Everett Muniz - Be Ye Holy - Class 1 - Be Ye Holy

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:01

   This is the 2015 Ontario Winter Bible School. Our speaker for this first session is Brother Everett Munis from Paris Ave. Ohio. His theme this week is Be Holy, the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. This is his first class and the subject for his class is Be Holy. Our reading was taken from First Peter Chapter 1.

2. 0:25

   Brother Ever. I didn’t even have to look at the fact that it wasn’t centered, but it was going to bother me if I didn’t change it. So I figured I may as well go ahead and do that one, one last thing to to run on the cycles as we go along. Well, it’s lovely again to be with all of you. And I don’t think I mentioned that many faces here are new to me and sister Amanda and I look forward to getting to know you. And we are, we’re looking forward particularly I think to this study and to going through some of the things that we’ve been learning and to learning more about these things with and from you.

3. 1:18

   There is, AI think, a caricature of the concept of holiness. And I’ve certainly been taken in by it at times in life. And certainly the younger I was, the more so I think I was taken in by it that it is a restrictive, constraining thing in essence. It has a kind of negative connotation to those who maybe don’t understand it as well.

4. 1:40

   And I’ve certainly been in that position for a a big part of my life, I think. But in reality, there is something expansive, freeing, comforting, encouraging about the concept and the principles associated with holiness. It’s an incredible thing that our Heavenly Father has condescended to be our God and that he has called us to be like him. And so over the course of the our time together this week, I hope that you’re left with the sense of wonder and comfort at this remarkable calling that each of us has received. We are we’re going to go along in this session through through these sort of mainly four or five sections throughout the week.

5. 2:30

   The last section is always just a slide long. This has a few benefits. If you’re particularly annoyed with the session that we’re in it, it’s going to pass very soon. And also it just sort of gives you a sense of of the flow of thought through all of the the series. So we’re going to begin this morning by setting the stage. We’re going to look at how to recognize the concept of holiness or at least a few pointers on how to recognize that concept, as well as what we might sort of take away or one approach to a simplified concordance definition. And that’s to an extent the concordance is useful in that regard.

6. 3:09

   But for me, I find that a contextual definition is always much more moving, much more helpful, much more robust. And so we’ll move on to that in, in the the next section, we’re going to look at a contextual model for the pursuit of holiness. Because it’s all good and fine to say that God has called us to be holy as he is holy.

7. 3:32

   But I instantly I’m the kind of person who wants to understand all the mechanics. Now, I’m not always motivated enough to to understand all the mechanics, but I want to understand all the mechanics. So how do I do it? How do we begin? And this is we’ll look at at least a a few thoughts, one particular scripture that we might go to to help us in that regard.

8. 3:51

   And then finally, we’ll just take a moment and, and look at the structure for our investigation over the next couple of of classes. Look at maybe what this passage in in first Peter that we’ve looked at this morning can tell us about where else to go to dig in and really explore, expand upon these ideas. So we’ll, we’ll begin then by setting the stage for the rest of our explanation with, I think just a few general details about this concept of holiness.

9. 4:21

   And it, it’s been really interesting for me through the process. I’ve been excited to see that that this concept really is. And we say this about so many things, and it’s certainly true, but this is one of those concepts that truly does run through the whole of our Bibles. This is based on sort of maybe a bit of a pedantic approach, which is a problem, a problem of mine.

10. 4:44

    But you can find explicit reference to the concept of holiness in Genesis chapter 2, verse 3, and you can find it again in Revelation 22, verse 19. Almost from the very first chapter of the Bible through to the very last chapter of the Bible and jam packed in between. This is, as it were, a holiness sandwich, kind of.

11. 5:03

    There is holiness. God is expounding upon this principle and in fact, I I think that as we go along, you’ll see that even earlier than Genesis chapter 2 and verse 3, we see implicitly this principle infused within the creation narrative of God dividing and in fact, holiness is largely seems to be a a work of division. Just a few examples of of the relative importance of holiness. Holiness is, is absolutely essential to acceptable prayer. Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, right? It’s, it’s a key part of the way in which we approach God. We must acknowledge His Holiness in our approach to Him. It’s essential to acceptable worship. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. It’s essential to acceptable sacrifice. We think of the words of the apostle Paul in Romans 12. I beseech you, therefore, brethren, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

12. 6:09

    It’s the aim of God’s chastening that He might develop in US holiness, and it goes on to say, without which no man shall see the Lord. So it’s absolutely essential that we be like our God if we want to be in His presence. It’s the aim of a new life in Romans chapter 6.

