We know Him to be the Spirit of God. Reading the Old Testament, we see Him active at the very beginning of creation. Throughout the Word of God, we see Him as a Spirit of power.

Whenever there was a great deed done by God through men, the force behind it was the Spirit of God. We see His works, not just by a thing, but as a living, divine Individual getting things done. So He is also a doing Spirit.

Now we come to the interesting thing about this Person. When He is introduced for the first time in the set of books generally called the New Testament, he is called the Holy Spirit. Notice, please, that He is referred to in that way throughout the New Testament.

Isn’t it curious that of all the attributes of the Spirit of God, holiness is the one by which God wants us to primarily know Him?

We know He is the healing Spirit. He is the comforting Spirit. He is the Advocating Spirit. He does every good thing, yet his name is forever inscribed in the heavens and the earth as Holy Spirit.

We don’t say in the name of the Father, the Son and the Powerful Spirit. It doesn’t even sound right. It has to be the Holy Spirit.

So here is the reason. God the Father has given unto us His Spirit, and the first thing he wants us to see about this Spirit is the Holiness of God. There is a strange description of this Spirit in Romans 1:4. We read there of Jesus Christ being “declared to be the Son of God with power…according to the Spirit of Holiness.” The Greek phrase for “Spirit of Holiness” is ‘pneuma hagiōsunē.’ The King James Version is one of the very few bible translations that correctly presents us with this majestic description of the Holy Spirit. “Hagiōsunē” is used only two other times in the New Testament for ‘holiness’ and it specifically speaks of the character of God as averse to the corruption of sin: absolute purity.  When Jesus was declared to be the ‘Son of God with power,’ it was done according to the “Spirit of Holiness.”

The kind of Christianity that I see in many places today that relegates holiness to the background is fake. It doesn’t belong to the Father.

When you present the Holy Spirit as the one who merely knocks people down at the touch of the man of God, or the one who merely heals people, or just makes your business to prosper; and you totally leave out the character of God called holiness, you have robbed God of His glory. God’s glory is packaged in His Holiness, and that is why He is said to be “glorious in holiness.” (Exodus 15:11).

Isaiah the prophet saw the Lord’s majesty in the temple. The angels who ministered to the Awesome One couldn’t even look upon his face, so they covered their faces with their wings. Tremblingly, they kept shouting the only thing they were aware of — Yahweh’s fearsome holiness. Yes, He is powerful, but they weren’t shouting, “Powerful, Powerful…” All they could shout was “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord…” (Isiah 6:1-3).

Today, many seem to have been led away from the holiness of the Almighty. We don’t seem to want any of it. It seems the holiness of God is too mundane for the modern Christian. it isn’t exciting enough. We’d rather have His power, His grace, His love… Well, we need to realize that all of these are rooted in His holiness.

Divine purity is the generator of true power. The power of the Holy Spirit is given to believers and it symbolizes, among other things, the power over sin. We received the Spirit primarily to “be a witnesses,” not to witness. Those who are so eager to use God’s power to witness without living their life as witnesses of divine holiness will eventually do more harm than good. That is why some evangelizers bring people into the church only to make them sevenfold a child of hell than they were before.

We are called to be holy. This holiness is not merely theoretical or positional. Without its practical side, it is meaningless to the world around us. The only thing that distinguishes us from the world is the manifestation of God’s holiness in our lives.

Today, I see professing Christians compete with rank unbelievers in using blasphemous words, gambling, sexual sins and other sins. They claim Grace has covered it all. Today’s “Christianity” has become a cover for sin. Preachers tell people that when the world do wrong, it is sin, but when a Christian does wrong, it is just a mistake. We need to realize that when God gave us the Holy Spirit, He gave us the power to live holy. For us believers, holy living is not an option, it is a way of life. It is not a religious obligation, it is a supernatural necessity that is designed to be natural with us.

But as the One Who called you is holy, you yourselves also be holy in all your conduct and manner of living. For it is written, You shall be holy, for I am holy. (1 Peter 1:15-16 AMP)