Exegetical Thoughts and Biblical Theology

Last Sunday I shared a SS lesson with the combined Adult and Young Adult classes at Burlington Bible Methodist Church. I attempted to answer three questions: 1. What does it mean for God to sanctify Himself (Ezek. 38:23)? 2. What does it mean for us to sanctify God? 3. How do the answers to the first two questions relate to the first petition of the Lord's pattern prayer, "Hallowed by thy name?" In this post I share my answer to the first question. As I journeyed through all the OT texts on holiness, I was struck by the following verses. Isaiah 5:16 But the LORD of hosts will be exalted in judgment, And the holy God will be sanctified in righteousness. Ezekiel 20:41 "As a soothing aroma I will accept you when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you from the lands where you are scattered; and I will be sanctified among you in the sight of the nations. Ezekiel 28:22 and say, 'Thus says the Lord GOD, "Behold, I am against you, O Sidon, And I will be...

Jonathan Edward's The Religious Affections , John Piper's lecture on Preaching as Worship ( TrinJ 16) and my study of holiness in the OT converged in a sermon this morning on Psalm 97. I've been listening to The Religious Affections in spare moments for nearly a year. At times it is brilliant. At others monotonously stuporific. His thesis is that true religion, in great part, consists in holy affections . His biblical-theological support for his thesis is unassailable. (Pdf copy of Religious Affections here .) Edwards defines the affections as " the more vigorous and sensible exercises of the inclinations and the will ." He clarifies this by noting that the inclinations and the will are actually the same thing, just viewed from two different perspectives. It is called "inclination" when viewed from the angle of desire; it is called "will" when viewed from the angle of decision and action. Edwards asserts, rightly I believe, that " there ...

Rudolph Otto was a German Protestant theologian and historian of religion. In 1923 the first English translation of his German work The Idea of the Holy appeared. It has become, as Victor P. Hamilton’s says, “one of the books most frequently referred to in this area [holiness].” I was reading Hamilton's Handbook on the Pentateuch today, and he referenced Otto. In fact, Otto was the only author he referenced in his discussion of holiness in Genesis 1-2 (short paragraph). Frankly, I’m weary of references to this book in contexts where the biblical meaning of holiness is discussed. Scholars regularly pay lip service to it as though it constitutes a signal contribution to our knowledge of God's holiness. Admittedly, Hamilton notes that “Otto does not address … the fact that God’s holiness gives the basis to his moral demands.” But the fact that his is the only work referenced by Hamilton suggests he is significant and worth reading. Today I looked up on the book on Google books a...

I find it a very common practice by theologians to insist upon beginning with God when defining holiness. With the resurgence of trinitarian theology, the focus has been on beginning with God’s trinitarian nature and relationships as the matrix for holiness. Some have gone so far as to assert that if one’s definition of holiness does not work within the Trinity before creation it is incorrect. Logically, it makes sense to begin with God. Clearly, God is holy (Exod. 15:11). He is incomparable in holiness (Isa. 40:25). What interests me is that God does not start our understanding of holiness where theologians think He should. (Who knows where He started Adam’s?!) If we take the canonical order of the Torah as His chosen starting point for preserving His revelation for our understanding, then God starts teaching us about holiness with non-personal items: a day, some dirt, and an assembly. A holy day In Gen. 2:3 God makes the seventh day holy because in it He rested from all his labors. ...

In He Gave Us Stories Richard L. Pratt calls the OT text a three-fold looking glass: a translucent window that opens upon events in the ancient world, a stained-glass window that presents a highly selective, ideologically focused drama, and a silvered mirror which shows us ourselves in others' garb. Pratt’s metaphor deserves the biblical theologian’s regular meditation. Most of us easily forget Scripture’s stained-glass nature and think only of it as a transparent pane, however circumscribed, for viewing God’s Kingdom plan unfolding step by step, phase by phase. Such forgetfulness leads to serious exegetical error. First, we think that because the text does not say the ancients knew something, therefore they did not know it. This is a conclusion unreasonable and unsustainable. The NT off-handedly attributes knowledge to OT characters of which there is not the slightest hint in the Hebrew Scriptures. For example, Jude tells us that Enoch prophesied Yahweh’s coming in judgment with...

I just finished, last night, a journey through every OT text that has any of the cognate Hebrew terms for holiness. There are 823 instances of the following cognates: the verb q-d-sh , the noun qodesh , and the adjectives qadosh and qadesh . I’ve been on the journey off and on for about a month. Three things prompted my study. First, my SS class asked for a study on holiness and its related topics. Second, Dad and I have been discussing the nature of God’s holiness for a couple months. Third, in his book Portraits of God , Allan Coppedge asserts, “A survey of the data indicates that the meaning of holiness has six major components. They [are] the concepts of separation, brilliance, righteousness, love, power and goodness” (p. 51). My previous studies of the concept of holiness had lead me to conclude that holiness at its essence is separateness. When applied to human persons, it is separation unto God from the common and ordinary as well as the sinful and defiling. When applied to God ...

I was recently asked, “Do degrees of holiness here on earth result in degrees of reward in Heaven?” The question assumes there are degrees of holiness. Is that true? When we consult the OT, we see degrees of holiness in the tabernacle. The courtyard and all its equipment were holy, the “holy place” was more holy than the surrounding tabernacle, and the holy of holies was the most holy of all. Are there degrees of holiness in people ? When we are saved we are made holy (1 Cor. 1:2). This holiness is real, but it is limited. It has not been integrated into every facet of our thoughts and behavior. Thus, it is often the case that new believers who are holy, act unwittingly in unholy ways. The Corinthians are a classic example (1 Cor. 1:2; 3:1-3). The more our minds are transformed to think as God thinks, the more holy our lives become (cf. 2 Cor. 7:1). Holy living flows from holy thinking that is motivated by love for God. About five year ago I read A Life God Rewards by Bruce Wilkinson. ...