Transforming Holiness

Every now and then, life presents us with a fresh perspective, and the familiar is forever altered. This happened to me a few years ago, watching a trailer for Season 1 of The Chosen. A leper came up to Jesus on the road and begged to be healed. Jesus touched him, and he was made whole.

It’s not that I had never heard the story before. I have grown up in Sunday School; the story was familiar. But as I watched this moment unfold, a new thought struck me: Jesus never should have touched that man. According to the Levitical code, by touching human uncleanness, Jesus himself would have been made unclean (Lev. 5:3). Jesus never should have touched that man, but he did. And when he did, it wasn’t Jesus who was corrupted; it was the leper who was cleansed.

Since that moment, I’ve been unable to look at holiness the same way. My view of holiness had always been something akin to a bride trying to hike to her wedding across a muddy field without destroying her wedding dress. Holiness was precious and delicate; with the slightest misstep, it would be destroyed. When I saw Jesus touching that leper, I realized I was wrong. Holiness, real divine holiness, is not delicate; it is transformational.

My view of holiness had been far too human, but holiness is inherently inhuman. I’ve found this definition from the Evangelical Dictionary of Biblical Theology helpful: “One does not define God. Similarly, the idea of holiness is at once understandable and elusive . . . Holiness is what God is. Holiness also comprises his plan for his people.”

While holiness is God’s plan for his people, it is not essentially about people; it is about God. ‘Holy’ is a term that sums up God’s unique excellencies and infinite perfections. So, when we think about holiness, our first thought should not be about avoiding sin; it should be about God’s overwhelming “God-ness.”

When people interact with God in his fullness, God is not degraded; rather, people are overwhelmed. When the author of Hebrews talks about God’s holiness, he describes it as a burning fire, a darkness, a gloom, a storm, and a trumpet blast that puts the nation of Israel into a state of trembling fear (Heb. 12:18–21). When he shows up to Abram, he is fire (Gen. 15:17), when he leads Israel out of Egypt, he is an untouchable column of fire (Ex. 13:22), and when he meets with Elijah, the world itself seems about to fall apart (1 Kings 19:11–12).

A holy God is not easily made unrighteous; he consumes unrighteousness.

If this is what holiness is (and how are we to understand holiness apart from God’s nature?), then our understanding of holiness needs to shift. Holiness is not something we desecrate as much as it is something that consecrates us. At least, that’s what happens when we enter God’s holy presence with humility.

The leper of Matthew 8 is a great example of this. He comes before the incarnate God, kneels, and doesn’t even ask to be healed. Rather, he assumes Jesus’s holiness when he says, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean” (Matt. 8:2), then simply trusts his fate to a holy God. Similarly, Isaiah pleads for mercy when he is ushered into God’s holy presence, and God responds by cleansing and consecrating him for ministry (Isa. 6:1–6). Moses, when he comes down from Sinai after meeting with God, is radiantly reflecting God’s holiness to such an extent that he has to wear a veil as he steps into the next phase of his ministry (Ex. 34:29–35). Even Naaman, an enemy of God’s people, is made clean when he gets over his pride and responds to the words of God’s prophet with humility (2 Kings 5).

Holiness changes us, and through changed people, holiness changes the world. The leper became a walking testimony to the power and identity of Jesus (Mark 1:40–44; Luke 5:12–14). Isaiah began a ministry that told us—perhaps more clearly than any other prophet—who Jesus would be and what he would do. Moses led a family of slaves through the wilderness to become a kingdom of priests. Naaman became an ambassador of God’s glory in his homeland.

When we humble ourselves before a holy God, we become conduits of his transforming holiness, and the world is changed through his power and our humility. But not all humans choose to humble themselves before holy God. For every Naaman, there is a Gehazi, the wicked servant who sought to profit from God’s holiness and instead became a leper himself (2 Kings 5). For every Moses, there is a Korah, whose pride demanded the gifting and station of Moses (Num. 16). Rather than being consecrated with the people of Israel, he was consumed by the Holy God. For every leper, there is a Herod, who, rather than bowing before God, made himself out to be a god and, like Korah before him, was destroyed (Acts 12:20–23).

When we open the pages of our Bibles, we are confronted with a holy God. The question for us when we see him is: now what? Will we bow before him in humility, or seek to seize his glory in pride? In the days of the ancients, only a select few had this direct invitation into God’s holiness, but Jesus has changed all that. When he parted the veil before the Holy of Holies with his death and the cross, he invited us all into God’s holy presence so that “we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:18). If we are in Christ, the holiness of God now walks with us, because the Spirit dwells in us.

If you have seen God’s holy glory, it’s an invitation to humble yourself before him. When we do, he changes us, but the change does not stop there. It is not some delicate construct of human effort. It is the transformational consequence of the holy presence of God living in his people.

While God certainly calls believers to separate from sin, the pursuit of purity is only part of what we need to understand about holiness. The same God who cleansed the leper lives in believers. His holiness took on flesh to restore people to a right relationship with God and with one another. Our fear of impurity often separates us from the proper outcome of holiness showing up on earth, which is restoration. We shrink back from doing good, loving difficult people, or embracing our neighbors the way Jesus embraced prostitutes, insurrectionists, beggars, and tax collectors, because we are worried that we might dirty ourselves and compromise our holy calling.

God’s holiness is not weak; it is consuming. It is transforming. If we are holy as he is holy, we will do more than separate ourselves from sin; we will become conduits for his transforming holiness.