What is Holiness?

Holiness is often defined (and, perhaps, more generally than in any other way) to be conformity to God's law; — including conformity of the heart or feelings, as well as of the outward action. To this definition, or to others stated with the same import, though, perhaps, with some variation of terms, we do not propose to object. Perhaps it would not be easy to give a better one.

There is a great difference, however, between holiness defined and holiness practiced; — between holiness, abstractly considered, and holiness in realization.  If, therefore, it may be important to know in what holiness consists by definition, it is certainly not less so to know who is the actual possessor of it. The Hebrew word, which is translated holiness, involves, as one of its ele­ments, the idea of being set apart to a sacred or religious purpose. The English term holiness, in its original import, means whole-ness, completeness. And this idea, when the subject is contemplated in a practical point of view, ought not to be lost sight of.

Accordingly, presenting the matter in a little different light from that in which it is usually presented, it would not be improper to say, that the holy man is one who is whole or complete in God. If every part of the life of the creature is filled up and completed with the life of God, then he is a whole or holy man, and not otherwise. A holy man, therefore, is one who freely surrenders himself to God, that he may receive everything from God in return; — so that, by means of a divine life, operating as a central principle at the seat or heart of his own nature, he is brought into entire harmony with God, and fully represents the divine conception or idea in faith, in knowledge, in love, in will, in harmonizing with providence, in everything. Holiness, therefore, considered practically, is the perfect restoration of the divine life in the soul.

— edited from A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 7, Chapter 10.

God is Life: God is Love.

There is something within the limits of human experience, which allies us to the great Source from which we come, and which may be appealed to in [our] inquiries. The Essential Life, in recognizing itself in its causative and sustaining form as existing in humanity, and in being thus brought in some degree within the sphere of human comprehension, and made the subject of human analysis, reveals itself as Love. So that in view of the evidences that attend it, we may venture to lay down the proposition, that Love and Life are essentially the same: a proposition so wide in its sweep and so fruitful in its consequences that, while its evidences compel the acquiescence and homage of the intellect, its tendencies and results, when rightly understood, fill the heart with joy.

God is Life: God is Love.

In being inseparable from all existences, in being the central causative principle of all existences, and in harmonizing with all existences, there is no possible motive or reason why the Divine Life should not be interested, (the relative position and responsibilities of all being taken into account,) in seeking the good, the happiness, and the perfection of all. Its motive of action cannot turn back upon itself and seek a causation prior to that which is already first, because, being infinite itself, it cannot ascend a higher height, or sound a deeper depth, than it has in its own nature. And thus standing central, and at the same time without limitation, and consequently having no power outside of itself to excite its fears, or to limit its responsibilities, what strength of thought or ingenuity of conception can suggest a motive in the Infinite Mind, which is adverse to the universal good. In other words, the Life of God, in its substance and essentiality, is, and must be, a Life of Love.

— edited from Absolute Religion (1873), Chapter 4.

God's Life in Humanity

From God all things come. To God, as the universal originator and governor, all things are in subjection. In ascertaining what God is, we necessarily ascertain the position and responsibilities of those beings that come from God, and are dependent on him. The life of his moral creatures, so far as it is a right and true life, is a reproduction, in a finite form, of the elements of his own life. "God created man in his own image. In the image of God created he him." (Genesis 1:27.) The Savior, in speaking of himself, in his incarnate state, says, "I am in the Father, and the Father in me." (John 13:11.) God, in carrying out and perfecting the great idea of a moral creation, subjects the infinity of his being to the limitations of humanity, and reproduces himself in the human soul. So that man's life may truly be described, as God's life in humanity.

Nor, in the strict sense of the terms, can any­ thing but the DIVINE LIFE, or the life of God in the soul, be called life. Those who have gone astray from God, just so far as they have lost the divine life, and have sunk into the natural life, are dead. Hence, the expressions of the apostle: — "And you hath he quickened, who were dead in trespasses and sins." (Ephesians 2:1.) The eternal vitality, the breath from the Infinite, the life of God in the soul, ceases to be in them. And being dead, by the absence of God as an indwelling principle, they must be recreated, or born again, by his restoration. It is not enough, that provision has been made, in the death of Christ, for man's forgiveness. Forgiveness, it is true, has its appropriate work. It cancels the iniquity of the past; but this is not all that is necessary. It is not without reason, that the learned Schlegel commences his profound work on the philosophy of history by saying, that "the most important subject, and the first problem of philosophy, is the restoration in man of the lost image of God." The immortal nature must be made anew, must be re-constituted, if we may so express it, on the principle of life linked with life, of the created sustained in the uncreated, in the bonds of divine union.

— A Treatise on Divine Union (1851) Part 1, Chapter 1.