Part 2
In my first article I wanted to lay a foundation with plenty of Scriptural support to argue for separation. Under the Old Covenant a Jew was to be identified by his or her doctrine and morals.
Now, we too, who are called Christians, must also be identified by our life which consists of both doctrine and morals. But I did not go into the reason why. Yes I showed a multitude of passages which instruct God’s people to live a very specific way and believe very specific doctrines, but I should have added more to the argument.
Let me take a step back and cover some things I should have covered in the first post. It is just as important to point out the term holy or holiness when we look at the command to be unequally yoked.
One cannot be called holy and be unequally yoked because separation and holiness go hand and hand. They are the same thing. A child of God was and is now to live a life identifiable to the world around them because he or she was separated by God.
When we think about the doctrine of election, we must not recoil because holiness is a result of being chosen. The issue is not about election and freewill. I have plenty to say about that, but for another time. So, if you are an Arminian, don’t get all excited. Be a Berean and examine what I say in the light of the Scriptures.
There are numerous misunderstandings of the term “holy” as a result of men and women redefining this term. To redefine this term will result in a conflict with the gospel. To redefine the term “holy” is to force humanism into the equation.
How many of us have heard both so called Christians and pagans say, “What are you, holier than thou?” There you have a misunderstanding of the term.
Holiness is first and foremost positional. Once it is understood as positional, then we can entertain progression of holiness. What do I mean? It is just like the term justified. We are declared justified. It is a term used in the courtroom. We are not made justified like the Roman Catholics want you to believe. We are declared justified because righteousness has been credited to my account.
Romans 5:1 is very clear according to the grammar. It is past tense and it is positional.
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
As a result of this declaration, we now live a life as if we are justified. To say it another way, OJ walked away a free man from the courtroom because he was declared “not guilty.” He was not made “not guilty.”
Likewise, we are called holy and as a result, we are commanded to live a holy life.
1 Peter 1:15; but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
I tried to provide several examples for us to look at. Under the Law a Jew must not marry a Gentile. Not only would it create ungodly offspring, but it would cause a person who was in the covenant to leave the covenant to worship false gods. This was illstrated also with animals. An ass must not be yoked together with an ox because of several reasons. One, the yokes would not be the same sizes and two; the animals would not work together. Therefore, you would have bloody, bruised or even dead animals because the yokes would rip up the flesh of one or the other.
So, we must remember Amos 3. How can two walk together unless they are agreed or have an appointment? You cannot! You must not!
The instruction to be holy was for identification and was to be, both remembered and practiced by those chosen then and those chosen today.
Now, I brought up the word chosen and I want to bring to your attention the reason why freewill and holy are not compatible. Israel was chosen yes or no?
Deuteronomy 7:1-8 “When the LORD your God brings you into the land that you are entering to take possession of it, and clears away many nations before you, the Hittites, the Girgashites, the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites, seven nations more numerous and mightier than yourselves, and when the LORD your God gives them over to you, and you defeat them, then you must devote them to complete destruction.
You shall make no covenant with them and show no mercy to them. You shall not intermarry with them, giving your daughters to their sons or taking their daughters for your sons, for they would turn away your sons from following me, to serve other gods. Then the anger of the LORD would be kindled against you, and he would destroy you quickly. But thus shall you deal with them: you shall break down their altars and dash in pieces their pillars and chop down their Asherim and burn their carved images with fire.
“For you are a people holy to the LORD your God.
The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the LORD set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the LORD loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the LORD has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.
Who chose Israel and why we are told. Verse 6; “For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
The Lord told them that they ARE a people holy to Him. He did not say they would be or would become holy unto Him. He said they are a people holy unto Him because He chose them. To say that we can call ourselves into this holy “position” is to remove God as the chooser. His people are holy because they have been separated from others. We do not wake up one day and say “I have decided to be holy on my own initiative and as a result God will love me.
Where am I going with all this?
