of life, our lifestyle, or our culture. As Christians who are already positionally holy before God, completely and forever accepted by God as sons, we are commanded to be holy in a moral sense. Our lifestyle as Christians must be holy.
The culture of the Christian must be distinct from the culture of the non-Christian. Our way of living, our lifestyle patterns, habits, thought processes, pleasures, aspirations, etc. must grow in holiness. Theologically, we call this progressive sanctification. It is the process whereby a Christian continues to be conformed to the image of Jesus Christ.
For the Christian man, the more he grows in holiness, the more sinful he realizes himself to be, and the more distrustful of self he becomes. He recognizes that in his flesh there dwells nothing that is good. He realizes that his own perceptions of life and reality cannot be trusted. He understands more and more of what it means to be a pilgrim through this transient journey of earthly life. He longs more and more for the Celestial City and its King, and disdains more and more the City of Destruction and its empty allurements.
There is no area of a man’s life that should not be under the guiding principle of holiness, and yet men are well known for refusing to allow this truth and command to influence that which is close to their own hearts. Men, there is no godliness without holiness. Your TV habits must be holy; your internet viewing must be holy; your relationships must be holy, your language must be holy; your work ethic and relationships must be holy; your entertainment choices must be holy; your family life must be holy. Nothing is out of the bounds of the necessity of being holy as God is holy.
Your culture, as a Christian man, must be characterized by holiness in order to live honorably before God.
Taigen Joos is the pastor of Heritage Baptist Church in Dover, NH. He blogs at A Beggar’s Bread, where this article first appeared. It is republished here by permission.