[This is a longer comment on William Petruzzo’s blog about personal holiness entitled “Godly Copycat.”]
Nowhere in the Bible does anyone ever say, “pursue [or seek] Holiness”. God simply says , “Be Holy, because I am Holy.” (Lev. 11:44) There is no suggestion of being credited based on our efforts, or degree of success; God is not ‘grading on a curve’, or providing any sliding scale of success. He simply said, “Just Do It.”
The problem arises when we try to define in our own minds the “measuring stick” of “personal holiness”. Generally this is some form of behavior modification of visible character traits and/or behaviors. God’s measuring stick is actually more internal/not-visible – like our motives or thoughts, in other words ‘our heart’. We feel “holy” or “unholy” based on our own personal (or our denomination’s) measuring stick, and feel good or bad about ourselves accordingly. God’s measuring stick leaves us hopelessly lacking – but we really can’t handle that, so we stick to our own worldly measure.
This is where our pursuit of holiness becomes selfishly motivated – we desperately need to feel good about ourselves; we want to feel like we deserve/measure up to in order to maintain/retain or otherwise have some control over our status in Christ – which is HOLY. So the problem for me is when people become absorbed in this pursuit to the expense of doing the things that God tells us to do like “deny ourselves”, “consider others better than ourselves”, “seek first the Kingdom”, and so forth.
Paul tells us to “imitate Christ” – so what does that look like? Obedience seems to be a major factor (“to obey is better than sacrifice…”). Jesus said, “IF you love me, you will OBEY my command…” I like to rank the commands in this sense: Jesus said the most important commandment is to love God, the second is to love our neighbor. I throw in Jesus’ new command as the 3rd most important – “Love one another.” He also said they are all important: “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” So in rank order the importance of the commandments seems to be as follows:
1. Love God
2. Love your neighbor
3. Love one another
4. everything else…
.
.
.
n.
I try to focus on the top 3 – thinking there was a reason why Jesus put them in rank order. I do not believe that I have mastered those three yet – so I keep focusing on them. I believe that will take me a lifetime, and even then I’m not sure how well I’ll adhere to them.
Most of us seem to skip over the “top 3″ and look for some manageable list somewhere between 4 and n. We tend to focus on the visible stuff, and we like to knock out the “low hanging fruit.” We tend to think that if we can conquer/control commands 4, 9, 13, and 22 that will equal or compensate for our lack of adherence to 1, 2, and 3. I don’t think this is the case.
There were people in Jesus’ time that made an extreme effort to adhere to the strict letter of the law (Mosaic Law). They even went so far as to come up with their own doctrinal statements that refined/expounded on the law (Rabbinical Law) – in order to be “crystal clear” on their adherence to, and thus their own personal holiness. This group, of course, was comprised of Pharisees and Sadducees. Here’s what Jesus had to say to them:
“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!” (He says this 6 times!)
“Woe to you, blind guides!”
“…you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are.”
“You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell?”
Here’s what Jesus offers as the solution:
“You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy, and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.”
“You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.”
There appears to be an order here that is definitely not rooted in behavior modification.
I thought I commented on this… Do I have a comment in your spam bucket?
Anyhow, thanks for following up on this and posting here. I love you insight to God’s Word.
BTW, is that a CIGAR in your mouth up top?? Now that kind of behavior is not going to get you featured in any mainstream Christian media! If you’d like, I can photoshop it so that you appear to be a family-friendly farisee.
Nothing in the bucket from you, but I thought I’d posted something awhile ago (the epic songs list) only to discover it later in the ’saved’ bucket. So, I blame the software not the stupid human interface (hah!)
Oh, and YES it’s a cigar. Don’t you dare photoshop this!!!
I can just imagine what you’d put in its place…
B
Actually, I was merely imagining removing it not replacing it.
So yeah… ah, thanks for the visual.
hi Beefourdee,
I just came over from Tam’s site. Sad to say that I am going to be discovering this fine Norman fellow post mortem. Thanks for his words.
I saw the first line of the devotional quotation on this site, and I must protest; Hebrews 12:14 has 2 things that we are to pursue, and one is holiness.
Hey Jason, welcome! Do you have a blog site too?
I don’t believe holiness is something you pursue – too often people interpret that to mean “trying to be good”, “trying to be right”, etc. (sometimes they use the word strive). There is no effort on our part that improves our redeemed status with God. We don’t earn it, maintain it, retain it – it’s the free gift.
Here I grabbed the NIV form of the verse – “Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.”
Of course, we should really go back to the Greek, and then we have to take this in context with the whole of Scripture. But what jumps out to me here is BE holy, not to “try to be” holy. To me that implies a state of being that already exists, not something unachievable that we continue to press towards. The first part, live in peace – that’s the part where we fall down miserably. That’s where we need to work on our love walk.
If it’s there in the Greek, of course I can’t dispute it. My only caution is to not look at single verses of scripture and make too big of a doctrinal stance based on that one isolated passage.
Mr. BeeFour,
“Do you have a blog site too?”
