(This sermon is part of Dr. Manuel's sermon series: "What is Foremost?" Links to
each of the sermons in the series will be found here as they are posted.)
The quality of a person's character, including his devotion to God, should be reflected in all areas of life. That devotion may also have a beneficial affect in unexpected ways.
When the Lord redeems the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and claims them as His people, they do not know what He will expect from them. In the weeks and months that follow, as they make their way to the Promised Land, He reveals to them what He requires. It is not the occasional worship service or animal sacrifice that other deities receive from their devotees. Israel's God wants to transform their character, by demanding...
XL. The Foremost Consecration1
...which develops...
In our Saturday afternoon Bible study, someone asked me to define holiness and explain how a person can become holy. It was not a concept she understood. Not many people do. I tried to explain it, but was not particularly satisfied with my answer. I do not remember what I said. I may have mentioned that it is a concept closely related to the temple, which is true, and, therefore, difficult for us to comprehend because we have no temple, which is also true. What I did not realize at the time is that God has made holiness easier for us to understand by relating it to something we do understand.
In the Pentateuch passages that use the term, God does not tell His people how to define holiness but rather how to demonstrate holiness. She was asking the wrong question, or, more likely, I was directing her to the wrong answer, at least, an inadequate one. Listen to how God describes it earlier in the chapter, in vv. 7-8.
Because God is holy, He expects His people, those who represent Him to the world, to be holy as well.10 That is the reason He gives here in Lev 20 and elsewhere:11 "You are to be holy to me because I, the LORD, am holy." Sometimes, when God issues a call like this, there is a particular matter that posses a challenge to His peoples' devotion, either positively or negatively.12
The Lord's various requirements for personal holiness are not the same for all His people, and where there is a difference for them often depends on the distance of them to the sanctuary, the nexus of God's holiness.
In the Old Testament, God was very concerned that His people maintain personal holiness. Did His priorities change in the New Testament? ...Indeed, they did not, and a survey of Paul's epistles reveals that the apostle recognized the importance of personal holiness, that it should be an abiding concern, even today.
In Lev 20:23, God gives two reasons why it is important for His people, including you, to be holy. By striving to meet His exacting standard, it shows your imitation of God and your dedication to God. So, how important is holiness to you? What priority should it have for you now? The author of Hebrews says...
Having considered The Foremost Consecration, we will look next at The Foremost Convocation, which sets aside each week the period of God, in Lev 23:3.
For the Bibliography and Endnotes, see the pdf here.
Three very religious rabbis in black garb and with long beards are about to play golf. An Irish Catholic, named Mulhaney, also at the course to play, joins the threesome for 18 holes. At the end of the game, his score is 104. The rabbis shoot 69, 70, and 71, respectively. He asks them, "How is it that you all play such good golf?" The lead rabbi answers, "When you live a holy life and attend a synagogue regularly, you are rewarded." Mulhaney loves golf and figures, "What do I have to lose?" So, he converts, finds a synagogue close to his home, which he attends regularly, and lives a holy life.
A year later, he again plays golf with the three rabbis. His score is 104. The rabbis shoot 69, 70, and 71, respectively. He says to them, "Okay, I converted, joined a synagogue, and live a holy life, but I'm still playing lousy golf." The lead rabbi asks him, "Which synagogue did you join?" Mulhaney replies, "Beth Shalom." "There's the problem," the rabbi replies...... "That one's for tennis."The quality of a person's character, including his devotion to God, should be reflected in all areas of life. That devotion may also have a beneficial affect in unexpected ways...or not.... Regardless of your sporting interests, though, there is great importance to The Foremost Consecration.
When the Lord redeems the Israelites from slavery in Egypt and claims them as His people, they do not know what He will expect from them. In the weeks and months that follow, as they make their way to the Promised Land, He reveals to them what He requires. It is not the occasional worship service or animal sacrifice that other deities receive from their devotees. Israel's God wants to transform their character, by demanding...
XL. The Foremost Consecration1
...which develops...
