"I Want to be More Holy"--A Request for my Advice

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Ed Walsh

Ed Walsh

Puritan Board Senior
Greetings,

I received a request from someone I do not know about holiness. I wrote to him and promised to ask my friends on the PB. Your help would be appreciated. His letter is below.

Thanks,

Ed
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Hi Ed,
I'm trying to learn, or study some teachings on, growing in holiness, which doesn't seem to be the same thing as sanctification (they overlap but aren't identical). I remember RC Sproul once said in a lecture that people often say they want one thing or another but almost never say they want to be more holy. Well, he persuaded me! I want to be more holy.

When I search in my ordinary search engine, Roman Catholic links are all that come up. I want Reformed sources. Many of the Reformed sources--not all, such as RC Sproul--emphasize the passive role of man compared to God's active role in our growing in holiness.

Thus, I'm asking if you would be so kind as to point me to the most respected sources for growing in holiness which 21st Century Reformed thought offers--other than studying through the magisterial reformers themselves on sanctification.

Thank you so much, and Merry Christmas. Thanks be to God for His indescribable Gift.
 
I had an IV put in today...so I am now more holey.

Seriously, I would advice him to measure holiness as being more humble and loving. Many make the mistake of defining holiness as being more strict and rigid and stern.

If he wants to be more holy, don't read more dead guys but go and search for needy neighbors to love.

Our tradition is heavily over-focused on the cognitive and we need to better emphasize acts of charity and service towards others.
 
J.C. Ryle's book on Holiness is important as well. Service to others and getting outside oneself is important as Perg mentioned.
 
I've been going through a study series with middle school students on the attributes of God summarized in the Westminster Shorter Catechism, and we are currently in the attribute of the "holiness" of God. After exploring the theological meanings behind holiness, particularly in regards to God himself and his people, we have been using the Westminster Confession of Faith to provide a "practical" application of "how to be holy" by looking closely at the Means of Grace as means that God has given to build us up in these ways. We've looked at prayer, the Word, and now are starting to dissect how baptism and the Lord's Supper fulfill what the Westminster Larger Catechism summarizes as the benefits and purposes of the sacraments in Question 162. It has been immensely profitable, both for the children and for me. I think sometimes it's easy to go one way or the other -- talk about holiness in broad, abstract terms without practical application or talk about holiness in legalistic terms of works without inner reform. But, a study in the means of grace has been extremely helpful in seeing how God calls us to be holy, and how living out holy lives can be made possible through Christ's work and the work of the Spirit, and these are practical things that he has provided to help us exercise our minds and bodies in holiness. For example, I've heard it expressed in a more pithy manner that prayer is less about us telling/asking/informing God stuff (because of course he is all-knowing), and more about aligning ourselves to God, that through prayer we are brought closer to wanting and having the will and mind of God rather than our own -- "Thy will be done."

I almost teared up today when one of the students (his immediate family does not attend the church, but rather his grandparents are able to take him to church sometimes and has been able to attend more frequently lately) was baptized and came into membership of the church upon profession of his faith. I had begun to really see him light up in the discussions we have been having on God's attributes, and was recently struck by how he expressed he loved the way in which the sacraments were a way to not just talk about what we believe, but to participate in and see what we believe-- "It's like it's not me just saying something that's hard to understand, but it's like it's right in front of me and I can touch it and see it and understand it in a different way." From the mouth of babes.

So that would just be a personal anecdote of something tangible: The Means of Grace are a great place to start. I really like how the Westminster Confession and Catechisms summarize these things which are a great jumping off point (especially with citing scripture proofs), but I'm sure others can mention many more resources that touch on these aspects.
 
Books that have been of a great help to me are:
Walter Marshall - "The Gospel Mystery of Sanctification"
Henry Scougal - "The Life of God in the Soul of Man"
Lewis Bayly - "The Practice of Piety"
Wilhelmus Á Brakel on the Commandments, Christian Graces, and Ethics
J. C. Ryle - "Holiness"
John Owen - "Mortification of Sin"
Jeremiah Burroughs "Evil of Evils" and "Moses Self Denial"
Thomas Shephard "The Parable of the Ten Virgins"
Thomas Watson - "The Doctrine of Repentance, " "The Great Gain of Godliness, " and "Body of Divinity"
 
If he sees sanctification and holiness as two different things, he may be grasping at something intangible--sanctification seems to be the process of becoming holy. I wonder how he separates them? It may be useful to find out, in case he's looking for a shortcut around the everyday, one-step-forward-two-steps-back of the Christian's mortification of sin; if he wants something somehow deeper ( I hear this from time to time) than to meditate on God's law day and night; than to keep his heart with all diligence; than to hide God's word in his heart in order not to sin.
If he's despairing when he looks inside himself and sees nothing but corruption, he needs not try to be holier--he needs to look to Christ. There is the cure for all his inadequacies, for all his shortfalls, for all his moral failures. And I believe that the more he looks to Christ, the more of His image he will reflect.
 
