Christ’s holiness is not imputed. The only passage that can appear to resemble this doctrine is 1 Corinthians 1:30, but imputation is not spoken of there. It is not possible to impute redemption. It is in Christ, and through Christ, that these are according to the will of God; how is not told us. “Of Him are ye”; this is the new man, whence he comes. Then Christ is made of God unto us wisdom. We do not find these things elsewhere. We do not find the true character of our wisdom, of our righteousness, of our Christian holiness, or of redemption elsewhere than in Christ, and in Christ alone. When I possess Christ, I possess in Him the wisdom of God. He Himself is the wisdom of God; I do not seek wisdom elsewhere, and the wisdom of God is not to be found elsewhere. He is my righteousness before God; I am accounted righteous according to the righteousness of God by faith in Christ. If I seek for the truth, the sum total, the divine character, of holiness, I find it only in Christ: This holiness is presented to me by God in Christ. In Christ only is redemption, final redemption to enter glory.
It is needful to distinguish between the words used for holiness and sanctification in the New Testament. “Agiosune” is the thing itself, the habit (including “agiotes,” Hebrews 12:1010For they verily for a few days chastened us after their own pleasure; but he for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness. (Hebrews 12:10), the holiness of God Himself), and “agiosmos” the word used in 1 Corinthians 1:30. The word in this form signifies the result worked out, the sum of what is produced in us by the Holy Spirit.
Christ the Model
Now Christ is the model, the measure, the perfection of holiness. Inasmuch as we possess Christ as life, we possess this holiness. The life which we possess is a perfectly holy life, and as we are in Christ God does not see sin in us. But Christ Himself, as has been said already, is the perfect expression of the character, of the perfection, of holiness in man, and although the life which is in us is a holy life, the outcome in our thoughts, in our acts, in our words, in our relation to everything is not produced in its perfection, but our desire is not to lower the standard of it, but to reach it. It is ours in Christ, not yet in practice, not yet subjectively. The new man desires that in everything his whole being should answer to the model he knows in Christ. In this life the result is not attained to, but the Christian has no other model, no other substance of sanctification for the soul but Christ Himself. Christ is for him, from God, the substance of that which he longs for, because Christ, who is his model, is his life already.
Our Perfect, Holy Life
It is true that God sees us in Christ, and He sees only the new man, when acceptance is in question: “He hath not beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath He seen perverseness in Israel.” But Scripture does not speak of our holiness in Christ. The life we have received is perfectly holy, and I do not live, but Christ lives in me. If Christ is our life, we are consecrated to God, set apart for Him, according to the right which He possesses through the work of redemption, and the grace that has won us for Him —wholly consecrated to Him personally. Thus we are personally sanctified, set apart for God, but as a matter of fact all our thoughts, our motives, have not Christ as their object, so that in fact we are not perfected in sanctification. In personal sanctification there is no progress; we belong wholly to Christ according to the value of His work and the claim which He has over us, and according to the holy life which is the true “I” of the heart. But, Christ being the perfect expression of this life in man, much is wanting in us in respect of this perfection, and through the operation of the Holy Spirit we become—we ought to become, at least — while looking at Christ glorified, increasingly like Christ, more holy, as regards practical holiness. We possess, then, the “agiosune” (the thing itself) in the life of Christ in us. We do not possess the “agiosmos” (the practical result as it has been manifested in Christ); it is developed daily in communion with Christ.
First Comes Death, Then Life
We are dead to sin, to the law, to the world, crucified with Christ, reckoned to be dead according to the Word of God, and reckoning ourselves dead. Our duty is to make good this truth, so that nothing except the life of Christ should be manifested in our bodies, in our mortal flesh, that our whole life may be the manifestation of the life of Christ in us, and of nothing else. The connection between this truth and holiness in our relationship with God, and practical holiness, is easily understood.
Holiness Through Sanctification
The Christian is called holy because he is set apart for God absolutely, according to the rights won by Christ in His death, and made good when he is born again, and thus set apart in a real way, and more perfectly, and with more intelligence, when he is sealed by the Holy Spirit, as cleansed by the blood of Christ. Then he is sanctified in his relationship with God, and, in fact, as to the new man; also as we have seen, the old man is held to be dead. Thus when Christians are called holy, it is indeed the expression of a relationship with God, but this relationship is formed by the gift of life and founded on the fact that Christ has purchased them by His death. But there is no other relationship, and when a man calls himself a Christian he calls himself holy, consecrated to God, set apart from the world for God.
Saints
The word “saint” is the name of a relationship, that is, that a man is set apart for God, but this relationship, if it is a true one, is formed by the power of the Holy Spirit, and by the Word according to the order appointed by God for the external manifestation in the world of this relationship. The saints then in the New Testament are accounted as having entered into a new relationship with God through the blood of Christ, set apart for God. This is the order according to God, but it is always supposed that this relationship is founded on reality, save to demonstrate its falseness; only that sanctifying by the blood of Christ is used in a more general, external way, nevertheless it is held to be real if the contrary is not demonstrated. Christians are called holy in Romans 1:77To all that be in Rome, beloved of God, called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 1:7) and 1 Corinthians 1:2, but in chapter 10 of the latter epistle it is supposed possible that admission to this relationship may have taken place without the possession of life.
Progressive Sanctification
As some confusion exists with respect to progress in sanctification, I add that in the setting us apart for God by the blood and the new birth — in the entrance into the relationship (that is, sanctification of the person) — there is no progress. But in the development of the life through the knowledge of Christ and in conformity to the model revealed in Christ, the Word speaks distinctly of progress. “Follow . . . [after] holiness,” it is written in Hebrews 12:1414Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord: (Hebrews 12:14). We “are [transformed] into the same image from glory to glory . . . as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Cor. 3:18). Now “the very God of peace sanctify you wholly” (1 Thess. 5:23).
J. N. Darby, Letters, Vol. 2:159-164, adapted