“As I AM Holy” - 05JAN25, Lesson 1
Notes
Transcript
Handout
Holiness - Lesson 1
Holiness - Lesson 1
“As I AM Holy” J-Term ABF Series
Lesson 1 / The Nature of Holiness / Leviticus 20:22-26
January 5, 2025
Intro (5-7 minutes):
Intro (5-7 minutes):
“For Special Occasions”
Who has items in the house reserved for “special occasions”?
It might be something of theirs, a family member, or something that belonged to their parents.
wedding china, dad’s golf clubs, or something along those lines.
Give 3-4 people the opportunity to tell 1-2 minute stories
The idea is to get people talking + thinking
about the concept of setting something apart and reserving it for special use.
This is a basic form of holiness.
Lesson Overview:
Lesson Overview:
What is holiness?
Why does it matter to the Christian?
Part of the purpose of this study and, particularly, this first lesson is to clarify what holiness is and reestablish its priority in the lives of Christians. Too often, holiness seems to be treated like a magical state of being (complete with a glowing halo and pixie dust).
How would you define the word “holy” or “holiness”?
Baker Encyclopedia of the Bible Holiness > Hh
Holiness. Chief attribute of God and a quality to be developed in his people. “Holiness” and the adjective “holy” occur more than 900 times in the Bible. The primary OT word for holiness means “to cut” or “to separate.” Fundamentally, holiness is a cutting off or separation from what is unclean, and consecration to what is pure.
Holiness is the whole scope of God's transcendent distinction from the created order.
This includes God's/Jesus's righteousness but isn't limited to it.
God's perfect righteousness is one thing that makes Him holy, but it is not the entirety of His holiness.
The command we're studying in this lesson, to be holy as God is holy, calls us to be as separate and distinct from sin as God is.
**** Insert Berkhof and Packer here!***
Part 1, The Being of God, VII. Communicable Attributes, C. Moral Attributes, 2. the Holiness of God***
In future lessons, we will build on this to consider our need for holiness, the cost Jesus paid to make us holy, and a challenge to pursue holiness for the rest of our lives.
Primary Passage - Leviticus 20:22-26
Primary Passage - Leviticus 20:22-26
Context:
Hard for us to comprehend in totality what the Promised Land meant to Israel.
A “mobile” society: physically, communication, data, information, money, commerce, etc.
Their entire identity was wrapped up in possessing the land promised to Abraham as his descendants. “The glory days are a’commin’!”
Where this passage sits in Leviticus: after…
-Establishing the system of sacrifices Israel was to offer,
-Establishing the priesthood that would administer that system,
-and the laws governing personal purity to be able to participate in that system,
==>> our passage is found in the middle of the extensive section of holiness laws.
In Lev ch’s 19+20…
God wanted: Israel to be distinct, different, pure
Therefore, God gave: commands! to set Israel apart from the rest of humanity, who were…
Careless about exposure to blood,
indulgent about sexual morality,
and heartless, ruthless about sacrificing their children to Molech — False god
God’s heart is revealed in these verses :: His covenant people are not to have impurity amongst them.
By the time we reach vv22-26, God has strongly and clearly commanded His people to live holy as He is holy by living differently from those around Israel.
This was not merely for the purpose of being different (not celebrating unique snowflakes here)
It was for: worshipping God by living in ways that pleased Him and aligned with His righteousness
All of this was underscored by explicit connection …
obedience to these laws :: Israel’s ability to stay in the Promised Land.
For anyone to enjoy God’s presence, we must be holy as God is holy. Nothing short of perfect holiness will be tolerated by the Most High God. In the final analysisUltimately, that is why we need Jesus. Let’s read…
***READERS: do a verse-by-verse sequential person read!***
“You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them. But I have said to you, ‘You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples. You shall therefore separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the unclean bird from the clean. You shall not make yourselves detestable by beast or by bird or by anything with which the ground crawls, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean. You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.
