"We're tempted by moralism because we've forgotten what God wants at the center." This quote begins the article Holy to the Core by Joel Scandrett in the May 2007 issue of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. I had read this article last month and then recently read it again. It emphasized that the mot basic meaning of the word "holy" is to be "set apart" or "dedicated" to God - to BELONG to God. I wanted to share some of the "underlinings" I made.
* While we've cast off old, legalistic notions of holiness, we've merely replaced them with private, moralistic notions. We act as if holiness were either outdated or something that characterizes only a small (if important) part of our lives.
*Prior to any consideration of morality, biblical holiness describes a unique relationship that God has established and desires with his people. This relationship has moral ramifications, but it precedes moral behavior. Before we are ever called to be good, we are called to be holy. Unless we rightly understand and affirm the primacy of this relationship, we fall into the inevitable trap of reducing holiness to mere morality.
*Contrary, then, to any notion of mere moral conformity, true holiness is a grateful collaboration with God in seeking to live out the form of human life that he intends.
*More than any other American value, the notion that we are the masters and proprietors of our own lives stands in direct opposition to our call to be set apart to God.
*So endemic is this narcissism that many American Christians see Jesus as little more than a means of augmenting their sense of self, either as a source of "health and prosperity" or of emotional "well-being." In either case, the self is allowed to continue as its own spiritual center, rather than taking its proper place in orbit around Jesus Christ, its true center.
*The call of God comes not to isolated individuals, but to a people: The people of Israel in the Old Testament and the people of Jesus, Jew and Gentile, in the New Testament.
*...we must never forget that the church is God-created, non-negotiable reality of which all disciples of Jesus are a part and to which we are called to commit and submit.
*There is no such thing as love for God that does not include love for God's people.
*To be set part as a member of Christ's bride is to participate in the church's worship.
*We are set apart as the church for the sake of others.
*To be holy, to be set apart to God, is never an end in itself but is always for the sake of the world.
To me, holiness would seem to be a completely unattainable state of perfection. Because of this, I always wondered why God would say, "Be Holy as I am Holy". But given this line of thought, holiness as setting yourself aside for God, it would be attainable. That is a scary thought - a more "no excuses" thought. We all want to use the reasoning that as mere humans, we just have to try hard to be good and nice and then God, because of Jesus, will understand when we totally mess everything up. Could it be that there is more required of us than that? Is this part of what it means to be crucified with Christ - being dead to our own desires and alive to His? How can it be any other way....
1 comment:
Thinking of holieness as a "grateful collaboration with God" as we set ourselves apart is pretty appealing and powerful. And I like your thoughts about not resting on the excuse that we can't attain holiness (when thinking about it as moral perfection) so why bother. Seems like I've heard these discussions :) I appreciated this post very much!
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