My last message at the Veterans Hospital was specifically on the definitions for the term “holy.” When all is said and done it is a position granted by God which resulting in a separation from others. As I mentioned before, how Christians define the word holy and how the non Christian/religious world defines the usage of the term holy are two completely different understandings. And, this failure to understand that God declares men and women holy only results in making people moralist.
Let us look at the words used in the Hebrew and the Greek so we can get the flavor of the term. I have bolded the term in all three passages below.
The word qodesh. Qodesh means; holiness, sacredness, separateness. It is used of places, it is used of God and it is used of things;
For example qodesh is used in Exodus 3; “when Moses saw the burning bush, the angel of the Lord spoke from the burning bush and said; “Don’t come any closer! Take your sandals off your feet, because the place where you are standing is holy ground. It is sacred ground.
The word qadowsh is very similar. It too can be translated as holy, sacred, Holy One, saint, set apart.
For example it is used in Isaiah 6; “ In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”
And then there is the word qadash which means; to be holy, be separate, to be set apart or be consecrated. For example it is used in Jeremiah; “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you; before you were born, I separated you for myself.
As we look through Psalms for example, we also see Holiness is applied to places on earth as well as heaven. Please remember places and things are declared holy and not made to become holy through a progression. Nowhere in the Psalms do we find the idea of the holiness of a human being as an ideal of personal perfection to strive for. In the instances where a human being is said to be holy, it is to emphasize a relationship between an individual or a group of people and the God of holiness.
When we get to the New Testament we have the term hagios. For the sake of time I am not going to go into the origins of the word, but I do want to point out that this word reflects the definition used from the Hebrew.
Kenneth Wuest says this is the genius of the Greek word translated “saint.” He quotes from Hermann Cremer’s Lexicon which specializes in the great doctrinal and theological words.
Cremer says hagios is the rarest of five synonyms which the Greeks had to express the idea of holiness. Within these five synonyms, hagios is the only word by which the biblical conception of holiness is expressed.
The words “saint, sanctify, sanctification, hallow, holy, holiness” in the New Testament are all translations of this same Greek root hagi. The verb means “to be set apart for God,” and when used by say, Paul, the definition refers to the act of the Holy Spirit setting apart for God the sinner who has been elected to salvation, taking him or her out of the first Adam and placing him or her in the last Adam.
This is where we use the term positional sanctification which is not to be confused with progressive sanctification. Positional sanctification is an act performed once for all the moment the sinner places his faith in the Lord Jesus as his or her savior. After the positional sanctification takes place, it is followed by what we call progressive sanctification, a process that goes on all through the earthly life and continues day by day.
Positional sanctification says we are in Christ. We are crucified with him, buried with him and raised with him. But, progressive sanctification is the ongoing process in which we gradually conformed or made into the image of the Lord Jesus. This is why we are called hagios. We are called a “set apart for God” person. We are called a consecrated person. We are looked upon as a non secular person and in its place we are distinctively religious people
The Greek term literally means to be “set apart.” If I did not emphasize it, let me do it now. It is the term used for “saint.” It refers to a process whereby God sets aside that which is holy.
1 Corinthians 6 says; That is what some of you were! But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God.
This is why we are not to confuse the use of the term hagios with sanctification. As I said earlier, one is first positional and the other is progressive. One example of how the two are distinguished is found in Hebrews. We read Hebrews 10 how we are sanctified, (past tense) and we are also told we are being sanctified. But, one comes before the other.
Hebrews 10: 10, 14; By his will we have been sanctified once for all through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
This is why we must understand the term is used in such a way that God is said to be the initiator. It is the Lord who sets apart the godly for himself. We look around and see the world trying to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and make peace with God on their own terms. They have decided who is and who is not separated for God’s own purposes and glory. I hope that we see this and use this in our defense of God’s sovereignty.
