Man’s holiness: much ado about nothing. If you would have a good opinion of your heart, keep the Holy Ghost out of it. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)
“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
It is not that holiness is less than utterly vital and as such is if immense importance, but that the holiness that man comes up with on his own is truly much ado about nothing. However, it is also true that in reality man’s holiness is nothing but the vilest of sin and pride. God does not command men to be holy in their own strength and power, so when man actually strives to be holy in his own strength and power man is in violation of the commands of God and is the grip of an awful and horrid pride. When God looks upon a man united to Christ and at least some of what the man does is spiritual fruit that can only come from Christ, God beholds the man as one with Christ. But when a person seeks to obtain his own righteousness and do good works by the strength of self, all that the person does is seen as sinful and wicked things because God does not behold them in Christ and they came from the flesh rather than from Christ.
If a person wants to think that the holiness (so-called) that comes from himself is true holiness, then that person should stay away from the Scriptures and the work of the Spirit in and through them. There is a huge distinction between the holiness that man makes a lot of and the holiness that the Holy Spirit works in and through the soul. The holiness that man makes a lot of is that which the Spirit convicts men as sin and self-righteousness. The Spirit will convict men of sin and show them that their very best holiness is nothing better than filthy menstrual clothes. The work of the Spirit is to convict men of sin, and of righteousness, and of judgment. Men will never learn the truth of what true righteousness is unless the Spirit shows them, but when the Spirit does that men see the true standard of righteousness and then their own filthy rags of they used to think of as righteousness.
The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of true holiness and always works to do away with false holiness and righteousness as those things are idols in the hearts of men and those things have replaced God in the hearts that are taken up with them. Fallen man always wants to obtain his own righteousness in some way and to some degree, though when the Spirit works in the heart that begins to be seen as the façade that it is and man begins to feel quite uncomfortable and even begin to panic. The work of the Spirit disturbs men and makes them angry and even hateful when they see that the very best they can do is wicked and sinful. That which man makes much of in the arena of morality and civil religion is not only less than what God requires, it is a stench in the nostrils of God and opposes Him.
For man to make much ado about holiness is for man to make much of the greatness and glory of God as He sits supreme in the universe and orders all things for His own glory and love for Himself. What good can the holiness that comes from the sinful and selfish nature do for God? He created all things for His own glory and elect men for the glory of His grace, so that leaves man nothing to praise and nothing to glory in but God. When men think highly of themselves for their own holiness or own goodness they are in darkness and are at enmity with God who does all for His own glory. As the quote from Adam says above, as long as man wants to have a high view of his own holiness he must keep the Holy Spirit out of it. The real problem, however, is that there is no holiness apart from the work of the Holy Spirit and unless men have a true holiness they will perish in hell forever. But of course if man wants to continue to keep up his pride and have a high view of his own holiness, he will have to resist the Holy Spirit to do so and that means that men will love their own holiness so much that they will perish in hell to keep it.
God Loves... Himself 
August 31, 2013 at 5:03 am |
Holiness of men and repentance by men without the Holy Spirit is the bridge that explains much of the wicked behavior we see and hear reported in organizations that refer to themselves as churches throughout America. Many of these groups if not most all are unsaved proud Pharisees who look with great pride at their pious ness and holiness as a good thing and an evidence to themselves they are attractive to God. Sadly, they are not only unattractive, they are the very groups that comprise themselves with the ones that Jesus dispises and finds appalling. So how do we insure that we are not only not among them, but are not one of them ourself. Any person who thinks themself a Christian could be believing they are a child of God and unwittingly be deceived by their own wicked heart. More frightening…..they/we could be doctrinally sound and really be the most confident self assured false positive that lives and be utterly undone and on our way to hearing …..depart from me….I never knew you. If we apply this to ourselves……fear is only natural outcome….this fear is what we hope to achieve….but even achieving this fearful understanding does not achieve salvation in ourselves or our audience…..There still remains this act of God which must be achieved in ourselves apart from which we remain in the deceived and unregenerate class…..how do we tell if we ourselves are in the unworthy class of people producing repentance and self righteousness in our own false strength devoid of God’s means….Christ within us?
August 31, 2013 at 11:06 pm |
Yes, so much today is under the name of faith but is really in the power and strength of self. After all, if we leave God out of the picture in terms of the origin and source of faith, then it must come from us. But the great and glorious doctrine of regeneration as it spilled forth from Christ and His apostles delivers us from any hope of self and casts us totally upon the mercy and grace of God to regenerate as He pleases. The issue is not whether I have some concept of faith, as all men have faith of some kind and is placed in something or someone, but whether Christ dwells in the soul or not. The soul that has true faith has Christ, so instead of looking to self for faith one should look to Christ.
August 31, 2013 at 11:11 pm |
Just a little more on this. We either look to God to give us faith or we look to self to give us faith. If faith comes from self, then we look to self to see if we have faith. But if God gives true faith and in that He gives Christ Himself, then we look to see if we have Christ or not. That is what Paul said in I Corinthians 13:5.
Do the works that men do come from their faith in self to have faith in Christ or from the life of Christ in them? The command to men to repent and believe should never give them the idea that they can do those things, but instead to show them that they cannot do those things and that they must flee from self to God in order to have those things. But men think that it is easier for them to believe of themselves which just shows that they don’t understand the true nature of faith and repentance.