I am currently taking a seminary course for continuing education. It's entitled: "The Theology of Christian Holiness." This course examines scripture provide a definition of holiness that not only applies to God, but also His people. Being holy is more than simply being "set apart;" it carries implications for personhood.

God is holy. Yes, He is definitely set apart--but His person and conduct are distinctly "holy." Pure is a word that describes His holy person. But also, more specifically, God's holiness is expressed by His giving nature. God gives of Himself for the purpose of sharing in and with.

​

"In the beginning..." God gave creation. God gave life to man--and along with it, the purpose of ruling over it. When man transgressed his relationship with God, God reciprocated by giving a plan of restoration. 

The entire Bible can be read with this working definition of "holy" in mind.  And, for believers, this carries clear implications. The Old and New Testaments call God's people to, "be holy, as I am holy" (Lev. 11:44, 19:2, 20:6; 1 Pt. 1:16). Man is unable to fulfill this expectation without God providing that which is necessary: redemption from sin and restoration of relationship.

I'd like to share a short essay I wrote for my current course. It emphasizes the blessing of the New Covenant. And makes clear the implications of God's call to holiness for Christians.

​

THE NEW TESTAMENT’S REALIZATION

OF GOD’S CALL TO HOLINESS

 

God loves humanity. He created man to share an intimate relationship with him. But this relationship was fractured by the Fall. Man’s disobedience resulted in spiritual death: separation from the Giver of Life.[1] Still, God’s love did not end. He initiated a redemptive plan to remedy man's rebellion. The Old Testament narrative promises a future restoration where hearts of stone will be replaced by hearts of flesh that desire to honor God out of love rather than compulsion.[2] The New Testament announces the realization of this promise. Jesus takes center stage as the new Adam, a sinless Savior whose divine and human natures make possible a substitutionary death on man's behalf.[3] 

​

God’s fix for man’s rebellion was made possible through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus, his Son. However, salvation made possible does not equal salvation realized. And for this reason, the person and work of the Holy Spirit is central to the relationship God has always intended to share with humanity. Despite the Garden’s bliss before the Fall, Adam and Eve never shared God’s Spirit. Yet this is the kind of life-sharing God desires. The Fall made this seem impossible. The Old Testament explains why: the very fiber of man’s being is idolatrous.

​

Thus transformation was necessary. Jesus provided the way. And God’s Spirit filling the lives of believers is its realization. Salvation from sin involves more than repentance and forgiveness; it makes possible a new kind of life that is not just from God but of God. God himself, in the person of the Holy Spirit, takes up residence within man—a complete reversal of the Fall and the express definition of intimate relationship. The Spirit of God himself bears witness along with our spirits that we have been made sons of God.[4] While Christ’s sacrifice provides the objective framework for this redemption, the New Testament realization of holiness is accomplished only through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who transforms believers from the inside out. This pneumatological reality is demonstrated through the conversions and councils of Acts and is expressed in John Wesley’s doctrine of scriptural holiness.

​

The book of Acts demonstrates that initial belief and mere repentance are an incomplete introduction to the Christ-life without a distinctive infilling of the Spirit. As Gregg Allison observes, the Holy Spirit acts dynamically to apply the work of Christ, transforming the believer's nature rather than merely modifying their legal standing.[5] Acts 8 illustrates this decoupling of initial faith from the dynamic experience of holiness in the conversion of a group of Samaritans. These Samaritans had quickly received the preaching of Philip and had submitted to water baptism, but the Holy Spirit had not yet fallen on any of them. Their holiness and New Covenant realization were incomplete until Peter and John laid hands on and prayed for them to receive the Holy Spirit.[6] This encounter shows that God’s call to holiness requires a distinct, participatory move of the Spirit.

​

This necessity is echoed in Acts 19 when Paul encounters the Ephesian disciples. Recognizing the relational void in their spiritual experience, Paul inquires: “Did you receive the Holy Spirit when you believed?” (Acts 19:2). Thus far, their experience was limited to John’s baptism of repentance. Paul’s teaching and subsequent fall of the Spirit upon these seekers prove that repentance can open the door but that the Spirit must enter for holiness to be realized. In Flame of Love, Clark Pinnock characterizes this joint mission of the Son and Spirit as the two hands of God working in tandem.[7] The Son establishes the objective work of the atonement, but it is the Spirit who subjectively actualizes this work, transforming human beings into a living temple of God.

