Holiness

This post too will probably end up being about bits and pieces here and there. I am also in a brain-dead mode.

I guess first of all I'll refer to your comments on my comments about holiness and your questioning how else to manage it. God is mentioned as "holy" far more than he is mentioned as a father or as a bridegroom or a husband. The word 'holiness' is the primary word used to describe God throughout the Bible. We are also instructed in various places, but with almost identical wording, as in Leviticus: For I am the LORD that bringeth you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God: ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.

Peter makes reference to that verse when he says in 1 Peter, But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.

This calls for our conversation to be holy, something that is sorely lacking among Christians. I actually think there it isn't that hard at all to see God as holy. I don't think that we can hang on to the notion of God as father or God as husband and think therefore he is not to be spoken of in a holy way. In the first place, I am not sure how many people actually care to think of God the Father as they would of their earthly fathers, who so often betray their children or otherwise let their children down. If we take God and turn him into an earthly father, I fear a lot of children with not very good fathers, would have a really hard time reconciling the two.

Secondly we see in how Jesus prayed in the Our Father - although he addressed God as Abba, father, as familiarly as a German speaker might say 'du' to a dear family member - the familiar form of 'you' - instead of 'Sie' - the formal form of 'you' in German, that there is nothing that is not holy in how Jesus is praying, right to the end when he says and thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever.

I think I may have touched on this before, that I don't believe at all in the whole once-saved, always-saved business. I think it is that very thing that has led to us treating the name of God with the casualness that we do. People think they won't have to account for their sins when we are told quite clearly that we will have to give account to God for every word we have spoken.

Where people think there is no accountability, there is also no respect. As I quoted in the previous post on holiness, the doctrine of Calvin that people can be once-saved, always saved is put to rest completely with,

For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?

It was never part of Mennonite theology that a person could not lose their salvation. Faith without works is dead. Mennonites did not go around talking about God and Jesus loves you and sticking a 'praise the Lord' into conversations when I was growing up. God's name was too holy for that. What was the point of sticking in a 'praise the Lord' when your very feet on the earth praised the Lord? And if people couldn't see whose servant you were by looking at you, there was something wrong with how you were living.

A lot of Mennonites are doing that now, out of ignorance of the Bible and the faith they were born into and they want to be 'in style' with the American version of Christianity, which for most people, means the version that is the loudest - evangelicals. It helps that it requires so little from you. You can do what you want, just as long as you stick in enough praise the Lords in your conversation.

Ignorance and following received faith can be a terrible, blinding thing.

A lot of people who were born into the once-saved, always saved idea also believe it because they have never thought about it, never read the Bible or thought about how, within the entire context of the Bible and not a few verses pulled out of context, that's not what Jesus preached and that's not what the apostles have to say. Context is everything. But too many people, period, are taught belief means not to question, that belief means not to think.

I think that is the biggest challenge for anyone - to really look at one's beliefs, no matter what they are, and try as hard as possible to approach all ideas with an open mind, confident that the Heavenly Father will guide you into what is true, if that is your strongest desire, and regardless of whether that leads one far afield of one's received beliefs. I stand completely in awe of people who have been born into something totally opposite of Christianity, and have of their own heart, come to the conclusion that Jesus is Lord.

Link.

Logically, it makes no sense at all in any case, since we are given an inner moral code, whether we are Christian or not, and we all recognize as people, that there are people who are only sorry about things when they get caught, and people who have learned that most people will accept apologies given for wrongs done. But there are some people who use that as an excuse to sin again - the apology therefore doesn't mean anything.

This scenario is addressed in Matthew 18 by Jesus: Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.

Well, I lost my train of thought somewhere here along the line. I was going somewhere else with this and this is where I ended up so I'll just end this post for now. Hope you feel better soon. I can hardly wait, personally, until the New Year is over and life can get back to normal, or what passes for normal around here.

Layla

G-d is Holy

In these days leading up to Christmas, I've been thinking a lot about the holiness of God and how in our desire to make God into our best bud, Christians often forget that above all, God is holy. Instead we say God is love or Jesus loves you or that God loves you. It seems to me that subconsciously, modern Christians are avoiding the use of the word holy. It's too big for us. Love brings God down to our size, since we have, however flawed, an idea of what love is about since we all have someone whom we love and who loves us.

