David Peterson is a terrific New Testament scholar. I have benefited much from his work. Dr. Peterson recently wrote three essays on the homosexuality as understood through the grid of of the Bible's teaching on holiness.
1. Holiness and God’s Creation Purpose
2. Holiness and Sexuality in the Pauline Writings
3. Same-sex Unions and Romans 3
Take time to read these helpful essays.
HT: Justin Taylor
Showing posts with label holiness of God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label holiness of God. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
Practical Implications of God's Holiness
"The fact of the presence of the Holy One among us is the basis of three practical principles.
"First, 'Be holy, for I am holy'. At one level, our holiness is the condition of His presence. Our unholiness repels Him. But the reasoning is probably deeper than that. To be unholy is to run the risk of causing His wrath to burn - not now from the comparative remoteness of Mt. Sinai, but from within ourselves. His anger will burn in His temple - 'which temple you are' (1 Cor. 3:16ff). But why will His anger burn so fiercely against His own people - more fiercely against them than against 'the rest'? Because their unholiness compromises Him. He is their God. They bear His name. They must therefor hallow it; and when they do not, He is jealous for the sake of His name.
"Secondly, the vision of God's holiness is the basis of Christian service. We usually find the basis of our evangelism in the perception of human need and this is not to be dismissed as altogether irrelevant. But it is not the main emphasis of Scripture. Time and again the Bible indicates that the true constraint to prophetic testimony is an overwhelming and abiding vision of the holiness of God. It was so in the case of Isaiah - he 'goes' because he has seen the Lord high and lifted up (Isaiah 6:1). Similarly, compliance with 'the great commission' springs from the vision of the Lord as the One who has all the authority in heaven and earth (Matt 28:18). In the same way, Paul preached Christ among the Gentiles because it had 'pleased God to reveal His Son in me' (Gal. 1:16) - a revelation of such overwhelming force that it had laid him prostrate and helpless on the Damascus Road.
"Finally, the holiness of God must regulate and inform our worship. We are approaching the august and majestic One. our approach cannot, therefore, be flipant or trivial. It must be tremulous and respectful, even in its moments of greatest boldness. We must come with pure hearts and sprinkled consciences (Heb. 10:22). Above all, we must realize that we approach only by invitation and that the important thing is not to come in a way that we find enjoyable or enterntaining, but to come int he spirit, attitude and posture that He commands. Our Father, indeed: but our heavenly Father."
from Behold Your God by Donald Macleod
"First, 'Be holy, for I am holy'. At one level, our holiness is the condition of His presence. Our unholiness repels Him. But the reasoning is probably deeper than that. To be unholy is to run the risk of causing His wrath to burn - not now from the comparative remoteness of Mt. Sinai, but from within ourselves. His anger will burn in His temple - 'which temple you are' (1 Cor. 3:16ff). But why will His anger burn so fiercely against His own people - more fiercely against them than against 'the rest'? Because their unholiness compromises Him. He is their God. They bear His name. They must therefor hallow it; and when they do not, He is jealous for the sake of His name.
"Secondly, the vision of God's holiness is the basis of Christian service. We usually find the basis of our evangelism in the perception of human need and this is not to be dismissed as altogether irrelevant. But it is not the main emphasis of Scripture. Time and again the Bible indicates that the true constraint to prophetic testimony is an overwhelming and abiding vision of the holiness of God. It was so in the case of Isaiah - he 'goes' because he has seen the Lord high and lifted up (Isaiah 6:1). Similarly, compliance with 'the great commission' springs from the vision of the Lord as the One who has all the authority in heaven and earth (Matt 28:18). In the same way, Paul preached Christ among the Gentiles because it had 'pleased God to reveal His Son in me' (Gal. 1:16) - a revelation of such overwhelming force that it had laid him prostrate and helpless on the Damascus Road.
