Holiness

18 Minutes

If you have prayed sufficiently through the Holy Spirit and are in peace of mind with your fellow sisters and brothers, it may be that this reading may allow us mental and spiritual access to the third heaven by faith to learn of the truths not yet uttered. If not, your understanding will reside in the atmosphere of earth only. This is not just an academic exercise. It is one of holy reason. All our enquiries are to be made to God, in full submission to the authority of God, seeking understanding without making things up about God. Let us draw ever nearer, to a deeper level of intimacy, to greater faith through greater understanding, on our knees in adoration and prayer, to a recognition with fear and trembling of the awesome true sense of the holiness of God and to a breathtaking, life-giving, humbling gratitude that this Holy God calls us, His creatures, to be holy too. This is not just a writing task for me. My hope is that is offers us a sobering effect. The particular end is one of devotion for us. Good sounding writings have their place but on our knees in prayer, in our hearts and minds engaging with scripture...that is where and when we take our leave from this world, from self. Understandably we will be limited by our verbal and conceptual tools, but God’s truth will be rendered and revealed through the testimony of His word illuminated by the Holy Spirit. We are covenanted with the heart of God. Our complete surrender to Christ involves God’s command and promise.

This third heaven is to be understood as a place where spiritual clarity is given. It is not with intent to attempt to peer into what God says should not be spoken...sayings of God too sacred for words. But coming to know the character of God the stunning experience humbled the man. This experience prayerfully enhanced the repeated teaching that our temporary suffering in this life is not worth comparing with the glory believers will experience in eternity. That gives understanding as to why the experience was mentioned in order to introduce the consequences of that experience. Hope tells me that what was spoken to the man was the revelation of the power of resurrection. Might this be the source of inspiration written by the man based upon the experience at Lystra.

II Corinthians 12:1-5 John 11:25, 26 Acts 14:19, 20 Matthew 22:29-32

Could the unspeakable words be what the voice of the archangel might sound to bring forth the dead in Christ? Most will miss out on not having this

experience. God trusted a man to hold his peace. This teaches us that there are things God reveals to some and not to others. There are some who know God and His Word more intimately than we would ever hope to. Have you ever read a passage over and over again only to have another believer teach you something about the verse that you had never known before? I believe this is not because people are heedless, but because there are some people to whom God gives understanding because of their trustworthiness. God reveals His truth to those who will use His truth for others. The bible makes this very clear.

Psalms 25:14

God reserves such an awesome manifestation for few. Watch God’s man stand. Where were the disciples when Paul was being stoned? Where were the disciples when Jesus was being crucified? Paul and Isaiah and John have been granted the opportunity before death to hear the counsel of God. It is in the Holy Spirit that we ask to be given a glimpse of heaven while we are still on this side of eternity. Pray that we keep ever in mind our frailty and complete reliance on God’s grace. We check our motive for wanting to know the closeness of God. That it be not for the boasting or pride of reaching higher. Whatever encounters God allows are to be humbly acknowledged. We must open no breeding ground for the enemy. Our emphasis is to be brought to the brilliance of the basics of truth in our walk with Jesus. Inclusive of what we learn must be our desire to serve others and to demonstrate the love of Christ for them. This third heaven experience, though joyful and profitable, is not the attaining to where the final people of God will dwell. There are far greater heights of coming to God that will be gifted to His people.

Ephesians 4:10

Holiness is the heart of God’s covenant with His people. It is the covenant invitation to be God’s people, and the command for these people to be holy as God is holy. The holiness of God is the perfect rectitude of His nature, whereby He is absolutely free from all moral impurity, and, in all that He does, acts like Himself, and for the advancement of His own honor; delighting in what accords with, and abhorring what is contrary to His nature and will. Holiness is the glory of all the divine perfections. And every perfection is an act of God’s self-revelation. God’s self-revelation is, by its very nature, an act of God’s graciousness. God’s graciousness is life-giving, but in giving life also opposes sin. Holiness is opposition to sin. Holiness is tasked as our word in speaking of God. Our language has no degree of comprehensiveness meaningfully adequate to express the character of God

revealed, even in the biblical witness. Holiness suggests that there can be no promotion of any of God’s perfections above the others. And God’s perfections are a study of God’s character. God possesses all possible perfections. And there is not the least resemblance to be found among any of His creation. God is unbounded in every perfection, love, wisdom, power, wrath, mercy, forgiveness. Biblically revealed is the perfect knowledge of God is competent to none but himself, whose understanding is infinite. He knows all things, not by information, nor by deduction.