I used to but, as Ian Anderson sang, there’s not enough time for everything.
I agree with the concerns you gave in the first paragraph, that “pursuing holiness” would become a Tony Robbins admixed with Jesus, and there is no place for the white knuckle Christ philosophy stuff. No power, no future, no nothing. I actually appreciate what I see as a healthy variety of antinomianism in what you wrote. I especially like the “don’t retain it” part. I know my black-on-jetblack heart enough to know that I cannot just bite down and try harder and make it happen.
When I went through a gradual conversion a few years ago, I went straight from the NLT that divinity student gave to me to the ultra-wooden NASB. I never read the NIV. However, in a few conversations I have come to words the translation of which I cannot figure out.
The “make every effort” isn’t too bad, but to translate it as if holiness is an afterthought to peace is not right. I always find these translation comittee choices a little puzzling. The verb is most often translated as “pursue” or even “persecute”. It is a picture of being relentless in going after something. It isn’t at all a static picture, not at all one of just being. So the sense that you don’t care for is in the Greek.
However,
the word for holiness can also be translated as “sanctification”. Now we, biblically speaking, never ever sanctify anything, God does that, obviously. So, unless, one has been given a brief, glorious glimpse of the paradoxes of the Christ on the cross, relentlessly pursuing something which someone else does for you is hard to figure.
But it is not hard to figure if, as you wrote, “There is no effort on our part that improves our redeemed status with God. We don’t earn it, maintain it, retain it” and yet, as you indicate, it happens while decreasing and being led in pursuit of the most high.
“The first part, live in peace – that’s the part where we fall down miserably”
The first and the second part seem simply to be the greatest commandments. But, just with the workup for “peacemakers”, it isn’t living in peace, it is relentlessly pursuing peace. It is hungering and thirsting for righteousness, which cannot, in this world, lead to the modern, western concept of “living in peace”. God’s peace is just, which, much of the time is not peaceful. It is this concept with which Bonhoeffer struggled in ploting to assasinate Hitler. Had he and his brother (in-law?) and friends accomplished it, I have no question that he would have been a peacemaker in a biblical sense, and not armistice peace, but a just peace.
Apart from the anti-protagonist action on the other site, can you tell me how you amalgamate “We don’t…retain it” with what you see as our sovereign right of receiving the gospel? If both sides of this coin are necessary, why do people who seem to have come to faith walk away from it?
I ask this because of your last paragraph which I am contrasting with your outright rejection of Romans 3:22 and Paul’s divinely breathed application Psalm 14. I don’t understand how the same person can write those two things in the same day.
“and make too big of a doctrinal stance based on that one isolated passage”
I’m not. The exhortation to be sanctified, that is pursue God that he would be constantly purifying you, is a repetitive, imperative drumbeat in Scripture.
You’ve got to be in college if you’re using words like “amalgamate” in a sentence. I’ve seen that word in Bugs Bunny cartoons, but never in the real world. It would be nice if I didn’t have to go to the dictionary everytime i respond to you – so that’s a personal request to speak English!
I don’t see that we have a ’sovereign right to receive the gospel’ for one thing – what does that mean?
Why do people seemingly walk away? I can’t answer that succinctly. The people I’ve known that have walked away have either been deeply injured by other believers (from well-meaning to vindictive) or they just haven’t had a clear understanding of what they signed up for in the first place (which might mean they never knew Him in the first place). I suppose that from a reformed perspective one can’t really walk away any more than they can walk towards…but that still doesn’t answer the question satisfactorily. This is like the parable of the seeds – is it random chance? did the sower (God) deliberately toss some seeds on the rocks, or amongst the thorns? Is it all deliberate or a crapshoot? neither option sits well with me.
Sanctification/holiness/purification. The danger I’ve always seen is that no matter how clearly you define these words and the meaning of pursuing or striving or whatever is that people mostly hear a works-based formula of do this or that and you’ll earn/keep/retain your salvation. I think we are in agreement here that this is not the case.
My struggle is to find the words that I can explain to others in a way that they can understand that it’s not based on their efforts before or after a moment of salvation/awareness, it’s really beyond that. The emphasis needs to be on the relentless pursuit – Yes, but most people attempt to pursue some form of manageable list of dos/don’ts rather than follow the simple, but incalculable call to love, love, love.
I’m open to suggestions.
Oh, and how do I get this book to you if it turns out I can send it over? here’s my email if you’d like to send me yours rather than posting it:
badguy85@comcast.net
“I’m open to suggestions.”
As far as I know, no group of people no matter how small or large, no matter their theology or spirituality, is able to resist the pull of legalism.
I am also open to suggestions, but I don’t think any are forthcoming until he comes.
Can we start this whole conversations over? A huge part of my previous life was a great deal of delight in verbal and physical confrontations. I open that door, sometimes and am rarely happy about it. Somehow my fearlessness is part of my gifting, but I don’t yet understand how.
I’d be happy to start over; my gifting is button pushing.
Let’s talk about legalism – that’s something we both abhor.
do you want the book? How do I get it to you? (I’m not going to stalk you…)