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The Beauty of Holiness Chapter 2 It is not possible for us to say how far God revealed His holiness to our first father in Eden's sinless days. That God forewarned him about the fatal consequences of a rebellious act, we know quite well. How far he understood its deadly moral nature, we may not easily say. Enough to know he dared to risk the sinful act with open eyes, knowing quite well that he would die. On that point his knowledge was complete; but how far he had come to understand the attitude of his Creator-God towards the principle of sin (as distinct from an act of sin) is another point we may not know. It could not be, in the short time he had lived that he had comprehended everything about his God. He knew that he was God's handiwork; he knew his consort, Eve, was God's gift. He knew that God had made his lovely home and filled it with all desirable things. Hence he would know God as a Creator, mighty and bountiful, Who would have the right to expect obedience in the use of all His gifts. But did God tell him of that vehement detestation of sin which burned, fiercer than any flame, within the Creator's heart? Did God make him to know how zealously He would uphold the Universal Law against every infraction of its terms? In short, did God reveal to Adam that He was a "Holy" God - as distinct from a Creative God - the sworn enemy of sin; and that, cost Him what it may, He would fight it with all His power till the last trace of it was gone? We may not know for sure, for Adam's Eden days were few. Doubtless God would have told him more as time went by, so that he would know that every act falls into line with this or that of the two basic principles of holiness or sin. Had he remained at peace with God he would have learned those deeper things which angel visitants could tell about their God and his. In their own estate, where sin did not then abound, these heavenly messengers can understand the awful Majesty of the Eternal God; for they have seen and known the terrible effects of sin. There was a time when an angel Prince led revolt against the Heavenly Throne and brought abasement to himself and those he led astray. Divine power had arisen to the task imposed and thrown around the fallen host bands of darkness and restraint. Thrust down from heaven and chained in the dark depths of "Tartarus", they had been made to feel the scorching fire of Divine zeal against sin. Those holy messengers who maintained their first estate could have caused God's human son to learn and deeply realise that God could never countenance sin, not permit the sinner to abide one instant before His Holy face. By observation and by contact they had learned how unchangeably holy was their God, and how with omnipotent and omniscient power He stood pledged eternally to uphold the Truth and defend the Right. All this Adam might, in time, have learned. The angelic visitant could have made known how when sin raised its ugly head the peace within the heart of God remained undisturbed, yet there brake forth with more than volcanic force a holy displeasure which revealed, to all who saw, how unfathomably deep was the Divine repugnance to haughty pride, rash act, or insubordinate word. Moreover, the earthly son also might have learned how these heavenly sons, possessed of holiest desires, were able to find and appreciate hallowed fellowship with God, He as Creator and Sovereign over all; they as created and subject Spirits obeying His behests. No need of any kind existed for God to hide away from them, nor they to be forbidden access to His face, but subject only to such decorum well-suited to that August Court, they went unfearful into the Presence, and enjoyed unscathed "the burning bliss" of that great Eternal Light; the fervent response of each angel heart meeting with ready accord the holier desires of the Heavenly Throne. All this Adam might have come to know; and knowing and comprehending it, this knowledge might have anchored him also to the Heavenly Throne with chains stronger than steel. How greatly otherwise must it be where sin comes in! God's pity for the sinner may be great, but God cannot parley with the sin. No provision for excuse had been made in the Divine Code of Law, and He who had to maintain that Law could show no toleration of the sin. Of necessity God must separate Himself from the sin, and in so doing, the sinner too. No greater welcome to His Presence could be offered to rebellious men than to the sin itself; for to such rebellious men the Holy God could be no other than a consuming fire. When therefore, for some wiser end, Omniscience Divine determined that the state of sin should be allowed to stand, the very intensity of Holiness Divine could only mean that God must withdraw Himself—He must draw apart from men. How quickly amid those Eden bowers the sense of guilt and shame disclosed itself. The shrinking sinner fled away, coming not at an evening hour with ready heart into the presence of his God. Since morning sun arose a fearful change had taken place, for sin had won the day and spread its empire over man. The unhallowed influence of Lucifer had triumphed, for the time, over the hallowed influence of God. Sin had stormed the heart of man and sin-consciousness had been born. Sin-consciousness dared not seek the face of God but shrank into the shade to hide. Called from his hiding place to meet the "Judge" the shamefaced sinner came forth to hear his doom. "Sin", naked and ashamed, stood face to face with Holiness and hung its head while putting up its lame defense; then Holiness withdrew and man was driven forth to die. The gift of life and happiness, misused, the Giver took back the gift, and left the sinner to his fate. Sent forth outside the gates of Paradise, God came no more to meet with man, and man, in contact daily with his sin lost his fine sense of righteousness, and, as