IMayor Gerardo Balmori
The Salvation Army
ntroduction: The question is asked today by many people, “Why is holiness so important?”
Why do we talk about holiness and sanctification and John Wesley all of the time?
Many have become disillusioned by all of the talk of John Wesley and have begun to think that this
is something that he dreamed up. Sadly, many have completely stopped reaching and teaching
holiness as necessity, but merely as a nice option. Many today preach and teach holiness as a nice
option or a dream that you could try to obtain in this life, but you never will so why bother? I
would like to present to you three reasons why I believe holiness is so important.
1. Because Christ died for it. Hebrews 13:12
Jesus Christ suffered and shed his own blood on the cruel cross that we may be sanctified! He did
not just die that we could be saved from our committed sins, but he died so that we may be free
from all of sin. He suffered, that he may sanctify the people. By rejecting holiness we are in fact
rejecting his death upon the cross.
Holiness is important because Christ died of it. 1st Thessalonians 4:3 gives us what the will of God
is, sanctification. In this process, the work of the third person of the trinity is evident. Without the
Holy Spirit, we cannot know Him as God.
Until we are filled with the Holy Ghost and completely sanctified we are not all that Christ wants
us to be. Jesus Christ died for our sanctification and this is the first reason why it is so important
2. Because the Carnal Nature drives us without it. Romans 7:20-24
Paul wrote these verses describing his battle to do the whole law of the Old Testament. Yet, he
recognized the sin nature in his heart and he battled with it to try to overcome it. So many today
get tied up in this chapter of Romans but fail to finish the chapter and read the next one. Paul was
battled with the sin nature which was driving him to do things that he did not want to do, but with
the inbred nature of sin in his heart he could not fully conquer sin. But in the next chapter it tells
of how he was delivered in verses 1-6 (read!). We must be delivered from that sin nature in our
hearts. The absolute necessity of the indwelling Spirit of God is demonstrated by the forester.
Whitewashing and spraying never reaches some parasites attacking the tree, so the forester bores
into the very heart of the tree, and introduces chemical solutions which mingle with the sap and
circulate through every branch and leaf. Thus is the old tree rendered absolutely safe from its foes.
Is this not exactly the work of the Holy Spirit in the lives of believers--to so indwell them as to
render them safe from their foes? His ministry is very much like that of the antiseptic. To be
effective the antiseptic must come in direct contact with the putrefaction in the flesh. Just so the
We believe that it is the privilege of all believers to be wholly sanctified, and that their whole spirit and
soul and body may be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (SA Doctrine # 10)
Holy Spirit must be permitted direct access to the innermost secret sins of the believer if there is to
be real spiritual blessing.
The second reason why holiness is so important, is because our carnal nature must be removed
because it will drive us back into sin if it is not gotten rid of. Holiness is important because it
removes the sin nature from our heart.
3. Because our Celestial home-heaven demands it. Hebrews 12:14
If you desire to make heaven your home someday you must be sanctified. Holiness prepares us for
heaven. No sin can be allowed into heaven because heaven is holy place that can not tolerate any
sin. This includes the sin nature in our hearts.
If we are not delivered from that nature than the work is not complete in our hearts. If God can not
completely cleanse us from all sin, than that would imply that God can not completely defeat the
power of sin. Thank God, that he has conquered the power of sin, and his has provided full
salvation to this who desire it. He suffered without the gate that we may be sanctified and make
heaven our home some day.
A minister told how one Sunday night when he was quarantined in his house because his child had
diphtheria, he watched his church next door; his church that he could not now enter. He was the
lights shining through the windows. He watched the people going in. Then the service started, and
he listened to the music. At last he couldn’t stand it any longer. Silently, like a thief, he stole out at
his back door, and crept up close to the window and listened. Within all was bright; outside he
stood in the chill darkness. “I realized for the first time in my life, “ he said, “what it meant to be
shut out, what a terrible thing it meant to be shut out. And someday I should stand at the gate of
Heaven. What a terrible thing if that door should be shut against me!” God does not want that!
Nor do you! But we must to neglect the only means of opening that gate, even the acceptance of
him who suffered without the gate that he might sanctify you. Heaven demands that we be holy in
order to go there some day and this is why holiness is so important.
No one will make it to heaven without be holy.
SA Doctrine: Christian Perfection:
Christian Perfection is "holiness of heart and life." It is "walking the talk."
John Wesley expected Methodists to do not only "works of piety" but "works
of mercy"--both of these fused together put a Christian on the path to
perfection in love.
John Wesley believed that Christians could become perfect in this life; they
did not have to wait for eternal life. In the holiness tradition of Methodism, which Wesley
initiated, sanctification is another word for perfection. Wesley said that being perfect meant:
"to be 'sanctified throughout;' even 'to have a heart so all-flaming with the love of God,'
as a spiritual sacrifice, acceptable to God through Christ.' In every thought of our hearts,
in every word of our tongues, in every work of our hands, to 'show forth his praise, who
hath called us out of darkness into his marvelous light.' O that both we, and all who seek
the Lord Jesus in sincerity, may thus 'be made perfect in one!'
