The regenerate man is disposed to work for God; the man that has the Spirit of God is capable of working. He that has the grace of Christ and strength from Him can work well. He that believes in Christ works in a right way. He that loves Christ freely, and from a right principle, and he that has Christ’s glory in view works to the right end. – John Gill
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TRUE HOLINESS
What is true holiness? If by “holiness” one means moral perfection or sinless perfection, then we, even as sinners saved by grace, must admit we do not have it. Would any of us boast of perfection in our best efforts to believe, to love Christ and our neighbors, or even to obey His Word? If God the Holy Spirit has brought us to see ourselves as we are, we would never boast in any of these things. How, then, can we be called “holy brethren” (Heb. 3:1), and how can we have any assurance of salvation and acceptance before Holy God? IT IS IN THAT WE HAVE CHRIST OUR SAVIOR, OUR SURETY, WHO IS OUR TRUE HOLINESS OF PERFECTION AND RIGHTEOUSNESS BEFORE GOD. We are “accepted in the Beloved” (Eph. 1:6).
If by “holiness” one means “being set apart” by God’s electing, redeeming, and regenerating grace through the Lord Jesus Christ, then we who are saved by grace can say confidently that we are holy. But “being set apart” has nothing to do with any goodness or power within ourselves. It is all by the sovereign power and grace of Almighty God. God the Father Who is the Source and Originator of our holiness. God the Son incarnate by His obedience unto death as our Substitute and Surety is the Author and ground of our holiness. God the Holy Spirit is the one who applies and communicates holiness in our new birth as He sets us apart in regeneration and conversion (2 Thess. 2:13-17). When the apostle tells us to “put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness” (Eph. 4:24), we need to realize that this “new man” describes our standing in Jesus Christ as not condemned under law, and as righteous and holy in God’s sight through Jesus Christ our Lord.
-- Pastor Bill Parker
THE SINLESS SAVIOR
“Who did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth” (1 Peter 2:22). Here is a glorious Personage set before us as sinless – a sinless Savior, “In whose mouth there was no guile.” How can we sufficiently admire such a character – God and Man, one precious Christ, the Savior of sinners, and His humanity as perfect as His Godhead? I cannot use language too strong here, because, if we were to admit for one moment the possibility of so much as an impure thought, an impure motive, an impure design, or an impure desire in the heart of Christ’s humanity, it would neutralize and destroy the whole of His work, and tarnish the entire glory of His Person. But our souls rejoice in the fact, that, being of superhuman conception and birth – “that holy thing,” (Luke 1:35) – the body that God the Father had prepared for Him, being of the Holy Ghost – there was no sin in Him, and no propensity to sin, and no possibility of a propensity to sin. His humanity is as perfect, as sinless, as incapable of pollution, as His Godhead. And this is of vast importance in our understanding of the glorious Person of Christ. It is indeed true that His Person was concealed, and, for the more part, hidden away amongst the rubbish of the fall, until He was thirty years of age, when He entered upon His public ministry, save and except His appearance in the temple, just to manifest His glory, when He was twelve years old, after which he went to Nazareth, and was subject unto His parents. But can you for a moment suppose there was anything in that thirty years of His life which was contrary to the last
three years? Verily not! Because, though employed in a secular employment, and subject to His parents all these years, His sinless, holy, impeccable humanity, could obey the law to the fullest extent, could endure all that was pronounced in the curse of the law against sinners without deserving it, as a Surety and a Substitute on behalf of His church.
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