Holiness and Heaven.
'Seeing that all these things shall be dissolved, what manner of
men ought ye to be in all _holy_ living and godliness?'--2 Pet.
iii. 11.
'Follow after _the sanctification_ without which no man shall see
the Lord.'--Heb. xii. 14.
'He that is _holy_, let him be made _holy_ still.... The grace of
the Lord Jesus be with the _holy ones_. Amen.'--Rev. xxii. 11, 21.
O my brother, we are on our way to see God. We have been invited to meet
the Holy One face to face. The infinite mystery of holiness, the glory
of the Invisible God, before which the seraphim veil their faces, is to
be unveiled, to be revealed to us. And that not as a thing we are to
look upon and to study. But we are to see the Thrice Holy One, the
Living God Himself. God, the Holy One, will show Himself to us: we are
to see God. Oh, the infinite grace, the inconceivable blessedness! we
are to see God.
We are to see God, the Holy One. And all our schooling here in the life
of holiness is simply the preparation for that meeting and that vision.
'Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.' 'Follow after
the sanctification, without which no man shall see the Lord.' Since the
time when God said to Israel, 'Be ye holy, as I am holy,' Holiness was
revealed as the only meeting-place between God and His people. To be
holy was to be the common ground on which they were to stand with Him;
the one attribute in which they were to be like God; the one thing that
was to prepare them for the glorious time when He would no longer need
to keep them away, but would admit them to the full fellowship of His
glory, to have the word fulfilled in them: 'He that is holy, let him be
made yet more holy.'
In his second epistle, Peter reminds believers that the coming of the
day of the Lord is to be preceded and accompanied by the most tremendous
catastrophe--the dissolution of the heavens and the earth. He makes it a
plea with them to give diligence that they may be found without spot and
blameless in His sight. And he asks them to think and say, under the
deep sense of what the coming of the day of God would be and would
bring, what the life of those ought to be who look for such things:
'What manner of person ought ye to be in all holy living and godliness?'
Holiness must be its one, its universal characteristic. At the close of
our meditations on God's call to Holiness, we may take Peter's question,
and in the light of all that God has revealed of His Holiness, and all
that waits still to be revealed, ask ourselves, 'What manner of men
ought we to be in all holy living and godliness?'
Note first the meaning of the question. In the original Greek, the words
living and godliness are plural. Alford says, '_In holy behaviours and
pieties_; the plurals mark the holy behaviour and piety _in all its
forms and examples_.' Peter would plead for a life of holiness pervading
the whole man: our behaviours towards men, and our pieties towards God.
True holiness cannot be found in anything less. Holiness must be the
one, the universal characteristic of our Christian life. In God we have
seen that holiness is the central attribute, the comprehensive
expression for Divine perfection, the attribute of all the attributes,
the all-including epithet by which He Himself, as Redeemer and Father,
His Son and His Spirit, His Day, His House, His Law, His Servants, His
People, His Name, are marked and known. Always and in everything, in
Judgment as in Mercy, in His Exaltation and His Condescension, in His
Hiddenness and His Revelation, always and in everything, God is the Holy
One. And the Word would teach us that the reign of Holiness, to be true
and pleasing to God, must be supreme, must be in all holy living and
godliness. There must not be a moment of the day, nor a relation in
life; there must be nothing in the outer conduct, nor in the inmost
recesses of the heart; there must be nothing belonging to us, whether
in worship or in business, that is not holy. The Holiness of Jesus, the
Holiness which comes of the Spirit's anointing, must cover and pervade
all. Nothing, nothing may be excluded, if we are to be holy; it must be
as Peter said when he spoke of God's call--holy in all manner of living;
it must be as he says here--'in all holy living and godliness.' To use
the significant language of the Holy Spirit: Everything must be done,
'worthily of the holy ones,' 'as becometh holy ones' (Rom. xvi. 3; Eph.
v. 3).
Note, too, the force of the question. Peter says, 'Wherefore, beloved,
seeing that ye look for these things.' Yes, let us think what that
means. We have been studying, down through the course of Revelation,
the wondrous grace and patience with which God has made known and made
partaker of His holiness, all in preparation for what is to come. We
have heard God, the Holy One, calling us, pleading with us, commanding
us to be holy, as He is holy. And we expect to meet Him, and to dwell
through eternity in His Light, holy as He is holy. It is not a dream; it
is a living reality; we are looking forward to it, as the only one thing
that makes life worth living. We are looking forward to Love to welcome
us, as with the confidence of childlike love we come as His holy ones to
cry, Holy Father!
