The Path to Holiness

Jesus Christ, our Savior, stands alone in perfect holiness. Because only Jesus is holy and perfect, God does not recognize any other person. Therefore, if we are ever to be received by the heavenly Father, we must be in Christ, solely by the grace of Christ and through no merit of our own.

"That He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity" (Ephesians 2:16). "Having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace" (2:15).

Because of Christ's work on the cross, man could no longer attempt to be holy by keeping God's law. He couldn't become holy by good works, righteous deeds or any human effort. Instead, the Father would accept only one man as holy: the new, resurrected man.

When this new man presented to his Father all who believe in him, the Father responded: "I receive them all as holy, because they are in my holy Son” (see Ephesians 1:6).

We comprise the body of this holy, blameless man. "Now you are the body of Christ, and members individually" (1 Corinthians 12:27). We are made bone of Christ's bone and flesh of his flesh and are adopted into his family: "We, being many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another" (Romans 12:5).

Because we are in Christ, we are made holy. "If the root is holy, so are the branches" (Romans 11:16). "I am the vine, you are the branches" (John 15:5).

The path to holiness is not through human ability, but through faith in our Lord Jesus Christ. What a wonderful answer to the anxious cries of multitudes who thirst to be holy. We are holy as we rest in Christ's holiness! Our holiness is his holiness — flowing to us, the branches, from the root.