***Write this up on the whiteboard***
Passage Study (20 minutes):
Passage Study (20 minutes):
Passage Study
v22-23: God’s Rules (consequences) vs Their Ways (consequences)
v24: God’s Purpose to Bless
v25: Holiness in Action
v26: God’s People are to be Holy as He is Holy
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
v22-23: God’s Rules (consequences) vs Their Ways (consequences)
v22-23: God’s Rules (consequences) vs Their Ways (consequences)
“You shall therefore keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to live may not vomit you out. And you shall not walk in the customs of the nation that I am driving out before you, for they did all these things, and therefore I detested them.
God tells Israel to “keep all my statutes and all my rules and do them”.
As God explains in v23, Israel cannot simply pick up where the Canaanites had left off and live the same way.
(Not walking in the ways of fleshly corruption…sound familiar?
Open up Ephesians 5, v6-21ish…but don’t give too much away of v15 and beyond ;)
As v26 will go on to say, “you shall be holy to me”. There was no other option. The consequences for NOT obeying is that the land will vomit them out. What vivid imagery!
The nations that still occupied the land Israel was going to conquer had sinned greatly and this was the reason their time was up.
Israel wouldn’t have understood the reference at the time, but they were to the Canaanites as Assyria and Babylon would one day be to them: instruments of God’s judgment.
We’ve discussed this in Habakkuk.
In other words, all the Earth belongs to the Lord.
As Paul reveals in Romans 8:19-22
*** Reader
For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.
God will not allow sin to permanently disfigure His creation and disrupt His enjoyment of it (or us). As the land was going to violently give up the nations currently living there through Israel, it would do the same with them should they adopt the same way of living. Choices have consequences.
v24: God’s Purpose to Bless
v24: God’s Purpose to Bless
But I have said to you, ‘You shall inherit their land, and I will give it to you to possess, a land flowing with milk and honey.’ I am the Lord your God, who has separated you from the peoples.
There are two important things God does for Israel in this verse:
God gives them the land.
It is a very good land “flowing with milk and honey” (which is ancient near east talk for “prime real estate with an ocean view and plenty to eat”).
This is all happening according to God’s sovereign will.
God’s purpose is to bless those who obey Him.
Not in a cheap, name it/claim it, prosperity “gospel” manner, but…
in the manner any good parent does with children who are obedient and demonstrate some worthiness for reward.
God’s people, as they undertook their mission to be a lighthouse and example to the world of what knowing and worshipping God looked like,
And would do so in a prime location reflective of what it is like to be in right relationship with God.
God made His people holy. He separated them from the other nations.
Israel hadn’t sought this any more than we seek our own salvation.
God did it, and He would go on to ensure its completion.
v24b is also a declaration of God’s almighty power. Only God could separate nation from nation and give land from one people to another.
v25: Holiness in Action
v25: Holiness in Action
You shall therefore separate the clean beast from the unclean, and the unclean bird from the clean. You shall not make yourselves detestable by beast or by bird or by anything with which the ground crawls, which I have set apart for you to hold unclean.
On the basis of His assertion of His identity and authority in the previous verse, God now commands His people to imitate His example!
Just as God separated nation from nation, so His people were to separate unclean animals from clean animals.
God had already given Israel purity laws that included how to classify clean and unclean animals. It may very well be that v25 serves as a summary statement standing for all of the purity and holiness laws given in Leviticus (perhaps the whole law).
This verse grounds this nebulous concept of holiness in something very “real” …
==> living creatures God had created for humanity to manage, control, and from which to benefit…Israelites could literally touch and taste and practice holiness
… By thinking about which animals were clean and which were unclean every day in connection with numerous tasks, needs, and considerations, the people of Israel would find holiness a primary concern for daily living and not just an abstract concept to occupy their thoughts one day a week.
v26: God’s People are to be Holy as He is Holy
v26: God’s People are to be Holy as He is Holy
What’s the purpose of all of this? Is God’s primary concern really a very large patch of dirt, some animals, and going on a power trip?
No. He wants us to be holy as He is holy.
You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.
