Good morning, gentlemen. We'll begin this morning by reading from Isaiah 6. Isaiah 6. The year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphim. Each one had six wings. With twain he covered his face, And with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory. And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts. Then flew one of the seraphim unto me, having a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongs from off the altar. And he laid it upon my mouth and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the LORD saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I. Send me. Let's pray. O LORD God, how holy Thou art! We pray that we, like Isaiah, may be overwhelmed with our guiltiness, our unworthiness before Thee and may know what it means with the angels to cry out, Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of hosts. Help us, Lord, In future ministry also, never to lose a sight, the sight of that great and awesome holiness. Even as we every day handle the holy treasures of thy word and speak of thy holy name, may our labor never become banal, common, ordinary, but may the sense of holiness Go with us month after month, year after year, decade after decade. And that people might feel under our ministry that they are in the presence of the holy Lord God of hosts. Be with us now in lecturing. Bless us this hour. Give us a feeling, an intellectual and an emotive sense of Thy glorious attributes. Lord, be in our midst, we pray, in Jesus' name. Amen. The midterm for this course will be October 27. October 27. The normal procedure for me, for those of you who haven't taken my exams yet, is usually I ask anywhere from six to ten questions, and then sometimes I ask you to do all of them, sometimes I ask you to do all but one or two, and basically essay questions, and you just look at the clock, you say, okay, I've got 60 hours, 60 minutes, 60 hours. 60 minutes and I've got 8 questions here. 8 divided by 60 is 7. I can spend about 7 minutes a question and do the best you can answering every question in 7 minutes. If you have a little time left over at the end, go back and try to brush it up a little bit. It's pretty straightforward. Usually I'll have 1 or 2 reading questions and the rest will be mostly taken from the lectures. Obviously if you can buttress what I'm saying from the lectures with a little reading that is going to be helpful. So October 27, I won't be here myself that morning because I have to be at a... I'll be lecturing to some Orthodox Presbyterian ministers, a little mini-conference that came up. That's why it's a very appropriate time to give you an exam. The exam will cover everything from the beginning of the course through the attribute of goodness. So it will cover through the top of page six on the outline, at least my page six. So today we're looking at holiness and righteousness. Thursday we'll look at goodness and the next attribute. So halfway through Thursday's lecture and all of next week's lecture will actually be in the final exam. So you only need to know for this lecture through goodness. The exams are not cumulative. And then after goodness on page six to the end of the course will be on the final exam. Okay, any questions? All right, let's look then at the... Marty, after class, will you just explain everything I said to this brother? Okay. Okay, let's look first then at the attribute of holiness. Holiness. The primary family of words for God's holiness includes the noun, Kodesh, translated as holiness or holy. I've got it on the board here for you. I've also transliterated them. The adjective, Kodosh, translated as holy or the holy one. And often, Scriptures use the expression, the Holy One of Israel. This family of words contains the idea of separateness, or you might say, apartness, otherness. And it's most frequently referring to God Himself, or things set apart for God, consecrated to God, devoted to a holy purpose. It's used 93 times in Scripture. That is the noun. No, I'm sorry, 93 times the whole family of words. The noun is used 31 times. to depict divine separateness, speaking of God. I'll give you a couple of them you can look up on your own. Exodus 15, verse 11. Malachi 2, verse 11. The second word, family, for God's holiness includes the noun tahor, tahor. translated pure or clean. The verb tahir is translated cleanse or to make pure. So the idea here is to be uncontaminated. Most commonly this family of words is used in relation to ceremonial cleanness. It depicts God's moral purity, that everything God does is clean and pure. The words of the Lord, for example, Psalm 12, verse 6, are pure words. A third family of words for God's holiness includes the verb barar. translated to purify, or to polish, or to make shining. The adjective bar is usually translated as pure or clear, clean, or clear, sorry, pure or clear. These words most often refer to physical purging or polishing or purifying. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. Psalm 19, verse 8. The Old Testament presents God's holiness by affirming, in all these families of words, His impeccability, that no evil, as Psalm 5, verse 4 puts it, shall dwell with the Lord. And as Habakkuk 1.13 puts it, thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil. and canst not look upon iniquity." Now, in terms of New Testament terminology, the first word family for God's holiness includes the adjective hagiois, translated holy. and the nouns hagyotes and hagyosune both translated holiness. They're really the counterpart for kodash, the kodash family, for they're normally understood to mean separateness or apartness. In fact, Peter's quotation, and Peter 1 1 Peter 1.15-16 about the need to be holy for God is holy. His quotation of Leviticus 19.2 there confirms the close connection of these two word families. So also in the New Testament, this word is used, hagiois, to describe people or things that are consecrated to God. Holy, devoted. to his service. And sometimes, as in Peter, it's also used to depict the holiness, the moral purity, or the separateness from the sinful world of Christians. The adjective holy, hagiois, is used for divine holiness at least eight times. Luke 1.49 is the first incident, and the last is Revelation 6.10. Sometimes it refers specifically to Christ as the Holy One. Mark 1.24. Sometimes to Christ as God's holy child. as in Acts 4.27. And of course it's used many times, in fact over 90 times, as a proper name for the third person of the Trinity, the Holy Spirit. Once in a while it's used of the purity of God's revealed will. Romans 7, verse 12. The second word family for God's holiness includes the adjective hosios, translated holy also, and the noun hosiotes, translated holiness. And