When the Bible talks about someone being holy, it means that person is set apart as belonging to God. Since God is the embodiment of purity, those set apart to Him must also be pure. This standard of purity is an ever-present reminder to us of God’s holiness. Israel was to be a “holy people,” set apart as His own possession.

God provided the means by which they could live a righteous life through the Law. The only problem is that Israel habitually fell short of keeping God’s law. Yet given what we know about human nature, how could it have turned out different? The Law was merely a “shadow” of what was to be fulfilled through Jesus. It pointed toward God’s supreme purpose which remained shrouded in mystery until Christ’s coming. What God ultimately had in mind was to impute His own righteousness to us apart from the Law.

The Holy Spirit wants to thrive within us, not just lie dormant. A mounting desire to please God is what we should expect from the Spirit’s indwelling presence. And as a part of this yearning to please Him comes a sense that we are to be holy. Because God is holy, a godly life must be a holy life. But let’s be realistic: How many of us could say that we are altogether holy in our attitudes and behavior?

Still, though achieving such perfection is hard to imagine, we can’t deny that Scripture points us there. So we often sense little alternative but to work for it. Don’t feel alone! It’s actually pretty common to think of holiness as being the result of what a person has achieved. Isn’t that how all religions see it—those unapproachable Holy Men? God’s kingdom is different. He’s provided the way for all of us to be “holy and blameless before Him.” Colossians 1:22

Law reveals the standard by which we are to conform to God’s righteousness. Through its call to obedience, law steers us toward God’s character. Its purpose is to bring to light the holiness of God, while exposing the sinful weakness of our humanity.

And law has an additional impact as it confronts our nature. Because rebellion is such a significant ingredient of a life centered on self, law can actually have the effect of intensifying our destructive desires:  “Yeah, I wanted to do that, but now that I know it’s wrong, I really want it!”

Or maybe you didn’t even have a desire for a particular thing, but now that you’ve been told not to, all of a sudden you want it: “No trespassing? Well, I really didn’t want to go there anyway, but now I wonder what I’m missing!” With law comes awareness of the internal rebellion common to us all. “Sin is lawlessness.” (1 John 3:4)

Freedom in Christ! What a blessing! But what we do with this treasure is huge, because our choices ultimately determine our fruitfulness—that is, to what degree we end up glorifying God with our lives. Paul’s radical message of liberty in Christ prompted his critics to charge him with promoting freedom to sin rather than the freedom from sin he was actually teaching. His response: “Nonsense!”

Still, it’s only natural to be a bit puzzled over it. Given our ingrained beliefs about personal responsibility to resist sin, this whole freedom thing doesn’t seem to add up. I think we can all agree that any thought of maintaining a lifestyle of sin is absurd. Why bother being freed if we merely set ourselves up to be enslaved all over again? The point is this: freedom lays the foundation for unfettered pursuit of Him—yes, even in spite of the weakness of our flesh.

Righteousness can never be earned by working for it. It’s easy for us to think of salvation as a free gift of God’s grace. But righteousness? Now that’s a different story. Being righteous is rooted in the fact that Christ is now in me, and I in Him. It’s not about getting God to accept me; He’s already done that. Redemption means that we have actually become the righteousness of God Himself, allowing us an almost unbelievable status with God.

The question is how the reality of God’s righteousness, having now become our own, plays out in the believer over the course of his life. What about our old nemesis: sin? How is it that God could allow our struggle with sin to exist right alongside this awesome righteousness we now possess? The incredible gift of God’s grace has everything to do with it! In Christ, God has actually caused us to die to sin itself.

Hidden sin, by its very nature, opens wide the floodgates of guilt and shame. So, a negative reaction is no surprise: “I’ll just bury this thing a little deeper so no one will ever discover who I really am.” Satan has used shame in countless lives persuading God’s people to back-slide, where alienation from Him becomes a way of life. Just think how being more open about our weakness would serve to cripple this strategy the devil so routinely exploits.

Instead of allowing sin to drive us from God, we need to run to God when we sin. This can be difficult, though, because we’ve been taught to behave ourselves. And when we don’t, our conscience tells us we must clean up our act before we can ever turn to God. After all, how else can we feel worthy enough to deserve His help? False thinking, I know, but very real all the same.

Isn’t our sin embarrassing? Not just the obvious ones, but ungodly attitudes as well! We instinctively cover sin up, trying to appear more respectable than we really are. No doubt pride has a lot to do with this. When we sin we tend to run from God. We do this not just because we sense God’s displeasure, but because we think no one else has these problems. “How could I do something so displeasing to God? What inner flaw would provoke me to even think of such a thing?”

Trying to keep sin hidden always leads to an oppressive sense of shame. Shame has a crippling effect on a person’s life. Psychologists say that it’s often at the heart of emotional dysfunction. So it’s not hard to see how Satan—who is called “the accuser of our brethren”—can use shame as a wedge to drive us from God.

God’s law did not originate with the Law of Moses. Law was first introduced when God said, “from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat.” So, law was there in the Garden—just not “the Law” as it was later given. And sin was also around from the very beginning. But sin could not be charged unless law existed to identify it (Romans 3:20). The pursuit of righteousness through obedience to law is what Paul called the “elementary principles of the world” (Colossians 2:8).

Man has an inbred penchant for attempting to justify himself in this way. It’s absolutely fundamental to our thinking about God. And why shouldn’t it be? It just seems so right! But making people work for righteousness was never God’s intent for law. Even in the Old Testament, obeying God was meant to be an act of faith, not merely an attempt to accumulate enough points to somehow satisfy Him.

It’s sad that so many have been duped by Satan into believing that we must now earn our own way now that we’ve been saved. Think back to your desperately sinful condition when God reached down and pulled you out of that pit. God’s grace was overwhelming, wasn’t it! So how could you think that He might now abandon you just because you continue to struggle with sin in your life?

Good news! God has resolved the issue of your sin—past, present and future. It’s a done deal! Freedom from sin is God’s way of guarantying our hope of enduring intimacy with Him. Yet this doesn’t mean that the struggle between the appetites of the flesh and God’s desires are not going to be a battle for us (Galatians 5:17,18). This on-going conflict is precisely why the assurance of being freed from sin is so important as we go about living our new life in Christ.

“If I have truly died to sin, why do I still feel so alive to it?” This really is mysterious! Don’t think you’re alone here. It’s not an uncommon question by any stretch of the imagination. “Just what did happen to me when I became that new creature in Christ? What’s this life all about?” The answer lies in the fact that it’s not about what we do or don’t do. Rather, it’s about who Jesus Christ is and what He has done.

No, this doesn’t relieve us of all personal responsibility. Of course not! It does mean, though, that the foundation for our relationship with God has been laid by Him alone, not by anything we can do in and of ourselves. “Oh, I believe that,” you might say—but do you really? Do you really believe that your relationship with God isn’t somehow rooted in trying to be good?