HOLINESS

^[p. 291] HOLINESS

Isaiah 6: 1 - 5; Revelation 4: 8; 1 John 4: 7, 8

It is before me to say a little in regard to holiness. It is a great point that in Christianity you have reached the source of moral perfection. There are numbers of people who are beating about the bush seeking in a way after truth and only finding uncertainty. It is a great thing to view things morally and to gain the consciousness, which we are entitled to have as knowing God, that we have revealed to us the source of moral perfection.

There is this difference between righteousness and holiness. Righteousness is rather the consequence of love, but holiness characterises love. I think I can make that plain to you.

Righteousness in God is evidently the assertion and maintenance of rights. The rights of God have their spring in love, and in the assertion and maintenance of rights, on the part of God, there must be consistency with His nature, which is love. Other things may come in, righteous judgment and the like, but even this, which is the strange work of God, is not inconsistent with love. Righteousness is thus very simply expressed, it is the rights of God, right things: holiness, on the other hand, is characteristic of God’s nature, and we are entitled to speak of holy love in speaking of God.

I have read two passages, one from Isaiah and the other from the Revelation, in which you get the witness of the seraphim to the holiness of God. “Holy, holy, holy”, three times repeated. Where the cherubim are introduced, as at the gate of the garden of Eden, where the Lord God put cherubim and a flaming sword to keep the way of the tree of ^[p. 292] life, they are symbolic of the righteous judgment of God: the seraphim, on the other hand, witness to His holiness.

Now I must go back for a moment upon righteousness as having its source in the love of God, for I want to come to love. Even when God gave commandment to man in regard of righteousness the principle of the law was love, and we are told in the New Testament that love is the fulness of the law. The man who loves has fulfilled the law. Scripture speaks expressly in that way; love is the fulness of the law. Well then, seeing that is so, where does the love come from? It is impossible for man to originate love, else man would be equal to God, and if a man is to love God with all his heart, with all his soul, strength and mind, where does the love come from? The truth is that love finds its source in God Himself, and it was that which led me to the verses in John’s first epistle. “Love is of God”, it is said, and therefore outside of God there is no love, nor can there be. “Love is of God”, is found in verse 7, which I read, and in the succeeding verse we find the statement that “God is love”. Hence, if love is the fulness of the law, God Himself is the source of that love. The fact that man was commanded to love God is a clear proof to me that God was asserting His rights and that the source of those rights was love. I cannot conceive such a thing as that man should be commanded to love God, and his neighbour as himself if the commandment did not originate with One who was Himself love. A dishonest man would hardly impress honesty on others. Love is of God; and it is clear that the One who commanded man to love Himself and his neighbour must Himself be love, and therefore the source of righteousness is love.

God has right to the supreme place in the affections of all intelligent creatures, but, at the same time, that claim has its proper source in the love of God. The ^[p. 293] answer comes out in the Christian, because love is of God and the Christian participates in that: he is of God. In the fact of his loving God with all his heart and his neighbour as himself, in thus fulfilling the righteous requirement of the law, the Christian expresses righteousness. The Spirit is life in view of righteousness, and you get righteousness in the exercise of love.

I have said enough I think to show that righteousness, on the part of God in regard to man, has its source in the love of God.

Righteousness in Scripture often stands in opposition to lawlessness. Sin is lawlessness. Lawlessness refuses the rights of God, and, in fact, refuses God: that is the spirit of lawlessness. The Lord Jesus said when here, “If I had not come and spoken unto them, they had not had sin”; that is, they refused God, and the right of God, for Christ had spoken to them in divine love. Love had been expressed in Him in word and in deed, and they refused His word, and in refusing His word they had sin; in other words, the truth is that man will not have God. Man will do his best to exclude God, because he is lawless. If the rights of God were recognised you would have the earth filled with blessing, men would love God with all their heart and their neighbour as themselves; but, instead of this, the mystery of lawlessness is at work, and will culminate in the man of sin, and he will exclude God so far as he can, and the practical result will be that the earth will be filled with hatred and misery. Righteousness brings in God and love; lawlessness shuts God out and makes way for the pride of man and falsehood and hatred. You can see the working of it in the present day, and it is very largely helped on by rationalism and semi-infidelity. In the future it will be rampant, and things will be headed up in the man of sin, and then there will be darkness and hatred filling the world.

