When Do I Become Holy?
"God makes us holy through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and we surrender before Him."
My previous understanding was that at some point after I was saved, I would be ready for a “second work of grace,” and at the prompting of the Holy Spirit I would be sanctified, and experience more crisis than process. Only then would I be holy. While this may be the experience of some, the HOD warns, “We should be cautious about requiring a ‘second work of grace’…The sanctifying grace of God is not limited to human timetables.” While I do not doubt that all of us can experience a second work of grace (and a third and a fourth, for that matter), our doctrine teaches that holiness begins when we are regenerated by the Holy Spirit.
The Salvation Army’s 7th doctrine affirms that regeneration by the Holy Spirit is necessary for salvation. Regeneration is being born again, a principle from Jesus’ evening conversation with Nicodemus in John 3:7: “You must be born again.” And from Paul’s teaching: “Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). The Handbook teaches, “Regeneration is God’s work in us, the gift of the indwelling Spirit, and the beginning of a life of holiness. Regeneration is the first step in a life of holiness in Christ.”
Holiness is both crisis and process. One crisis happens when we repent for our sins, accept the grace of God, are justified by that grace, put our faith in Christ, and experience regeneration through the Holy Spirit. Having been made holy through regeneration, we enter the very presence of God. “He has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault” (Colossians 1:22). God makes us holy through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and we surrender before Him.
The process of holiness continues for the remainder of our earthly lives, as the Holy Spirit causes us to become more and more like Christ. From Philippians 1:6: “God, who began the good work within you [justification and regeneration], will continue his work [sanctification, the process of growing in Christlikeness], until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns [glorification].” This is all of God and not of ourselves. My previous understanding of becoming holy was imperfect.
This is an excerpt from “Imperfect Holiness: What It Means to Grow in Christlikeness” featured in the October 2024 issue of The War Cry.