- The purity of God (Lev 20:26)
Lev 20:26 You are to be holy to me [subjective] because I, the LORD, am holy, and I have set you apart [objective] from the nations to be my own.To be holy is to be set apart for God's use, and it is a term that has wide-ranging applications.2
- Holiness can refer to spatial separation, which is a transformation of places for God's use, as He did with Mt. Sinai, whence He gave the law to Moses.3
Exod 19:23 Moses said to the LORD, "The people cannot come up Mount Sinai, because you yourself warned us, 'Put limits around the mountain and set it apart as holy."
God set apart that mountain for His use.
- Holiness can refer to material separation, which is a transformation of things for God's use, as He did with the tabernacle and its accouterments.4
Exod 40:9 ...anoint the tabernacle and everything in it; consecrate it and all its furnishings, and it will be holy.
God set apart the tabernacle for His use.
- Holiness can refer to temporal separation, which is a transformation of time for God's use, as He did with the seventh day.5
Exod 31:14a Observe the Sabbath, because it is holy to you.... 15a For six days, work is to be done, but the seventh day is a Sabbath of rest, holy to the LORD.
God set apart the Sabbath for His use.
- Holiness can refer to personal separation, which is a transformation of people for God's use, as He did with Israel.6
Exod 19:5b [The Lord said to Moses:] Although the whole earth is mine, 6 you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites."
God set apart that nation for His use.Barring outside interruption, holiness of the first three kinds— spatial, material, or temporal—is invariable and usually stable. Because those kinds do not have minds of their own, they do not change on their own. What is holy in those areas remains so, unless it is affected by a breakdown in the fourth kind—personal holiness, which is variable and often unstable. Because the individual does have a mind of his own, his holiness may change when he fails to follow God's guidelines for purity, and that change can have an adverse affect on the other kinds of holiness he contacts. Consequently, among these various applications of holiness, it is the personal that concerns God most, the kind that reflects a person's character, including yours, in two ways. Look again at Lev 20:26.7 He says...
[B]e holy...because I, the LORD, am holy.In other words...
1. Your character shows your imitation of God, that you are like the Lord.He also says...
In other words...I have set you apart [sanctified you] from the nations....
2. Your character shows your dedication to God, that you are unlike the world.8This is personal holiness.9 Still, what does it mean to be holy, and how is it possible?
In our Saturday afternoon Bible study, someone asked me to define holiness and explain how a person can become holy. It was not a concept she understood. Not many people do. I tried to explain it, but was not particularly satisfied with my answer. I do not remember what I said. I may have mentioned that it is a concept closely related to the temple, which is true, and, therefore, difficult for us to comprehend because we have no temple, which is also true. What I did not realize at the time is that God has made holiness easier for us to understand by relating it to something we do understand.
In the Pentateuch passages that use the term, God does not tell His people how to define holiness but rather how to demonstrate holiness. She was asking the wrong question, or, more likely, I was directing her to the wrong answer, at least, an inadequate one. Listen to how God describes it earlier in the chapter, in vv. 7-8.
Lev 20:7a Consecrate yourselves and be holy.... 8a Keep my decrees and follow them....In other words...
You become holy before God by being obedient to God.Holiness is not some ethereal state, an elevated plane of spirituality you must try to achieve, knowing you will never quite reach it. Holiness is within the grasp of everyone here. It is, in fact, quite simple to understand. As these passages and a host of others make clear, holiness before God is defined by and demonstrated by obedience to God.
Because God is holy, He expects His people, those who represent Him to the world, to be holy as well.10 That is the reason He gives here in Lev 20 and elsewhere:11 "You are to be holy to me because I, the LORD, am holy." Sometimes, when God issues a call like this, there is a particular matter that posses a challenge to His peoples' devotion, either positively or negatively.12
- There are rules prescribing certain conduct. For example, the Israelites must...13
- Respect their parents
Lev 19:2b Be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy. 3a Each of you must respect his mother and father....
- Respect their priests
Lev 21:8 Regard them as holy, because they offer up the [sacrifices] of your God. Consider them holy, because I the LORD am holy—I who make you holy.
- There are rules proscribing certain conduct. For example, the Israelites must...
- Reject idolatrous worship
Deut 7:5 ...Break down their altars, smash their sacred stones, cut down their Asherah poles and burn their idols in the fire. 6 For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession.