"Finally, the holiness of God must regulate and inform our worship. We are approaching the august and majestic One. our approach cannot, therefore, be flipant or trivial. It must be tremulous and respectful, even in its moments of greatest boldness. We must come with pure hearts and sprinkled consciences (Heb. 10:22). Above all, we must realize that we approach only by invitation and that the important thing is not to come in a way that we find enjoyable or enterntaining, but to come int he spirit, attitude and posture that He commands. Our Father, indeed: but our heavenly Father."
from Behold Your God by Donald Macleod
Thursday, February 21, 2008
Approaching God
One of the problems with many contemporary incarnations of Christianity is the casual stance they often encourage in approaching God. This “chumminess” has infected the church’s worship, preaching, and prayer. God is seen as more friendly than holy. He is portrayed as a jilted lover who wants nothing more than for us to pay him some attention. I remember often being told to have a quiet time because God longs for nothing so much as to be with me. My heart strings were strummed by the notion of God sitting by the side of my bed all day just waiting for me to spend time with him.
As I think back I cannot help but wonder how these ideas affected my understanding of God. Who was truly supreme in this relationship? Was there even room for supremacy? Was there room for true lordship? Or was God just one more responsibility? Was he just one more needy person demanding my time? Theologian David Wells is right when he critiques modern evangelicalism by saying that God rests far too inconsequentially upon the church. He has become “weightless.”
The church desperately needs to recapture a biblical vision for the holiness of God. We need to behold God in all of His undiluted purity and unapproachable light. I am not calling for ecstatic experiences or mystical journeys. I am calling for a fresh apprehension of what the Scriptures clearly reveal about the nature of God. The Bible holds forth a God who is far different from the greeting card deity that infects much of modern Christian spirituality.
The Hebrew word for holy is qadosh which means something like “cut off” or “separate.” One theologian has written that holy refers to “that which is marked off, separated, withdrawn from ordinary use.” God is profoundly separate from His creation. Donald MacLeod writes that “God is utterly different. He is separate from angels, separate from men and, above all, separate from sinners.” God says to His people in Leviticus 20:26, “You shall be holy unto me, for I the Lord am holy and have removed you from other people, that you should be mine.”
In one very important sense God’s holiness means that He is unapproachable. This is seen clearly in some of God’s earliest dealings with His people. When God gave the law He did so by calling Moses into His presence but keeping the people at a distance. In fact to breach the boundary would mean certain death. From that moment God established a pattern of relating to His people through the means of a mediator. The elaborate rituals of the Old Covenant religious rites communicated just how difficult it was for anyone to approach God. Only through a priest at an appointed time and place could the people relate to God.
Does the New Covenant in Christ change any of this? Certainly Christ changes the situation but He does not remove the unapproachableness of God. God’s holiness is not diminished in the New Testament. His purity is no less terrifying to sinners. Jesus has not made approaching God something we can simply assume. Coming to God is a privileged given only to those who by grace through faith are justified (Rom. 5:2). Approaching God is possible not because He has changed in character but because Jesus has made Himself our great High Priest (Heb. 4:14). As MacLeod writes, “The supreme achievement of Christ is that He is the Way – the only way – to God; and He is that only through His broken humanity – the rent veil of His own flesh (Heb. 10:20).”
This is why we preach and sing the gospel. It is why we continue to revel in the truth that Christ died for sinners. Every time we acknowledge that we now have access to God we are acknowledging Christ as our sin-bearing substitute; the One who died in our place. Jesus did not die to make salvation a mere possibility. He did not shed His blood so that God’s redemptive plan could be a potential. Jesus, slain before the foundations of the world, truly died in the place of all those who believe. For them the justice of God has been satisfied. For them God’s righteous wrath has been assuaged having been poured out on His beloved Son.
For this reason and this reason alone can we speak of approaching God. This is why we sing the words of John Newton:
Let us love and sing and wonder
Let us praise the Savior’s name
He has hushed the law’s loud thunder
He has quenched Mt. Sinai’s flame
He has washed us with His blood
He presents our souls to God
As I think back I cannot help but wonder how these ideas affected my understanding of God. Who was truly supreme in this relationship? Was there even room for supremacy? Was there room for true lordship? Or was God just one more responsibility? Was he just one more needy person demanding my time? Theologian David Wells is right when he critiques modern evangelicalism by saying that God rests far too inconsequentially upon the church. He has become “weightless.”
