Be Holy, Leviticus 11:39-47
Introduction
“In these days there is a great deal of lowering the standards. Businessmen say that business standards have been lowered, and now a good deal of business runs into [corruption] gambling. In politics the standards have been lowered. There has been a lowering of standards in theology and in reference to the supreme authority of God’s blessed Book. We must keep the standard up to the very tip-top peak of God’s flagstaff. Be careful, my brother, about lowering your standard of right, obedience, and holiness. You remember, perhaps, that scene in the days of conflict when a color-sergeant had carried the colors so near to the enemy’s redoubt [encampment] that the regiment shouted to him to bring them back, or they would be captured. The color-sergeant said, “No, no; bring your men up to the colors!” With a magnificent dash they carried the colors themselves into the rampart… [Our Lord commands us!] “Bring my church up to my colors, and then we will go forward and capture the enemy.”
Our topic today: holiness – the raising of the standard of God’s worth, His holiness, in us.
Transition
The central thesis for this message: God, who is holy, calls His people to consecrate themselves in a lifestyle of holiness. While we are no longer bound to the ceremonial laws of the Old Testament, we do a great disservice when we trivialize, ignore, or relegate the holiness laws of the Old Testament to little more than a mundane historical interest.
There are great lessons for Christians to be found in these laws that are intrinsically connected to the Gospel.
It would be easy to examine this text and run immediately to the Cross. This is most often the way that Old Testament Law is explored by New Testament preachers and teachers.
We run to the shelter of the Cross where we find forgiveness from our inability to keep the law. This is a right and proper teaching. However, the great majority of teaching concerning Old Testament Law fails to address the highest principal of that Law: God, who is holy, calls His people (ALL OF HIS PEOPLE) to consecrate themselves in a lifestyle of holiness. God is unchanging.
That applies to us as well. Ultimate holiness that is acceptable to God for salvation is only achieved through Him who fulfilled the Law – Christ. However, we are no less children of the covenant than Israel.
The highest principal of the Law – propositional holiness – is our calling from God as well. As we will see, holiness though is not the stodgy drudgery of mundane legalism. The pursuit of Holiness is the pure delight of the heart gripped with the love of God and aware of its own lack.
The pursuit of holiness is the positive result of God’s light shining in us. It is growth in grace. It is the evidence, not the means, of grace working in us.
Exposition
As I enter the text I am keenly aware of the many ways in which Christ has completed the law. In Matthew 5:17 Jesus said “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” Jesus fulfilled the Law in at least two ways:
I. The animal sacrifices of the Hebraic Covenant were only a shadow of the ultimate sacrifice of Christ. He is the spotless lamb without blemish whose blood covers our sin. His death alone satisfies the wrath of God for sin. His righteousness alone, imputed to us alone sanctifies us.
II. “He completes this law, and the sayings of his prophets, in his members, by giving them grace to love the Lord with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength, and their neighbor as themselves; for this is all the law and the prophets.” All of the Tanakh (Old Testament) is fulfilled in Christ. The teachings of the Torah teach of Christ! The prophecies of the Nevi'im (The Prophets) foretell the coming of Christ! The wisdom of the Ketuvim (The Writings) presage the wisdom of God revealed in Christ!
While it is true that the Law of the Old Testament, and indeed all of the Old Testament, in specific ways, points to Christ, this does not let us off of the “hook of holiness.” Remember the central thesis of this sermon: God, who is holy, calls His people to consecrate themselves in a lifestyle of holiness.
There are many who cite Mathew 5:17 as a means of casting aside completely the Law of God as though it has no relevance for us today. In some sense they are right to do so. We are not bound in chains to the law. However, we are under obligation to the highest principal of the Law: God’s call to propositional holiness.
In the preceding verses Jesus gives us the highest aim of the Law, the chief purpose of the Law. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house.
In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:14-16) We are called to propositional, positive, assertive, holiness.
The with-God life is not merely characterized by what we do not do. Christians often define themselves according to what they are not rather than what they are. We are not defined by negation.
That is, what we do is much more important than that from which we abstain. We are God’s covenant people. Just as ancient Israel defined themselves in every aspect of life – religious practice, worship, dietary, work, and cleanliness – we are likewise God’s covenant people.
Our entire experience of this life is defined by our experience within the covenant. Our God is our strength and consolation, as it was with Israel. In Psalms 28:7-8 the writer declares: “The LORD is my strength and my shield; in him my heart trusts, and I am helped; my heart exults, and with my song I give thanks to him. The LORD is the strength of his people; he is the saving refuge of his anointed.” God is my personal strength and He is the saving refuge of His covenant people collectively.
The New Testament teaching is plainly that we are not able to keep the Law perfectly for salvation. However, God is unified and has not changed. The purpose of the gift of grace in Jesus Christ is not merely for us to receive the eternal hope of Heaven, though surely that is a blessed and wondrous reality for the child of God.
God’s grace covers sinful man, blinding the wrath of God with the dazzling perfection of the righteousness of Christ. God’s grace infuses us with the life of Christ which enables to live a life which is pleasing to God.
