Yes, hell is real! Yes, hell is a place of eternal torment for those who reject God! Yes, unholy people will spend eternity in hell!

How, then, can unholy people be made holy, to live with God eternally and escape punishment in hell?

There is much confusion in the Christian world about holiness, what it is and how we, unholy sinners, can become holy. Unfortunately, even respected Christian preachers and writers have muddied the waters by presenting their own ideas rather than Biblical truth about the holiness God requires for us to spend eternity with Him.

For many, to be holy requires hard work… for example, we must scour and scrub our past clean by repenting of every sin we have ever committed. We must cut off all “soul ties” and renounce all “generational curses”. We must “plead the blood” over our family and friends. We must renounce our connection with our father’s involvement with Free Masonry, or any other form of witchcraft or Satanism…and so on.

Worst of all, in all their lengthy requirements, there is no Biblical evidence of any of these practices.

First, let’s look at this notion logically. In the Old Covenant between God and Israel, God required perfect obedience to His instructions for His people to be acceptable to Him. He gave them a sacrificial system to deal with their failures. It didn’t work! Israel as a nation failed miserably to live within the boundaries of His covenant.

To all humanity, God have the law of conscience. Everyone is born with God’s moral law written on their conscience. So, when Gentiles sin, they are equally guilty before God because they know the difference between right and wrong.

Romans 2:14-15 NIV
[14] “(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. [15] They show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times even defending them”).

Despite Gentiles having the law of conscience or Jews the Mosaic law, all are guilty before God.

Romans 3:9-10, 18 NIV
[9] What shall we conclude then? Do we (Jews) have any advantage? Not at all! For we have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under the power of sin. [10] As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one;…
[18] “There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

So, what did God do? He condemned them all to eternal punishment. Was this the end for Israel and all humanity? No!

Romans 11:32 NIV
[32] “For God has bound everyone over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all.”

God stepped in and paid the price for all human rebellion.

Romans 5:6-8 NIV
[6] “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. [7] Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. [8] But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

Christ’s death for us means that God had wiped our slate clean because of His mercy. He has absolved us of all guilt and made us holy. Yes, He has made us holy! Jesus did away with the law as a way to be holy because it is impossible for sinful humans to obey the law perfectly. Instead, He presented His own blood as a sacrifice for sin so that all who believe in Him are made holy.

Hebrews 10:8-10 NIV
[8] “First he said, “Sacrifices and offerings, burnt offerings and sin offerings you did not desire, nor were you pleased with them”—though they were offered in accordance with the law. [9] Then he said, “Here I am, I have come to do your will.” He sets aside the first to establish the second. [10] And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

We can never make ourselves holy. We can never live up to God’s standards by our own efforts. No amount of cleaning up our past or disconnecting from the present can produce holiness. Jesus has made us holy through His own blood.

How can we, then, confirm God’s holiness in us?

To conclude our logical argument, would God who made us holy, leave it up to us to achieve holiness by our own efforts? That makes no sense.

Does He require us to go through the rigmarole some Christian writers propose for us to be holy? No!

Holiness is both a done deal and an ongoing process.

Hebrews 10:14 NIV
[14] “For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”

God has provided three ways to help us to live holy lives, not to make us holy but to live out the holiness He has provided through the death of Jesus.

First, He has given us His Word.

Psalms 119:11 NIV
[11] “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”

David knew the value of God’s law in his life as a protection against sin.

Jesus confirmed the truth that we are being made holy by God’s Word. He prayed that His disciples would be sanctified through God’s Word.

John 17:17 NIV
[17] “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth.”

Second, the Holy Spirit works in us through the Word to sanctify us.

1 Thessalonians 5:23 NIV
“May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”.

“These verses highlight the dual role of God’s Word (the truth) and the Holy Spirit in the process of sanctification.” (Google)

Third, God uses discipline, i.e., hardships and suffering, to work in us for our good.

Hebrews 12:9-11 NIV
[9] “Moreover, we have all had human fathers who disciplined us and we respected them for it. How much more should we submit to the Father of spirits and live! [10] They disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, in order that we may share in his holiness. [11] No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”

God’s discipline, in the form of suffering, gets to the heart of our sinfulness…our flesh, our old sin nature.

1 Peter 4:1-2 NIV
[1] “Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, (a more accurate translation is “in the flesh”), arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because whoever suffers in the body (in the flesh) is done with sin. [2] As a result, they do not live the rest of their earthly lives for evil human desires (“the flesh”), but rather for the will of God.”

God’s purpose is to restore the image of Jesus in us. He, therefore, works, in the” all things” for our good…

Romans 8:28-29 NIV
[28] “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

[29] For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.”

So, Paul urges us, not to try harder to make ourselves holy, but to stay away from the filthy things that spoil the holiness we already have in Jesus.

2 Corinthians 7:1 NIV
[1] “Therefore, since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.”

Our role is not to make ourselves clean but to keep ourselves clean by “walking in the light”.

1 John 1:6-7 NIV
[6] “If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. [7] But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.”