Holiness is Wholeness: How This Began for Me Personally

It has been said: "You can learn a line from a win and a book from a defeat" (Paul Brown). My line is this. It is no longer necessary to be weary or wear out. My short story is below. It is how I arrived at holiness is wholeness over time.

As a teacher of Christians, I was getting weary in late 2004. It is said that "a back and forth discussion without getting anywhere, wears you out." That was my feeling after reading many Christian books and teaching many times over many years. It was not really getting me anywhere. That was until I learned that holiness is wholeness, then discussions really started to go somewhere. I can honestly say that since that time, I have not been nearly so weary.

The first step in time to get there was doing what I used to do as a football scout. I began by looking for the strengths and weaknesses of the Christian Church. What I discovered was that the Christian Church had many strengths in its major themes. I realized that a strong adversary would not attack at points of strength like the major themes of the past. Where I found weakness was that while it had many strong parts on the table from differing traditions and from differing authors of Christian books, there was no whole to join together all the parts on the table. I saw this particularly when I studied the major themes of each of the major denominations within Protestantism. Luther's themes were righteousness (or justice) and sanctification. Calvin's themes were truth (or humility) and sanctification. Hooker's theme was holiness (or comprehensiveness). Wesley's themes were perfect love and entire sanctification (nearly synonymous for him). Spurgeon's themes were goodness and holiness. This inspired me to start looking for a word in the original text of Scripture that could unite all these major themes, so I could shore up the weak spot that the devil and the church's enemies would attack.

The second step in time was seeing in the providence of God that perhaps there was a reason in history for the succession of themes by the major Reformers in Protestant history. I could see a very exciting succession from righteousness to truth, to holiness, to love and to goodness. Overarching all of them was a connection always in some way with sanctification and holiness. Maybe in our time, the point was to re-address the question of comprehensiveness as a definition of holiness and define it more clearly? And could it be that historically, this weakest point in clarity could be become the strongest point in clarity by defining it as wholeness? Could it also be that the English contribution to things will only now reach full fruition even as this language spreads worldwide through many things like the internet and commerce? Translation has been called "a long and arduous process." I would call hundreds of years, long.

The third step in time was brought about because of my developing a reading method that would make it more easy to be biblical. In short story form, I used to struggle as a reader. In college, I finally became an acceptable reader, but still the process was nothing that any of my students got real excited about. Through this challenge, I was brought to the point of taking a very good translation method from Wycliffe Bible Translators and transforming it into a reading method. I also changed a few things they did based on hints from the traditional or classical method of reading. The parts of language became: 1)amounts, 2)relationships, 3)actions and 4)things. The whole of language became wholes and parts as seen especially in words like of, at in, to, etc. What I needed next was a Biblical term that would address wholeness in language. Only later would I realize that holiness could fill the gap.

The final step in time, which occured in November 2004, was the clue I found in Strong's concordance when I saw that one of the translations of the Hebrew word for holy was wholly. This had never occured to me before as a meaning for holy. The King James translators obviously saw something that all my education missed. I had been taught that the meaning of separation was questionable, but the substitute I felt was no better. Now I was looking for a word having to do with wholeness, so I had to seriously consider this old possibility from the KJV. Over time, I discovered, first through internet resources, that holiness means wholeness was by no means a crazy idea. Among my most trusted Christian preachers and writers of the past, I found very strong advocates of the meaning of wholeness. Over time, more scholarly materials also confirmed this meaning of the word, though I must say I got my best material from supposed critics of the idea.

So holiness is wholeness wins a lot of battles the others cannot. The result is that I am less weary from back and forth discussions that go nowhere. Now most of my discussions go somewhere. That is my other line from a win.


In Christ,

Pastor Jon Westlund