Yes, I have changed the theme again. I am working with a few things with the blog’s form and design, but will need to work with it over time. So for now, this theme will do. I think I have all the necessary elements in the correct places. So now we can write.
“As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, ‘You shall be holy for I Am Holy.'” 1 Peter 1:14-16 NASB
I want to continue the “holy” theme for just a bit today. In the last post I worked with how the meaning for the word “holy” in the New Testament is different from the Hebrew meaning in the Old Testament. The NT meaning being “set-apart” while the OT meaning carries more of the meaning we normally attribute to the word, reverence, character, purity, awesomeness etc…. So since the passage in 1st Peter quotes from the OT (Lev. 11:44; 19:2; 20:7) the inclusion of these thoughts here are appropriate.
However, we are new covenant, born-from-above people and therefore we need to always interpret the Old through eyes of the New. In the New, we have been given that new heart and new Spirit prophesied in Jeremiah 31:31ff. We are the empowered sons of Almighty God sent into the world to bring freedom’s story of redemption to every person. We have been gifted with Him and the grace that is the normal climate for family of God.
So as we look into the Old, we can, of course receive its truths about “holy,” but need to also see ourselves included there and not excluded. The Lord is high and lifted up in His temple, and we are that temple. So He makes us a part of His own. We are not looking up or out or to something that has not included us.
We have become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21) through the complete work of our Lord Jesus. No longer helpless in our flesh, He abides within to make all of Heaven real to us. Therefore, we are in this age to identify with Him and His attributes. He has done the work. Now in obedience we flow in Him.
Mannaword 