^[p. 294] Now, when it is a question of God asserting His rights, He does not speak about holiness. The necessity of holiness comes in when the question arises of man approaching God, because the One we approach is holy. That you get brought out continually in the Old Testament. The first book in the Old Testament that perhaps impresses you with the holiness of God is Leviticus. The question of righteousness appears in Exodus, in Jehovah redeeming his people, and leading them forth, and then dwelling among them. In Leviticus the subject is of approach to God, and both priests and people are impressed with the idea that God is holy.

In Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4 you get the same impression. When the question of approach to God arises, the necessity of holiness comes in, the secret of it being that holiness characterises the nature of God. God’s nature is love. He is said to be love, and His nature is characterised by holiness; the seraphim are the witness to the holiness of God. The passage in Isaiah presses home on us that holiness is in contrast to the uncleanness of man. The moment the seraphim gave witness to the holiness of God, Isaiah says, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips”. Isaiah was conscious of his own uncleanness, and of unclean associations, and holiness comes out in that way in contrast to uncleanness. You get the same contrast in 1 Corinthians 7: 14, where, speaking of the children of believers, the apostle says, “Else were your children unclean; but now are they holy”. In the Old Testament we get a ceremonial holiness as in the case of Israel, which stood in contrast to physical uncleanness; but I do not speak about ceremonial holiness, but holiness in a moral sense; and therefore if I speak of uncleanness, what I mean is moral uncleanness and filthiness. Righteousness stands in contrast to moral confusion,

^[p. 295] and holiness to moral uncleanness and filthiness.

If we never entered upon the idea of approach to God we would not get the thought of holiness. It is in God’s house that we get acquainted with His love, and if you reach the holiest you prove that you have acquaintance with the love of God. To fail to enter may indicate a great defect in ourselves, but if the thought of approaching is entertained, you must take into account that the God whom you approach is holy. If you are to get the good of the house of God, you have to recognise the holiness of the God who dwells there. Holiness becomes His house, and though God has opened our eyes to see His house, you will not taste the fatness of His house if you fail to take into account His holiness. The moment the idea of association with Christ comes in we have to take into account that God is holy.

I pass on for a moment to speak of Christ in connection with the holiness of God. It is in Christ that the holiness of God has become manifest to us. We know it by the revelation of God. “The only-begotten Son, who is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him”.

All has come out; and, apart from what has come out in the death of Christ, you could not get the true idea of the holiness of God. In the darkest moment, on the cross, we get the acknowledgment by Christ of the holiness of God. Turn for a moment to Psalm 22, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? why art thou so far from helping me, and from the words of my roaring? O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not; and in the night season, and am not silent. But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel”. That is a very remarkable expression, because it was in connection with Christ being forsaken. There is, “Why hast thou forsaken me?” and yet there is the expression, “Thou art holy”. That is a clear proof of what Christ Himself was, for ^[p. 296] you would not have had that acknowledgment at such a moment had there not been the perfection of holiness in the One who expressed it. To speak of the holiness of God at such a moment proves distinctly what Christ Himself was — that is, the Holy One.

We are led to apprehend Christ first as the righteous One and then as the Holy One. We find in Christ perfect accord with the holiness of God. When Peter was preaching to the Jews, he speaks of the Holy One, saying, “Ye denied the Holy One and the Just, and desired a murderer to be granted to you”. And then in the first epistle of John it is said, “Ye have an unction from the Holy One”. Both Peter and John present Christ as the “Holy One”. Christ maintained righteousness here, but He was characterised by holiness, and we cannot understand the path of Christ on earth unless we take into account the thought of holiness.

Holiness is inseparable from love. You get the perfect expression of divine love in Christ on earth, but it was a holy love, and that is what marked everything in the witness of the Lord Jesus down here. He went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him. He relieved man of every ill, but behind all that there was perfect moral accord with God. He was one with the Father. There was the expression down here of the holy love of God, so that the Lord Jesus could say in reproach to the Jews, “Now they have both seen and hated both me and my Father”.