the emphasis in this family of words is particularly on the intrinsical or the intrinsic right, the moral purity. So in summary, we can say that all of these terms and idioms in the Old and New Testament. Speaking of God's holiness directly at least 120 times, and if we add references to the Holy Spirit and to Christ, we have a total of 222 times. If we bring these terms together, we can conclude that God's holiness, and I'm giving you now, I'm moving to the holiness of God defined, we're giving us a formal definition of holiness, God's holiness is God's supreme separateness, God's supreme separateness and moral purity and supremacy, moral purity and supremacy, which separates him from and exalts him above all creatures and so-called gods. and separates him from all sin. So holiness involves God's absolute impeccability. So we're looking then at really two things when we speak about God's holiness, and I want to look at those more carefully with you now. First, we're looking at God's separateness, as you see on the outline, and second, at his moral perfection and impeccability. Holiness then denotes the separateness of God from all his creation. When we say that God is holy, we're referring to the fact that he's separate from all that is outside of himself. God is the, as theologians often say, the holy other, the holy other. So his separateness has reference to the majesty of God, his transcendent majesty. That's why John Murray says that God's holiness is spoken of more than any other attribute in the Bible, because it really affirms His deity. Secondly, God's holiness testifies of His absolute moral perfection. excellence, His impeccability. God is completely pure. God does not sin and He cannot sin. Sin is completely absent from His character, His divinity. So God's holiness is the very essence of His being. Isaiah 57, verse 15. And it's the backdrop of everything else the Bible declares about God. His justice is holy justice. His wisdom is holy wisdom. His power is holy power. His grace is holy grace, and so on. No other attribute of God is so celebrated before the throne of God as is his holiness. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God of hosts. This isn't a single refrain. This is, we get the impression, don't we, in Isaiah 6, this is the habitual atmosphere of heaven. And interestingly, no word is so prefixed, so frequently prefixed to the name of God as the word holy. Isaiah alone calls God the Holy One 26 times. The Puritan John Howe says, "...holiness may be said to be a transcendental attribute that, as it were, runs through the rest and casts its luster upon them all, It's an attribute of attributes. And so it's the very luster and glory of His other perfections. Now God manifests His majestic holiness everywhere. He does so in His works. Psalm 145, verse 17. He manifests it in His law. Psalm 19, verses 8 and 9, but he manifests it especially at the cross of Christ. Matthew 27, verse 46, where he has to turn away from his own son as he cries out that great cry of dereliction, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? But because he's taking the place of sinners, you see, his father has to turn away. God is holy. Holiness is His permanent crown. His beauty. His glory. Jonathan Eberts said, it is more than a mere attribute. It is the sum of all His attributes. The outshining of all that God is. the outshining of all that God is. Well, since God is holy and set apart from all sin, sinners cannot approach Him without holy sacrifice. Leviticus 17, verse 11, and confirmed in the New Testament in Hebrews 9.22. You see, God cannot be the Holy One and remain indifferent to sin. Jeremiah 44, verse 4. Or put more directly, He must punish sin. He must punish sin because He's holy. Exodus 34, 6 and 7. The point you see that the average man walking on the street never comes to grasp all his lifetime if he's not churched and taught and the Holy Spirit doesn't enlighten him is that because God is holy and all mankind are sinners, tragically in Adam, but also every day in our lives. God can never be appeased by our efforts. He can never get to heaven by saying, well, I'm just a little bit better than my neighbor. I try to be a good dad. I try to be decent. I try to work hard. I try to be moral. I haven't been in prison. He's not going to make it. God is holy. This is what we must bring to people today desperately. People need to hear this. God is holy. You can't meet him based on your external morality. So we creatures once made after the image of our holy creator, voluntarily chose in our covenant had Adam to be unholy and unacceptable in the sight of a holy God. And therefore, Scripture says the only way that that unholiness can be erased and we can be made holy is in someone who is divine, someone who is infinite, in order to satisfy an infinitely holy God. And that someone, of course, as you know, the book of Hebrews spends a whole book outlining how he does it and who he is, is the Lord Jesus Christ. Hebrews 9 verse 22 tells us, atoning blood must be shed. Atoning blood must be shed if remission of sin is to be granted. But blessed be God, the Lord Jesus Christ from eternity committed himself to accomplish that atonement. by the initiation of his own father. Psalm 40, verses 7 and 8. I come to do thy will, O my God. And he accomplished it with the full approbation of his father. Mark 15, 37-39. So Paul can say, For God hath made him to be sin for us who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God. in him." 2 Corinthians 5.21. Now our Lord's Supper form in the Dutch Reformed tradition summarizes it so beautifully when it says, the wrath of God against sin is so great. You see, that's because of His holiness. that rather than it should go unpunished, He hath punished the same in His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, with a bitter and shameful death of the cross. So by free grace, God regenerates sinners, causes them to believe in Christ alone as their righteousness, their salvation. And those of us who are among these blessed believers, then are made partakers of Christ's holiness, for Christ's sake, and are made such by the means of divine discipline. Hebrews 12, verse 10, God chastens us, He disciples us, and disciplines us, so that we come to need his holiness, to become part of it, being saved in Christ, being united with Christ. Well, how does God then display this holiness? Let me say several things rather rapidly here. First, God displays His holiness in creation. Creation. The angels sang in Isaiah 6 that the whole earth is full of His glory. They didn't say the whole church is full of His glory. In other words, also creation displays His glory for those who have eyes to see. Isaiah 