Satan identifies us by our sin, and we often join him in doing so, but God identifies us in Christ. God identifies us as holy and calls us to be holy because He has declared us holy on account of the holiness of Christ. As Paul writes, God “chose us in [Christ] before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him” (Eph. 1:4).
Thinking about God leads us to quickly affirm God’s holy and righteous character. But pondering our own holiness can leave us feeling bad about ourselves. We heartily confess that God is holy, that He is unchanging in His holiness, and that His being and character exemplify and define holiness, yet we are painfully aware of our own sins. We don’t feel very holy, and therefore we conclude that we are not holy.
In ourselves, we are not holy. We are born in sin, and thus we are radically corrupt, at enmity with God, and bound for God’s eternal and righteous judgment. When it comes to our sin, if we’re honest, not only do we have to confess the sins we commit that people see, but we must also confess those sins in our hearts and minds that only God sees. Most of us not only don’t feel holy; we feel like the opposite of holy.