Radical Holiness for Radical Living by C. Peter Wagner

Author:C. Peter Wagner
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Theology, Christian Ministry, Holiness, Christian Life, General, Religion, Discipleship, Christian Theology, Soteriology
ISBN: 9781585020119
Publisher: Wagner Publications
Published: 1998-01-01T22:00:00+00:00

chapter five

It Can Be Done !

Is it possible to be holy? If it were not, I can assure you that I wouldn't be writing this book. I am radical enough to believe that you and I can actually live lives without sin, day in and day out!

Two Questions and Answers

Let's begin exploring this by putting it in the shape of two questions and answers that will clarify many things for us:

♦ Can anyone be holy? Yes. As a matter of fact, in one way of looking at it, every Christian is holy.

♦ Can anyone be holy enough? No. No Christian is ever holy enough.

As I have pointed out earlier, the root meaning of "holy," or "hagios" is to be set apart. Anything set apart to God is considered holy. That is why the Bible speaks of such things as a holy city or holy prophets or holy law or a holy kiss and so on. In the broadest sense, therefore, every true Christian is holy, set apart to God. Peter says we are "a royal priesthood, a holy nation" (1 Peter 2:9). We get there by being born again and becoming members of God's family. The Bible frequently refers to believers as "saints," and that word comes from hagios, literally "holy ones." When we become Christians we are set apart from the world, we are different from non-Christians, and we are set apart to God and His family. That is the sense in which we can say that every Christian is holy.

Christians Do Not Sin

Let's look at two Scriptures which, at first glance, may appear to be contradictory. The first is 1 John 3:6: "Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him."

What does this mean? It means that true believers no longer live a lifestyle that is characterized by sinning. Those who have been raised in Christian families and who have had a relatively smooth pathway into the church may not understand this very well. But those of us, myself included, who at one time were adult non-Christians, totally outside the church, know exactly what it means. When we are born again we become new creatures in Christ. The old things—the lifestyle characterized by sin—pass away. All things become new—a totally new lifestyle characterized by not sinning. What a difference! Since the day I accepted Christ as my savior and Lord, my life has never been the same; meaning, in part, that I no longer do or want to do many of the things that I used to do before I was saved. Why? Because the person I now love doesn't like those things!

This is characteristic of other Christians as well. I can't think of a single Christian person with whom I regularly hang out who goes around sinning, and I am associated with a large number of them. True, there may be some who are sinning secretly, but if they are they had better double check to see if they are really saved.

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