1.07. The Holiness of the Servants of Christ

CHAPTER VII THE HOLINESS OF THE SERVANTS OF CHRIST ON p. 54 we saw that in the letters of Paul and the Bk. of Revelation frequently, and in the Ep. to Hebrews and the Bk. of Acts, church-members are indiscriminately called saints or holy persons, without thought of the measure of their moral development. The Corinthian Christians were " babes in Christ " and " carnal : " 1 Corinthians 3:1-3. Yet they were " sanctified in Christ : " 1 Corinthians 1:2. All this is explained by the use of the word holy in the Old Testament. They were objectively holy in the sense that " in Christ," i.e. through His incarnation, teaching, and death, God had claimed them for His own, that henceforth " they should live, not for self, but for Him who on their behalf died and rose:" 2 Corinthians 5:15. This claim of God placed them in a new and solemn relation to Him which could not be set aside by, although it greatly aggravated the guilt of, unfaithfulness to this high vocation. So in Hebrews 10:29 we read of one who had " trampled under foot the Son of God and counted as a common thing the blood of the covenant in which he was sanctified." The word saint is therefore very appropriate to designate the professed followers of Christ. For it declares what God requires us to be. To admit sin or selfishness into our hearts is now sacrilege. Nay more. This title sets forth our privilege. The name we bear tells us God s will concerning us. Therefore, since our own efforts have proved that the life He would have us live is altogether beyond our power, we may take back to Him the name He gives and claim with lowly confidence that He will Himself accomplish in our hearts and lives His own purpose. To keep ever before the professed servants of Christ the real significance of their profession, the Holy Spirit moved the early Christians to call each other saints or holy persons. This is the OBJECTIVE holiness of the Church of Christ. A few conspicuous and important passages in the New Testament indicate the SUBJECTIVE holiness set before the professed followers of Christ in the title they bear. In His great prayer on the eve of His betrayal, Christ prays, in John 17:11-19, " Holy Father, keep them in Thy Name . . . keep them from the Evil One . . . sanctify them in the truth. . . . According as Thou didst send Me into the world, also I have sent them into the world. And on their behalf I sanctify Myself, in order that also they may be sanctified in the truth." This recalls John 10:36, " whom the Father sanctified and sent into the world." The connecting link is the phrase, "sent into the world." As the Father consecrated the Son to the special work of rescuing the lost and bringing them back to their Father in heaven, so has the Son sent on the same errand of mercy those who follow Him ; and He now prays that God will breathe into them this new life of unreserved devotion to the task set before them. For nothing less than this can be the answer for which the great Intercessor pleads. It is the subjective realisation of the objective holiness described above. For the same subjective sanctification, Paul prays in 1 Thessalonians 5:23 : " may the God of peace Himself sanctify you." The word following, rendered wholly in the English versions, denotes, not the manner or measure of this sanctification, but its result : " may He sanctify you, and thus make you, in every part, full-grown " or " perfect," or " mature." Now unquestion ably the Thessalonican Christians were already at least on the level of the immature Corinthians who are said to be "sanctified in Christ." Paul s prayer can mean no less than a subjective realisation in them of the devotion which God claims from His adopted sons. He adds a prayer for the maintenance in them of this inward subjective holiness: "may your spirit and soul and body, every part complete, be kept blameless in the coming of Christ;" and a confident hope, " Faithful is He that calls you, who also will do it." This holiness "in body and spirit" is in 1 Corinthians 7:34 set before a Christian woman as her aim in life ; parallel to " how he may please the Lord " in 5:32. In 2 Corinthians 7:1, it is set in relation to cleansing from the defilement of sin : " let us cleanse ourselves from all defilement of flesh and spirit, attaining holiness." The sanctification of the body in a sacrificial sense is taught in Romans 6:13; Romans 6:19: "present the members of your body as slaves to righteousness for sancti fication" So 5:22 : " ye have your fruit for sanctification." So ch. 12:1, at the beginning of the practical application of Paul s great statement of the Gospel, in language redolent of the ritual of the altar : " present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God, your rational service." Our hands and feet and lips must be laid on the altar, to be intelligently used for God, this consecration of our bodily powers being the ritual of worship which God requires from us.

I2 Chronicles 15:16 Paul describes his own priestly service : " that I should be a minister " (same word in Hebrews 8:2, of Christ as High-Priest and with direct reference to the ritual of the Tabernacle) " of Christ Jesus for the Gentiles, proclaiming as my priestly work the Gospel of God, in order that the offering up of the Gentiles may be acceptable, sanctified in the Holy Spirit." The proclamation of the Gospel to the Gentiles was the sacrifice which Paul laid day by day on the altar. This sacrifice was sanctified by the Holy Spirit who inspired the preacher.

Similarly Colossians 1:22, " to present you holy and without blemish and without reproof before Him ;" Ephesians 1:4; Ephesians 5:27.