Consequently, the New Testament realization of holiness shifts from external rule-following to an internal, spiritual transformation that bypasses traditional religious, human boundaries. Saul’s conversion in Acts 9 provides a perfect example of this. Saul was a superlative Pharisee.[8] He was completely blameless according to the letter of the law.[9] Yet his heart remained spiritually dead. His conversion required more than intellectual assent or opting for another set of rules; it required Ananias laying hands on him so he could be "filled with the Holy Spirit" (Acts 9:17). The righteousness God desired could not be produced by Saul’s most determined human efforts; it required the new nature promised by God in the Old Testament and now realized through the ministry of the Spirit.[10]

​

The conversion of Cornelius and his household in Acts 10 emphasizes to a greater degree the transformative work of God over the legalistic designs of man. The text makes clear that Cornelius was a devout, rule-abiding, and God-fearing man—but that he lacked a personal, transformative realization of the New Covenant. Peter, too, was in need of a transformation. Like Saul, scales of legalism still hampered his spiritual vision. The Spirit led Peter to preach the gospel to Cornelius and his household. This led to a turning point for both Peter and the growing church. Verse 44 says that, “While Peter was still saying these things, the Spirit fell upon all who heard the word” (Acts 10:44). In that moment, these Gentile sinners were transformed into temples of God—without a kosher diet or prior water baptism. As Pinnock argues in his discussion of salvation, the Holy Spirit's work is fundamentally a path toward deep union with God rather than a static legal transaction.[11] The sudden move of God’s Spirit within Cornelius’s household shows that holiness is a matter of man receiving that which is necessary from God.

​

As conversions mount, the work of the Spirit is seen to be the mark of man’s transformation and God’s acceptance. This signet eventually becomes the center of some of the first apostolic debates. In Acts 11, Peter is confronted by a faction calling themselves the circumcision for eating with uncircumcised Gentiles.[12] His response to these self-righteous legalists focuses on the centrality of the Spirit's work in salvation. He states: “If then God gave the same gift to them as he gave to us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could stand in God's way?” (Acts 11:17). This was the very same lesson he learned from the Cornelius encounter. In sum, this lesson taught Peter that the infilling of the Holy Spirit alone testifies to one having a clean heart, acceptable to God.

​

This clash between religion and relationship reaches its theological climax at the Jerusalem Council in Acts 15. Here, Peter asserts that God, who knows the human heart, has grafted the Gentiles into his own family, “by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as he did to us, and he made no distinction between us and them, having cleansed their hearts by faith” (Acts 15:8–9). Their status before God is of God—not of man or achieved through ordinances. Allison highlights that this cleansing and equipping by the Spirit is what truly establishes the global unity and identity of the church.[13] The Spirit removes the dividing wall of external, cultural regulations, and so offers the singular, heart-cleansing opportunity of the New Covenant to all who believe.[14]

​

This focus on the heart-cleansing work of the Spirit serves as the direct biblical foundation for John Wesley’s concept of "scriptural holiness." Wesley looked at the apostolic declarations in Acts 15 and recognized that God’s ultimate desire for his children was “entire sanctification”—a thorough, lived-out purging of the heart's idolatry.[15] Drawing upon the testimony of the early church, Wesley argued that salvation involves an ongoing, experiential work of grace subsequent to initial justification.[16] For Wesley, holiness is not measured by sinless perfection or achieved through rigorous human effort.[17] Rather, it is the natural manifestation of a heart consumed by the love of God through the work of the Spirit that sees one’s rebellious nature conquered by grace. As Christ made intimacy possible on the cross, so the Holy Spirit makes it a lived reality. Wesley’s theology provides the vocabulary to describe what it means for transformed people to walk out this divine relationship. The New Testament’s call to holiness is not an order for behavioral modification; it is an invitation to receive a new heart and participate in the life and person of God.

 

 

[1] Chris Lohrstorfer, “Holiness in the New Testament” (lecture, Wesley Biblical Seminary, Ridgeland, MS, September 11, 2026), 17:29-18:37.

 

[2] Ezekiel 36:24-28; Unless otherwise noted all scriptural references are from the English Standard Bible (ESV).

 

2. Romans 5:12-21; 2 Corinthians 5:21.

 

[4] Romans 8:16.

 

[5] Gregg R. Allison and Andreas J. Köstenberger, The Holy Spirit, Theology for the People of God (Nashville: B&H Academic, 2020), 372-373.

 

[6] Acts 8:14–17.

[7] Clark H. Pinnock, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1996), 79; see also 102-103.

 

[8] Acts 23:6 and Galatians 1:14.

 

[9] Philippians 3:5.

 

[10] Ezekiel 36:22–27.

[11] Pinnock, Flame of Love, 162-163.

 

[12] Acts 11:2; Galatians 2:12.

[13] Allison and Köstenberger, The Holy Spirit, 435-438.

 

[14] Ephesians 2:21-16.

 

[15] John Wesley, “The Circumcision of the Heart,” in The Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley, vol. 1, Sermons I: 1–33, ed. Albert C. Outler (Nashville: Abingdon, 1984), 1:401–2; See also Romans 2:29.

 

[16] John Wesley, “Scriptural Christianity,” in The Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley, vol. 1, Sermons I: 1–33, ed. Albert C. Outler (Nashville: Abingdon, 1984), 1:160.

 

[17] John Wesley, “The Means of Grace,” in The Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley, vol. 1, Sermons I: 1–33, ed. Albert C. Outler (Nashville: Abingdon, 1984), 1:381; However, Wesley still emphasizes spiritual disciplines (prayer, reading scripture, the Lord’s Supper, etc.), but out of love, because of a work of God’s grace that has changed the human heart.

​