This life is not holding cell for sin while we await perfection in Heaven. If we want victory in our life, righteousness is the key. “The LORD dealt with me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands he rewarded me. For I have kept the ways of the LORD, and have not wickedly departed from my God. For all his rules were before me, and his statutes I did not put away from me. I was blameless before him, and I kept myself from my guilt. So the LORD has rewarded me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in his sight.” (Psalms 18:20-24)
Here is the place of great dilemma for most modern Western Christians of the Reformed Tradition(s). (That’s us…) We have been so schooled, rightly to a large extent, to believe that righteousness, holiness, are something which only Christ gives. We can’t earn salvation by our works.
We can’t keep the law in a way that will please God unto salvation. We can’t pile up enough good deeds or holiness to save ourselves from the wrath of God. Jesus died in our place. By faith receive the grace of God – all true.
But what has He saved us unto? That only defines by negation. That only tells me what I need – Jesus righteousness by faith – that does not tell me what I need to do now! The teaching of Psalms 18:20-24 is consistent with the teaching of Romans 8:33 for example, “Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies.” God alone justifies the elect, us, those who have received the grace of God in Christ by faith.
But what does He save us for? For what purpose did Christ die? Did He die for nothing? He died for our salvation in the life to come, yes, but His presence within us by the Holy, emphasis Holy, Spirit enables us to live lives of progressive, propositional holiness NOW.
What I am talking about now is the way the Hebrew mind always has understood life in the covenant, that is, the with-God life. Modern believers are too often flippant with our own sin.
We are terribly guilty of antinomianism. That is teaching grace completely to the exclusion of the law, as though God has changed and is no longer concerned with obedience. Child of God, for the man and woman called out of the world by God’s grace, experiential holiness, is the path to victory in this life. I am surely not talking here about the have it your way God of the modern prosperity message.
What we are talking about here is allowing your battles to change. The Holy Spirit within us, guiding us, leading us, changes us into a lifestyle of pursuing God’s glory and beauty. The trouble is that many believers become believers and nobody ever tells them that their battles are supposed to change.
My greatest pursuit is not supposed to be material wealth or worldly prosperity. It is the outworking of a changed life. It is obedience to the command of God. “For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.” (Leviticus 11:44 ESV)
The Hebrew people who lived under the Law understood the Law as the practical means of living within the confines of the covenant of God. We are not under the yoke of the Law, rather we are enabled by the very presence of the Holy Spirit to fulfill the highest principal of the Law – a life of growing consecration and holiness.
This is grace working in us. This is the fruit of the love of God taking up residence within us. God is not silent as to the means of victory in this life. Change your battles! “Be holy,” He says, “even as I am holy!”
Come out of the world! Look different from the world! BE different from the world. We are children of the Most High God.
Don’t underestimate what God can do in our lives. Obedience to God is not the drudgery of legalism. Obedience to the Law of God has very little to do with what we do or do not eat.
We have been set free from such things. God gave Peter a vision in Acts chapter ten, telling him no longer to call unclean that which God has declared clean. This was a vision which detailed the freedom of the New Covenant in which we (believers) now live.
We are not bound to the dietary restrictions of the Hebraic Covenant. We are however bound to the highest principal of it – propositional, active tense, living holiness. We are bound to it in covenant with God through faith in Jesus Christ which is the very thing which empowers us to keep it!
This same Peter was also inspired by the Holy Spirit to write these words: “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.” (1 Peter 2:9) John Wesley, in his book, “The Nature of Holiness” says it this way: “Let us try to establish the law in ourselves, using all the power we receive from grace to fulfill all righteousness.”
The love of God saves eternally. It is also the very thing which fuels positive holiness in this life. God gives grace freely. Indeed, no keeping of the Law will save. For those who are saved by grace, however, the keeping of that highest principal of the Law. Holiness in this life is the constant pursuit of the believer.
It is the highest outworking of the love of God in Christ. It is the evidence of our salvation. It is the source of the love that we share in communion with one another.
“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35) Love is both the fuel of holiness and the perfect outworking of holiness.
“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” [They asked Jesus] And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40)
The central thesis for this message: God, who is holy, calls His people to consecrate themselves in a lifestyle of holiness. Holiness is the highest aim of the with-God life. It is not reserved for Heaven. It begins now.
It is motivated by love for God and expressed as love for one another, for humanity, and ultimately for God. Every area of our life is a concern for God. He is calling us to growing holiness as we grow in grace.
Conclusion
Spurgeon tells the story of “A neighbor near his study who persists in practicing on the flute.” He writes, “He bores my ears as with an auger and renders it almost an impossibility to think. Up and down his scale he runs remorselessly, until even the calamity of temporary deafness would almost be welcome to me. Yet he teaches me that I must practice if I would be perfect, must exercise myself unto godliness if I would be skillful, must, in fact, make myself familiar with the word of God, with holy living, and saintly dying. Such practice, moreover, will be as charming as my neighbor’s flute is intolerable.”
The Apostle Paul admonishes thusly. “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it. Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.
They do it to receive a perishable wreath, but we an imperishable. So I do not run aimlessly; I do not box as one beating the air. But I discipline my body and keep it under control, lest after preaching to others I myself should be disqualified.” (I Corinthians 9:24-27)
Holiness is our calling; a growing life of consecration to God and outward holiness which proceeds from the grace and love of God taking up residence within us. This is simple. It is our calling.
It is the way to victory in this life because when children of God are primarily concerned with glorifying God the empowerment of God will enable them (us) to fight because we will be fighting the right fight.
Child of God, if you lack victory in this life, I ask you consider what battles you are waging. What races are you running? What prize do you seek? Amen.