Very emphatic is 1 Peter 1:15; 1 Peter 1:6-14 according to the pattern of the Holy One who called you, also yourselves become holy in all ye do ; because it is written, holy shall ye be because I am holy Here a Christian teacher, writing to men and women in every position in life who had been "begotten again by means of the resurrection of Christ," urges them, in view of the holiness of God who had called them to His service and had rescued them from a worthless life by the precious blood of Christ, to be themselves holy in every movement and turning in life : see 1 Peter 1:3, 1 Peter 1:19, 1 Peter 2:18; 1 Peter 3:1. This exhortation, he supports by quoting the words so conspicuously repeated in Leviticus 11:44-45; Leviticus 19:2; Leviticus 20:26; Leviticus 21:8, " Holy shall ye be ; because I am holy" The word rendered in the A.V. " manner of conversation," in the R.V. " manner of living," denotes all the changing activities of life. The quoted words, " ye shall be holy" are a command and a prophecy ; and, since the command can be obeyed and the prophecy fulfilled only by the work of God in man, they are also a promise. Here is a devotion to God embracing all we do, speak, or think. The sacrificial nature of this sanctification is suggested by the costly blood of the spotless Lamb, in 5:19 ; and is plainly asserted i2 Chronicles 2:5; 2 Chronicles 2:9, "a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God ... a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God s own possession." In all these passages, holiness is set before the readers, not as already possessed, but as an object for their effort and prayer and faith. This aim can be no other than the actual realisation in man of God s purpose that he live a life of which God and His purpose of mercy are the one all-controlling purpose. In this sense, we are holy just so far as we look upon ourselves and our possessions as belonging to God, and use our powers, time, opportunities, to save and bless those for whom Christ died. This is the SUBJECTIVE holiness to which God calls His servants.

Since our life on earth is lived in flesh and blood, and since the constitution of our bodies shapes all we do, and exerts on us a constant influence, good or bad, this consecration involves, as quoted on p. 67 f., sanctification of our bodies, our possessions, our time, and our entire environment.

Since the Mosaic ritual was, as we have just seen, a prophetic outline of the holiness required in us, the various holy objects of that ritual were types, as of Christ (see p. 58), so of us. We are "a holy Temple," 1 Corinthians 3:16; 1 Corinthians 6:19; 1 Corinthians 6:1-20:2 Corinthians 6:16; a " holy" and " royal priesthood," 1 Peter 2:5; 1 Peter 2:9; and "a holy sacrifice," Romans 12:1. Our future life will be a " Sabbath-keeping:" Hebrews 4:9. All this confirms strongly the above interpretation of the words holy and sanctify ; and still further links them to the holy objects of the Old Covenant. This ideal life of unreserved devotion to God is also in the New Testament described in other phraseology. So Romans 6:2 : "Reckon yourselves to be . . . living for God, in Christ Jesus ; " followed, as noted above, by the sacrificial language in verses 13, 19, 22. So ch. 14:7: " none of us lives for himself; for, if we live, we live for the Lord." Also very clearly in 2 Corinthians 5:15 : "He died in order that they who live may live no longer for themselves but for Him who on their behalf died and rose." Similarly, 1 Corinthians 6:19; 1 Corinthians 3:23 : " ye are not your own . . . but Christ’."

We also notice that in the New Testament the word sanctify occurs most frequently in the Ep. to the Hebrews, the book which deals most fully with the Mosaic ritual. This suggests that in the Apostolic Churches the word had not shaken off, as to a large extent it has now, its original relation to that ritual. To this original reference of the word, we must ever recur if we wish to think of holiness as it was understood by the early Christians.

Very interesting is 1 Corinthians 7:14 : " the unbelieving husband is sanctified in the wife." Since the people of God are holy, it might be thought that, as taught in Ezra 9:2, " the holy seed " ought to separate itself from contact with the unholy. Paul says, No. The Christian wife, in virtue of the universal priesthood of believers, lays her husband on the altar of God, and in all her treatment of him seeks to advance the purposes of God. Therefore, in the subjective world of the wife s inner life, the husband, unbeliever though he be, is a holy object ; and the wife s intercourse with him is a service of God. The correctness of this view, Paul proves by showing that if the principle of separation from the unbelieving were accepted it would in some cases compel a Christian mother to forsake her children, who evidently, in spite of even their possible rejection of the Gospel, have a claim on their mother s care. And, if it be right for her to live with her children, some of whom may be adult idolaters, on the same principle it is right for her to live with her husband. This argument is additional proof of the sacerdotal significance of the word holy in the New Testament.

Notice 1 Timothy 4:4 : " Every creature of God is good . . . when received with thanksgiving: for it is sanctified through the word of God and prayer." The " word of God " is the Creator s voice allotting vegetables and animals for man s food : Genesis 1:29; Genesis 9:3. This universal " word " was for a time restricted ; but the restriction had been solemnly revoked, and the original word was again in force : Leviticus 11:4-8, Acts 10:13-15. Whatever we eat " with thanksgiving " is, by the original "word of God" and our thanks, which is a recognition that it is God s gift to us, made holy food suitable for the holy people. Without such intelligent recognition, it would be defiling: Romans 14:14. We have now, by study of the Old and New Testaments, obtained a clear conception of Holiness as understood by the writers of the Bible. The word Holy means unreserved devotion to God ; in nearly all cases, of that which God has claimed for Himself. This idea we have seen realised and embodied in the Son of God, whose life with God, before the world was made, was marked by the unreserved devotion to the Father of a divine Life received from Him ; who took upon Himself our flesh and lived on earth a human life, and now lives upon the throne of God a glorified human life, simply and only to accomplish the Father’s purposes. The same idea, we have seen realised in the Spirit of God, who ever goes forth from the Father in order to lead us back to the Father, and whose every influence tends towards Him. The same idea is in part realised in the adopted sons of God : for God has claimed them for His own; and His claim puts them, whatever they may do, in a new and solemn relation to God. The full idea of Holiness is realised in them only so far as their entire activity of body and mind is the outworking of a single purpose to accomplish the purposes of God.