13. 6:35

    It is the intention, the goal, the purpose of this new life we’ve been granted, and it’s certainly a requirement for those who would be a part of God’s family. One of the the the cases in our our Bible where I think the chapter breaks really don’t serve us particularly well because after having having extended this incredible hope to be the the father of of believers and for believers to be his sons and daughters. In Chapter 7 and verse one of second Corinthians, Paul goes on to say that we are supposed to cleanse ourselves of all filthiness of flesh and spirit perfecting holiness. Having these promises to be members of the family of God, we ought to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness.

14. 7:30

    So if we take sort of just a pedantic again, look at a handful of concepts and early on in the, the study, I, I thought, you know, I just want to understand, I want to sort of get a baseline conceptually for how does this relate to other themes in Scripture? And so I started just thinking, OK, well, I’m going to go and look for sort of the presence, the prevalence of, of various themes.

15. 7:53

    And I didn’t put a whole lot of time into the, the batch that I picked other than the fact that it was going to include holiness. But I also didn’t attempt to cede it in any way. I wasn’t sort of looking for one thing in particular. I was just looking. And I suppose we should always be somewhat skeptical of statistics, so I’m told. But in this case, we’ve got hope, truth, grace, mercy, peace, faith, love, glory, and holiness in in that order flowing from your left to to your right on on the screen. And as you can see in terms of prevalence, this concept of holiness is, is clearly more prevalent than these other concepts.

16. 8:37

    Now, I think it would be a mistake to take from that, that it is more important. That’s not at all, at least the sense that I’ve come away with, that it is in some sense more important than these other principles. I think the key for me, or the way in which it’s, it’s resonated in my own mind, is that it is a kind of canvas onto which these other principles are painted.

17. 9:01

    It becomes the background for our the way in which that we, we absolutely must understand these other ideas. So with that kind of context put in place, we’ll begin by looking briefly at some thoughts about how to recognize the theme of holiness as well as a definition based on the concordance.

18. 9:27

    Now, there are a lot of ways that holiness surfaces in our Bible. A different English words that are used to translate the original Hebrew and Greek words. And again, this is just looking specifically at the words and we’ll talk about a more a more contextual approach as well. But the sizing of the of the various words sort of relates to their frequency or the frequency of their usage.

19. 9:51

    So sanctuary Saints in the New Testament particularly that’s true in the Old Testament, less so hallow, holy one, sanctify, of course, holiness and consecrate. These are all ways that this concept surfaces in a very explicit sense in terms of the Greek and the Hebrew words that are used to to represent this idea in our Bible.

20. 10:17

    So as we’re doing the daily Bible readings, when we see these ideas, we probably already connect them to the concept of holiness. And, and we can make a note maybe over the course of a year. I know families who have done that. They’ve said this is our theme for the year and this is what we’re going to look for over the course of this year in our daily Bible readings.

21. 10:34

    And they’ve made a study out of it as a family that way. And that might be something worth doing with a concept like Holiness. So of course this list is is not exhaustive. This isn’t every single word, but this seems to me to be sort of the the upper component of the list. Now, of course, there are more ways to recognize this principle than the words explicitly.

22. 11:02

    There’s lots of language in Scripture that directs our minds to the principles of holiness. Light and darkness is key among these principles, and we’ll look at that a bit more in a moment. Clean versus unclean. That’s language that’s very much associated with the principle of holiness as we read through Scripture. And all of these, again, are are passages that sort of indicate very directly that these concepts are associated with the idea of holiness.

23. 11:32

    The spirit verse the flesh is another kind of contrast that we can see that represents the concepts associated with holiness as well as righteousness versus sin and unrighteousness. Romans 6 plays a a big part in some of these, helping us to identify some of this language in a very in a very direct way. The new man verse the old man again from Romans chapter 6. Of course, good and evil is is another example of of this contrasting language that helps to to direct our minds to the principles associated with holiness. And two of my that have become I, I think a bit of my personal favourites only because anytime we study our our Bibles, anytime we study the word of God, we bring ourselves and our current place in spiritual growth and development to that process in some fashion.

