The Immutable God: Holiness belies purpose
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I love woodworking. It’s cheaper than therapy, and you get to walk away with something useful. I’ve got a whole woodshop in my garage. One day, I realized that though my half of the garage was too small for my truck, it was just big enough for a small woodshop, and my wife never minds as long as her car isn’t put out of the garage for more than a couple days.
From time to time, she’ll use a tool in my shop. I want to be clear that I don’t mind the concept of my wife using a tool in my shop at all. Scripture is clear that we are one flesh, so what belongs to me belongs to her, and vice versa.
But …
Often, a tool might not be put back where it goes. Or maybe it was used incorrectly and it’s dull the next time I try to use it. Or maybe she doesn’t use the right tool for the job, and she ends up doing way more work than she needed to in the first place, or the results weren’t as good as they could have been. Or maybe she used some wood I had been saving for a project because she thought it was scrap.
Everything in my shop has a purpose, and the most ideal results are achieved when that purpose is acknowledged and performed. In the strictest sense of the word, the things in a wood shop are holy.
Even if my shop is not the perfect demonstration of what holiness is, God is. Both the Old and New Testaments present God as having a distinct purpose, as well as setting the purpose for everything else. Or, holy.
“Holy” is a word that describes anything that has a distinct and unique purpose that runs contrary to everything else. Literally, it means “set apart.” Different. God is perfectly holy. No one else is like him. So a holy thing is a thing that is set apart from other things for a special purpose or person. A holy person is a person who sets himself apart to be dedicated to a special purpose or person. A holy god is a god who is different, distinct and set apart from everything and everyone else. The God of the Bible is unique and different from anything we can imagine, set apart for his own purposes.
The first time we see the word “holy” in the Bible is at the burning bush, and it is used by God to describe the ground where Moses would meet with God himself. In Genesis, Adam cursed the ground in the fall. In Exodus, God made the ground where he met with his people’s rescuer holy again. And every time God showed himself after that, the idea of holy was there. When God showed himself to Moses later, he was too holy to show Moses his face because “no man shall see Me, and live” (Exodus 33:20). When Isaiah saw the hem of his robe in the temple, the seraphim declared the holiness of God. When God writes the doom of Babylon on Belshazzar's wall with his own hand, even the pagans of Babylon recognize that he is the Holy God. God is different and set apart from everything else that is.
This doesn’t change in the New Testament, either. When John sees the throne room of Heaven, the same angels Isaiah saw are there, and they are still saying the same thing 500 years later: “Holy! Holy! Holy!” (Revelation 4:8). In John 17:11, Jesus calls God the Father, “Holy Father.” In Luke 1:35, the angel announced that the child she would bear was the “Holy One.” The first chapter of the New Testament identifies the third person of the Trinity as Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:18).
There is a difference, however, in the way the Old and New Testaments discuss holiness. Through the Law and the Prophets of the Old Testament, “holy” most often describes God and the things and acts associated with worshiping him. While there are plenty people in the Old Testament described as holy, the theme of holiness seems most often associated directly with God, things or acts.
The New Testament goes a step further and focuses on people becoming Holy. If the New Testament uses the word “holy,” and it isn’t referring directly to God (most often, the Holy Spirit), it is almost invariably calling believers to a standard. Ephesians 1:4 describes how we were saved for the purpose of becoming holy. Colossians 1:22 declares how we are made holy in a legal sense before God. Romans 12:1 urges Christians to offer their bodies as a holy sacrifice by living a holy life in a practical sense. The call to holy living for the Christian is summarized best in 1 Peter 1:15-16, when he quotes Leviticus 11:44-45, “As He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, ‘Be holy, for I am holy.’”
So the question is laid before the believer: Because you are holy, will you act that way?
The things in my shop are holy. They have a purpose and task to do, and they exist in my shop only for doing the task for which they were created. Will they be used properly? My wife is holy to me. My relationship to her is completely different than my relationship with anyone else. Will I keep our relationship set apart and unique? (Yes, my dear. Never doubt it.)
If you have put your trust in Jesus to save you, you are holy to God. You are set apart to live differently according to God’s standard. Our purpose is to glorify God in a world that scarcely acknowledges his existence. Will you use your life properly?