We have learnt to know Jesus, the Holy One of God, our Sanctification.
We are living in Him, day by day, as those who are holy in Christ Jesus.
We are drawing on His Holiness without ceasing. We are walking in that
will of God which He did, and which He enables us to do. And we are
looking forward to meet Him with great joy, 'when He shall come to be
glorified in the holy ones, and to be admired in all them that believe.'
We have within us the Holy Spirit, the Holiness of God in Christ come
down to be at home within us, as the earnest of our inheritance. He, the
Spirit of Holiness, is secretly transforming us within, sanctifying our
spirit, soul, and body, to be blameless at His coming, and making us
meet for the inheritance of the holy ones in light. We are looking
forward to the time when He shall have completed His work, when the body
of Christ shall be perfected, and the bride, all filled and streaming
with the life and glory of the Spirit within her, shall be set with Him
on His throne, even as He sat with the Father on His throne. We hope
through eternity to worship and adore the mystery of the Thrice Holy
One. Even here it fills our souls with trembling joy and wonder: when
God's work of making holy is complete, how we shall join in the song,
'Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty, which wast, and art, and art to
come!'
In preparation for all this the most wonderful events are to take place.
The Lord Jesus Himself is to appear, the power of sin and the world is
to be destroyed; this visible system of things is to be broken up; the
power of the Spirit is to triumph through all creation; there is to be a
new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. And holiness
is then to be unfolded in ever-growing blessedness and glory in the
fellowship of the Thrice Holy: 'He that is holy, let him be holy yet
more.' Surely it but needs the question to be put for each believer to
feel and acknowledge its force: 'Wherefore, beloved, seeing that ye look
for these things, what manner of men ought ye to be in all holy living
and godliness?'
And note now the need and the point of the question. 'What manner of
persons ought ye to be?' But is such a question needed? Can it be that
God's holy ones, made holy in Christ Jesus, with the very spirit of
holiness dwelling with them, on the way to meet the Holy One in His
Glory and Love, can it be that they need the question? Alas! alas! it
was so in the time of Peter; it is but too much so in our days too.
Alas! how many Christians there are to whom the very word Holy, though
it be the name by which the Father, in His New Testament, loves to call
His children more than any other, is strange and unintelligible. And
again, alas! for how many Christians there are for whom, when the word
is heard, it has but little attraction, because it has never yet been
shown to them as a life that is indeed possible, and unutterably
blessed. And yet again, alas! for how many are there not, even workers
in the Master's service, to whom the 'all holy living and godliness' is
yet a secret and a burden, because they have not yet consented to give
up all, both their will and their work, for the Holy One to take and
fill with His Holy Spirit. And yet once more, alas! as the cry comes,
even from those who do know the power of a holy life, lamenting their
unfaithfulness and unbelief, as they see how much richer their entrance
into the Holy Life might have been, and how much fuller the blessing
they still feel so feeble to communicate to others. Oh, the question is
needed! Shall not each of us take it, and keep it, and answer it by the
Holy Spirit through whom it came, and then pass it on to our brethren,
that we and they may help each other in faith, and live in joy and hope
to give the answer our God would have?
'Seeing that these things are, then, all to be dissolved, what manner of
persons ought we to be in all holy living and godliness?' Brethren! the
time is short. The world is passing away. The heathen are perishing.
Christians are sleeping. Satan is active and mighty. God's holy ones are
the hope of the Church and the world. It is they their Lord can use.
'What manner of persons shall we be in all holy living and godliness!'
Shall we not seek to be such as the Father commands, 'Holy, as He is
holy'? Shall we not yield ourselves afresh and undividedly to Him who is
our Sanctification, and to His Blessed Spirit, to make us holy in all
behaviours and pieties? Oh! shall we not, in thought of the love of our
Lord Jesus, in thought of the coming glory, in view of the coming end,
of the need of the Church and the world, give ourselves to be holy as He
is holy, that we may have power to bless each believer we meet with the
message of what God will do, and that in concert with them we may be a
light and a blessing to this perishing world?
I close with the closing words of God's Blessed Book, 'He which
testifieth these things saith, Yea, I come quickly. Amen: Come, Lord
Jesus. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with the holy ones. Amen.'