24. 12:32

    And we can’t let it drive the process. Certainly we have to endeavour to understand God for who he is, not for who we want him to be. Nevertheless, there are ways in which his principles resonate more with us or certain principles may resonate more with us at, at different parts of our lives. And I think that the principles that have resonated more with me, looking at some of this related language have been this idea of, of walking and a very complementary notion, which we’ll look at in, in a, a good bit more detail through the course of the week.

25. 13:04

    This idea of a way walking and away. And, and these see to me, I think are significant because they speak to the idea of a journey. They speak to the idea of a process.

26. 13:22

    So we’ll just come back briefly. We said we wanted to touch on a sort of concordance definition, right? Try to sort of frame this based on the way that those who, who know a good deal more about Hebrew and, and Greek than me would frame it. So the theological workbook of the Old Testament has this to say.

27. 13:39

    The verb kadosh in the heat in the in the qual connotes the state of that which belongs to the sphere of the sacred. Thus it is distinct from the common or the profane in the pile. And hephilic connotes the act by which the distinction is affected. And and somewhat helpfully, the theological Dictionary of the New Testament kind of says, yeah, go back to the Hebrew.

28. 14:01

    Whenever you see this word in the New Testament, you have to understand it in the context of the usage of Kardashian in the Old Testament. That’s these two words are functionally equivalent. So if we were to sort of just suggest, maybe try to take some of this information and put it into a framework for a, a paraphrased concordance definition, we might say that wholly the noun is the state of separation from the common or profane and sanctify the verb is to make separate from the common or the profane.

29. 14:39

    So this this is what the concordance seems to have to say about this concept. And I think this is a wonderful starting point. It was my starting point and and it’s been very useful to begin here, but I think there’s so much more. And that’s what we intend to go on and look at in the context of a contextual definition.

30. 14:59

    So let’s let’s do that. Brian, is there water? Thank you so much. So we’re going to begin where we began this morning in first Peter chapter 1, verses 14 to 16, where he says as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in your ignorance, but as he which hath called you as holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation, because it is written, Be ye holy, for I am holy. And so Peter tells us here quite plainly that holiness is a defining feature of Our Calling.

31. 15:40

    Without God’s intervention to reveal His character and His ways, we are consigned to be ruled by our lusts in ignorance. But God has something better in mind for us. He’s called us to be holy as He is holy.

32. 16:06

    He’s called us in essence to be like Him. Now, this holiness is something that can and should be expressed in all manner of conversation, that is, in all of our conduct. And in this sense, holiness has struck me as a kind of superintending principle. It goes back to that idea of a canvas, if you will. True God informed love is holy.

33. 16:36

    True God informed faith is holy. True God informed mercy is holy. Now, right now, we can only aspire to and grow in holiness, but we can’t truly be holy, as God is holy this side of the Kingdom. And to put His Holiness into perspective, consider that the place of God’s presence within the Tabernacle in the temple was called most holy.

34. 17:08

    And in the Hebrew it’s literally kadosh, kadosh, right? So rather than the word most right, it just repeats the word to emphasize the holiness of the place of God’s presence. In contrast, though, Isaiah records a vision in Chapter 9 in which one of the seraphim cries Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. So whereas the innermost room of the Tabernacle and temple was holy, holy accounting, because of rather God’s presence, God himself, as the very source and agent of holiness is holy, holy, holy, or as one of our hymns expresses it thrice, holy is the Lord.

35. 18:03

    As an aside, it’s interesting that Isaiah, along with this vision, is probably the other place to go to in Scripture for this title, the Holy One of Israel. 25 of the 31 references to God in this way can be found in the prophecy of Isaiah. So right now we are in pursuit of holiness.

36. 18:27

    The Holy One of Israel has called us to leave country and kindred and Father’s house and journey to a land that He will show us. Now, the transformation that God has called us to is not immediate. It takes time. It’s the product of a process. And like any significant journey, arriving at our destination takes determined, thoughtful effort over time.

37. 18:58

    And that makes our journey toward holiness much more like a marathon than a Sprint. In a marathon, though I haven’t run one, I am told that endurance is absolutely key. We over the, over the holiday we, we did in our area, they have something called the the frosty frolic, right? And that’s just a 5K, which for me is a marathon and and indeed, right. I could not start out at my top pace and finish at all, quite frankly, it it required pacing through this process. And certainly that’s true for us in our journey toward holiness. Jesus says he that endureth to the end. It isn’t about getting ahead of some marker that we have some person maybe that we’ve identified. We want to catch up to them.