Holiness implies a mystery that we can never understand, a majesty we can never approach or negotiate with, a challenge to our thoughts and our behaviours. It isn't that God isn't love and it isn't that God doesn't love us but His love is as far above our understanding of the meaning of the word as to be something entirely different altogether. In searching the Internet, I came across a reprinted sermon here on the very same topic.

People put bumper stickers on their vehicles, with the ubiquitous John 3:16 verse on it. They put similar signs on their business and on their barn roofs. Whatever happened to holiness? Whatever happened to the Name that is so holy that religious Jews will neither say it nor spell it? I found this interesting article on the question of how Christians define God as opposed to Jews.

Why do we have such a need to make God into a buddy - sort of like Oprah - non-threatening - someone we can sit and gossip with and call Jeez. Pat Him familiarly on the back when He makes a particularly astute comment and tell other people what nice guy God/Jeez actually is as long as we 'accept Him as our personal Saviour' and confess our sins and then we can do what we want because He understands. Like Oprah. He loves us. Love is negotiable and comforting. Holiness is not. Holiness has no compromise.

It is another thing altogether. It implies something separate from the creation, a mystery, a hidden thing. Awe is missing from much of the modern Christian's mindset. We make God into our image - better than us but still in our image with our understanding. Fundamentalists believe in the creation of the heavens and the earth in a literal six days and have no problem saying so - but do they tremble when they say it? Do they have even the smallest idea of what that implies, what they believe, what it means to have such a power to create all that is or to create even the smallest part of it, like a butterfly? If they understood, how could they fail to tremble?

Exodus 15:11: Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?

I think that some of this attitude we have to Jesus being our buddy is attributable to something I have formerly brought up - cheap grace. It seems to me that many churches who emphasis a formal accept, believe, and confess salvation with the emphasis on grace have promoted a dumbed down, unholy version of Christianity, a Christianity devoid of self-discipline and discipleship in which the motto might as well be do-what-you-will because you are forgiven anyway.

Such a faith doesn't require anything of you since it teaches that you can never be in danger of losing your salvation. Oh sure, you might be a few stars short in your crown but never in danger of Hell, which is, so many teach, reserved for atheists and non-Christians, who may in fact every day of their lives humbly feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit prisoners and the sick, but who are not Christians in the sense that they recognise Jesus as God come in the flesh.

Jesus covers our many sins of ignorance. He stands between us and the Accuser before God. He is the only begotten Son of God without whom we have no hope. But He is also holy and doesn't suffer fools gladly. Following Christ requires holiness and self-discipline. As Paul says to the Hebrews 10:

For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, but a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses: Of how much sorer punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant, wherewith he was sanctified, an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace?

It is the offended holiness of the Lord that set the cherubim east of the Garden of Eden with a fiery sword. It is the holiness of the Lord before which Moses is instructed to take off his shoes, and upon questioning who it was who addressed him, is told, I Am that I Am. God does not have any obligation to explain himself to humanity. God is not explainable. His thoughts are not our thoughts and his ways not our ways.

Later, on the mountain of revelation, all Israel must be cleaned and have fasted, and still stand off, neither man or beast touching the outskirts of the mountain.

Exodus 19:10 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go unto the people, and sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash their clothes, and be ready against the third day: for the third day the LORD will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying, Take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up into the mount, or touch the border of it: whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death:

There shall not an hand touch it, but he shall surely be stoned, or shot through; whether it be beast or man, it shall not live: when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount. And Moses went down from the mount unto the people, and sanctified the people; and they washed their clothes. And he said unto the people, Be ready against the third day: come not at your wives.

In the emphasis on God's love, we seem to have taken away most of the majesty, most of what makes God, God. We take it away in our casual use of God's name, our quickness to attribute our understandings and our ways to God, in our glibness at grasping onto the notion of our salvation and then plastering it across every imaginable human construct.

Any person, confronted with the fact of the living God, with the majesty and fearsome nature of Him before whom the angels cover their faces, (I saw also the LORD sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims: each one had six wings; with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory, Isaiah 6) would say, like Isaiah,

Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts.

Layla