6, verse 3. And Revelation 4, verse 10 says that everything was created for the pleasure of God, the glory of God. God displays His devotion to His own honor when He creates everything to His own honor. And Paul underscores that, doesn't he, when he cries out, for of him and through him and unto him are all things to whom be glory forever. Romans 11.36. So the very goal and purpose of divine creation is to display divine holiness. And what Scripture is telling us over and over again, this very fact calls upon every creature to praise and bless the Holy Creator. So John says in Revelation 4, Thou art worthy to receive glory and honor and power, for Thou hast created all things. Now, certain parts of creation particularly display God's holiness in poignant ways. One part is the angels, the creation of the spiritual beings we call the angels. Originally, every angel was created holy, 2 Peter 2, verse 4. Even the devil once reflected God's moral purity. Jude 6. But the unfallen angels today continue to do so. Albeit dimly, they are reflections of the spotless moral purity of God. But we also need to observe that the creation of man in the image of God pre-eminently displays God's holiness. Angels, having no material body, are invisible. But God created man as the living, visible representation of himself on earth. in the image of God made he him. Genesis 1, 26, 27. What a loaded statement that is. Adam's holy character perfectly reflected the holy character of God pre-fall. His heart was wholly devoted to God's honor. His will was morally sin-free. And in virtue of the fact that he had a body, his holiness was visible. His body and soul furnished a visible display of divine holiness. Ephesians 4 verse 24. That the day Just as God patterned the original man after himself so that Adam displayed his moral purity, in the new creation today, God restores what human sin defaced. So that now, and that's good news, brothers, now we as Christians are God's new creation. again reflecting God's holiness. So the holiness of God is displayed in creation. Secondly, the holiness of God is displayed in special revelation. Romans 1 verse 2 calls the sacred oracles the holy scriptures. And we still use that language today, don't we? We say, this is the Holy Bible. Psalm 12 puts it very graphically. Psalm 12, verse 6. The words of the Lord are pure words. As silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times. Seven, the number of completeness. In other words, the word of God is just absolutely pure, holy. Romans 7 verse 12, the law is holy and the commandment holy, righteous, and good. So God's law and God's gospel as recorded in God's word all display holiness. His law is His supreme holiness set forth. It is opposed to all sin. And His gospel defines how we can get salvation from sin in a holy way. Therefore, we can speak of God's law as a holy law, and His gospel as a holy gospel. And both His holy law and His holy gospel are vehemently opposed to all sin as revealed in His Holy Word. Now, if creation and the special revelation of the Word of God displays God's holiness. How much more? Redemption displays God's holiness. God displays His holiness in redemption already in Israel's redemption from Egypt. Leviticus 11, 44 and 45 tells us that because God is the Lord, Israel was to sanctify themselves and to be holy. For I am holy, he says. And then he appeals, as he does so often, I am the Lord thy God who brought thee up out of the land of Egypt to be thy God. Thou shalt therefore be holy, for I am holy. Find that same thought again. In Leviticus 20, verse 26. Psalm 111, verse 9. Ezekiel 39, verse 25. So God is the Holy One. He separates Himself from wicked nations and attaches Himself to His people. In this sense, he's God of Israel alone. And he condescends to a nation that, well, other people probably wouldn't pick. And he enters into solemn bonds of covenantal loyalty. Psalm 111, he sent redemption to his people. He's commanded his covenant forever. Holy and reverend is his name. So the very substance of the old covenant displays his holiness. And that's manifest in all the things that he brings to bear upon that covenant, also the responsibilities. It causes people to separate from other nations and be holy. Even their diet is impacted. Their dress is impacted. Their morals, their religious rights are impacted. Leviticus 18 and 19. They are to fear and serve the Lord of Israel alone. And God displays that holiness in his jealous hostility. to the sacrilege and the immorality of his people when they worship other gods. How many times it seems like the Lord is just on the verge of consuming his people because they're transgressing against his holiness. Idolatry provokes his jealousy. and they profane His worship. He consumes them in their sin. And that elicits fear and awe. 1 Samuel 6, verse 20. God displays that holiness also through His solemn promise to bring back the captivity of His people. Ezekiel 39 verse 25 tells us that God will bring back, He will have mercy on Israel because He's jealous for His holy name. He says even in Psalm 89 verses 34 to 36 that He's sworn by His holiness. He's made an oath by His holiness that He will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure forever. So God displays His holiness to His chosen covenant people of old, the people of Israel, that He will redeem them from Egypt. Secondly, that He will redeem us from sin. The accomplishment of redemption from sin displays God's holiness. the sinless life of Christ in bodily form portrays God's holiness and then when God pours out His wrath upon Christ to atone for sin He displays that holiness more than ever His absolute vehement opposition to sin is most manifest in that he turned away his favor from his son on Golgotha, so that the author to the Hebrews can say in Hebrews 7.26, for such a high priest became us, holy, guileless, separate from sinners, made higher than the heavens. But not only the accomplishment of that salvation, displays God's holiness the application of redemption from sin displays God's holiness that's why God says in Isaiah 57 that he's he who inhabits eternity whose name is holy who dwells in a high and holy place dwells also with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit you see God in the renewal of his saints, both at regeneration and throughout their Christian lives, displays his holiness. And he wants his people to be a reflection of that holiness in this world. That's why he says in 1 Peter 1, 15, 16, be ye holy as I am holy. We are called to be like God in holiness. We are called to strive for nothing less than sinless perfection of our God, to manifest that, to be pure as He is pure, 1 John 3, verse 3. We always fall