Sacrifice 2. Holiness Gen 8:13-9:1; 1 Pet 2:1-10
Introduction
Last week I tried to demonstrate from the scriptures that sacrifice has always been at the centre of God’s plan for the universe. Since Jesus is “Lamb slain from before the foundation of the world” (Rev 13:8 cf. 1 Pet 1:20), Paul can say, “God…saved us and called us to a holy calling because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before time began” (2 Tim 1:8-9). Where, as a young preacher I would focus on details I have become increasingly persuaded that consistent spiritual growth involves a big picture understanding of our holy calling. This language of holiness appears throughout scripture (Lev 11:44; Leviticus 19:2; 20:7, 26; 21:8; Exodus 19:6; 1 Thess 4:7; Heb 3:1; 1 Pet 1:15; 2:9) because holiness is a core attribute of God. Holy things are not as rare as we might first imagine.
Even secular Australians sense sacrifice somehow releases an awesome presence of the sacred. On ANZAC Day, there’s an indefinable moral power in the atmosphere generated by the remembrance of those who sacrificed everything for us. We elevate the “diggers” to heroic status solely because of their sacrifice, knowing that on any other count, my father served in PNG during WW II, they were very ordinary men and women. In our deepest hearts we “know” at a profound level (cf. Eph 5:25-32) the greater the sacrifice the greater the realisation of holiness. God’s sacrifice of himself is the place where his deepest heart is open to us. But before I pursue this subject more fully, I need to clarify what I mean by “holiness”.
In popular understanding “holiness” is often defined in negative terms, people who want to be “holy” don’t drink, smoke, take drugs, gamble or have sex outside of marriage. A “holier than thou” person is critical and moralistically superior to others. The biblical understanding of holiness is nothing like this. In the Bible “holiness” is a dynamic God-centred attribute (Lev 26:12; Heb 8:10) which involves being grasped by God and set apart from the world so as to belong exclusively to the Lord in a total covenant relationship (2 Cor 6:16-7:1).
Visions of Holiness in the Centre of All Things
From a divine perspective sacrifice is at the centre of everything because holiness is at the centre of everything. When in the fourth chapter of Revelation John is taken into the throne room of God in heaven (Rev 4:1-2) he hears a united chorus, ““Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!… Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”” (Rev 4:8, 11 cf. Isa 6:3). Such a revelation of the absolute holiness of God communicates he is infinitely greater than all that has been made. In his sheer holiness the Lord is absolutely himself – incomparable, incorruptible, undefiled, unpolluted, (Isa 40:18, 25). It’s a revelation of God’s holiness that breaks the power of our idolatries.
It has been powerfully said, “Holiness is glory concealed and glory is holiness revealed” (x2), when God gives a revelation of his holiness his character becomes visible (Rom 1:20). God is revealed supremely in the holiness of the death and resurrection of Jesus. Which is why the climax of John’s heavenly vision comes in Revelation 5 where he sees the Lamb of God “standing as slaughtered” (5:6), sacrificed and raised back to life. the depths of the divine character are illuminated by the cross (Col 1:5; 1 Tim 1:17) because it is the place where the invisible God turns himself inside out to redeem blinded lost humanity. This redeeming action is supremely glorious.
Holiness reveals Beauty
Whilst the pinnacle of the visibility of the power and glory of holiness might be in the grand visions of Revelation, these great things were prophetically symbolised under old covenant worship. The Lord commanded Moses, “you shall make holy garments for Aaron (as high priest)…for glory and for beauty.” (Ex 28:2, 40). The splendour of holiness in which Aaron was arrayed was a prophetic sign of Jesus as both priest and sacrifice (Heb 7:27). Centuries later as a prophetic worshipper set apart by God (Ps 4:3; Mark 12:36; Acts 1:16; 4:25) David understood these things in the Spirit; “Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering and come before him! Worship the LORD in the splendour/beauty of holiness” (1 Chron 16:29; Ps 29:2). Under the new covenant Peter sees all Christians caught up in these holy actions, “you…are being built up…to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 2:5).
If the old covenant worship reflected the beauty and glory of God’s holiness, we who share in the unfading glory of the holy priesthood of Christ share in a brighter radiance (2 Cor 3:7-10). Set apart in Jesus as a “holy nation” (1 Pet 2:9) all believers in Jesus are a beautiful people before the Lord. If even the physical temples built by Solomon and Herod (1 Chron 29:2; Mark 13:1) were studded with precious stones of every kind, how much more through the blood of Christ do we believe shine like precious stones in the sight of God (1Pet 1:7, 19). Peter brings an exhortation which is directed to wives, but also prophetic of a holy Church “Do not let your adorning be external…4 but …the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious.” (1 Pet 3:3-5). A vision of the beauty of the Lord comes to a pure heart (Matt 5:8) purified and turned inside out through sacrifice.
I feel very deeply about this subject because of a personal experience of these mysteries. I visited the chapel of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, on the site where Jesus was crucified, some years ago. There is a large painting inside showing Christ stripped and nailed to the cross lying on the ground. As I looked at the face in the painting my heart was filled with a precious awareness and I could sense the Father saying; “This is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen.” ( http://cross-connect.net.au/revival-4-beautifying-the-bride/)
The beauty of the cross is the beauty of holiness, of a life totally set apart by God to himself at complete cost. Christ’s sacrificial love is the perfection of Beauty, and a revelation of this beauty is a beautiful thing. It is only when God’s holiness, his total difference from the degradations of our fallen humanity, was manifested in the outpouring of wrath upon our sin in Christ, could his humanity be perfectly beautified (Heb 2:10) and rise in glory (1 Pet 1:21).
