When Scripture says, “to make holiness perfect,” have we been called to do the impossible? On our own we certainly cannot accomplish this lofty task or rise to this high state of consciousness and awareness. But empowered by the Holy Spirit, all things that are logically possible, we can do. For Jesus says, “that all things are possible with God”. Further, we know that: “[We] can do all things through Christ who gives [us] strength” (Philippians 4:13).
In an examination of the 2 Corinthians 7:1, NKJV, “...let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” Though this command went out to all who could hear, not everyone who heard and responded are able to fulfil it. In Luke 6 we see that when Jesus prayed for the disciples and the believers at large and mentioned the requirements of discipleship, many left him. He turned to the twelve in the innermost circle and asked if they would leave him too. Here then, Peter, showed inner spiritual growth and that he knew the truth, “Lord, where will we go? You are the Holy One of God.” Clearly not all believers will arise to that state of “perfected holiness”.
Still whatever God calls us to do he enables. In Acts 1:8, Jesus says, “But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” Elsewhere in Scripture Jesus also commanded and promised to be with his disciples while they carry out what he called them to do. He says, “And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age,” (Matt. 28:19-20).
God knew us before we were formed in the womb of our parents—after all he is the omnipotent and eternal God. He knew that Jacob and Esau while in the womb of their mother would fight each other. Even the Psalmist says, “You know us before we were born.” In our hardships when pain is excruciating we scream, “why Lord?” But He never gives us more than we can bear. Thus we are chosen people. We are “set apart” as his priests (Rev. 1:6; Num. 1:47-54).
The Lord told Moses, “But the Levites were not numbered among them by their fathers’ tribe; for the Lord had spoken to Moses, saying: ‘Only the tribe of Levi you shall not number, nor take a census of them among the children of Israel; but you shall appoint the Levites over the tabernacle of the Testimony, over all its furnishings, and over all things that belong to it; they shall carry the tabernacle and all its furnishings; they shall attend to it and camp around the tabernacle.
And when the tabernacle is to go forward, the Levites shall take it down; and when the tabernacle is to be set up, the Levites shall set it up. The outsider who comes near shall be put to death. The children of Israel shall pitch their tents, everyone by his own camp, everyone by his own standard, according to their armies; but the Levites shall camp around the tabernacle of the Testimony, that there may be no wrath on the congregation of the children of Israel; and the Levites shall keep charge of the tabernacle of the Testimony.” Thus the children of Israel did; according to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so they did.’”
Knowing that many are called and few are chosen then we can logically assume that the capabilities of the chosen have been foreknown by God. They were born with the capacity to be holy and in some case to perfect their holiness. Since this perfection cannot be done by our imperfect, mortal selves, but by His Holy spirit, then perhaps a more appropriate word is not that we have evolved in our spiritual insights and understanding. Rather, we have awakened our consciousness. We have activated as it were, that which we were blessed with. The more we “cleanse flesh and spirit of filthiness,” we will move closer to our goal of “perfected holiness.”
Those who know this state says it is indescribable. It is ineffable (incapable of being expressed in words). How can one describe a state of perfection when he or she is imperfect? How can we with mortal, finite, and limited minds rise above and return to articulate or express what perfection or holiness is? Shaking or speaking in tongues is not it; the claim that we feel the anointing as we preach is not it; when God’s Spirit speaks to our spirit is not it; when we are writing or speaking or singing and feel an emotional high and inner impelling and urges is not it; for we have said it is indescribable.
When the Apostle Paul experienced the flood of lights on his way to Damascus (1 Cor. 15:8, epiphany) his holiness was not perfected. Perfected holiness must have been when Paul was taken to the 3rd heaven (2 Cor. 12:1-4); when Peter was taken to the third heaven; when Moses saw the Lord; or the transfiguration with Peter, James, and John with Christ. Is it possible for you and I to be in His Presence? God is perfect and infallible; the Bible is God’s Word; therefore, its claims must necessarily be infallible and without error. The Bible then calls us to “perfect holiness,” thus the answer to the questions is an emphatic and unquestionable: “Yes.”
In Revelation 1:10, “being seized by the Spirit and carried up to Heaven,”[1] John says, “I was in the Spirit of the Lord’s Day.” In Matthew Henry’s Commentary, the writer says, “The frame that [the apostle John’s] soul was in at this time: He was in the Spirit. He was not only in a rapture when he received the vision, but before he received it; he was in a serious, heavenly, spiritual frame, under the blessed gracious influences of the Spirit of God. God usually prepares the souls of his people for uncommon manifestations of himself, by the quickening sanctifying influences of his good Spirit.
Those who would enjoy communion with God on the Lord’s day must endeavour to abstract their thoughts and affections from flesh and fleshly things, and be wholly taken up with things of a spiritual nature. The apostle gives an account of what he heard when thus in the Spirit.” We know that John was aided in his expression of this encounter (theophany). The bible says, “for prophecy never came by the will of man, but holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:21)”.
[1] W. Mundel, in “Estacy” in The New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology, vol. 1, ed. Colin Brown, (Zondervan Publishing House, Grand Rapids, Michigan, 49530, A Division of HaperCollins Publishers, 1986), 528.