1.05. Holiness in the New Testament

CHAPTER V HOLINESS IN THE NEW TESTAMENT THE writers of the New Testament perpetuate and develop the Old Testament conception of Holiness. It was still remembered, u as written in the Law," that the firstborn was "holy to (or, for) the Lord : " Luke 2:23. The emphatic teaching of Exodus 29:37, etc., " all that touches the altar shall be holy" reappears in Matthew 23:17; Matthew 23:19, where Christ appeals in argument to the fact that the temple has already sanctified (aorist) the gold used in its construction ; and that day by day the altar sanctifies (present tense) the gift laid upon it. As in Nehemiah 11:1, so in Matthew 4:5; Matthew 27:53, Jerusalem is called "the holy city." For it stood in special relation to God. In Acts 7:33, Stephen quotes Exodus 3:5 : " the place on which thou standest is holy ground." The temple is still the " holy place : "

See Matthew 24:15, Acts 6:13; Acts 21:28. As in Jeremiah 1:5; Jeremiah 1:1-19:2 Kings 4:9, so in Luke 1:70, Acts 3:21, the prophets are called holy. Similarly, Herod knew that the Baptist was "a righteous and holy man:" Mark 6:20. The holiness of God, so solemnly asserted in Leviticus 11:45, etc., and conspicuously embodied in the term "Holy One of Israel," so frequent in the Bk. of Isaiah, is mentioned in the New Testament only in John 17:11 where Christ addresses God as "Holy Father;" in Hebrews 12:10, " partakers of His holiness ," in 1 Peter 1:15-16, quoting Leviticus 11:44, etc. ; in Revelation 4:8, a repetition of Isaiah 6:3; and in Revelation 6:10, " Master, the Holy and True." In these passages, the meaning of the word holy is practically the same as that deduced above, on PP- 34~39> from its similar use in the Old Testament; except that our conception of the holiness of God will deepen with our deepening sense of the infinite love of God revealed in Christ, and of the unreserved devotion which in Christ He claims from and waits to bestow upon His adopted sons. This topic will there fore be further considered in ch. xiii. after our examination of the holiness ot the servants of Christ. The holiness of God receives conspicuous recognition in the Lord s Prayer : "May Thy Name be sanctified:" Matthew 6:9, Luke 11:2. We pray that the Name of God may elicit the reverence due to Him who claims the unreserved devotion of all His intelligent creatures. It recalls Psalms 103:1; Psalms 105:3; Psalms 111:9; Psalms 145:21. The most conspicuous and frequent use of the word holy in the New Testament, more than one-third of the whole, is the term "Holy Spirit," specially frequent in Luke and Acts. In Psalms 51:11, Isaiah 63:10-11, these words are found in the Septuagint, as a Greek rendering of the Hebrew phrase, "Thy Spirit of Holiness" This epithet reminds us that the Spirit of God is the divine source of an inward influence going forth from God and lead ing men to devote themselves unreservedly to His service. All human inward holiness is an outflow, as we shall see in ch. ix., of the Spirit of God communicating to men, by immediate contact of Spirit with spirit, His own essential devotion to God. The second most frequent use of the word holy in the New Testament is as a designation of church-members indiscriminately without reference to their measure of spiritual development. So 1 Corinthians 1:2, " to the Church of God which is in Corinth, men sanctified in Christ Jesus, called saints" and frequently in the letters of Paul, the Ep. to the Hebrews, and the Bk. of Revelation ; also Acts 9:13; Acts 9:32; Acts 9:41; Acts 9:26, and in Jude 1:3. This use will be further considered in ch. vii. In ch. vi. other important teaching about the holiness of Christ will claim our attention. So far the conception of Holiness has advanced little beyond the development attained in the Old zestament. But the greater frequency of holiness as an attri bute of the Spirit of God is a mark of that better covenant of which the indwelling and sanctifying presence of the Spirit is so conspicuous and glorious a feature. And the underlying similarity of the use of the word holy in the Old and New Tescaments is a proof how fully the earlier conception of holiness lived on in the thought of Israel