time passed on, prostrated himself to stocks and stones and creeping things. The Holy One withdrawn, the inner heart-need being unfed, man must needs bow himself to some meaner thing, and sink himself to lower depths in the defiling slime of sin. Throughout the corrupted years until Abraham came from Ur, in answer to God's call, little added light was given. Enoch spake of recompense for ungodly men (Jude 15). Noah warned a wicked world, but little heed was given! The light which nature gave bore witness to Eternal Power and Deity (Rom.1.20) but rebellious men gave it no ear. They preferred the ways of sin, and man, made subject to demoniac power, sank down into corruption's deeper depths. Yet though the whole world was thus steeped in sin, increasing every day, vile cities arising on every side, God told the faithful pilgrim (who, leaving Chaldea's idol-serving land, came to sojourn with Canaan's polluted hosts, that), spite of all the sinful filth, He purposed yet to bless and win the hearts of men. God told that Pilgrim Father that all that he desired to do, He surely could perform, "I am the Almighty God...I will...I will...I WILL…" (Gen.17.1-8). So spake the Most High God to that worthy man. His theme was "power"—Almighty Power to carry out His Sovereign Will. Two thousand years had passed; throughout them all God had maintained the severity of His law. No tender message came from God until He told this chosen man He had a plan to bless the world and power to see it through; and let us note God did not point out and stress the fact or heinousness of sin to that good man. Apart from one grim day when Almighty God came down to burn the cities of the plain, He made no reference to sin in any of His talks with Abraham. At no time throughout his life did Abraham learn from God's own lips that He was a holy God! Of beneficence and ability he truly heard, but not one note of that deeper chord which vibrated in the heart of God. God told him what He proposed "to do", but spake no word concerning what He truly "was". God told him of the "outflow", but did not describe the "spring" from whence the beneficent stream should flow. The part which holiness must play in purifying the world from sin was left unrevealed. That God would Himself provide a sacrifice was shadowed forth when that worthy sire, with uplifted hand, stood near to slay His son; but the weighty reason WHY God should provide that Lamb went undisclosed. More centuries still passed away before much further revelation came. A shepherd was tending desert flocks when mysteriously a bush began to burn. The bush remaining unconsumed, the man drew himself aside to see the sight. "Take off thy shoes...the ground...is holy ground", sounds forth a voice (Exod.3.1-6). Here a new theme breaks forth, a theme unheard before in Holy Writ since Eden days (so far as records go). No man since Adam sinned had heard that word from God until this momentous day; but from that day and through that man this word, with an increasing range of thought, was always to the fore. The idea of holiness was set forth anew, that man might again begin to learn how high and lofty are the heights of virtue and purity which have their source before fallen men, and so, in many ways, by various means, God took such as had desire to learn into His newly-formed school. How strange (and yet not strange) to find the lesson had not changed from those far pre-human days, when erring spirits were cast forth from the presence of the Eternal Light! Nor has it changed from Eden days when man was forced by cherub sword to quit his paradise. The holy God and the unholy participant in sin must separate from each other, must draw apart and dwell apart. But now it comes about in order to accomplish His great design that God would separate unworthy men from their unworthier kind, and fit them to become the means whereby the Holiest of all could reach right down to grasp the unworthiest of all. The lesson for the scholar in God's school was this‑"Come ye apart from them and walk with Me, and let Me make of you the channel of my Love. Come, let Me teach you the exceeding sinfulness of sin, and when you have looked into those black depths beneath then let me teach you to look up to Me, and see in Me the radiant heights of unchanging holiness". But not for all in that far day was this far-reaching lesson set. To none but Abraham's lineal seed was the offer made. To other peoples the Holy God still dwelt in darkness and afar. Though those vile "cities of the plain" would have repented of their sin had opportunity knocked, the "Most High" passed them by. They were not of the chosen seed. Nor yet to Egypt's people came the call, for they also were outside the pale. Sin's utter darkness hid Him from their sight. To none save Abraham's seed, and for their faithful father's sake (Deut.7.8, Deut.10.15) God sent the call to come apart and dwell with Him. God came not fully from the dark, it was too soon for that. He came into a twilight world of shadow and type. God came to meet this chosen seed to make known to them the A. B. C. of Holiness Divine. He came - shall we say - part-way to meet them, to call them to His feet, but in their turn they too must make efforts to "draw near" to the Holy One who came to dwell in Israel. This then is the great fact we have to learn, that the Most Holy God, Who perforce had separated Himself from sin, and had separated sinners from Himself, now sought to bridge the gulf between the exalted heights of Holiness and the depraved depths of sin by separating unworthy men from their unworthier kin, and helping them to learn His Laws, that thus, through his favoured Seed, the whole company of the nations might be blessed. Separation! separation! separation!!! that and that alone is the A.B.C. of the lesson even we must learn, if we would know, and walk with Him whose voice has said, "Be ye holy...for I am holy". TH |
