I'm still reading feverishly along the lines of OT Theology, but today I have been profitably distracted by Phil Brown's musings upon holiness:
By way of formulating a response to the last post, I came upon a few comments upon the holiness of God by A. W. Tozer in his classic book,
The Knowledge of the Holy. He writes as follows:
The feeling for mystery, even for the Great Mystery, is basic in human nature and indispensable to religious faith, but it is not enough. Because of it men may whisper, "That awful Thing," but they do not cry, "Mine Holy One!" In the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures God carries forward His self-revelation and gives it personality and moral content. This awful Presence is shown to be not a Thing but a moral Being with all the warm qualities of genuine personality. More than this, He is the absolute quintessence of moral excellence, infinitely perfect in righteousness, purity, rectitude, and incomprehensible holiness. And in all this He is uncreated, self-sufficient and beyond the power of human thought to conceive or human speech to utter.
Through the self-revelation of God in the Scriptures and the illumination of the Holy Spirit the Christian gains everything and loses nothing. To his idea of God there are added the twin concepts of personality and moral character, but there remains the original sense of wonder and fear in the presence of the world-filling Mystery. Today his heart may leap up with the happy cry, “Abba Father, my Lord and my God!” Tomorrow he may kneel with the delighted trembling to admire and adore the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity.
Holy is the way God is. To be holy He does not conform to a standard. He is that standard. He is absolutely holy with an infinite, incomprehensible fullness of purity that is incapable of being other than it is. Because He is holy, His attributes are holy; that is, whatever we think of as belonging to God must be thought of as holy.
God is holy and He has made holiness the moral condition necessary to the health of His universe. Sin’s temporary presence in the world only accents this. Whatever is holy is healthy; evil is a moral sickness that must end ultimately in death. The formation of the language itself suggests this, the English word holy deriving from the Anglo-Saxon halig, hal, meaning, “well, whole.”
(A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy, Harper & Row, 1975. p. 112-13, emphasis mine.)
This book has been reissued by HarperOne [
Amazon $10.36 pb, 1998 |
Amazon $13.57 hc, Large Print/Gift Edition, 1992] and reprinted by Authentic [
Amazon $9.99 pb, 2008].
The Holiness of God
Tozer is wonderful! I have every book of his that I can find, and have read them all.
ReplyDeleteBut on the other hand, often we (and upon rare exceptions so too has Tozer) make truth almost incomprenhesible for the average joe, unnecessarily. Holiness is a very simple word, though profound. Holiness is such an important term and concept that we must be never place it up on a top shelf where lay people and children are discouraged from reaching.
The Knowledge of the Holy, after my second reading, became my least favorite of Tozer's books for this reason. God in HIS words is always describing himself in picture words and in understandable concepts. Yet so often theologians and ecclesiastical styled authors make His words too confounding.
I do understand that holiness is a transcendent quality and that God's holiness makes Him so different that he becomes dangerous. But that is exactly why God wrote an Autobiography and then sent His son. So as to make His holiness be, not just approachable, but actually received by "the least of these!"
Holiness for us, as believers, means something is chosen to be set apart from everything around it. A wife is holy. The Sabbath is holy. Holy men of old wrote the Scriptures. Holiness and true love go hand in hand, and often this is overlooked.
Holiness of God means He is utterly set apart from everything around him, except what he embraces to himself - like us, when we accept his terms of holiness, and enter covenant with Him.
The elect of God, who enter into covenant (many are called by few are chosen) are holy, saints. The word for this which is instantly seen in the Greek is "saints," for that is the word holy. Such covenant believers have been chosen by God to be his particular treasure.
The reason I am seeking to make some further comments here, to Tozers too-powerful words is because so much of holiness is missing today. I fear, too many well meaning teachers have sought to make holiness, too holy, in this sense, the present holiness as if it should be almost incomprehensible even to God's children.
For instance, (just one of MANY examples), even the Corinthians people, that most carnal chuch, were called "holy" by Paul in his intro to the epistles to them.
This is wholly understandable! They were saints, a holy, covenant people of God despite their impurities, their weakness, their babihood (or fleshliness). However even among God's covenant children there are warnings and requests for personal examination and evaluation.
The word "Saints" is the very same word, like "sanctified," as "holy" in the Greek.
Saints also means holy ones. This fact is in no way diminished by the fact that saints still have a sin nature, and must still mortify the flesh with its deeds.
As a matter of fact the reception of this revelation from God - that the old nature must be killed daily ("I die daily" Paul says) shows men are holy for it demonstrates the fact that they are "in Christ" who is the holy one of God, the Christ!
Thanks for considering these words. On the one hand, sure, holiness speaks of that transcendent and mysterious relationship with the Father.
Yours for Jesus words and ways, Roy
On the other hand the whole Bible makes simple and clear what that relationship is and how we are to improve it and grow in grace, as a saint, as a "holy one."
We are a "holy nation." Why? How do we show this? Our election is of God, and our affection is set on things above, not on things of the earth.
I trust that this makes more comprehensible and practical that most beautiful of all terms and conditions, holiness.
Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness!
Holiness becometh (makes beautiful) thine house, O Lord forever.
Holiness is a non-negotiable for the believer and is a thing to delight in. But it must be understandable to do so.
We can and must sanctify ourselves, and be holy for He is holy!
After reading Tozer's comments upon this point I came to feel that he is adding many terms, some new, others coined, most all quite difficult, which he does not directly relate to practical or even Biblical references.
I am sure we will all seek to defend him, yet I would rather seek to establish a simpler and more useful approach to receving Jesus Christ who is made to us, "sanctification" so as to NOT discourage the average believer, but rather empower him by the knowledge he is married to Christ, and is therefore wholly "holy" in his position before the Lord.
Wherefore my beloved brethren, ye also are become dead to the Law by the body of Christ that ye should be married to another, even to Him that is raised from the dead that ye should bring forth fruit unto God. (please pardon memory mistakes if any are here, as I quote this too quickly... I gotta run.)
Yes we are a holy people unto God, a single bride, chosen and set apart to worship Him, serve Him and praise his name! Glory!