Excerpt from Holiness in Fresh Perspective: Covenant, Cross, and Kingdom (Wipf and Stock)
God’s promises David that his offspring would be the one with the eternal anointing to rule over God’s people. In this promise rests the concept of the Messianic King—the Chosen One that would come from the family of David that would faithfully rule by the Holy Spirit’s empowerment to reign with justice, righteousness, wisdom, and most importantly holy love. Isaiah, more than any other prophet, tells us about the Messiah and his reign. Isaiah quotes the Messiah with this:
The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to bring good news to the poor;
he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and the opening of the prison to those who are bound (Is 61:1)
In this passage we have specific reference the anointing of the Lord on the Messiah. Because of the nature of semantic parallelism in Hebrew poetry, this line of poetry echoes the preceding line, which makes reference to the “Spirit of the Lord God” being “upon me”. Here, we have Isaiah prophesying that the Messiah will be marked by the empowerment of the Holy Spirit. Following these first two lines we have the goal of empowerment: “to bring good news to the poor . . . bund up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound.” This tells us that the Messiah will be specially empowered as the chosen on of God for a ministry of deliverance and redemption.
This is absolutely essential as this is where the new perspective on holiness comes into focus. The role and function of the Holy Spirit in this context is not to change the nature of a person, rather, it is to endow a person with a specific capacity to perform a specific task. This is a bit different than how we traditionally think of holiness. Normally, when talking about holiness and the presence of the Holy Spirit, we make the connection in our minds with the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. Once again, I’m not arguing that this is not correct, rather, that it is simply incomplete and missing the crucial dimension of vocation. Holiness is not only about sanctification, it’s about calling, vocation, and mission.
We see this even in the baptism of Jesus himself. Upon his baptism by John, the crowd witnesses the dove descend and anoint Jesus for ministry (Matt 3:16). There is an even more evident example from the life of Jesus that is so obvious that we can miss it. In other religions, often times “holy men” are considered those who sit and pray, meditate, and fast in isolation. This is intended to cultivate intimacy with God. Granted, Jesus certainly did this, however, this was the exception, not the rule of Jesus’ life. Jesus’ life was spent fulfilling his mission. Jesus spent so much time fulfilling his messianic vocation that one of the major accusations of his enemies was violating the law of the Sabbath (Mark 3:1—16). What I’m saying is this, Jesus, who is the perfect example of holiness, demonstrates the holy life by fulfilling his mission. Holiness is mission.
