What R.C. Ryle wrote in my previous post is a hard saying, but it is a hard saying with much comfort. God's demand of holiness is essential to the gospel, because it is the gospel. Christ death and resurrection secured for us a means of grace that included justification, sanctification, and glorification. Each one of these obtained solely by grace. So the grace that brought us into this salvation also sanctifies us.
It is in this that there is comfort. We could in no effort of ourselves bring about our salvation and likewise we in no work or effort can make ourselves holy. So this command to be holy must be fulfilled in Christ. And so as Paul addresses the Galatians, he tells them that what they have begun in faith, must be continued to be walked out in faith.
So if you want to be holy, you must begin with Christ, you must press into Christ, and you must rely on Christ. You must believe the Gospel. And this is not an idle promise, sanctification has been secured by the quarantee of the Holy Spirit, to those who are being saved.
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