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1 Corinthians 1:2
“To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours.”
Holiness, we have seen, stands out as one of the most emphasized attributes of God in Scripture. Our great God is “holy, holy, holy,” as the seraphim surrounding His throne continually proclaim (Isa. 6:1–3). The Lord communicates something of His holiness to us as individuals in salvation, setting us apart as His holy people fit for His service, daily cleansing us from sin, and renewing us in the whole man after the image of Christ (Rom. 6).
We have seen that when God saves us, He unites us to Himself and to one another, forming the church as the body of Christ (1 Cor. 12:12–31). Because He has set apart individual believers as holy and is working in us to make us holy in practice, He must also be doing this for the church as a whole. Thus, holiness is another attribute of the church, as confessed in the Nicene Creed.
Scripture describes the church as holy in several places. In today’s passage, for instance, the Apostle Paul says that the church in Corinth is “sanctified in Christ Jesus” and “called to be saints” (1 Cor. 1:2). The church in Corinth, of course, was notorious for its sin, and yet Paul could state that the congregation there was both “sanctified,” or set apart as holy, and “called to be saints,” or exhorted to act as holy ones in their conduct. That church was definitively sanctified, holy as a body called out of the world, and it was to be progressively sanctified, growing in the practice of holiness. Indeed, not only was this true of the Corinthian church, but it is also true of every authentic church of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Dr. R.C. Sproul notes the importance of holiness in relation to the church’s calling. The church has been called out from the world and set apart to proclaim the gospel and make disciples of all nations. Thus, Dr. Sproul says that “no institution has been as gifted as the Christian church. No institution has been given a more sacred mission.” Maintaining the practical holiness of the visible church is vital for fulfilling this call. Churches that are not holy in practice cannot shine as lights to the world. This is why the Protestant Reformers stressed the importance of church discipline. The church must not ignore scandalous, impenitent sins among its members, for such sins, if allowed to continue, corrupt the entire body and harm the church’s witness in the world. When individuals persist in serious, impenitent sin, they may need to be cast out, but always with the hope that they will repent and be restored (1 Cor. 5; 2 Cor. 2:5–11).
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
The church has been set apart by God as holy, so it must become in practice what it already is in position. To put it another way, the set-apartness of the church needs to come to expression in congregations that are distinct from the world. We play a part in this by striving after personal holiness as individuals, for the holier we are in practice, the holier the collective body of believers will be.
For further study
- Deuteronomy 26:16–19
- Isaiah 62:10–12
- 1 Corinthians 3:16–17
- 1 Peter 2:9–10
The bible in a year
- Jeremiah 40–42
- Hebrews 3