Holiness as separation

Holiness

For some time now I have been thinking about my time in the Holiness churches and reflecting on the lessons that God taught me there. I don’t know what your take on the holiness church is, but there are some things I know God planted within in me that will never leave, nor should they.

• If it’s really true that “all the world is a stage,” then God’s children should all have stagefright.

Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 5639 Epigram on Separation (Worldly)

• John Newton’s life rule: “I make it a rule of Christian duty never to go to a place where there is not room for my Master as well as myself.”

The definition for holiness of course is separation from what is unclean; sanctified or consecrated.

Last week we talked about taking out the trash, and today I want to continue with that mentality and dive deeper into God’s word concerning the matter. Holiness is nothing to snub our noses at by flippantly declaring that our sins are “under the blood” or the “Lord knows my heart”.

Isaiah 35:8–10 ESV

And a highway shall be there, and it shall be called the Way of Holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it. It shall belong to those who walk on the way; even if they are fools, they shall not go astray. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast come up on it; they shall not be found there, but the redeemed shall walk there. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing; everlasting joy shall be upon their heads; they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Tan, P. L. (1996). Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations: Signs of the Times (p. 1272). Garland, TX: Bible Communications, Inc.

Israel is to be set apart from other nations

Leviticus 20:23–26 ESV

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.

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Common things are designated clean or unclean by ritual law

Clean and unclean animals

Leviticus 11:46–47 ESV

This is the law about beast and bird and every living creature that moves through the waters and every creature that swarms on the ground, to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean and between the living creature that may be eaten and the living creature that may not be eaten.

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Infectious skin diseases

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Mildew

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Bodily discharges

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Corpses

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What is holy must be kept separate

The Israelites must distinguish between the holy and the common

Leviticus 10:10–11 ESV

You are to distinguish between the holy and the common, and between the unclean and the clean, and you are to teach the people of Israel all the statutes that the Lord has spoken to them by Moses.”

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Ezekiel 44:23 ESV

They shall teach my people the difference between the holy and the common, and show them how to distinguish between the unclean and the clean.

Contact with the profane desecrates the holy

Contact with the profane desecrates the holy

Acts 21:28 ESV

crying out, “Men of Israel, help! This is the man who is teaching everyone everywhere against the people and the law and this place. Moreover, he even brought Greeks into the temple and has defiled this holy place.”

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Unclean people and things must be removed

Numbers 5:1–3 ESV

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Command the people of Israel that they put out of the camp everyone who is leprous or has a discharge and everyone who is unclean through contact with the dead. You shall put out both male and female, putting them outside the camp, that they may not defile their camp, in the midst of which I dwell.”

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Ezra 10:10–11 ESV

And Ezra the priest stood up and said to them, “You have broken faith and married foreign women, and so increased the guilt of Israel. Now then make confession to the Lord, the God of your fathers and do his will. Separate yourselves from the peoples of the land and from the foreign wives.”

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Unclean people are not to approach what is sacred

Leviticus 7:20–21 ESV

but the person who eats of the flesh of the sacrifice of the Lord’s peace offerings while an uncleanness is on him, that person shall be cut off from his people. And if anyone touches an unclean thing, whether human uncleanness or an unclean beast or any unclean detestable creature, and then eats some flesh from the sacrifice of the Lord’s peace offerings, that person shall be cut off from his people.”

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The holy must be treated with respect

Unintentional defilement of the holy carries a penalty

Leviticus 5:14–16 ESV

The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “If anyone commits a breach of faith and sins unintentionally in any of the holy things of the Lord, he shall bring to the Lord as his compensation, a ram without blemish out of the flock, valued in silver shekels, according to the shekel of the sanctuary, for a guilt offering. He shall also make restitution for what he has done amiss in the holy thing and shall add a fifth to it and give it to the priest. And the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the guilt offering, and he shall be forgiven.

Warnings against contempt for the holy

Leviticus 22:1–2 ESV

And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons so that they abstain from the holy things of the people of Israel, which they dedicate to me, so that they do not profane my holy name: I am the Lord.

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Examples of contempt for the holy

Leviticus 10:1–2 ESV

Now Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer and put fire in it and laid incense on it and offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, which he had not commanded them. And fire came out from before the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.

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1 Samuel 6:19–20 ESV

And he struck some of the men of Beth-shemesh, because they looked upon the ark of the Lord. He struck seventy men of them, and the people mourned because the Lord had struck the people with a great blow. Then the men of Beth-shemesh said, “Who is able to stand before the Lord, this holy God? And to whom shall he go up away from us?”

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2 Samuel 6:6–7 ESV

And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, and he died there beside the ark of God.

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Christians are called to be separate from the ways of the world

John 15:19 ESV

If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.

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James 4:4 ESV

You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

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1 Peter 2:9–11 ESV

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. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

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