Sin
We can never appreciate how these glorious things apply to us without some understanding of the degradations from which Jesus has delivered us. When God’s word came to Adam in Eden forbidding him to eat of the tree of knowledge (Gen 2:17) this Word had holy power (Rom 1:2; 2 Tim 3:15-16) to set humanity apart to share in the splendour and glory of God. But when this command for exclusive obedience was rejected, the human heart (Heb 4:12 cf. Acts 2:37; 16:14) turned in on itself. Whereas we were created to be fully aware of God’s holy presence fallen people are now most acutely aware of their own thoughts, feelings, intentions and desires. And a heart emptied of God will always fill itself with idols (cf. Ezek 14:3ff.). An article in the West Australian recently (1/8/19 p.14) concerning rising mental illness among young people included this statement, “They worry about themselves more…” Anxiety and depression rates etc. will continue to surge until this nation turns away from the idol of self-centredness and turns to God (1 Thess 1:9). The sale of self-help books is booming as people across the western world try to deliver themselves from their stresses (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/09/self-help-books-sstressed-brits-buy-record-number ). We might brush off the mindfulness and colouring book craze as childish if it weren’t part of a burgeoning tide of evil designed to destroy the image of God.
Abortion, euthanasia, same sex marriage, sex change operations and so on all have the same goal in the realm of spiritual warfare, defacing the glorious image of God. If at present the Church appears powerless to stem this onslaught the good news is that God ordained sacrifice made by a holy people can turn away this tide of evil. But we must first turn back to the power of the cross through a vision of holy beauty (1 Cor 1:17-18).
Called to Holiness
The Lord makes himself more important to us than we are important to ourselves by calling us to costly obedience (Rom 8:13). The great characters of scripture were all called to sacrificial obedience. Abraham is called to sacrifice Isaac (Gen 22), the prophet Elijah feels so opposed and lonely he wants to die (1 Ki 19:4, 10 cf. Num 11:15), Jeremiah is forbidden to marry (Jer16:1-4), the Lord kills Ezekiel’s wife with only a day’s notice and he must bear it without mourning (Ezek 24), Hosea must marry a prostitute (Hos 1-3), John the Baptist must lose his head (Mark 6:21-29). In being separated from this world these men and women became intensely holy because they were being conformed to the likeness of Christ crucified (Rom 8:29). And they were sustained on their difficult journey by the pleasures of God. I can sense that as our sinful nature is progressively put to death through repentance it’s like burning flesh on a sacrificial altar releasing a delightful aroma rising up to pleasure God. Much as it says in Ephesians, “forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you…be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2…walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” (Eph 4:32-5:2)
The sacrifices to which the Spirit calls us have great power to influence others. In a biography of John G. Paton the pioneering 19th century missionary to the New Hebrides (Vanuatu) is an excerpt about the prevailing power of sacrifice. “How is this?” the natives cried. “We slew [and ate] or drove them all away! We plundered their houses and robbed them. Had we been so treated nothing would have made us return. But they have come back…with more and more missionaries. And is it to trade and to get money like other white men? No! No! But to tell us of their Jehovah God and of his Son Jesus. If their God makes them do all that, we may well worship him too.” The 2015 kidnapping and beheading of 21 Egyptian Coptic Orthodox Christians by ISIS is fairly well know, but what is less known is that one of the martyrs was not originally a Christian. When he saw the immense faith of the others and the terrorists asked him if he rejected Jesus, He said, “Their God is my God”. Such people are more than conquerors who in Christ possess victory over the enemy of self-concern.
Richard Wurmbrand, who spent 14 years in Romanian prisons for his faith, says, “I have known dying men in communist prisons who gave the medicine that could have saved their lives to another sick prisoner…I have seen men who were terribly hungry give their last piece of bread to another. I have seen the joy on their faces when they brought the greatest sacrifice…their faces shining like the sun.” These were moments of beauty of character that held the grandeur of eternity. Self-sacrificing unselfishness is the most divinely beautiful life that anyone can lead (cf. Heb 11:35-38). Persecution and affliction are worth undergoing for Jesus because they distil holiness in a new breed of Christians who shun comfort and seek new spheres of service, whatever the cost.
Conclusion
The average Australian Christian thinks of themselves as a pretty ordinary person and so leads a pretty average life. This is a great error of self-judgement. If every sacrificial animal under the old covenant was essentially holy because it was chosen as without blemish and set apart from the rest of the flock, how much holier are we who in Christ have been set apart from eternity (Eph 1:4) to be presented “blameless before God’s glorious presence with great joy (Jude 24). As a holy people set apart for sacrificial service it isn’t possible for the Christian to have a common life, we are not average people any more than Jesus or the prophets and apostles were ordinary people! I am afraid the Church has diluted the awesome, marvellous and amazing dimensions of Christ’s self-sacrifice for us (1 Pet 2:9). In “sparing” the people of God from the difficult call to self-sacrifice we have emptied the cross of its power (1 Cor 1:17). There’s an order in the things of God that delivers the people of God from their spiritual and morally mediocrity. In Revelation chapter 5 Jesus as the Lamb of God (5:6) is universally proclaimed as “worthy” of sharing in the glory of God (4:11) because worthiness is communicated through sacrifice. Christ calls us to the highest honour of limitless self-sacrifice for the good of others. When we understand and embrace this holy privilege we will we see the manifestation of the glory of God in our midst delivering first the people of God from their many maladies and then flowing out to heal the world. Will you embrace this call?