1.06. Holiness of Christ

CHAPTER VI HOLINESS OF CHRIST THE recognition, apart from any thought of the ritual of the temple, of Elisha as a " man of God " and therefore " holy" and of Jeremiah as sanctified by designa tion from birth for special service as a prophet, suggests irresistibly that in the Incarnate Son we shall find the Holy of Holies of mankind. This is clearly taught in a few conspicuous passages of the New Testament. On the eve of His birth, He was announced (Luke 1:35) by an angel as " the Holy Thing : " the neuter form leaving out of sight all except that He would be an embodiment of holiness. He was acknowledged, both by His disciples (John 6:69) and by (Mark 1:24) evil spirits, to be " the Holy One of God." The added words " of God " remind us that the holy objects stood in special relation to God. In John 10:36, the Son speaks of Himself as one " whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world." This sanctification is evidently, in close agreement with Jeremiah 1:5, designation to the special work of which in John 17:4 the Son speaks as " the work which Thou gavest Me to do." Touching His own daily self-devotion to this work, He says in John 17:19, " I sanctify Myself." The ascended Saviour is in Acts 3:14 called, like the Baptist in Mark 6:20, " holy and righteous;" and in Acts 4:27 " the holy Servant " of God. In Romans 1:4, Paul asserts that He was " marked out as Son of God, according to a spirit of holiness! In Revelation 3:7, He is called " the Holy, the True." Whether in 1 John 2:20 the word holy refers to the Father or the Son, is uncertain. The above passages imply that in the Incarnate Son there was, amid the limitations of human life on earth, a perfect impersonation of the idea imperfectly shadowed forth in the Mosaic ritual. We expect to find Him standing in special relation to God, and living a life of which the one and only aim is to accomplish the purposes of God. Our expectation is realised. The Son says, in John 4:34, " My food is to do the will of Him that sent Me, and to complete His work ; " i2 Chronicles 5:19, " the Son cannot do anything of Himself, but what He sees the Father doing;" in John 5:30, "I seek, not My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me ; " 2 Chronicles 6:38, " I am come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him that sent Me;" and 2 Chronicles 17:4, " I have glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work Thou gavest Me to do." Similarly Paul teaches in Romans 6:10, " the life which He lives, He lives for God ; " 2 Chronicles 15:3, " Christ did not please Himself;" in 1 Corinthians 3:23, " ye are Christ s and Christ is God s." In Hebrews 3:2 we read that Christ was " faithful to Him that made Him;" and 2 Chronicles 9:14, " He offered Himself spotless to God." In Jesus we see a life, lived in human flesh and blood, of which God was the one and only aim. All the powers, time, and opportunities of Jesus were used, not to gratify self, but to work out the purposes of God. And this devotion was rational. The human intelligence of Jesus, mysteriously informed by the divine intelligence of the Son of God, comprehended and fully approved and appropriated the Father s eternal purpose to save mankind through the death of His Son and to build up an eternal kingdom of rescued humanity : and of this intelligent approval every word and act of the human life of Jesus was a perfect out working. In this sense, in a measure infinitely surpassing the thought of Israel, the Old Testament conception of Holiness found in Him its realisation. This being so, we are not surprised to find, in a few passages, the holy objects of the Old Covenant used as symbols of Christ. In John 2:21, as His words are expounded by the Evangelist, " He spoke of" His body as a " Temple." In Hebrews 3:1, Hebrews 9:11 He is called a " High-Priest :" and in Hebrews 9:11; Hebrews 10:29, we read that the sacrifice which as Priest He offered was His own Body and Blood. In Hebrews 10:29, some who have treated with wanton insult the Spirit of grace are said to have been sanctified in the blood of the Covenant : and in Hebrews 5:14 we read that "by one offering" Christ "has perfected for ever those who are being sanctified" All this recalls the ancient ritual ; and teaches plainly that whatever holiness belonged to the tabernacle and its ritual attained in Christ its perfect realisation.

We notice further that, under the Old Covenant, the holy men and things were separated by their holiness from the common work of common life. This is very conspicuous in the last of the prophets, the " righteous and holy man " (Mark 6:20) in whose person and teaching was summed up whatever had been revealed in the earlier dispensation. The contrast of John and Jesus is the contrast of holiness as revealed in the Law and in the Gospel. John lived in the wilderness, away from the dwellings of men, and ate strange food. Jesus lived a common life, toiling at a trade, enjoying social inter course, partaking of human hospitality, and eating the food set before Him. This teaches plainly that holiness in its highest degree, i.e. the highest conceivable devotion to God and His Kingdom, does not involve separation from the common business of life. And, when we see Jesus using the opportunities afforded by this common intercourse with men to advance the interests of the Kingdom of God, we learn that even the common things of common life may be laid on the Altar as a means of doing His holy work.

We saw that under the Old Covenant devotion to God involved separation from whatever, in symbol or reality, was opposed to God : for all sin tends to misery and destruction ; whereas God’s purpose is life and happiness. Consequently the holiness of Jesus involved His absolute separation from, and strenuous hostility to, all sin. See further in ch. xi.

Again, the only purpose of God which we can conceive as having a practical bearing upon us is His purpose to save men from sin and death, and out of the ruins of lost humanity to build up the eternal Kingdom of which Christ will be King and His servants citizens. Consequently, to us, devotion to God implies devotion to this one purpose : and this one great divine purpose is inseparably linked to our conception of holiness. This is the only explanation, and a complete explanation, of John 10:36, "Whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world"; and of John 17:19, "on their behalf I sanctify Myself, in order that they also may be sanctified" The words, "sent into the world," are the links binding together these two passages. The Father’s mission was the objective sanctification of the Son for this great work. His own fulfilment of this mission day by day throughout His life on earth, culminating in the supreme sacrifice on the cross, was His own subjective sanctification of

Himself. The words in 1 Peter 3:15, "sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts," recall Deuteronomy 32:51, Numbers 27:14, "ye sanctified Me not in the midst of Israel." The meaning can only be, Recognise Christ, in the inmost chamber of your being, as your Lord, and therefore justly claiming your unreserved obedience and devotion. These words give to Him the prerogative which in the earlier covenant Jehovah claimed for Himself. They are little or nothing less than a recognition that Christ is divine. From the above passages we learn that the word sanctify does not necessarily involve inward change in the person sanctified. For such change in the Son of God is inconceivable.

Thus from the great Author and Archetype of renewed humanity we have obtained a complete conception of Holiness. We have seen a Man, though God yet perfect Man, whose life was a ceaseless and perfect accomplishment of one pur pose, viz. to use all His powers, time, and opportunities, to build up the Kingdom of God. And we have learnt that this purpose was an outflow of an intelligent comprehension and full approval of an eternal purpose of God. In virtue of this intelligent, hearty, and ceaseless appropriation of the Father s purpose, and of its perfect realisation in all the details of the Saviour s life, He was appropriately called " The Holy One of God." In my Manual of Theology^ especially 95, 276, I have endeavoured to prove that the devotion of the human life of the Incarnate Son to the work for which the Father sent Him into the world has its eternal Archetype and Source in the essential devotion of the Eternal Son to the Eternal Father. We there found in God a Person distinct from the Father yet sharing with Him, by eternal derivation from Him, all the attributes of God ; and we saw the divine life thus received flowing back in full volume in unreserved devotion to the Father; the infinite and eternal Stream to its infinite and eternal Source. Thus are the holiness of the Son, as of the Father and the Spirit, and all creaturely holiness, traced up to the eternal and essential relations of the Father, Son, and Spirit.