We know God is serious about this because He repeats His declarations from before regarding His own holiness and His sovereign action to separate Israel from the other nations (a process that began with the choosing of Abraham on the basis of no merit within himself).
Why does God care so much about our holiness? Allen offers two reasons in no particular order (they are interchangeably and equally true):
God created us and He loves us.
That means He determined that human existence finds its purpose in relationship to Himself. Period. We are made to know and worship and love God. To the extent we do this, we find total fulfillment. To the extent we deny, rebel against, or fall short of this, we find ourselves completely unfulfilled. He wants us to be holy because He knows this is the only way for us to realize our purpose and find satisfaction in our existence.
God is God.
He is holy and all those who would be in right relationship with Him must be as holy as He is. Given our natural state of sin we are anything but holy. This creates a need that is impossible for us to meet.
This is where the Gospel of Christ comes in to usher us into holiness by a whole-being transformation involving our:
Justification: the declaration of our holiness as God sees the perfect righteousness of His Son when He looks at us because we have repented and placed our faith in His person and work.
Sanctification: the process of becoming holy through the presence and work of the, wait for it… Holy Spirit as we are transformed, inside out, from being slaves to sin into slaves to righteousness.
Glorification: the completion of all of this resulting in a new creation who is finally and fully holy as God is holy and therefore, worthy and able to enjoy the unfiltered presence of God forever.
What God required of Israel connects with what God by His grace does for those in Christ.
While Israel was…
declared holy, they lacked Christ's sacrifice to make full propitiation for sin and receive His righteousness in exchange for theirs.
given the Law to mark them as God's people by a distinct lifestyle and values, they lacked the Holy Spirit to transform them from the inside out (writing the Law on their hearts).
given the Promised Land to possess as they lived according to the Law as God's holy people, they could not even stay close to obeying it and lost their inheritance (something that cannot happen to the elect).
In contrast to all of this, the declaration of those in Christ to be holy/justified is secured by the cross, the sanctification of those in Christ is completed over a lifetime as the Holy Spirit transforms us from within, and the glorification of those in Christ completes this transformation making us truly holy as God is holy.
Applications
Applications
The primary purpose of Bible study is life transformation so that everyone is equipped to become more like Jesus.
God is Holy (the Transcendence of God)
God is Holy (the Transcendence of God)
Another way to talk about God’s holiness is to talk or think about His transcendence.
What does it mean that God is transcendent or “other than/distinct from” His creation?
Since God is both holy and sovereign, what are the implications of this for life and for our relationship with Him?
Given His Holiness, how deeply should Christ’s sacrifice to bridge the gap between us and God impact us?
Our Ways – More Like His or Theirs?
Our Ways – More Like His or Theirs?
Are your ways (our ways) more like God’s or the nations around Israel?
(Honesty with oneself is healthy)
Isaiah 55:9 “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”
What were the ways of the peoples surrounding Israel and what was wrong with their ways? [please dig into this: How did their lack of righteousness negatively impact their lives? What did they lose? What lies did they believe?]
Conversely, how did the laws God gave Israel bless them and help them to live better lives than their neighbors? [not for the sake of pride, but simply as an outcome of obedience]
What are the spiritual and immaterial benefits of holiness?
How do we make a practice of regularly examining or testing our growth in holiness?
Why don’t we do this as often as we should? Why should we do this?
Be in the World, Not of the World
Be in the World, Not of the World
(aka Practicing separation from the world without disengaging from our mission to reach it with the Gospel)
Read John 17:15-19 and use it as the basis of this last discussion topic.
I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you keep them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, so I have sent them into the world. And for their sake I consecrate myself, that they also may be sanctified in truth.
In these verses Jesus seems to be effectively speaking application of the truths of Leviticus 20:22-26.
What are some examples of being “of” the world versus being “in” the world?
Notice that twice in this passage, Jesus prays that we be sanctified in truth. What does it mean to be sanctified?
How does the Truth do this?
How can we help one another guard against being of the world and encourage each other to be in the world at the same time?