The church desperately needs to recapture a biblical vision for the holiness of God. We need to behold God in all of His undiluted purity and unapproachable light. I am not calling for ecstatic experiences or mystical journeys. I am calling for a fresh apprehension of what the Scriptures clearly reveal about the nature of God. The Bible holds forth a God who is far different from the greeting card deity that infects much of modern Christian spirituality.
The Hebrew word for holy is qadosh which means something like “cut off” or “separate.” One theologian has written that holy refers to “that which is marked off, separated, withdrawn from ordinary use.” God is profoundly separate from His creation. Donald MacLeod writes that “God is utterly different. He is separate from angels, separate from men and, above all, separate from sinners.” God says to His people in Leviticus 20:26, “You shall be holy unto me, for I the Lord am holy and have removed you from other people, that you should be mine.”
In one very important sense God’s holiness means that He is unapproachable. This is seen clearly in some of God’s earliest dealings with His people. When God gave the law He did so by calling Moses into His presence but keeping the people at a distance. In fact to breach the boundary would mean certain death. From that moment God established a pattern of relating to His people through the means of a mediator. The elaborate rituals of the Old Covenant religious rites communicated just how difficult it was for anyone to approach God. Only through a priest at an appointed time and place could the people relate to God.
Does the New Covenant in Christ change any of this? Certainly Christ changes the situation but He does not remove the unapproachableness of God. God’s holiness is not diminished in the New Testament. His purity is no less terrifying to sinners. Jesus has not made approaching God something we can simply assume. Coming to God is a privileged given only to those who by grace through faith are justified (Rom. 5:2). Approaching God is possible not because He has changed in character but because Jesus has made Himself our great High Priest (Heb. 4:14). As MacLeod writes, “The supreme achievement of Christ is that He is the Way – the only way – to God; and He is that only through His broken humanity – the rent veil of His own flesh (Heb. 10:20).”
This is why we preach and sing the gospel. It is why we continue to revel in the truth that Christ died for sinners. Every time we acknowledge that we now have access to God we are acknowledging Christ as our sin-bearing substitute; the One who died in our place. Jesus did not die to make salvation a mere possibility. He did not shed His blood so that God’s redemptive plan could be a potential. Jesus, slain before the foundations of the world, truly died in the place of all those who believe. For them the justice of God has been satisfied. For them God’s righteous wrath has been assuaged having been poured out on His beloved Son.
For this reason and this reason alone can we speak of approaching God. This is why we sing the words of John Newton:
Let us love and sing and wonder
Let us praise the Savior’s name
He has hushed the law’s loud thunder
He has quenched Mt. Sinai’s flame
He has washed us with His blood
He presents our souls to God
Thursday, July 12, 2007
Horton on Grace (2)
More good stuff from Michael Horton’s article in the most recent issue of Modern Reformation Magazine:
“We work very hard today to make grace normal rather than utterly disorienting. We bend over backward backwards to show how Christianity is ‘practical,’ how it conforms to our common sense and moral intuitions. ‘Practical Christianity’ (deeds, not creeds) is touted, although the actual practice of Christians is, according to the statistics, indistinguishable from that of non-Christians. The ‘righteousness that is by works’ looks for somewhere to go and something to do, while ‘the righteousness of faith’ receives Christ as he comes to us in the gospel (Rom. 10:1-13)…
“Sharing a common heritage in the revivalism of Charles Finney, mainline and evangelical Protestants have trouble being recipients of grace. The church becomes an army of activists – social engineers, moral reformers, event planners, life coaches – rather than a theater of grace where God has the lead role. As a result, the focus is not on how God gets to us (the logic of grace) but on ‘inducements sufficient to convert sinners with,’ as Finney put it, following his basically Pelagian view of the moral ability of fallen people. Finney’s Systematic Theology explicitly denies original sin and insists that the power of regeneration lies in the sinner’s own hands…”
This, by the way is not far from the common conception held by many evangelicals, particularly Pentecostals, Nazarenes, Methodists, and Southern Baptists. Many of us grew up learning from well meaning pastors that being born again (regeneration) comes about as a result of something we do. But this is remarkably different from the teaching of Jesus. In answer to Nicodemas’ inquiry on how to gain eternal life in heaven Jesus said, “You must be born again” (or, “from above”). What a wonderful metaphor for regeneration! Is there anything with which we have less to do than our birth? Jesus is assaulting Nicodemus’ “can-do” approach to salvation; an approach that many evangelicals share. To further drive home the point that the miracle of regeneration is an act entirely of God’s free will, Jesus added, “The wind (a reference to the Holy Spirit) blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).
