EXTRACTS
We come now to holiness, the obligation of the people of God. It is almost the first principle of relationship with God. It came out with regard to Israel, but it is applicable in a much greater degree to the Christian. Israel had to be separate from material things; with the Christian the separation is moral; and holiness follows separation, and separation depends on the light in which God has come out—the way in which He has been pleased to reveal Himself to us. If we fail to apprehend this I do not think we shall be marked by holiness. It is a great thing to accept an obligation, that is a principle of righteousness. An upright man in the world accepts his obligations, even though he may not be able to discharge them. We have to accept the obligation to holiness, because God is holy, and the obligation to love one another, because God loves us (1 John 3: 16; 4: 11). “Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another”. In the passage before us, we have first the obligation to separation, and then we find that holiness follows on separation. It is love which leads, I judge, to holiness, it is not faith. I do not admit the doctrine of ‘holiness by faith’. I believe it arises from a confusion in people’s minds as between righteousness and holiness. Righteousness is by faith, because it is God’s righteousness, holiness is by love. There is no real antidote to lust, except love. The Spirit is against the flesh, love is against lust. If we were loving God and Christians and all men, as we are charged to do, there would be no room in our hearts for lust. It is only as we are walking in love that we shall be “perfecting holiness in the fear of God”, for love then governs the heart. If love is not there, lust will find room. In verses 14–16 we see how God has come out. (i) In righteousness; (ii) in light; (iii) in Christ; (iv) in the believer; (v) in the temple; and this to the displacement of everything that was here: lawlessness, darkness, Belial, the unbeliever, and idols. If we do not realise the way in which God has come out, we shall not take the step which is dependent on it, namely, separation. Separation may not be quite so plain to us in these days of professing Christianity as it was at the outset. It is difficult for us to realise the state of things into which the gospel came, which the apostle refers to here; but every one of these principles is the same now, only seen in a more subtle form. We can well understand separation from heathenism, but in a corrupt Christianity we need to look at things morally.
Separation from all that is contrary to God in Christendom requires a certain amount of discernment.
The first attribute in which God presents Himself in the gospel is righteousness, because the gospel came into a world of sin; “therein is the righteousness of God revealed” (Romans 1: 17) and the testimony to it is the blood of Christ. God could not tolerate sin; He must judge it. The judgment has been borne, and sin has been put away from before God; and the gospel is a witness that God is “just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus”—but first He is just.
Then He comes out as light; sin having been judged. He can come out in the full revelation of Himself. In the cross the veil was rent, but even light is in God subordinate to love, and it is love that has come out as light. So far we have had principles. Then, “What concord hath Christ with Belial?” This term Belial indicates some one worthless or apostate, and might be applied to Satan or Antichrist. It is the spirit that is opposed to Christ, and which is already in the world. Then, “What part hath he that believeth with an infidel?” There is no light from God in the unbeliever; what marks the believer is that he is in the light of God, because there is faith. The light you have is according to the measure of your faith, and the unbeliever has no part with you.
The idea of the temple is, where God is sanctified in the eye of man. That was the idea, of the Old Testament; and what is opposed to that is idols, for idolatry claimed the authority over men which belonged to God, and the effect was that man was debased in his thought of God. Holiness marks God’s temple. The saints are now His temple. He repudiates a material house. “What house will ye build me? saith the Lord”.
It is a great point for us, as it was for the Corinthians, to recognise the way in which God has come out, otherwise we shall not see the obligation to separation. Lawlessness has overspread Christianity; we do not need to look for it among the heathen. In the “great house” the terrible spirit of Antichrist is working. “The mystery of iniquity doth already work”. We have to judge of these principles, and maintain a rigid separation from evil. Never was there a moment when the obligation to separation was so urgent. If we are going to get what properly belongs to us, the separation must be complete and absolute, otherwise we shall be greatly hindered from getting all that God would be to us.
F. E. Raven (Vol. 2, pp.199–202)
We can accept a previous revelation better than the present; we can accept a truth in the past better than one for the present time—the Lord’s prayer, for example, because there is less exercise of faith, less demand for divine power, in going back to a thing that is past. If you are not right you are rejoicing in things that are past, and not in Christ’s present things.
J. B. Stoney (Vol.8, p.465)
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