We need better visions today.
When the Bible uses the word “holy” in reference to people like you and me, it is painting a vision. To say, “you can be holy” is to say, “here’s the kind of stunning person you can be.”
Holy is derivative from God.
“Be holy because I am holy.”
(see Leviticus 19:2 and Peter’s re-emphasis of it in 1 Peter 1:16)
In other words,
God is love. So, be loving.
God is good. So, be good.
God is holy. So, be holy.
Be what God is. Derive from God who you are. “Because I am, you can be” is the divine logic at work, and it is radically positive and optimistic about you.
All great thought systems paint a vision for what a person can be. In part, that’s what makes them great—they unveil our untapped potential. Sights, thoughts, hopes, and imaginations are lifted. In this sense the Bible excels.
Holiness is a vision of possibility and hope and functions as a fresh invitation to a new way of being human based firmly on the pattern of Jesus.
Inside the vision is a casting off of whatever holds it back. So, a holy person finds power to rid themselves of some of life’s most painful actions.
Malice.
Deceit.
Hypocrisy.
Envy.
Slander of every kind.
(see Peter’s list in 1 Peter 2:1)
Malice leads to payback.
Deceit leads to mistrust.
Hypocrisy leads to contempt.
Envy leads to anguish and corrosive competition.
Slander leads to hate and malice.
Wash, rinse, repeat and you have the human story.
What other map for human flourishing has the imagination to envision hearts without malice, deciet, hypocrisy, envy, and slander as constant realities? There really aren’t any, save the Bible’s vision of holiness. And what would those hearts and the world they create be like on a regular basis?
A delightful one.
Full of indescribable joy.
Feeling divine power at work.
Filled with the fullness of God’s love.
Experiencing a love even greater than knowledge.
A sense that there are internal rivers of living water.
Knowing a friend and guide on whom we can cast our anxieties.
(see 1 Peter 1, Ephesians 3, John 4, John 14, 1 Corinthians 13, Galatians 6, etc. for deeper descriptions)
It’s an entrancing vision for the human person. In other words, for you.
When Peter quotes Leviticus, he says, “It is written.” He is of course referencing the Levitical code, but I like to think he is also talking about something written on the heart: We know there can be more.
There really is nothing like the biblical vision for holiness.
Competing visions
In contrast, our best cultural visions are failing us. The most prominent ones generally rally around authenticity and/or success.
The authenticity vision—easily the dominant vision of our time—sees the me I feel as the truest expression of the human person. Once I find this person, I can become “me”, without any constraints. There is a long history in Western thinking behind how this came to be, but put under analysis is really a self-referential and isolated picture.
It is isolationism and individualism writ as the norm—a recipe for loneliness and disappointment.
What kind of world is created where everyone is only focusing on themselves? We are communal creatures, we need each other, are shaped by each other, and flourish only when we have each other. There is a journey to myself, but a critical part requires me to come to terms with how I impact you. That is what love is—something shared between people.
Me focusing on me and you focusing on you sounds like a live-and-let-live expression of love by letting “you do you”, but in reality ends up being me excluding you.
The success vision sees accomplishment and achievement as life’s end goal. For a society to flourish, we need accomplishment and achievement. But missing in the vision is any real comment on the kind of person you become, the relational world you create, or the effect of your life on other lives.
David Brooks insistence that at the end, everyone is concerned about the eulogy virtues (the person I was) and the not the resume virtues (what I accomplished), is instructive.
Authenticity, while important, lacks love.
Success, while needed, lacks character.
Holiness infuses love into character.
Scott Marshall is lead pastor at Wichita First Church of the Nazarene