Horton goes on:
“American evangelicalism seems at least in its most popular forms today to be a version of spiritual technology – almost magic, with every new movement and best-selling author offering his or her own ‘Ten Steps’ to harnessing God’s power. In this context, grace is less God’s favor shown to sinners on account of Christ than the opportunity God has provided for greater spiritual and moral power if we cooperate properly, using our free will. John Newton the slave trader may indeed have been a ‘wretch,’ but surely not I…
“Grace can only be recognized in the face of Christ, for there the strangeness of God, of ourselves, and God’s method of redemption converge. Counter-intuitive, disruptive, and unsettling, the grace defined by Golgotha requires an entirely new set of presuppositions about God, ourselves, and how the relationship works. Yet the measure of the sheer gratuity of God’s grace is that it even gives us those new presuppositions in the very act of being given. Grace is God’s refusal to allow us to define ourselves or to have the last word. Rather, it is the surprising announcement that salvation is ‘not the result of human decision or effort, but of God who shows mercy’ (Rom. 9:16).”
Amen
“We work very hard today to make grace normal rather than utterly disorienting. We bend over backward backwards to show how Christianity is ‘practical,’ how it conforms to our common sense and moral intuitions. ‘Practical Christianity’ (deeds, not creeds) is touted, although the actual practice of Christians is, according to the statistics, indistinguishable from that of non-Christians. The ‘righteousness that is by works’ looks for somewhere to go and something to do, while ‘the righteousness of faith’ receives Christ as he comes to us in the gospel (Rom. 10:1-13)…
“Sharing a common heritage in the revivalism of Charles Finney, mainline and evangelical Protestants have trouble being recipients of grace. The church becomes an army of activists – social engineers, moral reformers, event planners, life coaches – rather than a theater of grace where God has the lead role. As a result, the focus is not on how God gets to us (the logic of grace) but on ‘inducements sufficient to convert sinners with,’ as Finney put it, following his basically Pelagian view of the moral ability of fallen people. Finney’s Systematic Theology explicitly denies original sin and insists that the power of regeneration lies in the sinner’s own hands…”
This, by the way is not far from the common conception held by many evangelicals, particularly Pentecostals, Nazarenes, Methodists, and Southern Baptists. Many of us grew up learning from well meaning pastors that being born again (regeneration) comes about as a result of something we do. But this is remarkably different from the teaching of Jesus. In answer to Nicodemas’ inquiry on how to gain eternal life in heaven Jesus said, “You must be born again” (or, “from above”). What a wonderful metaphor for regeneration! Is there anything with which we have less to do than our birth? Jesus is assaulting Nicodemus’ “can-do” approach to salvation; an approach that many evangelicals share. To further drive home the point that the miracle of regeneration is an act entirely of God’s free will, Jesus added, “The wind (a reference to the Holy Spirit) blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit” (John 3:8).
Horton goes on:
“American evangelicalism seems at least in its most popular forms today to be a version of spiritual technology – almost magic, with every new movement and best-selling author offering his or her own ‘Ten Steps’ to harnessing God’s power. In this context, grace is less God’s favor shown to sinners on account of Christ than the opportunity God has provided for greater spiritual and moral power if we cooperate properly, using our free will. John Newton the slave trader may indeed have been a ‘wretch,’ but surely not I…
“Grace can only be recognized in the face of Christ, for there the strangeness of God, of ourselves, and God’s method of redemption converge. Counter-intuitive, disruptive, and unsettling, the grace defined by Golgotha requires an entirely new set of presuppositions about God, ourselves, and how the relationship works. Yet the measure of the sheer gratuity of God’s grace is that it even gives us those new presuppositions in the very act of being given. Grace is God’s refusal to allow us to define ourselves or to have the last word. Rather, it is the surprising announcement that salvation is ‘not the result of human decision or effort, but of God who shows mercy’ (Rom. 9:16).”
Amen
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