REFLECTIONS

Written by Stephen Shead

As we saw yesterday, holiness – being devoted to God – is not just a status or position. It’s also practical. It’s physical and down-to-earth. It involves people and spaces and objects – which is not surprising, because behind New Testament’s language of holiness lies the very physical world of holiness from Israel’s life in the Old Testament.

If you said the word “holy” to an ancient Israelite, their mind would immediately have jumped to one space in particular: the temple (or before Solomon built it, the tabernacle – like an earlier outdoor-camping version of the temple). That’s because holiness is directly connected to God. Holiness is “God-ness”; and the temple was the physical space that represented God’s presence among his people. It was God’s dwelling-place on earth – even though Solomon himself recognised that God isn’t contained in any earthly space:

“But will God really dwell on earth? The heavens, even the highest heaven, cannot contain you. How much less this temple I have built!” (1 Kings 8:27)

Nevertheless, as part of God’s training program for Israel, everything related to holiness centred on the temple.

So there was one group of people specially set apart to be devoted to God – the priests. They could approach the presence of God as mediators between God and people. They were the ones who offered animal sacrifices in the temple for people’s sin. The sacrifices were a visual symbol of making atonement (e.g., Exodus 29:36). Making atonement is about dealing with sin, turning aside God’s wrath, and restoring a person’s relationship with God.

There were also many objects that the priests used in their holy service: utensils, bowls, clothing, and so on. Everything that was considered “holy” in this system of symbols needed to be set apart from even the slightest hint of sin, because they were devoted to God.

How does all this translate to the New Testament and to our holiness? Well, it doesn’t translate directly to us, but to Jesus. John 1:14 says about the coming of the Son of God as a man:

The Word became flesh and made his dwelling (literally, “tabernacled”) among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14)

Jesus is the fulfilment of the Temple – the place of God’s presence on earth. Jesus is also the one true high priest, the perfect mediator whose coming has done away with all other human mediators (see Hebrews 7:25-26).

Jesus is not only the high priest, he is the sacrifice as well! He gave his own body and blood in our place on the cross, and then he ascended to God’s true sanctuary in heaven where he intercedes on our behalf. As Paul says:

Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God. (Ephesians 5:2)

The BIG takeaway of the whole Old Testament holiness system is: Jesus is our holiness.

But all of this also applies to us indirectly, through Jesus. And just like the pictures of holiness in the Old Testament, the life of holiness that Jesus calls us to involves practical, down-to-earth things. It means being devoted to God in the way we use spaces, objects, and most of all … our bodies and minds. After Paul has spent 11 chapters unpacking the grace and kindness of God through Jesus in the letter of Romans, he says:

1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2)

Our bodies and minds. What we do with our bodies, how we relate to others; and how we think, our beliefs and attitudes and desires. In Jesus, because God’s mercy at the cross has filled us with such thankfulness and delight and relief and hope, we gladly offer all that we are to God. Not as a sacrifice to pay for our sin – Jesus already did that for us – but as worship.

In the second half of the month, we will spend a lot of time thinking about how, practically, we can offer our bodies and minds to God in our daily lives. For today, meditate on God’s mercy in Jesus: his sacrifice for you, his ministry right now of interceding for you before God, and that he has brought God’s holy presence into your life through the gift of his Spirit.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Stephen is our senior minister.