6 days from now, I will be preaching on the subject of holiness. It is a subject that has been in the forefront of my mind over the last few months as I have been studying the prophets. It seems to me, that if you are looking for the main event contained within the OT, it would be the Exile. It is not a subject that is taught to our children much, but if you look at the OT as a whole, a huge portion of it focuses on the Exile. Moses prophesied about it nearly 1000 years before it came to pass. And ever since then prophets had been hinting about it, and and even telling exactly how it was going to happen. God warned the people over and over and over about its coming in hopes that repentance would happen without such drastic measures, but to no avail.
So, with so much of the OT centered around the Exile, I began to meditate on what God is revealing about Himself through this pivotal event. (This view comes from my fairly recent perception that the primary function of the bible is to reveal God to us. If this is true, then God is loudly proclaiming some of His core qualities to us through the exile.)
The first and most obvious quality revealed through the exile is His holiness. For a thousand years, his people had been content to follow God half-heartedly. They had held on to the worship of God, yet mixed in the worship of pagan God's. Regardless of what God did through the judges, the kings and the prophets, the people were never changed for more than a generation or two.
Then, THE EXILE.
Through the exile and through prophets like Daniel, Zerubbabel, and Malachi, the people finally got it. God is holy, and his people must be holy as well. This is so clear when looking at the temple. Before the Exile, it was not uncommon for one of Judah's own (Davidic) kings to set up pagan idols within the temple itself. Yet, I don't recall reading about any kind of averse reactions of the people. Then, after the exile, when Antiochus IV Epiphanes erected an idol of Zeus in the temple and sacrificed a pig on the altar, it caused so much outrage that a 24 year war known as the Maccabean revolt ensued and ultimately overthrew Greek rule. Then, when Jesus arrived about 430 years after the last group returned from exile, there was no hint of pagan worship among God's people.
The people finally got it...GOD IS HOLY...HIS CHILDREN MUST BE HOLY
Unfortunately, they got that message to the exclusion of some of His other, and greater attributes, namely Love and Mercy.
Please write any thoughts you have on this subject, as it will help greatly in my preparation for Sunday's sermon. Answering these questions will be of especially helpful.
How are we to uphold the holiness and justice of God while keeping God's Love, Grace, Mercy, and Freedom center stage?
What does NT holiness look like?
Thank you for your help.
5 comments:
You said "How are we to uphold the holiness and justice of God while keeping God's Love, Grace, Mercy, and Freedom center stage?"
I think it is interesting the way you phrase the question. It's as if they are competing entities.
We have been studying the Babylonian exile, Israel's return to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Temple(Ezra, Daniel, Jeremiah and Ezekiel). I'll gather my thoughts on these for you.
Anybody who can be as concise as Brandon has better things to say than me.
That's a great insight about the exile as such a defining event, and the way it functioned in refining God's people. When God warns about sending his people into exile, it seems like some of the problem he's confronting - and condition of their return - has to do with remembering justice and mercy. Maybe those things are so tethered to what God's holiness is, that you can't have one without the other (two). I think about the way God is revealed in Exodus 34 - sort of the "lyrics" to God's glory. If you look at Israel's call and the prophet's warnings, it's interesting to take in Jesus' announcement of the Kingdom in Luke 4, and the clarification given to J the B's boys about whether he is the one to come, in Mt 11. If the holiness of God is most revealed in the person of Christ, and he is glorified in crucifixion and resurrection (rather than in national power and conquest), then maybe we witness to holiness to the extent we evidence the Kingdom among us. And he often confronted God's people for thinking they'd arrived at holiness, for forsaking the "weightier matters" that really define holiness. There's probably more to say along the lines of what it means to live as "resident aliens," as citizens of God's reign, and how God's people lived in exile. (How long can a blog comment be?) When God's people recognized this struggle - how their failure at living out mercy and love and justice resulted in God's withdrawing his holiness (vacating the temple), they sang the blues (psalm 137).
Anyway, the actual question about managing holiness, love, grace, mercy and freedom: maybe righteousness is not righteousness if it is not merciful, restoring, gracious, etc. Maybe "only God is good," and we are at our best striving for mercy, and letting him separate wheat and tares. I s'pose I'd ask the questions of the idea of God's people having arrived at holiness after the exile: did they consider themselves out of exile in Jesus' time? Did Jesus consider God's people to have arrived at singular focus in worship and life? Are God's people now living out arrival in a holy nation, or are we still living in exile waiting on its arrival?
Or, we can always bury a bus full of ammo, and start a compound community.
Anyway, that's all a fluid response, really. Poke at it how you like.
Dave (regretting the length, even as I hit "publish")
Well, other than noting that you once didn't capitalize "Bible," I think that was a pretty good entry. I think I'm going to do some more research into that intertestamental period. I guess it kind of goes back to the pendulum thing though, because obviously by the time Jesus lived many people were more focused on making themselves holy rather than realizing that God is. Was it better when the Isrealites openly worshiped other Gods or when they worshiped God with wrong motives?
I guess maybe you could make some points on keeping things between the two extremes. clayizzle
Thanks for your comments thus far. It has really helped me look deeper into the matter.
Dave,
Your essay was particularly helpful, and I am confident that it will be even more helpful after reading it a few more times.
Clay,
"Was it better when the Isrealites openly worshiped other Gods or when they worshiped God with wrong motives?"
Great question! I think most would agree that both are detestable before God. But do we show that in our churches. In my experience, there are several church leaders (not in the church I serve, thankfully) that care more about a person's behavior at "church" than the life they lead outside the walls.
I don't believe this is consistent.
Brandon,
The reason they comes across as competing entities to me is because of the teaching of Jesus. Jesus took the Law and upped the ante. He said it is not good enough to not murder...don't hate. It is not good enough to not commit adultery...don't lust. It is not good enough to give a tithe... don't love wealth give indiscriminately.
These commands could have easily made people feel worse than before. But that is not how he came across. His yoke was seen as easy, and his burden was seen as light. The weary and heavy laden flocked to him even while he was calling them to unprecedented holiness and righteousness.
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