short, but that should be our goal, and sin should grieve us. But not only the accomplishment and the application of this redemption displays God's holiness, but also the completion of redemption from sin displays God's holiness. That is to say, this display will last forever, to eternity, to eternity. the whole goal of Jesus with his church is that he might present the church himself to his father as a glorious church not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing but that it should be holy and without blemish on that great day Ephesians 5 27 so when Jesus comes God will display his holiness climactically in the total eradication of sin from his people, individually and corporately, and all that, forever. But the other side of the ledger, of course, is that God will also displace his holiness through damnation, through damnation. God is always displaying His holiness in the judgment and punishment of the wicked. He's not just displaying His holiness when He redeems His people from Egypt, but also in the ruin and the punishment of the Egyptians. He tells us in Exodus 15, verse 11, that one reason why He destroyed the Egyptians is to display His holiness. And therefore, when Jesus comes and all of Jesus' enemies will be cast into the lake of fire, Revelation 6, verse 10, that will be to display God's holiness. Revelation 16, verse 5 says, I heard the angel of the waters say, thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shalt be, because thou hast judged thus. So you see, all of God's judgments are righteous. Also, the judgment of hell. All right, let's try to bring this home to bear then in several applications, several important practical applications. I've got seven of them listed for you here. I'm calling this section, The Holiness of God Applied, The Holiness of God Applied. The question might be raised, And we need to make these applications, by the way, brothers, from the pulpit because we have a crisis today when it comes to God's holiness. And that's why the question may well be raised whether we can still have this consciousness of God's holiness in the church today when the world around us is so anti the holiness of God, so so thoroughly whirly, so horizontal rather than vertical in its relationships. Is there any conviction of God's holiness, any desire even for believers to really embrace this holiness today? This is a problem. The world has changed tremendously even in the last 50 years. And with all the threats of terrorism and war and the all-consuming conformity to the world and the estrangement of Christian values, the eradication of the godly walk of life in many churches, the end result is that many people have changed their minds about the holiness of God. It's gone off their computer screen. It's just not there. So they talk about God casually. They talk about God as if He's just a mere man. Well, if I were God, I would do this and this. There's not this reverence for God, for this holy God who can damn us to hell in a moment's notice, justly. So, my first application is this, that the holiness of God That is to say, its consciousness in us and in our people is bound up with a proper biblical view of God. A proper biblical view of God. You know, we hear about the God is dead theology. We hear about the suffering God theology. We hear about the God in process theology. The God is our buddy theology. But the problem with all these theologies is that God is brought down to the level of a mere mortal. God is no longer than the totally Holy Other. And once we lose that teaching, once we lose the teaching that God, the Holy Other, can be known, as far as He needs to be known, to salvation only through His Son. So that He who has seen Jesus has seen the Father. Once we lose that, well, we lose a biblical view of God himself. Secondly, the consciousness of the holiness of God is inseparable from a proper view of sin, a proper view of sin. Today, many people think it's extreme to say that God dwells only with those with a contrite and humble spirit who tremble at His Word. Isaiah 57, verse 15. Don't hear a lot of sermons on that anymore, do we? And today, many people would say, if that wasn't in the Bible, well, that's extreme. God's our friend. But we need to keep pressing pressing the consciences of our people that, just as we read in the Heidelberg Catechism so vividly, we need to know ourselves just as sinners. The biblical consciousness of sin requires the knowledge of the guilt of sin. And the holiness of God, together with His righteousness and goodness, must be set forth in our preaching. If we're really going to bring people before God and see them converted, they need to know who God is, but they also need to know what our sin is and what our sin does in the presence of this holy God. The enormity, the heinousness, the dastardliness, the spiritual insanity of sin in the face of a holy God who is almighty, can destroy us at any moment, needs to be preached. We need to tell our people that just belonging to a church and participating in lots of church activities isn't salvation. You need to be born again. And we need to be able to tell other people how we were born again. One more clear, perhaps, than another. But that new life just doesn't happen without our knowledge. Something happens. We get new views of God. We get new views of ourselves. We get new views of sin. We have new desires. And behind all of this, you see, is there's a new consciousness of God's holiness. We have to do with God. We have to do with God. We stand naked before the almighty, holy God. And then sin becomes sin. Thirdly, the holiness of God is applied as something that's inseparable from the personal and covenantal experience of faith. There are many people today that think that the old Reformed and Puritan emphasis on experience is old-fashioned, mystical, pietistic in a negative sense. And we don't doubt that there are improper views, unexperienced, still floating around today, which confuse the objective reality of redemption with the subjective application of redemption by the Spirit. We find these views in the charismatic movement and certain groups that are influenced by an experience-centered theology. But some so systematize and prescribe the way of faith and experience that no room is left for the holiness of God. The true experience of faith however, is particularly characterized by two marks. First, there is the consciousness of God's holiness, this sense of infinite distance between Him and us, a sight of Christ. And then, second, the experience of God's nearness. God's nearness in Christ and partaking of the secret of the Lord. The secret of the Lord is with them that fear him. Communing with him, this holy God in Christ. Psalm 