38. 19:49

    There is only one mark, and we will look at Him by and by. That’s where we’re aiming. That’s our goal. We’re not endeavouring to Sprint our way there, but to move steadily through the strength of our Heavenly Father, not our own strength, but through the strength of our God toward Him. Now, an important aspect of any journey is knowing our destination. Our journey toward holiness, as we’ve said, is really a journey toward God Himself.

39. 20:19

    We’re supposed to be holy as he is holy. And this underscores how important it is to have a clear and accurate picture of who God really is. And we hope to look at at a bit of that. And it’s certainly a topic that could could be the subject of all three classes for an entire Bible school.

40. 20:35

    But we hope to touch on some of those ideas in our our last class together. If God before us to look at who is God in relation to us and and why ought we be encouraged and invigorated to continue moving toward him? But for the moment, we’ll come back to to first Peter and and just note that he says it is written right.

41. 21:00

    So Peter himself is drawing upon what has been revealed in the past as he directs us to holiness. He bases his argument for holiness on the fact that it is written be holy for I am holy. And for reasons that we’ll look at more in a bit, it seems very likely that Peter has one of these passages in Leviticus in mind.

42. 21:22

    The last passage here in this list, Leviticus 20, seems to be particularly interesting for our purposes. It, it strikes me as as one of those really lovely things that in, in both brother Mark and Brother Paul’s comments last night, they talked about the relationship of their topic to creation. And in fact, this topic has a very close relationship to the principles that are expressed in creation. Strange how when you’re thirsty, water never tastes so good. So we’re going to go back to Leviticus chapter 20, verses 22 to 27 for a moment because it seems to bring out some something really interesting.

43. 22:07

    At least it has been interesting to me. This passage really offers another aspect to the argument for holiness. Israel was to be holy because of God’s holiness and because God the creator of heaven and earth. God had had involved himself in their national existence, and He had severed them from other people that they should be His.

44. 22:43

    Now if we follow this word severed back to its earliest usage, we arrive here in Genesis chapter 1. It turns out that the same word used to describe God’s work with Israel and their calling to holiness is used in connection with the first act of the natural creation. In fact, the concept of division seems to be a bit of of a theme here in Genesis chapter one. This same Hebrew word occurs again in verse 6, in verse 7 and verse 14, and in verse 18.

45. 23:21

    So the natural creation was, as it were, a work of division that began with the division of light from darkness. And this by itself was was inspiring to me, but then it became even more so when I saw that this same language that is used of the natural creation is then lifted up by the apostle Paul and it’s applied to God’s work in you and I, as he tells us in First Corinthians 15, that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual. And here in 2nd Corinthians 4, Paul uses the events of the natural creation as a metaphor for God’s work in us to begin and to perfect his spiritual creation. For God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And of course we know that the Lord seems to to allude to the same metaphor in John chapter 3 when he tells Nicodemus that God sent light in the form of His Son into the world where men loved darkness.

46. 24:51

    And later in John chapter 8, verse 12, and in John Chapter 9 verse 5, Jesus returns to that theme when He describes Himself as the light of the world. God’s work to affect our holiness is an extension of the same creative work recorded in Genesis chapter 1. He takes a personal interest in each one of us. We are, as it were, his workmanship, part of his spiritual creation.

47. 25:28

    The same genius and power that produced the wonder of the natural world is at work in us, in you, and in me to affect our transformation from spiritual darkness to light.

48. 25:49

    However, the completion of the work requires our willing and active participation. We have to walk, as Paul says in Ephesians, as children of light. We have to show forth the praises of that creative agency that is at work in US. And provided we actively cooperate with his efforts, there is no power in existence that can prevent him from completing this work. He that hath begun a good work in US will perform it. That said, one of the lessons that we can draw from the fact that light and darkness are opposites, right? It’s not as if darkness is a shade of light. From that we take away the lesson that holiness is really the pursuit of a fundamental transformation, a fundamental transformation drawn out of darkness into the light and in perfect representation of of God’s call to holiness. God’s call to the light is a call to be like him. In Peter and Leviticus, God calls his children to be holy because he is holy.