Job 11:7

Holiness is an exercise in holy reasoning characterized by weakness and a sense of inadequacy in the face of the “high and holy matter to which it is called to bear testimony.” This sanctification of reason, by the work of God’s Spirit, is the process whereby reason is made alive to the terrifying and merciful presence of the holy God. God is intimately present; and His immensity extends infinitely beyond the boundaries of all created substance. God fills all places at once with His essential presence.

Jeremiah 23:23, 24

He has all life, glory, and blessedness, in and of Himself. His existence is necessary and underived. His holiness results from absolute perfection of His own nature. And all His perfections are infinite excellencies. God does not leave His present behind Him as the past to proceed toward the future. His livingness is His own essence. We cannot grasp God is our creaturely reality. He is what He tells us He is. Holiness is characterized by the truth that God is always God. It is in holiness that we realize that covenantal relatedness is not settled, static, or fixed. God emerges new ways in response to our faith and restoration from the sacrificing of animals to the circumcision of human flesh to His writing upon the heart and mind His law. This holiness of the covenant is God’s way in the sanctuary. The agreeing spirit to offer sacrifice justifies our faith, the work to remove the deadness of self sanctifies our new born life, and the written law in our heart, our mind, glorifies our sureness of salvation. We are in the Way of the Word. This Way is the Spirit of God acting upon and in us. We obey with or without understanding. This faith opens our eyes to the power and glory of God. Thiscovenant between God and God’s people does not take away from God’s sovereign Lordship, it demonstrates His perfections which are incomprehensively broad, long, high and deep. The covenant shows that grace and holiness are not separated, neither are mercy and judgment. It is because of the intolerance of God to anything that tries to take away from

His holiness, that we are faced with the wrath of God. It is by the covenant that we are made alive in Christ.

Romans 6:11

Holiness is bringing us into the full force of divine truth. As we study to know and understand, the Holy Spirit will ingrain in us such a liberty of consciousness that God will give us that extra Word that only those who are reconciled to the doings of the law can have true peace with God through Jesus Christ. Faith is our principle that without acceptable works cannot be performed and our salvation cannot be attained. Let it be clear, holiness affirms wholesomeness in God. And it is only by, in, and through the meritorious righteousness of Christ. That makes holiness contingent upon God. What, then, of God’s command to “be holy as I am holy”? This command is not to be attained or attempted by efforts toward status or merit, but rather by cleaving to God’s grace. Thereby becoming holy in virtue of the holiness of the God who graciously takes action on His own behalf. Our attention and submission to the gospel is indicative of our election and the imperative of obedience. Holiness is our response to God’s act which by God’s own decision, allows God to act on our behalf. God’s people are holy because God is holy and graciously intervenes on our behalf to make us holy as He is holy. How, then, are God’s people made holy? They are made holy by God’s intervention through Jesus Christ, God with us.

Do not think that holiness is a state which rests passively on the hearts of an individual without requiring anything more. Holiness is an election to pursue all that is Christ. The pattern of this is characterized by mortification (putting to death) and vivification (bringing to life). From this arises the “movement of holy living,” turning away from ourselves and toward God, whose we are. We are God’s election; submitting to God, the Holy One who elects us to enter into relationship, standing under the authority of the scripture that attests this Holy God, bearing witness to the risen Christ who speaks this word into being, and declaring in praise and worship: “Behold, our God!”

This is our joining together in Christ. The dwelling place of God is us, a spiritual temple, built and sustained by God. Here is the relational wonder of holiness... God’s holiness is not only that which separates us from God in His transcendence, but it is also the majestic sovereign power which descends down to us as grace in our midst as God’s condescension. This condescension is central to the covenant God made with Israel, in that as holy God, He offers us, the called people, to be God’s people, purifying and maintaining us against all threat of sin so that we may be God’s possession. Go to the sanctuary...this is the reconciling mission of the Son and the outpouring sanctification of the Holy Spirit. This is the determinate act of the Godhead. The movement of holiness is the purposed revelation of the 2520 prophecy...God’s condescending to elect and gather in communion those who are found in holiness of God with the plentifulness of grace to live that “God is Almighty”. There is a greater holiness in Heaven.