25 verse 14. Now that is experienced individually. by sinners. But there is also a corporate sense, a covenantal sense, in which God dwells among His people. He dwelt among Israel, His Church, His Old Testament Church, by means of the covenant. And today, He's a covenant-keeping God. He dwells in His holy community. and His holiness is particularly manifest in His church. And so, we must preach to people, we must show people that this is God's favorite place, if you will, in the gathering, the corporate gathering of His people, the corporate gathering of worship, His favorite place to come and dwell. to manifest His holiness and His grace in the Lord Jesus Christ, so that the new and the living way into the Holy of Holies that is open for sinners who believe is particularly proclaimed in the preaching of God's Word. And there, under the Word, sinners enter into the experience of it. But fourthly, this holiness of God is applied by pressing itself upon people as an all-comprehensive call, an all-comprehensive call. As Christ's disciples, we're called by God to be more holy than we'll ever become. during this lifetime. 1 John 1, verse 10. But we're called to it. God calls us to separate from sin, to consecrate and assimilate ourselves to Himself out of gratitude for His great salvation. And so these concepts, separation from sin, consecration to God, conformity to Christ, these concepts make holiness comprehensive. And that's why Paul says in 1 Timothy 4, 4 and 5, that everything, everything is to be sanctified, everything is to be made holy. Well, obviously that means, first of all, that personal holiness demands total consecration. The idea that life is like a pie that's cut into, well, let's say eight pieces, and my holiness and my religion is one piece is absolutely abhorrent to scripture. It's the whole pie. I've got to be a holy husband. I've got to be holy in worship. I've got to lead holy family worship. I've got to be holy when I walk and sit and talk with my children. I've got to be holy at work. I've got to be holy everywhere. Holiness to the Lord, as the old Puritans used to say, must be stamped on our forehead. And wherever we go, whatever we do, whatever we think, God is saying, My son, Give me your heart. Not just a piece of your heart, your whole heart. Proverbs 23, verse 6. And so secondly, holiness of heart must be cultivated in every sphere of our lives. In privacy with God. John Owen said, what a man is when he's all alone, that he is and nothing more before God. in the confidentiality of our homes, in the competitiveness of our occupation, in the pleasures of social friendship, in relation with our unevangelized neighbors and the world's hungry and unemployed, as well as in Sunday worship, we must be holy. The most profound statement I've ever read about this is written by Horatius Bonar, and it just moves me every time I read it. Just don't take notes for a moment. Just sit back and just listen to this quotation. Holiness is a call that extends to every part of our persons, fills up our being, spreads over our life, influences everything we are, or do, or think, or speak, or plan, small or great, outward or inward, negative or positive, our loving, our hating, our sorrowing, our rejoicing, our recreations, our business, our friendships, our relationships, our silences, Our speech, our reading, our writing, our going out, our coming in, our whole man in every movement of spirit, soul, and body. Wow. That's what God means when he says, be ye holy. For I am holy. That's right. Holiness is an absolute radical call It's a call involving the core of our faith and practice everywhere. John Calvin put it this way, and I just love this quotation. It's just so powerful. Because believers have been called to holiness, the entire life of all Christians must be an exercise in piety. In other words, holiness is a commitment to a whole life to be lived Godward. That's what 2 Corinthians 3 verse 4 says, we need to live Godward. That's what the Reformers meant by the expression, Coram Deo, live in the face of God. Live in the face of God. I heard a speaker yesterday actually talking to a group of people and the speaker said, what you need to do, it's actually a radio program which a lady was speaking to ladies and she said, what you need to do women, you need to get out of the face of your husband and get into the face of God. Just the way she put it I thought was just an amazing expression. Get into the face of God. To be set apart, you see. To bow under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. When we see that, we understand that holiness impacts everything. We must be holy from within. We must be rooted from within. Then it must fill up our entire heart and then it must spill over into our lives. So that we experience what Paul wrote to the Thessalonians in the very God of peace, sanctify you wholly. I pray God your whole spirit and your whole soul and your whole body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 23. Thomas Boston put it this way, holiness is a constellation of graces. So in gratitude to God, it's not our legalism, but in gratitude to God, believers want to cultivate the fruits of holiness. meekness, gentleness, love. These are all fruits of holiness. Joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, mercy, contentment, gratitude, purity of heart, faithfulness, the fear of God, humility, spiritual mind, self-control, self-denial. These are all the fruits that Paul mentions at the close of his letters. So this is a comprehensive call, brothers. And there's a particular burden upon a minister to be comprehensively holy. As McShane put it, seldom will your people rise to levels of holiness greater than you as a minister. That's a pretty profound thought, pretty overwhelming thought. That should not bring us to despair because we have a Holy Savior who can help us, who's promised to help us. But it should bring us to a very acute sense of our incredible responsibility before God and before man. And it should lead us, I think, to a position where we say, sometimes I will deny myself something I'd like to do because perhaps the people will look at it and say, our minister isn't very holy. Maybe sometimes we can't go somewhere where maybe our people can. It doesn't mean we have a higher level of holiness we have to reach. We're not in a hierarchical system, but we are leaders. People are watching us. So I like to think of it this way. be careful in our walk of life. Let's recognize that people are expecting us to be holy. Now, this is a very tempting thing, and let me just speak from a little pastoral experience here. This is just a little pastoral injection into this course. But you'll have all kinds of