If we may distill God’s will for his folks right into a easy prayer, we could do no higher than an often-repeated plea from Robert Murray M’Cheyne: “Lord, make me as holy as a pardoned sinner may be made” (Memoir and Stays of Robert Murray M’Cheyne, 159).
How usually does such a prayer discover its place upon your lips? How deeply does such a need form your hopes and plans? If the longings of your coronary heart may converse, would any of them cry out, “Make me as holy as I may be”?
God’s need for our holiness burns by the Scriptures like a purifying hearth. Paul would have us suppose so: “That is the need of God, your sanctification” (1 Thessalonians 4:3). Peter would have us suppose so: “As he who referred to as you is holy, you even be holy in all of your conduct” (1 Peter 1:15–16). Hebrews would have us suppose so: “Attempt for peace with everybody, and for the holiness with out which nobody will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).
And in 100 different methods, God would have us suppose so. Our holiness delights him (Psalm 40:6–8), pleases him (1 Thessalonians 4:1), rises earlier than him like a aromatic providing (Philippians 4:18), elicits his approval and reward (Romans 2:29; 12:1). If you wish to please a holy God, be as holy as you may be.
Holiness and Its Hoaxes
Earlier than we take into account why holiness makes God glad, ponder for a second what we even imply by holiness. Like many acquainted Bible phrases, holiness can get misplaced in a haze of abstraction. And over time, if we’re not cautious, we could come to affiliate the phrase with pictures or concepts at odds with the true factor.
Some, for instance, could hear holiness and (maybe subconsciously) suppose bland or boring. Holiness belongs in a museum or vintage store, hushed and stuffy. True holiness, nonetheless, is aware of nothing of blandness and can’t abide boredom. Scripture speaks of “the splendor of holiness,” of holiness as “glory and wonder” (1 Chronicles 16:29; Exodus 28:2). As Sinclair Ferguson writes, holy folks shine with one thing of God’s personal brilliance:
“To sanctify” implies that God repossesses individuals and issues which were dedicated to different makes use of, and have been possessed for functions apart from his glory, and takes them into his personal possession so that they could mirror his personal glory. (The Holy Spirit, 140)
True holiness is breathtakingly stunning. It participates in God’s personal glory — a glory bursting with life and majesty.
Others could hear holiness and suppose primarily of non secular ritual: meals legal guidelines and temple sacrifices, maybe, or a devotion to churchly routines. However such was the error of many Pharisees — these punctual, exact, “worshiping” bundles of corruption (Matthew 23:25–28). True holiness pierces to the deepest components of an individual; it touches and transforms “spirit and soul and physique” (1 Thessalonians 5:23). Holiness is a hand that plucks the center’s hidden strings, filling all of life with heavenly melody. It’s not smoke arising from the altar, however religion and love arising from the soul (Psalm 40:6–8).
Then, lastly, some could hear holiness and marvel what relevance it holds to day by day life. Possibly holiness looks as if a cloud: miles above the bottom and not possible to understand. However true holiness has the whole lot to do with on a regular basis life. When Jesus and his apostles name us to holiness, they deal with our pondering and talking, our consuming and ingesting, our spending and saving, our working and resting. Even on probably the most unusual day, there by no means comes a second when “be holy” doesn’t imply one thing sensible. Holiness embraces and dignifies our day by day doings.
And such holiness — stunning, deep, broad — makes God glad.
God’s Complicated Pleasure
Relying in your character and theological background, the considered our holiness pleasing God could elevate some questions. Some, particularly lovers of the doctrine of justification, could marvel, Doesn’t God already enjoyment of me? And others, particularly the delicate and scrupulous, could ask, How may God ever enjoyment of me?
Doesn’t God already enjoyment of me?
For some, the concept our holiness delights God appears to undermine (or at the least sit in stress with) justification by religion alone. Doesn’t God’s delight relaxation on Christ’s excellent holiness now reckoned to me by religion? Doesn’t he name me “holy and beloved” earlier than I obey (Colossians 3:12) and even after I sin (1 Corinthians 6:11)?
These questions press us towards a useful distinction. At one degree, God has an unshakeable enjoyment of his folks as a result of we’re united to “his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13), our holy Savior who stays the identical yesterday, at the moment, and eternally (Hebrews 13:8). We’re in Christ — wrapped in his righteousness, sanctified by his purity — and subsequently totally accepted in God’s sight. And but, above this basis of God’s unchanging favor, we actually can please him kind of, relying on how we reside. We will grieve the Spirit or gladden him (Ephesians 4:30); we are able to delight God Almighty or displease him (Ephesians 5:9–10).