49. 27:11

    And likewise, God has shined in our, in the darkness of our hearts to bring us into the light and make us light because he is light dwelling in light and the Father of lights.

50. 27:29

    So before we we endeavour to sum this up in a contextual definition of holiness, there’s one last lesson that we’ll touch on related to the connection between God’s work of spiritual creation in US and his work of natural creation. And the lesson is really simply this. Our pursuit of holiness is first and foremost an act of God.

51. 27:58

    Our pursuit of holiness is first and foremost an act of Almighty God. As Paul says in Romans 9 in a related context, Our Calling is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy. Though He absolutely requires our cooperation, He alone can begin and can complete the working of holiness in us.

52. 28:26

    Without His intervention, our pursuit of holiness could never begin in the first place, and without His continued presence, we would never reach the end of our journey. Except the Lord build the house, we labor in vain.

53. 28:46

    So based on what we’ve we’ve looked at in this section, one way to to frame a contextual definition of holiness might be like this, a state of separation affected by the inherent possession of God’s character. He himself is holy as an outworking simply of who he is. But along with that it is the development of that character, God’s direct action or faithful obedience to his will. And then of course, the the notion of sanctification is closely related to the ideas.

54. 29:19

    God need not be sanctified. God is so by his very nature. But certainly we are sanctified by the development of God’s character, God’s direct action or faithful obedience to his will. God’s separateness is the direct outworking, as we’ve said, of his character and his nature. He does not need to be made separate.

55. 29:41

    He simply is separate because of who he is. But the genius, the brilliance, the wonder, brothers and sisters and young people, is that we have been invited to participate in that separation, to participate in His Holiness, if we are willing to respond to him, to his calling by submitting to his will in faith and working to be like Him.

56. 30:13

    And to put it simply, holiness is the result. It is the effect, the outworking of the principles associated with God manifestation. So we’ve seen then that God has called us to the pursuit of holiness. We’d like to spend just a few minutes then looking at a strategy that could serve as a model for our efforts to pursue holiness. Now, we’ve described our pursuit of holiness as a journey, and that’s largely informed for me by the imagery that God has given us.

57. 30:52

    I think one of the most powerful examples of this journey motif in relation to holiness is Isaiah chapter 35. And in this moving description of the Kingdom, there is a way of holiness on which the redeemed walk, coming to Zion with songs and everlasting joy. Brothers and sisters and young people, God has set our feet on this very way.

58. 31:27

    Imagine after a long trip through much difficulty seeing your destination come into view. We’ve all just driven here yesterday, and those of us who had children in the vehicle might have felt this to some extent as we saw the Best Western on the horizon. This this sense of incredible anticipation for finally being at the end of the journey.

59. 31:51

    Our destination is insight, knowing that its challenges are over and done. By the grace of God, we have arrived. Can you just imagine the joyful relief and anticipation of the moment that’s described here in Isaiah? If this is something that we want to be a part of, then we have to give careful and prayerful attention to the journey today.

60. 32:24

    Holiness is not a task for tomorrow. It’s not a task for the completion of some goal that we have at work. It’s not a pursuit that can be put off until we finish some degree of schooling, until some family goal has been met. Holiness, our pursuit thereof, has to be the focus of our lives today if we hope to be among those who come to Zion with joy and gladness.

61. 32:56

    And of course, our Heavenly Father, being good and wanting, being willing to give good gifts to those that ask him, has not left us without strategies that can serve as a model for our successful pursuit of holiness. And so I invite you to come with me to Philippians Chapter 3, because it seems that we may have just such a strategy expressed here.

62. 33:37

    And we’ll just begin by by noting a few of the examples of journey language in Philippians chapter 3. Paul says, I follow after and he talks about apprehending in verse 12. In verse 13, he talks about forgetting those things which are behind. So this is the language of a journey. It continues. He’s reaching forth unto things which are before. He describes in verse 14 pressing toward the mark. And in verses 16 and 17 we see the language of of walking. Let us walk by the same rule.

63. 34:15

    Mark them which walk. So so there’s a certain kind of journey idea that Paul is using here that the the spirit is using through Paul to express what seems to be a very important notion and it it really is in verses 13 and 14, Paul says this one thing I do. He’s, he’s engaged in the pursuit of something and he describes that pursuit in a particular way. And these, these next two phrases are really about how he does the one thing because those are two things. That’s not one thing, right?

