I want to continue the exploration of God’s Holiness today.  I’m struck by the similarity of the 3rd commandment in Exodus 20:8-11:

8 “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor, and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, you, or your son, or your daughter, your male servant, or your female servant, or your livestock, or the sojourner who is within your gates. 11 For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

And the parallel verse in Genesis 2:1-3:

2 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. 2 And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. 3 So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation.  

How many of us think about keeping the Sabbath Holy?  I know that I have problems with this.  I often wake up on Sunday with selfish thoughts of sleeping in, taking it easy, and occasionally wanting to ditch church for having a solitary, relaxing day.  What’s wrong with this picture?  Where is the honor to God in all of this?  How does this recognize His Holiness?

It is not surprising that his command, to keep the Sabbath Holy, follows the first two:  you shall have no other Gods before me and you shall not make any idols for yourself.  These two commands should give us a clue as to what constitutes a Holy Sabbath.  In my description in the previous paragraph about my usual thought pattern regarding Sundays, I believe that I’ve broken both of the first two commandments.  If I place myself first, and worship that which makes me happy (and is not God-centered), then I’m dishonoring God and placing importance on the things of this world instead of honoring God by thinking about Him and being concerned with His nature.

So what does living a Holy Sabbath look like?  I’ll try and address this next time.

Holiness is one of God’s attributes that I believe goes under-studied these days.  Society seems to be on an upward slippery slope of “anything goes” and the word of the day is “tolerance”.  The catch is that once we become tolerant of a behavior or attitude, we become susceptible of exhibiting that behavior ourselves; but God wants us to strive for holiness within our lives and at minimum understand His holiness. 

This word has numerous connotations for us today.  What does holiness mean?  What, or who, can be holy?  How does one become holy?  What is required of me?  These are just some questions we could ask. 

Before we dive into this study, it would be best to understand a basic definition of the word and term as it is used in theological circles and writings.  The Hebrew word for holy is qadosh.  The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament defines it this way:

connotes the state of that which belongs to the sphere of the sacred. Thus it is distinct from the common or profane. ..it [also] connotes the act by which the distinction is effected. 

Warren Wiersbe defines holiness this way:

God’s holiness isn’t simply the absence of defilement, a negative thing. The holiness of God is positive and active.  It’s God’s perfect nature at work in accomplishing God’s perfect will. 

God is perfect and in that sense He is also holy.  It is an attribute of God’s that we can’t completely have, yet there is a striving for His holiness that we should be living out.  There is little that we can do to have holiness in our lives except to live within God’s will for us and to be transformed into His image.  This transformation is called sanctification and it is a process by which we turn over all of our fleshly thoughts and practices and replace them with thoughts and practices that are in alignment with who God is, namely His holiness, righteousness and perfection.

This idea of holiness has the most effect on us in our relationship with God.  Because He is so entirely Holy, Pure and Just, we simply cannot even think of approaching Him.  To be able to approach a Holy God, we MUST do it His way.  This is the basic tennant of the book of Leviticus: to teach us how to be able to approach a Holy God so that we might be in relationship with Him.  We don’t have the same challenges today – His Son, Jesus, the Messiah, died so that we could have immediate access and relationship with God, Christ being our priest and mediator.  But there are times when we know that sin is blocking us from having a right relationship with God.  Certainly David felt this way when he penned Psalm 51.  It is virtually impossible to know God’s holiness completely, however, sin is something that keeps us from having a right relationship with Him; if we could just eliminate, or at least minimize our sin (the process of sanctification), then we can come close to knowing His holiness.

Psalm 51

1      Have mercy on me, O God,
          according to your steadfast love;
     according to your abundant mercy
          blot out my transgressions.
2      Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
          and cleanse me from my sin!
3      For I know my transgressions,
          and my sin is ever before me.
4      Against you, you only, have I sinned
          and done what is evil in your sight,
     so that you may be justified in your words
          and blameless in your judgment.
5      Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity,
          and in sin did my mother conceive me.
6      Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being,
          and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart.
7      Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean;
          wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.
8      Let me hear joy and gladness;
          let the bones that you have broken rejoice.
9      Hide your face from my sins,
          and blot out all my iniquities.
10      Create in me a clean heart, O God,
          and renew a right spirit within me.
11      Cast me not away from your presence,
          and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
12      Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
          and uphold me with a willing spirit.