In the Beginning ...

I'm starting early since I will be at school tomorrow ...

A note on my methodology and hermeneutics …

Methodology: as I read the paragraphs and passages I wish to ask many questions. To think see the texts with new eyes, as a child with his wide eyed and incessant curiosity, I want to dive into the texts. So many times I will write more questions than insights.

Hermeneutics: I want to do my best to understand the contexts and not to simply take a text and expound upon it or walk with it down paths that it was not intended to traverse. This is another reason why I will have more questions than answers. I don’t want to assume definitions … I want to probe the meanings and so dispel any misconceptions.

Let us begin …

What do most people think when they think of holiness? I think of purity … silence … solidarity … something that is set apart for a specific purpose … not common but unusual … unique … terrible … FIRE. To me the paragon of images is that of a fire, an all consuming fire.

God is “too pure to behold evil” (Heb 1:12-13) … how then can he look on us? How can he look on those who are unsaved and do not have the righteousness of Christ? To behold something means to be facing it … to have one’s face turned in that direction. But what man can stand the face of God? Who can withstand his firy gaze? No wonder the Aaronic blessing, after beseeching the face of the LORD ends with a plea for grace: “the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you” (Num 6:25). For the LORD’s face to be turned to us and we not be consumed is pure grace, for he is “too pure to behold evil.”

The Primary Thrust

The Holy One of Israel … what polar opposites. One is the transcendent creator the other is the fallen creations. One is perfect and righteous. The other is blemished and sinful. How can The Holy One connect himself with an unholy nation? How can his holiness stand in the presence of evil? Israel is undone!

“God’s name is qualified by the adjective “holy” in the OT more often than all other qualities of attributes combined!” At first I read this as God himself and not God’s name. Not that there is a strong difference between the two, for God’s name is often put in the place of where we would think the word “I” would be (Ex 9:16; 23:21; and many more). But why is it that God’s name is most characterized as holy? This makes me ask, “How do I use his name, his Holy Name?”

Holy non-persons … what a great point … that holiness at its root does not mean purity, but separateness. God is different than us? He is set apart. The chasm is widening between the Holy One and Israel … He is set apart. Set apart from what?

DO ANY OF YOU KNOW WHAT WAS THE FIRST THING GOD SACTIFIED (I.E. MADE HOLY)? Look up Gen 2:3. Is this still holy? Is it still set apart? This holiness was imbedded in creation …

“Holiness, then, is not primarily a reference to moral or ethical purity. It is a reference to transcendence.” WOW I need to chew on this for a while.

God is transcendental purity. Possessing a purity apart from everything else. If God is “set apart” would we not then also be “set apart” simply for the fact that he is apart from us? In other words to objects that are a distance from each other are both considered “set apart.” Did God intend this? Did he intend for Himself and us to be Holy? How then did we lose this “separateness?” What is the opposite of separate? Combining? How did we lose our separateness? Did we combine ourselves to something?

For God to be Holy we must then be holy … yet are we? Perhaps this is what it means to be Holy as he is Holy. Not that we become the same as God, but that when we are in correct relationship to God and since He is Holy (separate from us) we will then also be Holy (separate from him). How is this Holiness different?

Or is it that He attaches us to Himself which is holy and so we become holy. But from what then are we set apart? Evil? What happens when evil is eradicated? From what then will we be set apart? I am not intending to philosophize away the meaning of holiness … I simply am wanting to ponder and wonder about these doctrines.

Lord, may I learn to tremble at your word.