God was calling his people into relationship with himself and he wanted his people not only to survive the experience but to be nourished by it. But for that to happen, they needed to know the ground rules, needed to come to him on his terms not theirs. Time, space, objects, and people—all can become holy if they belong to God. The temple in Jerusalem was considered holy space, and the objects used in worship holy objects.
The Sabbaths and feasts of Israel were considered holy days or seasons. But how does Jesus do this? Remember the story of King Midas? Everything he touched turned to gold. Something like that happens when we come into relationship with Christ , the one who entered the holy of holies in heaven to heal the rift that sin had created in our relationship with God. Excerpt from What's the Big Deal about Holiness? God is perfect; he lacks nothing.
God is holy; he is set apart and wholly separate from sin. So he did. He wanted it all. He rebelled against God and lost all of what God gave him. He elicited the fall of Adam and Eve , depriving them of holiness. Only Moses and Aaron were permitted on the mountain.
When priests, who served as scribes, copied portions of the Old Testament and came to the name Jehovah or Yahweh, they would actually stop, wash themselves and change their clothes because the name of God is holy. As recorded in the Genesis account, God created everything in six days and then instituted a seventh day of rest. Today, in a culture of casualness, all of this seems so foreign, even weird, to us.
Thankfully Jesus, who is perfectly holy, makes a way for us to be in relationship with a Holy God. We hear much today about God wants a relationship, not religion. That is very true! I was standing over there before we began this series, and those who are watching it by video tape missed some of the things that we did by way of lead-in. I cannot hear that hymn without chills running up and down my spine.
I think about the angels and everyone casting down their golden crowns beside the glassy sea—that everything we have that is worth anything is something we would gladly lay at the feet of the Holy One—and how this hymn so triumphantly celebrates the majesty of God. We can underline words, italicize them, put them in boldface type, put little quotation marks or brackets around them, or fill the page with exclamation points.
Even my editors do that. I find it in the final draft. They do that, and it drives me crazy. Well the Jews did the same thing. They did all of that—underline, boldface, italicize—but they had another technique to call attention to something of particular importance.
It was the simple technique of verbal repetition. Jesus was fond of using this device of repetition to make His points. Now remember, Jesus was a rabbi. That meant that He was a theologian. He had a school, and He had students called disciples, or learners, who enrolled in His school.
And He was a peripatetic rabbi. That meant that He walked around, and as He walked the disciples literally followed Him. He would lecture as He walked down the road to Emmaus, or wherever, and the disciples would follow along behind Him and commit to memory the things that the rabbi taught them. Now ladies and gentlemen, every teaching that ever came from the lips of Jesus Christ was important, but even our Lord took time to call attention to things that He regarded as being super important.
Whenever He would come to a point like that, that He wanted to make sure His disciples never missed, He would preface His teaching by saying two words. This is the captain speaking. Ladies and gentlemen, there is only one attribute of God that is ever raised to the third degree of repetition in Scripture. Do you hear that? Inanimate, lifeless, unintelligible parts of creation in the presence of the manifestation of the holiness of God had the good sense to be moved.
How can we, made in His image, be indifferent or apathetic to His majesty? God alone is holy, and what I want to do in this series is try to describe what that means and what the reaction of Isaiah and other people historically is when the holy appears. This teaching series is also available on Ligonier Connect, our online learning platform with integrated study tools and a community of fellow learners.
Teaching Series. Conference Messages. Tabletalk Magazine. Gift Certificates. Ligonier Ministries. Supporting Ligonier. Renewing Your Mind. Ligonier Connect. Reformation Study Bible. In today's world, churches and Christians seek to be relevant to people from various walks of life in the pursuit of winning them over to the Lord and making disciples of them. Yet, in this noble pursuit, some have abandoned the pursuit of holiness, which is ultimately what God wants His people to pursue.
God Himself said in Leviticus that we Christians must set ourselves apart as He is set apart: "You must be holy because I, the Lord, am holy. I have set you apart from all other people to be my very own. Don't touch their filthy things, and I will welcome you.
Thus, the pursuit of being relevant to people with the intention of bring them to God must never outweigh our pursuit of God's holiness. We must always prioritise God Himself above winning people to Him. While we desire to become relevant to the world, let's face the truth that as a Christian — if indeed you are a genuine Christ-follower — the world with all its worldliness will never accept us.
Let us consider the Lord Jesus Himself, who "came into the very world he created, but the world didn't recognise him.
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