64. 34:51

    The one thing that he does is that he presses toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. The strategy that we’re looking for, for our pursuit of holiness seems to be beautifully captured here in verses 13 of and 14 of Philippians chapter 3. So what is the mark that Paul is so diligently moving toward, pressing toward, as he says here? Well, if we go back a few verses, he says that I may know him, Jesus and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death. Well, the mark that Paul is pressing toward is none other than our Lord Jesus Christ.

65. 35:48

    Not surprising in the least, is it? In fact, we come to Philippians rather Romans chapter 8 verse 29 where Paul has this to say for whom he that is God did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his son. And so this mark to which Paul is pressing is the Lord Jesus Christ.

66. 36:15

    It’s interesting, isn’t it, that he is called the Holy one, is he not? Psalm 16 you will not leave your holy one in the grave to see corruption and an idea that’s picked up at at least twice in in the Acts and and in Hebrews as well in reference to the Lord’s high priesthood.

67. 36:38

    So what about this idea of the prize? Well, we we notice what it says in Philippians chapter 3 verse 20 and 21. We look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ who shall change our vile body, that it mean be fashioned like unto his glorious body. This is the prize of our high calling, to be set free, to finally be holy as He is holy, which we cannot be this side of the Kingdom. We can be in pursuit of those things, we must be in pursuit of those things, but we cannot be holy as He is holy. But if those are the things which we are pursuing, is it not a prize?

68. 37:29

    Is it not a prize to receive finally, by the grace and mercy of our Heavenly Father, a changed body, the opportunity to be holy as He is holy? But there are two things that we glossed over earlier that I think for me, again, this is one of those occasions in the study where where it was very vulnerable for me because God had touched on something in me that desperately needed to be spoken to.

69. 37:59

    There are two things that that Paul describes in the context of his effort to press toward the mark for the prize of our high calling. And he describes those two things this way. He says that he forgets what’s behind. So that’s one piece of it. He forgets what’s behind, and he presses toward the mark by reaching forward. And that seems to be his description of what it means then to press toward the mark for the prize of our high calling.

70. 38:33

    And I can’t speak to your experience, but I can speak to my own and say that I have spent far too much of my life dwelling upon failures of the past or looking back longingly to Egypt, or, you know, worried and anxious about the future, trying to plan for some, you know, horrible eventuality that could possibly happen if, you know, things don’t go right.

71. 38:58

    This is a different vision. This is a different way of being. We forget those things which are behind. We recognize God’s presence in the experience that has brought us to this place, and we reach forth to the mark. We keep our eyes, as it were, on the prize of our high calling. And so this has been very, very helpful to me. I feel a novice at this effort today, but it’s something that has been moving and helpful to my own experience, to my own journey toward holiness, to realize that this must describe my pursuit of holiness if I am to be successful. Our greatest opportunity to to affect our progress, to cooperate with God in his efforts to transform us right now.

72. 39:54

    This is the moment over which we have the most control, if we have control at all. It is the moment over which we have the most control over our thoughts, over our speech, over our actions. And so it’s so essential in our pursuit of holiness to be in this moment, to be here and and aware of our Heavenly Father’s presence now and working to pattern our lives after him. Now you’ll recall that in terms of just a structure for our investigation as we as we bring things to a close, you’ll recall that we began our investigation of a contextual definition for holiness in first Peter chapter 1 verses 14 to 16. And it turns out that the first two chapters of Peter have a good bit to say about holiness.

73. 40:42

    And you may have noticed it as we read through, even more valuable for our purposes, they seem to suggest where we ought to go to investigate this subject further. So we’ll just take a moment and point out a few of those examples where the theme of holiness sort of presents itself. So you’ve got verse two of first Peter chapter 1, sanctification of the Spirit.

74. 41:07

    We said earlier that sanctification is one of those other English words that’s used to to translate the the Greek and Hebrew words associated with holiness. Obviously verses 15 and 16, which we been to a few times this morning, verse 22, the word purified is a, is a related word. It’s one of those words, if you look in the Strong’s Concordance, it says from that word that’s that’s typically translated holiness.

75. 41:32

    Verse 5 describes this idea of a holy priesthood and we have holiness again in relation to being a royal priesthood and and a nation in verse 9 of chapter 2. And we’ll come back to those two ideas in a good bit more detail in in class 3. So this is just sort of evidence of the theme in first Peter chapter 1 and 2.