people. You'll have a lot of people that will be so happy when you don't act holy. They'll say, well, you're so human now, Pastor. That's the way we want you. Because they feel uncomfortable around holy people. So you've got that temptation. Then you've got other people who want you to be legalistic. You've got that temptation. So how do you walk a holy walk out of gratitude to God, not fall into legalism on the one hand, and not become, well, just as if you're not a minister at all on the other hand? I think the answer to that problem, and it is a problem, it's a tension in the ministry, I think the answer lies first of all in cultivating in your own heart, in your own life, a sense of God's holiness. And that consciousness will give you the spiritual antennae that you need to have a right feel for a lot of situations. I'm not saying that some of these things aren't culturally bound, certainly they are. One typical thing is ministerial dress. We're in a day and age right now where the big thing for ministers, because the sense of holiness is going down everywhere, that ministers become just like other people in all areas. And so they dress like people everywhere, they talk like people everywhere, people compliment them. and everybody calls him on a first-name basis, and this is the idea. Could it be that this is an extension of the whole idea that God has become our neighbor next door, our buddy, and we no longer have a holy view of God, so ministers become like our neighbors next door and they're our buddies? Could that be? I'm not advocating the opposite extreme, of course. Our people, as in former days, were so afraid to even talk to a minister, they saw him walking down the street, they'd walk on the other side of the road, because they were afraid of talking to him. And that was painted, when I was a child, that was painted as admirable. If a minister conveyed that much respect, he was really a holy man. There's got to be a balance, there's got to be something where a minister It's like Jesus. He's very approachable. People were not afraid to go to Jesus. Republicans and sinners drew near to him. He's approachable. So there's got to be an ordinariness about us that we can engage in regular conversation with people. We can ask them about their jobs and their families and come across in a warm, genuine way that makes people want to talk to us. But at the same time, there's got to be a holiness about us that people emulate. This isn't easy. But the greatest answer to it It's got to be, if we have a close, intimate life with God, then we can display this in a natural way because it's who we really are. In other words, what I'm saying is you can't fake it. You can't fake it. So we don't want to come across to our people as people who are of another world in the sense that we can't relate to their world at all because we're so holy, we're totally separate and we're stiff and can't relate and can't hold a conversation with it. It's not what Jesus was like. We want to come across warm and engaging and caring and touching people. shaking their hand, being close to them. Yes. Yet, we are ministers. And so they must feel a sense of respect. It's not that we go out and demand that, but we convey that by the holiness of our own lives. So remember this. You can get close to people, you can laugh with them, you can joke with them, and they'll laugh along with you and they'll like it in a way, but as soon as you turn your back, they might say to one another, can you believe that's a minister? I've seen this happen many times. And actually, the minister walks away thinking he's hit a home run with them and really, he's lost respect with them. So, We need to live holy lives that begins in our own private life with God, and that will come out in our walk of life. It will come out all kinds of ways. I was just somewhere last night where, with some of my church people, we actually went to hear Rick Santorum, for the Right to Life group, speak, and it was a powerful message. Ninety-nine percent of it. 99% of it was very, very good. And I was very impressed. But in the middle of that 99%, there was one joke he made. He said some joke about... Something he did that was really, he really did sacrifice himself and his convictions and put his political career on the line by standing up. Then he made some aside joke like, well I hope I get some years of purgatory lesson for that. It was interesting. People that were at my table, who were all from my church, a number of them laughed at that. But I instantly felt that many of them, if not all of them, turned and looked to see what my response was. They did, I could feel their eyes on me. Why? Why would they look at me? Well, they want to check out, you know, how would our minister respond to that? And if I had laughed uproariously at that, along with the way the people were laughing, What would that have conveyed to my church members? Personally, I didn't think it was funny at all. I didn't get up and make a scene. I did not even crack a smile. Now maybe a couple of people sitting at the table didn't appreciate that, that I didn't smile. Probably not. But I did not think it was funny. I thought it was... I don't like it when people... I don't think it's consistent with holiness when people joke about holy matters. So I just didn't smile. I just sat there. And I saw one man at my table, particularly, who was laughing at this. And as soon as he looked at me and saw that I wasn't laughing, he just got serious right away. Now, I wasn't going to think about this anymore. But I'm just saying to you, this is just one small example. This kind of thing happens all the time. People are watching you. And they're watching you particularly in situations that come up as a surprise like this. And that maybe aren't black and white and aren't clear cut. How does the ministry respond to that? So, I'm giving you this excursus to show you that this comprehensive call that comes to every Christian, comes in a particularly poignant way to ministers of the gospel. And somehow, by the grace of God, of course, we need to develop a holiness that is not artificial and stuffy, so that people say, oh well, that's a 25-year-old minister and he acts like he's 75. Can't even get close to him. At the same time, that we're not just the buddy next door. Do you understand what I'm saying? And the longer you're in the ministry, this is the good news, the longer you're in the ministry, not because you become more holy, but because you get used to this, this becomes more natural. And the more experience you have, even though you can still remain sensitive and tender, and maybe criticism will still be hard for you to take, as it is for me, 30 some years into it, but you're