Ask Mr. Religion said:
Very popular book for the layman:
https://www.amazon.com/Pursuit-Holiness-Jerry-Bridges/dp/1631466399


“Do you mortify; do you make it your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.”

Attached is a modernized version of Owen on the mortification of sin.
Click to expand...

I second both of these recommendations. My mom gave be The Pursuit of Holiness when I was first saved. It was easy to read and convicting.
 
@Ed Walsh

Just looking this one over and was ready to respond in the way that Ben Z. did. The Greek word that we translate as "sanctify" and "sanctification" simply means "to make holy."

Ed, your friend's claim that the two (growing in holiness and sanctification) are not synonymous is likely not purely innocuous or accidental. He seems to think that holiness is something other than the quotidian dying to sin and living to righteousness that we regularly experience, involving much failure and needing continual repentance on our part.

We are far more sinful than we've ever dared to admit and the process of being made holy in sanctification (as opposed to the act of being declared righteous in justification) is the labor of a lifetime and there is nothing more arduous, painful, and rewarding than this precious incomparable work of the Holy Spirit.

We often mistake what this looks like. Being sanctified (or growing in holiness) does not make us less human but more truly human, as we are restored more and more in the image of God. Sin is truly alien to us--manifested by its utter absence in glorification, when we become our truest selves.

In other words, sanctification does not render us all alike in some plastic sainthood but magnifies the diversity within unity, one body with many members. The holiest people that I've ever known did not think that they were and certainly didn't affect a supercilious pietism.

Rather they were painfully aware of the greatness of their sin and of the even greater grace of God. They did not make you feel uncomfortable (or "guilty") in their presence (as I've sometimes heard it alleged of those thought to be especially holy people): rather, they made you feel extraordinarily loved and accepted, even as we feel when we come "just as we are" to the Savior.

There's no holiness shot, Ed, for your friend. Nor are there any shortcuts. If one is saying "I need to get serious about the business of sanctification"--Amen! But that's a slow process. You're far worse off than you think. It'll take far longer and be far harder than you think. It'll take your whole life. But there's nothing richer, better, more rewarding, or, ultimately, more joyful (Hebrews 12:3-11).

Peace,
Alan
 
Alan D. Strange said:
There's no holiness shot, Ed, for your friend. Nor are there any shortcuts. If one is saying "I need to get serious about the business of sanctification"--Amen! But that's a slow process. You're far worse off than you think. It'll take far longer and be far harder than you think. It'll take your whole life. But there's nothing richer, better, more rewarding, or, ultimately, more joyful (Hebrews 12:3-11).
Click to expand...

I loved your whole post, so there's no special significance to this last part except I identify with the "far longer and be far harder than you think." In 45 years I have begun to learn that, as you say, I am far far worse than I ever knew, yet I am far more content in my Savior than I had ever hoped. He is so big—so beutiful beyond our ability to know; so clean and good that I now long for the Day when my sin falls away and my mind enlarged, and my body strengthened so that I can know Him more fully. My hope it that through all eternity I will be granted the privilege of knowing His hinder parts and maybe even a bit more. But I know that the fountain of His majisty, no matter how freely He gives to us what Pail called "all things," (Rom. 8:32) is eternally inexhaustible. What a God! What a Savior! Who saved someone like me whose service to Him can bearly be likened to a small child helping his father mow the lawn with a plastic toy lawnmower. He is and shall forever remain "exalted above all blessing and praise." (Nehemiah 9:5)

I thank God also for you Alan
 
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Back in the '80s, when first I came to know the Lord, I read a book called 'A Serious Call To A Devout And Holy Life,' by William Law ( 1729). This book, basically promoting a works/righteousness doctrine, greatly impressed John Wesely, as it did me, though it made me wonder if I could even consider myself a Christian. It sent me into a state of despair.

All these years later I'm reading Martin Luther's Commentary/Lectures on Galatians. Had it been God's will I would have read that years ago, instead of William Law's book. I'm not the sharpest tack in the box, and I know now that all these years I've been seeing the Gospel through the Arminian influence I grew up in the faith with.

As if the imputed righteousness of Christ were not enough, but needed my efforts in addition, or I wasn't really a Christian at all. After all these years I've only just understood imputed righteousness in the past few months, and what a blessing it has been. Luther delineates between a 'passive righteousness,' that which is the imputed righteousness of Christ, in which we have nothing to contribute, and 'active righteousness,' which is on the temporal plane, and concerns our interaction with the Law.

Of course we will never in this life achieve perfect adherence to the Law by our active righteousness. At the same time, the passive righteousness, which is of Christ, not of our efforts, is the Good News. I see that now, so possibly if your friend reads Luther's Galatians lectures he would see it too. I've finally come to fully understand and accept Romans 5:1, and 8:1. Hope this helps your friend.
 
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