- Reject pagan customs
In ways such as these, in whom they respect and in what they reject, the Israelites demonstrate their devotion to God and their personal holiness.Deut 14:1 You are the children of the LORD your God. Do not cut yourselves or shave the front of your heads for the dead, 2 for you are a people holy to the LORD your God. Out of all the peoples on the face of the earth, the LORD has chosen you to be his treasured possession.
The Lord's various requirements for personal holiness are not the same for all His people, and where there is a difference for them often depends on the distance of them to the sanctuary, the nexus of God's holiness.
- The requirements for priests, who may come into the place where God dwells, are most stringent and limiting, dictating, for example, whom they marry.14
Lev 21:14 IThe High Priest] must not marry a widow, a divorced woman, or a woman defiled by prostitution, but only a virgin from his own people, 15 so he will not defile his offspring among his people. I am the LORD, who makes him holy.
- The requirements for other Israelites, who only come near the place where God dwells, are less stringent, but still limiting, dictating, for example, how they dress.
Num 15:38 ...Throughout the generations to come you are to make tassels on the corners of your garments, with a blue cord on each tassel.... 40 Then you will remember to obey all my commands and will be [holy] to your God.
- The requirements for gentiles,15 who must maintain some distance from the place where God dwells, are least stringent, yet still limiting, dictating, for example, what they eat.16
Despite such specific expressions of obedience,17 though, there are common ways that everyone who serves God—clergy or laity, Jew or gentile—can demonstrate holiness.18 The one most familiar to us as Seventh Day Baptists is the provision in God's law for gentiles who want to maintain the sanctity of the seventh day.19Deut 14:21a-c [God says to the Israelites:] Do not eat anything you find already dead. You may give it to an alien living in any of your towns, and he may eat it.... But you are a people holy to the LORD your God.
Exod 20:8 Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.... 10b On it you shall not do any work, neither you... nor the alien within your gates...Other ways gentles demonstrate holiness is by avoiding practices common among pagans that God said are personally defiling to those who engage in them, like idolatry and immorality (see n. 17).
In the Old Testament, God was very concerned that His people maintain personal holiness. Did His priorities change in the New Testament? ...Indeed, they did not, and a survey of Paul's epistles reveals that the apostle recognized the importance of personal holiness, that it should be an abiding concern, even today.
- First, God expects you to be holy. That is His desire for your life, which He indicated before you were even born.20
Eph 1:4 ...he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy...in his sight.
God expects you to be holy.21
- Second, God enables you to be holy. This is a spiritually mature state, but it is not beyond the typical believer's reach.[22]
Col 1:22 [God] has reconciled you by Christ's physical body through death to present you holy in his sight...
God enables you to be holy.
- Third, to reach that state, you must endeavor to be holy. It does not happen automatically or with the simple passage of time.[23]
2 Cor 7:1 ...let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.
You must endeavor to be holy.While God's holiness requirements for the priests are more stringent than His holiness requirements for the laity, His general expectations are the same for all His people, including you. Again, Paul gives a hint, a partial list, in...
Eph 5:3 ...among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God's holy people. 4 Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking....Holiness is not some ethereal state, an elevated plane of spirituality you must try to achieve, knowing you will never quite reach it. Holiness is within the grasp of everyone here. It is reflected in your character: evident in your conduct and your conversation. In ways such as these, you demonstrate The Foremost Consecration.
In Lev 20:23, God gives two reasons why it is important for His people, including you, to be holy. By striving to meet His exacting standard, it shows your imitation of God and your dedication to God. So, how important is holiness to you? What priority should it have for you now? The author of Hebrews says...
Heb 12:14 Make every effort...to be holy [because] without holiness no one will see the Lord.Do you want to see the Lord? ...Are you making "every effort" to be holy?
Having considered The Foremost Consecration, we will look next at The Foremost Convocation, which sets aside each week the period of God, in Lev 23:3.
For the Bibliography and Endnotes, see the pdf here.
(This sermon is part of Dr. Manuel's sermon series: "What is Foremost?" Links to each of the sermons in the series will be found here as they are posted)
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Jim Skaggs