Growing in Holiness
Theological Definition
Holiness in Scripture is being set apart for God and increasingly shaped by his character and purposes. Romans describes a shift in mastery—from sin to obedience—and portrays a new pattern of life that fits belonging to God. This growth is connected to new identity in Christ and the Spirit’s work, not merely rule-keeping.
Key Occurrences in Romans
1Therefore I beg you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service.
2Don`t be fashioned according to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
11This, knowing the time, that it is already time for you to awake out of sleep, for salvation is now nearer to us than when we first believed.
12The night is far gone, and the day is near. Let`s therefore throw off the works of darkness, and let`s put on the armor of light.
13Let us walk properly, as in the day; not in reveling and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and lustful acts, and not in strife and jealousy.
14But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, for its lusts.
16that I should be a servant of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, serving the gospel of God, that the offering up of the Gentiles might be made acceptable, being sanctified by the Holy Spirit.
15What then? Will we sin, because we are not under law, but under grace? Certainly not!
16Don`t you know that to whom you present yourselves as servants to obedience, his servants you are whom you obey; whether of sin to death, or of obedience to righteousness?
17But thanks be to God, that, whereas you were servants of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching whereunto you were delivered.
18Being made free from sin, you became servants of righteousness.
19I speak in human terms because of the weakness of your flesh, for as you presented your members as servants to uncleanness and to wickedness upon wickedness, even so now present your members as servants to righteousness for sanctification.
20For when you were servants of sin, you were free in regard to righteousness.
21What fruit then did you have at that time in the things of which you are now ashamed? For the end of those things is death.
22But now, being made free from sin, and having become servants of God, you have your fruit of sanctification, and the result of eternal life.
23For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
4Therefore, my brothers, you also were made dead to the law through the body of Christ, that you would be joined to another, to him who was raised from the dead, that we might bring forth fruit to God.
5For when we were in the flesh, the sinful passions which were through the law, worked in our members to bring forth fruit to death.
6But now we have been discharged from the law, having died to that in which we were held; so that we serve in newness of the spirit, and not in oldness of the letter.
12So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live after the flesh.
13For if you live after the flesh, you must die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.
14For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are children of God.