Tag Archives: holiness

Light expels darkness; holiness expels sin

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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.

Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders

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I’ve been disappointed with some of my fellow Christians the last few days. For a few, priority number one after the Newtown tragedy was the need to stave off any attempts to limit their “right to bear arms.” Paul Smith wrote an article yesterday that voices some of my disappointment: A New American Idol – The Second Amendment.

I’ve also been a bit disappointed with myself. Some of my comments haven’t reflected Kingdom values, either.

Others are listening. And watching. At this time, I don’t want to be known as one who speaks up against guns, nor as one who defends their use. I’d much rather be known as someone who speaks about God, His Kingdom, and the lifestyle that citizens of that Kingdom should live.

May I speak the language of the New Jerusalem, rather than the language of Meshech and Kedar.

Stanley Hauerwas is said to have remarked, “I tell everyone I’m a pacifist so that other people will prevent me from killing some ___ one day.” (Hauerwas apparently feels freer than I to use coarse language) I write posts like this to remind myself, and give others the freedom to remind me, what I need to be focused on.

“Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity. Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” (Colossians 4:5-6)

photo taken from MorgueFile.com

Moving toward holiness

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Yesterday I talked about the concept of the pursuit of holiness. I think that “pursuit” is a good word to use in this case, for two reasons:

(1) 100% holiness will not be achieved through our efforts. As long as we are in the flesh, we won’t be purely holy. All we can do is pursue it.

(2 The idea of movement needs to be included. Let me illustrate why, using an illustration inspired by a recording I heard of a Jeff Walling presentation at the Tulsa Workshop.

First, let’s lay out a continuum, with immorality and holiness as the two endpoints:

Then let’s place two markers on the continuum, one representing the world and one representing the church:

Typically, what the church seeks to do is to use the world as a reference, then seek to be a little bit holier than the world. Our holiness comes to be defined by what we don’t do. (Like the parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector in Luke 18) As we resist the influences of the world, we take our stand just to one side of it.

But what happens when the world moves?

The church tends to move with it. I could give myriad examples, but surely we know it’s true. It happens with bad things… and even with good things. In many ways, the world moved ahead of the church in the area of civil rights, for example. The current emphasis on social justice arose from humanists, then spread to the church.

The point is, we can’t just seek to maintain the status quo. That’s next to impossible. We need to be actively moving toward holiness, seeking the fruit of the Spirit, imitating Christ, pursuing godliness. If not, we’ll slowly drift along with the world, maybe not as far, but drifting all the same.

The pursuit of holiness

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Regarding what we discussed yesterday about good and evil, I think that a big problem that Christians have is that they have no sense of the need to pursue holiness. Part of that goes back to something I referred to before, the transactional view of God. That is, people only see their relationship with God in terms of what they can get from Him, the primary “good” to be gotten being salvation. All that matters is whether or not your are saved or lost, according to this view. Therefore, the only concern about sin is whether or not it will “keep us out of heaven” or not.

It’s that viewpoint, for example, that fears teaching about grace. If people are only focused on doing enough to get saved, then any teaching about grace will remove their motivation for doing what’s right. You’ve got to preach fire and brimstone, or people will become complacent.

The New Testament, of course, teaches that grace motivates us to work all that much harder. Because of the grace we’ve received, we pursue holiness. Even as we acknowledge that we will never be perfect, we imitate He that is perfect, becoming holier in the process.

With that sort of view, we begin to look at right and wrong in a different way.That’s where a study of the Old Testament concept of holiness becomes helpful. We choose to do things not only because they are prescribed or proscribed but because they reflect the nature of God. Admittedly, it’s an advanced way of thinking, one that’s not easy to teach to children, for example. But as we mature, I think we have to start looking at things in terms of holiness.

Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” (1Peter 1:13-16)

The “Only The Atonement Counts” Dodge

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This is the sixth post in a series of posts looking at the Sermon on the Mount. I’ve referred to a blog by Michael L. Westmoreland-White which brings up these specific points; he in turn credits John Howard Yoder and Glen Stassen. Westmoreland-White describes “dodges” to the Sermon on the Mount, ways in which people seek to get around applying it today. We’ll look today at the last dodge in the group: the “all that matters is the atonement” dodge. (I might note that he is specifically discussing pacifism, so his comments at times focus on how the Sermon is applied at a national level)

To some degree, I addressed this last dodge on Friday. Some feel that any talk of how Christians should live somehow cheapens Jesus’ sacrifice and turns Christianity into a works-based-salvation religion. I probably don’t have a lot to add to what I said on Friday; I strongly encourage you to read that post to understand my rejection of that outlook.

I will restate however that Jesus did not die to give Christians a free pass to live as they please. He died to allow men to be holy, men who can’t make themselves holy on their own. The proper response to such a sacrifice is loving obedience, not out of a desire to justify ourselves, but out of a desire to please the One who died to make us holy.

In the Old Testament, God marveled at the fact that His people couldn’t understand this point, that they would respond to His love and mercy by turning their back on Him. Maybe this is seen most graphically in the book of Hosea, where Hosea marries a woman who is continually unfaithful to him, with this relationship symbolizing the relationship between God and His people. Today God expects a similar loving response from the bride of Christ, not out of fear of divorce, but out of a loving desire to please her husband.

I have a few more thoughts on the Sermon on the Mount, but we’ve finished looking at Westmoreland-White’s article. I’d like to hear your reactions.