76. 41:59

    Now, interestingly, if we begin to then sort of look at, well, where what is the, what is the basis for much of the, the thought process that Peter seems to be using? We’ve really already had the hint, haven’t we? Because verses 15 and 16 seem to be taken from the language of Leviticus. And in fact, as we begin to look through the, the concepts that are presented, our minds are drawn back to the period of the Exodus.

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    We are in a sense, transported back to Israel’s experience. We have this notion of being elect. It’s an idea that means chosen. And Israel was chosen of God, were they not? They were his chosen. And in Deuteronomy Chapter 7, God says I did not choose you because you were more numerous than other people.

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    I chose you, you know, because I love you and because I would keep the promises that I made to the Fathers. So we have this idea of being chosen. Well, how was Israel chosen? What kind of process was involved in their consecration? And this is something that we’ll look at in their, their installment, if you will, as a nation, something that we’ll look at in Class 3 as well, that it’s described here as sanctification of the Spirit unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus Christ.

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    And if we, if we go back to Exodus chapter 20 to 23 and then we look at the language of the 1st 8 verses of Exodus 24, we see this exact progression of experience, this exact progression of experience, Israel as it were sanctified by the Spirit Word of God coming into covenant relationship with him. And when Moses comes and he reads them, he conveys to them verbally what God has has told him in in Exodus chapter 20 to 23.

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    And then all the peoples, what do they say? All that the Lord has said we will do, right? And then he goes and I, I just love the progression because it has this sense for me of like a deposition and it has a very, very legal feel as if Israel cannot possibly get get away with saying, well, we didn’t get it.

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    We didn’t understand. God goes to great pains, not because he wants to wag his finger at them, but because through Moses he’s making utterly sure that they understand the nature of that which he has called them to, right? It’s his desire to see them succeed, not his hope that he can wag his finger at them when they fail. Moses goes, he writes it down, he brings it back and he reads it to them.

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    And what happens? They say all that the Lord has said we will do. And then almost as if they’re like, OK, and maybe he needs to hear more. And he says, and be obedient, right? And then what does Moses do? He sprinkles the blood of the offerings that had been made on the people and on the book.

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    And he says, this is the book of the covenant that God has made with you here. So this language, just a quick little turn of phrase at the very beginning of first Peter chapter 1, evocative of so much in the experience of Israel’s history. Of course, we already looked at verses 15 and 16 and they’re they’re links back to Leviticus of the Pentateuch of the those first five books of the Bible.

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    I can’t remember the exact numbers off the top of my head, but I think we’ll touch on it later. But more so than any other book, as you might imagine, Leviticus deals with the principle and the concept surrounding holiness, how Israel was to be holy at that time in their national life. And then verses 18 and 19, we were not redeemed with corruptible things, but with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without spot, without blemish, and without spot. And of course, we can’t help but be drawn back to the Passover in this language and the, the, the Passover sort of description of the Lord Jesus Christ and the redemption that we have through his blood.

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    And finally, then in in chapter 2, verse 5, this idea of being lively stones built up into a spiritual house and a holy priesthood. And, and in Exodus chapter 25, verse 8, which we’ll look at more in in our session tomorrow, we will a touch on God’s desire that Israel should make him a sanctuary, a holy place that he might dwell among them.

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    God wants to dwell among his people, but he requires a holy place. And that’s why we have Exodus 25 and verse 8 listed there. And then finally, one of probably the most sort of leap off the page examples is Exodus 19, verses 5 and 6 in relation to first Peter chapter 2 and verse 9, where where Peter says ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation. And that can’t I, I, you know, I expect many of us are that we can’t help but go back to, to what God through Moses conveys to the children of Israel there at the, at the foot of Mount Sinai.

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    So with this in mind, on the basis of these links, we will sort of be beginning our study tomorrow back in the Exodus, looking first of all at the beginning of the way of holiness, which which cannot be other than our redemption. As we said, our holiness is first and foremost an act of God. We’ll look at the end of the way of holiness. Well, a holy place for God to dwell and we’ll look at the idea of, of a holy place for God to dwell and the Sabbath. So with that, we’ll bring this first session to a close. And I’ll, I’ll say thank you very much for your kind attention and your, your smiles and your eye contact. And we’ll begin again tomorrow.

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    Thank you.