not so shaken by what one person says, or two people, because you develop deeper and deeper and deeper inner core convictions about how to respond in different situations. You listen to what people say when they criticize you, but you're more concerned as the years go by that you walk holy before God. You know you have to give an account of everything on the Day of Judgment, and that also tempers you so that you don't react to one extreme of legalism. Somebody wants you to be very legalistic, and another extreme over here. You're naturally yourself as much as possible, but not your banal self, not your sinful self, but you want to be as naturally as possible your sanctified self in Jesus Christ. Well, I'm going to open that for questions in just a few minutes. Maybe that will generate some discussion. We'll finish the next few thoughts here. Holiness is also an inseparable... By the way, I didn't intend to say any of that, so if it didn't sound very organized, it probably isn't. The holiness of God applied is inseparable also from a Trinitarian framework. This, I think, is a very, very important thought. when we strive for holiness what we are actually doing is we are actually striving to be like God and let me show you how first of all we're striving to imitate the character of Jehovah the character of our father in heaven be holy for I am holy so the holiness of God himself ought to be our foremost stimulus to cultivate holy living. We are to seek to be like our Father in righteousness, in holiness, and in integrity. We are to strive, by the Spirit of course, to think God's thoughts after Him, God's thoughts revealed in His Word, to be of one mind with Him, to live and to act as God Himself would have us do. I love what Stephen Sharnock says here. This is the prime way of honoring God. We do not so glorify God by elevated admirations or eloquent expressions or pompous services for him as when we aspire to a conversing with him with unstained spirits and live to him by living like him. That's holiness. But secondly, it's also to live in conformity to the image of Christ. This is one of Paul's favorite themes, isn't it? Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, etc. Philippians 2. Christ is humble. He gave up his rights to obey God and to serve sinners. If you would be holy, says Paul, you be like-minded. And so we must always be looking to Christ as our model for holiness, as our source of strength for holiness. And don't settle for a man-made legalistic system of holiness. But look to Christ alone as He's revealed Himself in His Word. He's the fountain of holiness. He's the pathway of holiness. And we ought not seek any other path. I love the statement of Augustine when he was speaking in the context about following Jesus. He said, it is better to limp on the path than to run outside of the path. So with all our shortcomings, also as ministers or future ministers, and you will feel it, brothers, you'll feel acutely how unholy you are. Yet it's better to limp on the path than to run outside of it. Or as Calvin put it, set Christ before you as the mirror of holiness and then seek grace to mirror Him in His image. And thirdly, holiness is submission to the mind of the Spirit. Imitation of the character of the Father, conformity to the image of the Son, submission to the mind of the Holy Spirit. You see, holiness is a Trinitarian thing. The whole triune God is holy, so we must be holy like Him. That means we have to listen to the mind of the Spirit as He reveals Himself in His Word, and we are seek to live according to that Word. And so we've got to be men of the Bible, men who want to do what the Holy Spirit tells us to do in everything. Sixthly, holiness of God is inseparable from ministry, from office bearing, from worship, from church, the whole ecclesiological setting. in which we find ourselves as ministers of the gospel ought to be stamped with holiness. The cross of Christ should constrain us to be holy in all our office bearing. That's, I guess, what I was trying to tell you in the little ad lib talk I just had with you. This is not something that we just are going to be one day in heaven. This is something we need to be right now here on earth. We need to have this profound reverence for God, this sense of holy, childlike fear that ought to enter into our attitude to the worship of God. We ought to lead worship with a solemn dignity that is scriptural. We ought to maintain the regulative principle of worship with conscientiousness. not just to say, well, this is wrong, that is wrong, or the other thing is wrong, but because we're trying to maintain the biblical sense of the holiness of God in our worship. Our worship is an expression of our communion with God, that communion which on the one hand says that God is high and holy and exalted and that same communion which on the other hand says there is a sense of affinity with God, there's a nearness about God, a closeness with our Father in heaven. Our worship ought to convey the spirit of our Father who art in heaven. And finally, holiness implies a life of separation. A life of separation. God's people have always been separatists in a sense. I use it with a small s. We're separate from the world because the world's under the dominion of Satan. We're pilgrims and strangers. That's why the people of God were never to marry outside the covenant line. They were to maintain their allegiance to God alone. They were to cultivate families where that allegiance is visible. So today, when there's a contemporary emphasis on solidarity with the world, We must maintain another emphasis in our congregation, which will put us under pressure and sometimes put us in a minority and sometimes cause us stress. But we must maintain that we are to be in the world, but not of the world. Yes, there is a sense in which Solidarity with the world, at least on one side of the equation, being in the world, will bring us into trouble. We're not the Amish. We're not going to run and hide. Actually, it's precisely solidarity with the world that brought our Savior to His death. It was His solidarity with sinners that brought Him to the cross. And our solidarity with sinners will also bring us under death and condemnation and struggle and trial. But there's another sense in which this solidarity ought not to function at all. This is a tension in the church. On the one side, we need to go out. We need to show solidarity with the world. We need to evangelize the un-evangelized. We need to go like Jesus to the prostitutes and harlots of this world and bring them the gospel. And in another sense, in isolation lies our strength. We are not to become like the world. But we are not to enter into solidarity with Satan and