The picture of fatherly self-discipline in Hebrews 12 brings these two sorts of delight collectively. All self-discipline implies some extent of displeasure or disapproval. On the similar time, all good self-discipline springs from deep love. “The Lord disciplines the one he loves” (Hebrews 12:6). Beneath the displeasure of God’s self-discipline is his deep and unchanging fatherly affection.
As a result of he loves us, he responds to our displeasing sins with self-discipline — and by self-discipline, he makes us extra pleasing. He provides us the safety of his eternal approval in Christ — and amazingly, he additionally provides us the dignity of changing into the type of people that will hear his “effectively executed.”
How may God ever enjoyment of me?
Others ask a distinct query about God’s delight. They perceive why holiness pleases God, and they might like to know themselves pleasing earlier than him. However they’ll’t appear to think about their holiness — their small, stumbling holiness — ever being pure sufficient to please him. Possibly in heaven they’ll delight God, however how may they achieve this now?
I really feel the power of the query. Our sins are nonetheless many, our current imperfections run deep, and blended motives taint even our greatest deeds. This aspect of heaven, God can all the time disapprove of one thing inside us. So it will probably really feel safer to easily take refuge within the righteousness of Christ and wait until we’re excellent to consider ourselves pleasing. However that might be a terrific mistake.
“God is pleased with our holiness as a result of the center of true holiness is happiness in God.”
If we, although trusting in Jesus and looking for to comply with him, doubt that God may enjoyment of our holiness, we have to reckon with how usually God makes use of the language of pleasure to explain his posture towards his partly sanctified folks. He says concord pleases him (Romans 14:18), sharing with others pleases him (Hebrews 13:16), praying for kings pleases him (1 Timothy 2:3–4), a baby’s obedience pleases him (Colossians 3:20), even that we may be “totally pleasing” to him (Colossians 1:10). And in every of those examples (and lots of extra), he’s not mendacity. The holy, holy, holy God is astoundingly, splendidly pleasable.
Roots of His Approval
If we ask why such imperfect holiness pleases God, we’d give a number of solutions. We would keep in mind that our current holiness is nothing lower than the rising character of Christ in us (2 Corinthians 3:18), his picture rescued and renewed (Romans 8:29) — and God loves the glory of his Son. We would additionally keep in mind that our holiness is the fruit of the Holy Spirit (Galatians 5:22–23) — and simply as to start with, God regards the artistic work of his Spirit as “good,” certainly “superb” (Genesis 1:31).
Or we’d keep in mind, as Richard Sibbes writes, that God is ready to take an extended view of our holiness, seeing at the moment’s small step as a part of a a lot larger and extra stunning image:
Christ values us by what we will be, and by what we’re elected unto. We name somewhat plant a tree, as a result of it’s rising as much as be so. “Who has despised the day of small issues?” (Zechariah 4:10). Christ wouldn’t have us despise little issues. (The Bruised Reed, 17)
In the present day’s edifying speech, purity of thought, self-denying service, prayerful craving towards heaven — these are acorns changing into oaks, buds about to bloom, mustard seeds destined to outgrow and outlast the thorns and thistles of our sin. And they also please him.
But we are able to dig nonetheless deeper.
Happiness on the Coronary heart
At backside, we’d say that God is pleased with our holiness as a result of the center of true holiness is happiness in God. God made the world so that individuals like us would discover our best pleasure in him and so glorify him because the Biggest Pleasure on the earth— the treasure within the subject, the pearl of infinite value, the fairest amongst ten thousand (and way more). And if we may peel again the layers of a very holy life, we might discover a coronary heart that pulses with such pleasure in God.
Folks rising in holiness have felt, with Paul, one thing of “the surpassing price of realizing Christ Jesus my Lord,” a price that makes us extra able to undergo than to sin (Philippians 3:8–10). With Jeremiah, now we have left sin’s damaged cisterns, drunk deeply from the fountain, and now refuse to depart (Jeremiah 2:13–14). With John, now we have taken up the commandments of God and mentioned, with a cry of pleasure, “Not burdensome!” (1 John 5:3). And with David, now we have tasted and seen that God is sweet (Psalm 34:8) — his presence the peak of pleasure, his proper hand the province of pleasures forevermore (Psalm 16:11).
Such holiness is stunning, a flicker of the love between Father and Son, the aroma of heaven’s ambiance. Such holiness is coronary heart deep, filling our innermost components with rivers of dwelling water. Such holiness is broad, spreading over life as comprehensively because the waters cowl the ocean. And such holiness makes God glad.
So, if we need to distill God’s will for his folks right into a easy prayer, we could do no higher than M’Cheyne’s hanging line: “Lord, make me as holy as a pardoned sinner may be made.” And as we pray, we’ll know what we imply deep down: “Lord, make me as glad in you as a pardoned sinner may be made.”
