A Holy God and the Holy Demands of God: Bible Study blog for August 14

Three months have passed since the Exodus.  The Israelites reach the Desert of Sinai—and there, God commands Moses to consecrate the people to receive the Ten Commandments.  The Ten Commandments make up God’s Covenant with the Israelites: “they shall be God’s treasured possession for all time,” “a priestly kingdom and a holy nation.”  The promise demands their obedience.

To consecrate the people, God demands that the people wash their clothes and abstain from sexual relations.  The other demand is that they are not to approach the Mount Sinai.  Those who do so “shall be put to death.” 

The people obey, and God appears in thunder, lightning, fire, smoke, and an earthquake.  The people tremble with fear at the presence of God-- as does the earth.  They tremble because of God's holiness and might.

A recurring theme in Exodus is the holiness of God.  Already, God has refused to reveal the divine name to Moses, but commanded him name God as “I will be who I will be.”  And now, those who approach God on the mountain must be put to death for violating God’s holiness.  We will see this theme repeating throughout the Old Testament.  There will be strict boundaries separating the holy from the mundane.

The people experience the presence of God in a way profoundly different than we.  We are accustomed to an intimacy with God that Jesus gives—that we may approach the throne of grace, praying to “Abba, Father.”  We are taught not to be afraid of God—yet, we are still to fear God in the sense that we respect God as holy and righteous, and that we live our lives in such a way as to recognize that God is God and we are not.

Many of us will remember a time when we approached God in profoundly different ways than we do today.  Worship on Sunday was never a question of if—and when Sunday morning came, everyone dressed in their “Sunday best.”  Women wore hats; men wore suits.  The church where I grew up had an altar sectioned off by a rail, where no one but the pastor would go.  Many churches still have such holy spaces—a “holy of holies,” so to speak.

Have we lost a sense of the holiness of God in that we are much more casual not only within our worship of God, but in our worship of God in general?  When we come to worship, we dress casually.  Furthermore, we’ve become more comfortable in choosing to do other things on Sunday morning rather than worshipping in church.  It’s easy to take our relationship with God and repackage it into a faith that’s convenient, comfortable, and fun—never getting in the way of how we choose to live our lives.

It is certainly for the better that we’ve come into a greater sense of comfort approaching God, just we sing “just as I am…I come.”  Fear of God should never translate into terror before God.  But we have lost a “holy fear;” a reverence of God as our Creator, our Savior, our Lord.  It must never be a matter of indifference that God is the potter and we are the clay.  It must never be a matter of indifference that Christ laid down his life for us, and that his holy and innocent blood have made us holy.  Saving grace must manifest itself in a repentant holiness—that we live profoundly different lives, putting God and neighbor before self.  God must never be a matter of indifference.

It is not bad news that God is holy—because God is holy for our sake and the sake of the world.  Human holiness, that is baptized upon us, must manifest itself in walking in the way of Christ.  Christ, who gave his life for us, ought to be worthy of our best—the first-fruits of our time and treasures, and the best of everything we have to offer him in faithful devotion. 

Our next Bible study will be on Thursday, August 28 at 7:00 p.m.