With holiness God’s people go beyond prophecy, beyond faith, they go to love. Let’s put that in perspective to God. Ready? Read this next sentence to gain all you can. Ready? HOLINESS IS SO OF GOD THAT HE DOES NOT NEED A REASON TO LOVE. Stop...pause. We say, “we love because”. Is there a reason behind our love? God loves us in Himself...that is where we are. Let’s sound this out scripturally.

Revelation 12:17

Our dependence on prophecy is both to delineate and bind together the events of God determined for fulfillment of His purposes. Prophecy offers inspiration, compels obedience and corrects our behavior in circumstances, gives us reliance upon the word of truth.

Revelation 14:12

Central to Jesus’ faith is our entering into the Kingdom. It is with this faith that we please God. Prophecy is time and event measurable. Faith is hope and hope is not limited to time or events. God gives His elect the strength of obedience and prophecy. He gives His very elect the strength of obedience, prophetic witness, and the blessed hope to look for the glories of another world, to which a sober, righteous, and godly life in this world is preparative. It is the great thing we look and long and wait for. Prophecy events the accomplishing of our hope, our faith and the sureness and greatness of it. We prophesy and hope to the second appearing of Christ. And there is something that does not come by prophecy or faith...

II John 2, 3

Beyond prophecy, beyond faith is this truth and love that we are to put on and wrap ourselves in, which is the perfect bond of unity, for everything is bound together in agreement of these. These do not insist on their own way, they embrace holiness. Determining prophecy based upon faith is the strength of the study of the Revelation and the 2520 revealed in the vision.

There is a present darkness that will cause many to be everlastingly too late to rise to the light of holiness as is the truth and the love of God. Let us come into the radiance of what our holiness is to be like. And it is the Sabbath which is an illustration on how the Lord makes us holy. This will be our completeness. The Sabbath did not make itself holy. This seventh day was totally powerless and helpless, bordered by sunset to sunset as it was created after day four. It was the seventh day of the world. God set the honor of that day.

Genesis 1:5 Psalms 74:16

As the acknowledgement of God is the constant succession of day and night, God made the seventh day holy. Likewise, we can do nothing to make ourselves holy, yet God can make us holy just as He made the seventh day holy. Thus, the Sabbath is all about grace. It is a sign that all of God’s work is complete, and we can rest without trying to add anything to His work. So, we rest our faith in His amazing grace. The Sabbath is as are we...the climax to a purpose of God...the Sabbath to His creation...we to His plan of salvation. Both are for our rest...rest from our labor and rest in eternal peace.

Holiness is belonging to a God of infinite love and power. We are to have hope to come into the presence of a holy God and survive the experience. We must be discerning of the hope and holiness relationship.

I Peter 1:13-16

This shows what we have been given and how we are to act upon it. God chose us, He has caused us to be born again, giving us a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, God has promised us an inheritance. This is a salvation in which we greatly rejoice, even in the midst of trials, of sufferings, because the fruit of those trials and sufferings is a more pure faith and greater confirmation, greater certainty of the genuineness of our faith proven under trial. This pursuit of holiness is to fashion our character after Christ. We must have a fully engaged mind. We are to be confidently and reasonably expectant of all events to try us, to try others’ willingness to stand for what God reveals as truth. This without dilution or distraction. Lives will be lost because of former passions or even by emotions. The truth that you can know must be sought through the convincing of the Holy Spirit. He purposes that you not conform to the desires of your former ignorance. God will set you apart alone to strengthen you in holiness. The goal of our holiness is God’s glory, so He will not leave us on our own and let us struggle in our pursuit of holiness. Hope will motivate holiness, and holiness strengthens our hope.

II Corinthians 7:1

The lamb that represented Jesus had to be without spot because only perfect holiness is acceptable to God. Our life is to engage with God and others in holiness. Remember the Sabbath because God is interested in our holiness.