Holiness and Humility.
'Thus saith the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose
name is _Holy_: I dwell in the High and _Holy_ place, with him
that is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of
the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.'--Isa.
lvii. 15.
Very wonderful is the revelation we have in Isaiah of God, the Holy One,
as the Redeemer and the Saviour of His people. In the midst of the
people whom He created and formed for Himself, He will as the Holy One
dwell, showing forth His power and His glory, filling them with joy and
gladness. All these promises have, however, reference to the people as a
whole. Our text to-day reveals a new and specially beautiful feature of
the Divine Holiness in its relation to the individual. The High and
Lofty One, whose name is Holy, and whose only fit dwelling-place is
eternity, He looks to the man who is of a humble and contrite heart;
with him will He dwell. God's Holiness is His condescending Love. As it
is a consuming fire against all who exalt themselves before Him, it is
to the spirit of the humble like the shining of the sun, heart-reviving
and life-giving.
The deep significance of this promise comes out clearly when we connect
it with the other promises of New Testament times. The great feature of
the New Covenant, in its superiority to the old, is this, that whereas
in the law and its institution all was external, in the New the kingdom
of God would be within. God's laws given and written into the heart, a
new spirit put within us, God's own Spirit given to dwell within our
spirit, and so the heart and the inner life fitted to be the temple and
home of God; it is this constitutes the peculiar privilege of the
ministration of the Spirit. Our text is perhaps the only one in the Old
Testament in which this indwelling of the Holy One, not among the people
only, but in the heart of the individual believer, is clearly brought
out. In this the two aspects of the Divine Holiness would reach their
full manifestation: I dwell in the High and Holy place, and with him
also that is of a contrite and humble spirit. In His heaven above, the
high and lofty place, and in our heart, contrite and humble, God has His
home. God's Holiness is His glory that separates Him by an infinite
distance, not only from sin, but even from the creature, lifting Him
high above it. God's Holiness is His Love, drawing Him down to the
sinner, that He may lift him into His fellowship and likeness, and make
him holy as He is holy. The Holy One seeks the humble; the humble find
the Holy One: such are the two lessons we have to learn to-day.
_The Holy One seeks the humble._ There is nothing that has such an
attraction for God, that has such affinity with holiness, as a contrite
and humble spirit. The reason is evident. There is no law in the natural
and the spiritual world more simple, than that two bodies cannot at the
same moment occupy the same space. Only so much as the new occupant can
expel of what the space was filled with can it really possess. In man,
self has possession, and self-will the mastery, and there is no room for
God. It is simply impossible for God to dwell or rule when self is on
the throne. As long as, through the blinding influence of sin and
self-love, even the believer is not truly conscious of the extent to
which this self-will reigns, there can be no true contrition or
humility. But as it is discovered by God's Spirit, and the soul sees how
it has just been self that has been secretly keeping out God, with what
shame it is broken down, and how it longs to break utterly away from
self, that God may have His place! It is this brokenness, and continued
breaking down, that is expressed by the word contrition. And as the soul
sees what folly and guilt it has been, by its secret honouring of self,
to keep the Holy One from the place which He alone has a right to, and
which He would so blessedly have filled, it casts itself down in utter
self-abasement, with the one desire to be nothing, and to give God the
place and the praise that is His due.
Such breaking down and humiliation is painful. Its intense reality
consists in this, that the soul can see nothing in itself to trust or
hope in. And least of all can it imagine that it should be an object of
Divine complacency, or a fit vessel for the Divine blessing. And yet
just this is the message which the Word of the Lord brings to our faith.
It tells us that the Holy One, who dwells in the High and Lofty place,
is seeking and preparing for Himself a dwelling here on this earth. It
tells us, just what the truly contrite and humble never could imagine,
and even now can hardly believe, that it is even, that it is only, with
such that He will dwell. These are they in whom God can be glorified, in
whom there is room for Him to take the place of self and to fill the
emptied place with Himself. The Holy One seeks the humble. Just when we
see that there is nothing in us to admire or rest in, God sees in us
everything to admire and to rest in, because there is room for Himself.
The lowly one is the home of the Holy One.
_The humble find the Holy One._ Just when the consciousness of sin and
weakness, and the discovery of how much of self there is, makes you fear
that you can never be holy, the Holy One gives Himself. Not as you look
at self, and seek to know whether now you are contrite and humble
enough--no, but when no longer looking at self, because you have given
up all hope of seeing anything in it but sin, you look up to the Holy
One, you will see how His promise is your only hope. It is in faith
that the Holy One is revealed to the contrite soul. Faith is ever the
opposite of what we see and feel; it looks to God alone. And it believes
that in its deepest consciousness of unholiness, and its fear that it
never can be holy, God, the Holy One, who makes holy, is near as
Redeemer and Saviour. And it is content to be low, in the consciousness
of unworthiness and emptiness, and yet to rejoice in the assurance that
God Himself does take possession and revive the heart of the contrite
one. Happy the soul who is willing at once to learn the lesson that, all
along, it is going to be the simultaneous experience of weakness and
power, of emptiness and filling, of deep, real humiliation, and the as
real and most wonderful indwelling of the Holy One.
This is indeed the deep mystery of the Divine life. To human reason it
is a paradox. When Paul says of himself, 'as dying, and behold we live;
as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as having nothing, yet possessing
all things,' he only gives expression to the law of the kingdom, that as
self is displaced and man becomes nothing, God will become all. Side by
side with deepest sense of nothingness and weakness, the sense of
infinite riches and the joy unspeakable can fill the heart. However deep
and blessed the experience becomes of the nearness, the blessing, the
love, the actual indwelling of the Holy One, it is never an indwelling
in the old self; it is ever a Divine Presence humbling self to make
place for God alone to be exalted. The power of Christ's death, the
fellowship of His cross, works each moment side by side with the power
and the joy of His resurrection. 'He that humbleth himself shall be
exalted;' in the blessed life of faith the humiliation and the
exaltation are simultaneous, each dependent on the other.
The humble find the Holy One; and when they have found, the possession
only humbles all the more. Not that there is no danger or temptation of
the flesh exalting itself in the possession, but, once knowing the
danger, the humble soul seeks for grace to fear continually, with a fear
that only clings more firmly to God alone. Never for a moment imagine
that you attain a state in which self or the flesh are absolutely dead.
No; by faith you enter into and abide in a fellowship with Jesus, in
whom they are crucified; abiding in Him, you are free from their power,
but only as you believe, and, in believing, have gone out of self and
dwell in Jesus. Therefore, the more abundant God's grace becomes, and
the more blessed the indwelling of the Holy One, keep so much the lower.
Your danger is greater, but your Help is now nearer: be content in
trembling to confess the danger, it will make you bold in faith to claim
the victory.
Believers, who profess to be nothing, and to trust in grace alone, I
pray you, do listen to the wondrous message. The High and Lofty One,
whose name is Holy, and who dwells in the Holy Place, and who can dwell
nowhere but in a Holy Place, seeks a dwelling here on earth. Will you
give it Him? Will you not fall down in the dust, that He may find in
you the humble heart He loves to dwell in? Will you not now believe that
even in you, however low and broken you feel, He doth delight to make
His dwelling? 'Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the
Kingdom;' with them the King dwells. Oh, this is the path to holiness!
be humble, and the holy nearness and presence of God in you will be your
holiness. As you hear the command, Be holy, as I am holy, let faith
claim the promise, and answer, I will be holy, O Most Holy God! if Thou,
the Holy One, wilt dwell with me.