I do not think that man’s mind entertains naturally any true idea of love. The word was in the vocabulary of the Greeks, but in the Greek mind love was connected with unclean ideas. When love comes in as of God it has its own peculiar character by the revelation of God, and it is identified with holiness in contrast to the impurity and uncleanness of men, such things being abhorrent to it: they cannot be tolerated by a ^[p. 297] God who is love, and His love a holy love. The moment we see the holiness of God we learn, in distinction from it, the impurity, filthiness and uncleanness of the flesh. We have to walk in a holy place. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, therefore we have to walk in the place of God’s holy judgment. We can understand Isaiah saying, “I am a man of unclean lips”. The associations in which one may be found down here are often connected with uncleanness, but if you come under the influence of the holy love which is shed abroad in your heart by the Holy Spirit, the practical result is, that you walk in self-judgment. It is there that we come under the effect of the love of God.

Now I come to another point in connection with holiness, and that is the Spirit. Refer to a verse or two in 1 John 2: 20 - 25: “But ye have an unction from the Holy One, and ye know all things ... And this is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life”.

The history of every Christian, as a Christian, begins with the possession of the Spirit. We all recognise that whatever experiences there may have been with us antecedent to that, our Christian history began with the reception of the Spirit of God. The Lord Jesus speaks of this in John 4, in saying, “The water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into eternal life”. No one can properly speak of Christianity apart from the gift of the Spirit. We can only be said to be in Christ by the Spirit. Scripture says, “If any man be in Christ it is new creation”. But then if our history as Christians begins with the Spirit, it begins with holiness, because we receive the unction from the Holy One. Christ is the Holy One, and He is the One who has communicated to us the unction, and now the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit given to us. Holiness has come from God to us in that way.

^[p. 298] As Christians we have received an unction from the Holy One, and hence our experience as Christians begins with the presence of the Spirit.

The moment the Holy Spirit is received we accept the obligation to walk in self-judgment here. We begin to realise that we are in the presence of the holy God. Where people are defective in a sense of the holiness of God it is because they have never apprehended the reality of the house of God. It is a great point to apprehend that, because it brings home to us the obligation to walk in self-judgment down here, for we are in the presence of holiness. “Being set free from sin, and become the servants of righteousness, ye have your fruit unto holiness, and the end everlasting life”. If the obligation is accepted, it becomes the avenue by which we reach the heart of God. When there is the following after holiness you get much acquaintance with the love of God. I cannot conceive of acquaintance with God without accepting the obligation to holiness. We have to perfect holiness in the fear of God. In a sense it is the condition under which God dwells among us. It is said in 2 Corinthians 6: 17: “Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you, and will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty”. We are to cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God; there again holiness is placed in contrast to uncleanness.

There is another point in regard of holiness which is of great moment. Holiness characterises nature, and therefore you cannot expect that holiness can be reached by man as man. One can accept righteousness by faith, because it is the righteousness of God, the expression of His rights, which is a very different matter, to my mind, from holiness. Holiness is characteristic of nature, and I cannot understand ^[p. 299] holiness in any true sense apart from a person being in Christ. You cannot promote holiness in the flesh: the flesh presents other features. Holiness is connected with our being in Christ.

“If any man be in Christ it is new creation”, and there it is that holiness comes in. It is in connection with the Spirit and the new man. The testimony of righteousness may be accepted, and a man be set free from the control of sin; but before a person knows much about the love of God there must be a sense of the holiness of God. If anyone gets a sense of the holiness of God, he judges the impurity of the flesh; but we only do that when we have come consciously in contact with a holy God. Then you are formed in the divine nature: you have come under the influence of divine love. We begin then to apprehend the love that is toward us. “We have known and believed the love which God hath toward us”. It is in proportion as we become acquainted with the love of God that our holiness is deepened.

Holiness cannot go beyond the measure of the man. (You cannot get holiness by faith.) But what man? The man in Christ, not the man in flesh, Holiness — except ceremonially — never could be reached by man in the flesh, because it belongs to the man in Christ, and cannot go beyond the stature of the man. We may be babes in Christ, and then the measure of our holiness is not very great. You may be men in Christ, and then you have a different idea of holiness. But what makes the difference between a babe in Christ and a man in Christ? It is simply that a man in Christ has made more acquaintance with the divine nature, love; and there is no growth in the Christian except in love. Holiness is not exactly a principle of growth, the principle of growth in the Christian is love. You are rooted and grounded in love, not in holiness, and that makes a substantial difference between a babe in Christ and a man in Christ. A ^[p. 300] man in Christ has the stature of a man, and his holiness is in accord with his stature. The more we become acquainted with the love of God, the more we come under that influence, the more we are built up; and the more we are built up the more abhorrent and repulsive uncleanness and impurity become to us; you can understand in that way what impurity was to Christ here upon earth.