As I continue to build a case for the reason that we must not be unequally yoked, I want to impress upon us that we do not separate ourselves for God’s purposes. We do not set ourselves apart for God’s purposes. To say that I can make myself hagios is to say by definition, I have the ability to be a saint.
This is what the Roman Catholics have done. They hold a tribunal and decided whether or not a soul should be chosen as a saint. What garbage this is in the light of the Scriptures! The bulk of letters written in the New Testament are written to the saints. When men do this they have become the sovereign and make God a demoted puppet who must take in anyone who says they have decided it is in their best interest to set themselves or another apart for God’s purposes.
That would be like saying places and things may do the same. That they can decide it is in their best interest to set themselves apart, consecrate themselves, separate themselves for God’s plan.
Now, let me try to get on with the topic at hand. As you can tell, I am not one to simply post a passage reference and leave it up to the reader to check out the reference. Let’s be honest; when we read a book how many of us take the time to check citations when they are handed out in bulk? If you do, good for you!! Because we are creatures of our culture, there are probably not many who take the time to verify that the citation(s) is accurate and also whether or not they are being used in the proper context.
Whether it is fast food, instant potatoes, etc, we want it all and we want it now. So, I try to not just reference a Biblical citation in the hopes that you may look it up. I put it inside the post I am writing. I want you to see it with your eyes. I want you to see if what I say is true and not only that, but to see if it is used in its proper context.
When I teach I typically follow on the heels of the Messiah and the New Covenant writers who were constantly appealing to the Scriptures to make their case. We should always teach in that manner. We do not argue from reason or logic. We argue from the Scriptures because they alone are the words which the Lord wanted us to know. This is why, for example, when you read the book of Matthew or Romans, you will read a constant appeal to the Scriptures. You will not read “I feel or I believe or I think.”
When we talk about being set apart for God’s purposes we have to ask the question “what about those who have different doctrine(s)?” How are we to relate to them? How can I have a relationship with them if they have different doctrines? If I have been called by God and set apart to believe specific doctrines, how can I do this when someone else says they too are Christian, but will not submit to these same specific doctrines?
This is one of the biggest problems today that we are faced with. Men and women being permitted by others (in the name of love, grace and common ground) to believe God is this and He is that. This is an area in which many professing “so-called” evangelicals (I say so-called because they are primarily of the Arminian persuasion) would rather err on the side of caution and let love have the final say first, and then they consult the Scriptures.
I usually call it hippy theology. Having attended Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa for about ten years I found the love mentality to be the root. Love first and then consult the Scriptures. Of course, they deny this and would say they honor the Scriptures first and foremost. If that were true then we would have more people promoting the sovereignty of God and His Lordship.
But, men who taught Bible studies at CCCM, like Chuck Missler, have come out of the “love” closet and had the gall to complete a series called “The sovereignty of man.” Ironically, most of these men lack love when they speak about those who believe in the doctrine of election. Love at all costs, unless the other person believes in the doctrine of predestination.
That is one of the reasons why I wrote the article on essentials and non essentials. That is the evangelical way of saying “let’s look past our differences” and in the name of love, they go along to get along. It is this mentality that has brought such compromise into the Church. In the name of love and tolerance the evangelicals have brought goats into the sheep pen and there is no identification.
There is no proof of a visual separation and a calling by the God of heaven because there is no fruit. As I said earlier, we must be known by what we believe and how we live!
What I was trying to do in the last post was to show, identification to God can be determined by what we believe and how we live. Healthy doctrine WILL divide. If we have been set apart by God, then we are set apart from the world. We are told that we must not love the world or the things of the world.
Relationships have both good and bad fruit. Associations can be the determining factor and reveal who is a saint and who is an aint. In other words, we may know a man of God by his hero’s or by those he keeps company with or who he supports.
I pointed this out with Rick Warren. He has no problem with his associations with the world. We can determine identification of who is and who is not serving the True and Living God by looking at our relationships to others and the relationships of others to others. As a rule, I do not give the benefit of the doubt to anyone until I get to know them.