From Craig Van Gelder’s The Essence of the Church: A Community Created by the Spirit:

In understanding the holiness of the church we need to remember that the “holiness of the church does not stem from its members and their moral and religious behavior.” [1] The issue is not who we are as humans, but rather what God has done in bringing the church into existence. The redemptive reign of God, present through the indwelling of the Spirit, makes the church holy by nature. Just as God justifies individual believers and gives them a new nature, so also God creates the church through the Spirit and gives it a holy nature. It is a nature that is to display the reality of sanctification that is framed first and foremost in corporate terms. (117)

[1] Kung, The Church, 324.