“Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God. Keep my decrees and follow them. I am the Lord, who makes you holy."
The mere fact that there exists a God in heaven necessitates the existence of a holy people, a people called and separated from the world for the Lord's purposes. Israel exists and on a larger scale the Church exists because God exists. The mere fact that the Church is alive today in face of sin and adversity pays tribute to the fact that there is one creator God who makes us, saves us, and sustains us.
He is also the God who sanctifies us, "the Lord who makes us holy" because God alone is holy. God is holy because God is. Holy is his identity so that all might confess, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord God almighty". God's holiness is not an incomprehensible abstract quality but rather is bound and made manifest in his relation to Himself as the holy Trinity and to us who are made in his holy image.
And God's holiness opposes those who do not respond appropriately to Him, i.e. bearing the fruit of life through the reflection of that which is Life (God), worshiping in Spirit and in Truth. Anything short of this reflection of God in us is a denial of God's glorious reality and thus a denial of our own humanity. To worship God in obedience is to be fully human. It is to truly live.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 30, 2011
Exodus 20:2
"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery."
There is a very real consequence to the existence of God: the existence of the Church. The great "I am" has as its consequence the calling and sanctification of a holy nation from out of slavery.
This is not only an indicative, but an imperative. It is God who calls us to Himself. It is he who makes us holy because he is holy. We exist because God exists and we are called not unto a state of being but unto a way of living (given by the 10 commandments after this Divine proclamation of the name of God and summed up by the Greatest commandment).
We are called to confess "the Lord is our God". We were saved that we might worship him and acknowledge that He is the one who brought us out from the land of slavery to Sin and Death. This is a command to obedience, without which no other commandment bears any weight. We were sanctified unto obedience all because God is. He is the one who has made us. He is the one who has saved us. And He is the one who comforts and perfects us.
It is in the acknowledgement, nay the confession that God is who he is that we worship a thrice holy God. So join with the Church and the Angels through every age and let every knee bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, Holy, Holy, Holy is He!
There is a very real consequence to the existence of God: the existence of the Church. The great "I am" has as its consequence the calling and sanctification of a holy nation from out of slavery.
This is not only an indicative, but an imperative. It is God who calls us to Himself. It is he who makes us holy because he is holy. We exist because God exists and we are called not unto a state of being but unto a way of living (given by the 10 commandments after this Divine proclamation of the name of God and summed up by the Greatest commandment).
We are called to confess "the Lord is our God". We were saved that we might worship him and acknowledge that He is the one who brought us out from the land of slavery to Sin and Death. This is a command to obedience, without which no other commandment bears any weight. We were sanctified unto obedience all because God is. He is the one who has made us. He is the one who has saved us. And He is the one who comforts and perfects us.
It is in the acknowledgement, nay the confession that God is who he is that we worship a thrice holy God. So join with the Church and the Angels through every age and let every knee bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior, Holy, Holy, Holy is He!
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Exodus 20:5
"You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the LORD your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me."
God is not petty and insecure like most jealous people are. His love is not so easily wounded by our playing the harlot under every tree on every hilltop. Even though it is God's jealousy which causes the destruction of sin (through the "visiting of iniquity"), it is this same jealously which keeps us from dying. God's jealousy leads us to salvation.
God simply refuses to let us depend on anything else other than Himself and in so doing refuses to let us die for putting our trust in anything but Christ is a sure death. God's jealousy is a refusal to let those whom he has called bow down to or serve other things because God's holiness is in direct opposition to that which harms us and causes us to not thrive. Just as a gardener destroys weeds or a doctor eradicates disease, so to does this jealous God remove from us our sins that we might live consecrated and holy as He is holy. Then and only then can we live life in righteous fellowship with God.
Praise be to our jealous God who overcomes our sins that we might live! Praise be to our Creator, Savior, and Perfecter who makes us holy and blameless before him!
God is not petty and insecure like most jealous people are. His love is not so easily wounded by our playing the harlot under every tree on every hilltop. Even though it is God's jealousy which causes the destruction of sin (through the "visiting of iniquity"), it is this same jealously which keeps us from dying. God's jealousy leads us to salvation.
God simply refuses to let us depend on anything else other than Himself and in so doing refuses to let us die for putting our trust in anything but Christ is a sure death. God's jealousy is a refusal to let those whom he has called bow down to or serve other things because God's holiness is in direct opposition to that which harms us and causes us to not thrive. Just as a gardener destroys weeds or a doctor eradicates disease, so to does this jealous God remove from us our sins that we might live consecrated and holy as He is holy. Then and only then can we live life in righteous fellowship with God.
Praise be to our jealous God who overcomes our sins that we might live! Praise be to our Creator, Savior, and Perfecter who makes us holy and blameless before him!
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Ephesians 1:13-14
"And you were also included in Christ when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation. Having believed, you were marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God's possession-- to the praise of His glory."
In this short little introduction to Ephesians, Paul marks out the will of God for the salvation of men. Here, we see the fullness of the Trinity coming together for our redemption; We are marked (by the Father) in Him (Christ) with the promised Holy Spirit. It is the Father who draws us in through the Son by the Holy Spirit. The Father is the fisherman, the Son the rod, and the Holy Spirit is the hook that never lets us go. Because it is God working in all three aspects of salvation, the process is made perfect. Were salvation from men, salvation would fail. But thank God that salvation is guaranteed for those who believe and are sealed with the Holy Spirit!
And this then is the mark of salvation for every true believer: That even when you sin and stray from the path, The Spirit will convict you, Christ will forgive you, and the Father will always bring you back to him for the Father always disciplines his children. All three Persons work together in perfect harmony for our redemption. Do you believe it? But truly, truly, by faith it is so!
In this short little introduction to Ephesians, Paul marks out the will of God for the salvation of men. Here, we see the fullness of the Trinity coming together for our redemption; We are marked (by the Father) in Him (Christ) with the promised Holy Spirit. It is the Father who draws us in through the Son by the Holy Spirit. The Father is the fisherman, the Son the rod, and the Holy Spirit is the hook that never lets us go. Because it is God working in all three aspects of salvation, the process is made perfect. Were salvation from men, salvation would fail. But thank God that salvation is guaranteed for those who believe and are sealed with the Holy Spirit!
And this then is the mark of salvation for every true believer: That even when you sin and stray from the path, The Spirit will convict you, Christ will forgive you, and the Father will always bring you back to him for the Father always disciplines his children. All three Persons work together in perfect harmony for our redemption. Do you believe it? But truly, truly, by faith it is so!
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