his kingdom. as we seek to evangelize others. We are to remember, we are to be transformed. Be not conformed to this world, but be you transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Romans 12, verse 2. So here, too, there's this tension. Tension in the ministry, but also tension in the whole demeanor of church life. Going out, having solidarity with the world in terms of people who have never died in souls, but then pulling back, refusing to engage in their sins to become like them. So, these are some of the implications of holiness. What questions do you have? you have Yes Yeah, it's a very, very difficult question, very challenging question. Three or four things come to mind. First is, I think on the pulpit you are setting forth a lot of principles in Scripture, so that should be your emphasis. abstain from this, abstain from that. If you get too specific all the time, you almost will make a congregation who can't think for themselves about how to apply things to certain situations. So you want to be focusing on principles in the first place. But yes, there are times when you should be very, very specific. If some huge group comes to town and they're going to draw 20,000 people down to DeVos Hall, it's a very wicked, ungodly thing. And you've heard that a few of your people are going to go to it. If you have facts, you'd be best approaching them privately, of course. You might be wise also to say from the pulpit, we don't belong there. This is a place in which sin is promoted. In terms of sinful movies, yeah. I think there's ways of saying this. I won't go around and pinpoint this movie's bad, that movie's bad, and there's no end to the movies. But I would simply say, you know, we need to avoid sinful movies. And since most of movies are sinful, 99% have themes of sinfulness, you know, should we be watching them at all? But if you do, you have to be extremely, extremely careful, whatever you would ever watch, because most of it's bad. And I would try to illustrate for my people how that so much evil gets tolerated in our lives through visual sight. And movies are very powerful. And once we get used to hearing swear words in movies and seeing movie after movie about men and women in unfaithful sexual relationships and we see all this violence, our conscience gets desensitized. Don't you care about your conscience, congregation? And the things that you wouldn't tolerate in real life, if you tolerate them and bring them into your living room, through your VCR or whatever, what are you doing? You're damaging your own soul, you're damaging the souls of your children. So you reason with people this way. Yeah, I would preach very strongly, lovingly, persuasively. Marshal the arguments of scripture against it. And for living a holy life, try to keep it positive as well. That you ought to be too jealous of your own soul to engage in things that would damage your soul. Yes, and once in a while you might want to ask the consistory if you have a very, very delicate thing. You might want to ask them what their advice would be, how far to go in a particular area. It doesn't mean you'll do exactly what they'll say, but sometimes your local people who've lived in that local church all their life will know how the people really think. and they can even give you some good arguments. And what you really want to do when you rebuke sin lovingly is you want to really understand what's making the people tick, why they're tempted to this sin, how much they're engaging in this sin. So when I talk to young people, for example, now that my children are teenagers, I every once in a while say to them, you know, so what's really going on at the high school? Is drugs a problem? Is drinking a problem? Are movies a problem? What are the young people engaging in that's risqué? I want to know, so I know what to say. I don't want to be shooting down straw men. So yeah, I think be specific, but use some wisdom, and don't just alienate people needlessly. But Paul said, Be wise, serpents, harmless as doves, and be all things to all men that by all means you might save some. I think that means you're faithful with their souls, but you approach them in a way that can do the most possible good. So you don't just get up on the pulpit and be like a bull in a china shop. But you also remember, don't you, Where people are at, how much exposure have they had to the evils of this particular thing? That's a big question for me. Okay, my sister asked me about 10 years ago to address the whole question of unions. My church had never heard anything on unions as long as they existed. They didn't think there was, most people didn't think there was anything wrong with them at all. So I just didn't come in like an elephant in a china shop, but I took my time to lay out principles, and then looked at the principles of what a union does, and just kind of gradually brought them in that sermon to conclusions. Still offended a few people, by the way. But a lot of people thought, oh, I never heard this. I never thought through this, and it sounds reasonable. So it depends what the issue is. The exposure, you've got to look at the whole picture and ask yourself, how can I best bring what the whole Word of God has to say to this particular congregation, this particular time and this particular issue? The thing you don't want to do, is avoid substantial issues. Minor, minor issues where there's only two or three people involved in something, go to them privately. If you don't think it's a temptation for the rest of the church. Many ministers make a mistake of hearing about Miss X or Miss Y or Mr. D engaging in a certain sin and they get up in the pulpit and preach avidly against the sin in a small church. Everybody knows who's involved in that. and that person gets offended, leaves the church, and creates a ruckus. Some of the relatives leave. No, that's not the way to approach it. Go privately. On the other hand, as Luther said, if you preach against every error, and you preach against all the errors of the ages past, and you don't preach against what's going on in your own church right now, you're being an unfaithful servant of God. So you also need to ask yourself the question, why am I avoiding preaching on this sin? Is it just to save my own hide because I want to be popular and loved by everyone? Or can I honestly say, you know, this point is very trivial and I can deal with it better privately and so on. So you need to be honest with yourself too. So these are a bunch of the factors involved. So your question is not a real easy black and white, you know, here's the list of four things, done. There's a lot of factors that go into it. All right, gentlemen, our time is up. Whose turn is it to pray?