The Holiness of God - Part 4

Taken and modified from multiple sources
Continued From Yesterday

Now, it is clear that in all of that we see and do see His holiness.  But I want to look at His life (not all of it, by any means), but a portion, enough to see more of His holiness. It is obviously fascinating to look at all aspects of the person of Jesus Christ, the most compelling person by far who ever walked this planet.  It is a powerful and beneficial thing to searching constantly through the gospels or Hebrews or Colossians, somewhere where Christ is exalted.  I happen to now be about to begin a series on the Book of Hebrews.  I was torn between that Book and Colossians…  The Church of God needs to be shown the glory of our Lord Jesus, held up and displayed in all of its facets for them to see and understand plainly and take in and understand.

I don’t think we always understand how much His life is a manifestation of the holiness of God.  He was in all points tempted like as we are yet without sin.  He was in all points tempted.  At all points simply means that at every point chronologically, at every point socially, He was at all points tempted like as we are yet without sin.

There is a tremendously significant idea that Augustine puts forth.  Somebody asked him to comment on the sign of the fish, you know, the little acrostic from “ichthys”, “Jesus, God’s Son, Savior” (Yes, the sign is, indeed that old…).  This is what Augustine said. 

“It is a suitable sign for Christ because He was able to live without sin in the abyss of this mortality as in the depths of water.” 

Christ literally came down and sunk Himself in this wretched world.  The truest test of holiness is not so much how it holds up in heaven, as glorious and marvelous as that is and how tremendous as that is portrayed for us in the Scriptures as well as how stupendous as that will once we are there, but rather, the truest test of holiness is how it held up here.  Not how it held up in a perfectly holy environment, but how it held up in an utterly sinful environment. 

And so we look at Jesus to see this most interesting view of God’s holiness.  In John 8:23 He said,

“You are from below, I’m from above.  You’re of this world and I’m not.” 

“I’m not” He said…

In the forty-sixth verse of that same eighth chapter, He said,

“Which of you convicts Me of sin?” 

I’ve come from another place.  I’m another kind of being.  I cannot be convicted of sin.

In the fourteenth chapter of John in the thirtieth verse, Jesus said,

“The ruler of this world is coming...I love this statement...and he has nothing in Me.” 

He doesn’t say he has nothing on Me, there was nothing in Him to even respond to Satan, or to the world.  Theologians want to make a distinction here, and rightly so.  They want to say that He was “non posse peccare”, not “posse non peccare,” that is to say He was “not able to sin” rather than He was “able not to sin”.  Do you see the difference?  The difference is HUGE!  He was not able to sin.  He’s a completely different kind of being.

You know, when I read my Bible and it tells me about living in this world, it’s just loaded with warnings.  I am so susceptible to this world, even though I am redeemed, even though I have been walking in the faith for a long time, many years, I’ve been studying the Bible...I will tell you, this world is a threat to me at every turn.

There is something in me in my remaining flesh that responds to Satan and the world.  And I have to be reminded not to love the world.  I have to be reminded of Psalm 1, I have to go back and remember that

·        I must not walk in the council of the wicked,

·        I must not stand in the path of sinners,

·        I must not sit in the seat of scoffers because that has devastating result upon me. 

And the difference is clearly laid out, I think, in the seventh chapter of Mark.  You remember this passage, or you will when you hear it.  Listen to what Jesus said in verse 18. 

“Are you so lacking in understanding?  Do you not understand that whatever goes in to the man from outside can’t defile him?” 

It doesn’t matter what came at Jesus.  Couldn’t defile Him because it’s not what comes from the outside that defiles you.  He says from the outside it doesn’t defile because it doesn’t go into His heart, but into His stomach and is eliminated.  That’s a rather graphic analogy.  It is that which proceeds out of the man that defiles the man, for from within out of the heart of men proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness.  All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man.  There is a rottenness, there’s a corruption on the inside that makes us susceptible to all these wicked influences. 

That’s why the Bible warns us.  Proverbs warns again and again to stay away from angry people, lying people, murdering people, godless people, etc., etc., etc., because of the influence they have on you.  Don’t you know...says Paul to the Corinthian church...you’ve got to get that sinning man out of your church because a little leaven does...what?...leavens the whole lump.  You allow sin in your church, it will corrupt the whole thing.  That’s why we have to do church discipline.

To Be Continued…