Grace has now come in, and the babes have an unction from the Holy One, and know all things. The meaning of that expression is, I judge, that you know the character of things. You judge things by their moral character. It is not exactly what they present to your mind that you judge them by, but you judge things in the world morally because, having an unction from the Holy One, you have a sense of things that are not in accord with the Holy One. The apostle was not speaking of merely knowing things intelligently, it is a much more important point to get a sense of things morally. You can often tell the character of things by the people who present them to you.

“You have an unction from the Holy One”. The unction from the Holy One refers to the Spirit of life by which we are characterised. The working of the Spirit in us is not only to attach us to Christ, but to make us acquainted with the holy love of God. In the death of the Lord Jesus the righteousness of God was declared, but at the same time, there was the revelation of the holy love of God; and the well of water in us attaches us to Christ, who has made us acquainted with the holy love of God. Everyone who receives the Spirit has been born again, and the Spirit of God has taken up His abode in the Christian to influence him by that which He has brought there, and the Christian grows in holiness in proportion as he comes under the influence of the divine nature. You will see this if you turn to a passage in 1 Thessalonians 3: 12, 13, “And the Lord make you to increase and ^[p. 301] abound in love one toward another, and toward all, even as we do toward you. To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints”.

This increase in love can only be brought about in one way: by our hearts coming under the influence of divine love. You cannot love saints except as you are under the influence of God’s love.

In regard to us, love is the way to holiness, for love is characterised by holiness. We come under the influence of a holy love, and increase in love, and then our love being characterised by holiness refuses unworthy motives, or the taint of impurity and uncleanness. It is a great thing to get an idea of the holy love of God: it is the fountain from which everything good has issued.

If you increase in holiness you come to the holiest, and you cannot get beyond that. The way of grace is to bring you to the holiest. All the teaching in the epistles describes the way by which we really approach to the holiest, and we do this in the growing apprehension of Christ. God attaches us to Christ by the Spirit to bring us into conscious association with Him. In the holiest of all there can be nothing which can sully for a moment the holiness of God.

The holiest of all is a wonderful spot. Holiness becomes God’s house, but in the house of God there may be things which are not always consistent with the holiness of God, but such cannot be the case in the holiest; nothing can enter there which could compromise or sully the holiness of God. If you are brought to the holiest, in the consciousness of association with Christ, you are brought consciously into the place where God’s holy love has found perfect rest. Everything is according to His glory, and there is no breath of uncleanness or impurity to tarnish the holiness of God.

^[p. 302] It is a wonderful thing that God has come out in His love in the death of Christ. That death was the great expression of holiness on the part of God; and if love is characterised by holiness you cannot separate the love from the holiness which characterises it. That must be evident to everyone. If you take holiness up by itself apart from the fact that it is characteristic of the divine nature, I am sure that you will not arrive at any true thought of it. I have been struck by the expression in regard to the Christian, “The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit”. If you get a sense of divine love you are brought by the Holy Spirit under the obligation of self-judgment, you abominate impurity and uncleanness of the flesh. The two things go together.

It is a great thing to walk in self-judgment here, because you are led by Christ into increasing acquaintance with Himself, and into the love of God. You come under the influence of that love until you are made conscious of association with Christ and are thus brought to the holiest of all. The holiest is the place of service you are entitled to enter through the way consecrated for us.

Holiness cannot connect itself with the flesh, but is connected with the new man which after God is created in righteousness and holiness of truth. That is the work of God in us. It is just in proportion to your growth in Christ that you will be marked by holiness, and holiness may be greatly furthered by the increasing influence upon us of the love of God. It is a great thing to come under the influence of that love and to trace everything up to God. When I trace holiness or even righteousness up to its source in God, what do I come to? It is, God is love.

It is beautiful to me to see that righteousness itself is a necessary consequence of God being love — that the rights of God issue thence; and that His love is a holy love.