Yesterday I began presenting some thoughts about holiness and sin being unable to exist in the same place, seeing this as an explanation as to why sin must be removed in order for someone to be in the presence of God.
As I mentioned, I compare this to light and darkness. Darkness can’t remain in the presence of a bright light. The light expels it.
John uses this fact to describe God when he writes:
“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.”
(1 John 1:5–6 NIV)
The New Testament frequently uses darkness to describe evil, while describing God as light. The two can’t go together.
My thought is that God’s holiness acts toward sin as light does toward darkness. There can be no mingling of the two. Where the godly one exists (holiness, light) the other cannot. God is life so there is no death where he is. God is truth so there can be no lie in him.
God is holy. That holiness expels and destroys sin.
Very good thoughts. Agree with you.
Kindly put a “like” button so that we have agree with your posts.
Tim – I think this is very true and I have heard it before. The question that arises is whether (or how) the metaphor illustrates the “expels” part.
As you say the presence of light “expels” darkness. There is no action required for that to happen.
If we are inhabited by the Spirit – the holiness of God then is evil expelled automatically? or is there additional action required?
One possibility is that if we work at filling ourselves with holiness — the fruit of the spirit that will drive out all those things we are told to”put off” but it seems we also need to be actively working to eliminate those evil things.
So maybe the metaphor is limited to showing the reality that holiness and evil cannot co-exist and doesn’t apply to the process by which holiness is “put on” and evil is “put off”.
God Bless
Charlie