When I first discovered the idea that holy means whole, I was a bit startled by its seeming novelty. I had never heard the idea before November 2004. That was until I researched the way the word for holy was translated in the King James Version, using Strong’s Concordance. There showed up the translation of the original for holy as wholly. This was what originally initiated my search. Since then, I have discovered that the idea was not novel, but forgotten.
Somehow the far right, the far left and the mushy middle forgot to pass it on to those of us who were born in the twentieth century. I’ve been asked how this could have happened or did happen. I think I can now venture a good idea as to how this happened. But before I say how it happened, I think it is important to point out that it happened for both unintended and intended reasons.
Sometimes crisis events prevail over accurate definitions. In the late 1800s, there are two crisis events that in turn changed the definition of holy. The first was a quest for clarity and a scientific basis for the meaning of biblical words. The second was a response to the quest to be clear and scientific.
I have to simplify the story, so I will make it about just two historical characters. The first is Julius Wellhausen. The second is Charles Haddon Spurgeon. Both are villains and heroes, depending on who you talk to and who knows who they are. Wellhausen is sometimes credited with first establishing credibility for the critical study of the Bible. Spurgeon is sometimes credited with first establishing a beachhead in response to critical study. Let’s live with these oversimplifications for our purposes.
Wellhausen had a pretty significant event in his life, when he had a falling out with his theological mentor, Ewald. From the climate of that time in Germany, there was a strong emphasis on being scientific. One had to have clear ideas in order for something to possess intelligence, to paraphrase Wellhausen. He did not find that in Ewald’s approach to the Bible.
Further, Wellhausen’s efforts had to be objective in order to be scientific. Part of this, was the conviction that a person must study, not just Hebrew religion and Christian religion, but also the other religions of the Ancient Near Eastern world. In this way, by demonstrating objectivity in at least initially treating all religions in that time and place as equals, one could establish credibility in the scientific realm.
Yet the implications were greater than that, because with this objectivity, there also was a belief that there might be themes that all religions held in common. One of those themes was believed to be a distinction between the taboo items of life and the ordinary items of life. Taboo things were things restricted to the sacred and the ordinary things were the common items of everyday life. The idea of holy in Judaism and Christianity supposedly were restricted by taboo and therefore sacred. They were set apart. The profane were the things not under restriction and therefore secular.
Being scientific about the meaning of holy in the original writings is a little more complicated than it is with many words. Some have what is called a clear etymology or a clear line from one word to another that helps us determine its meaning. For holy this is controversial rather than clear. This is the admission of every serious scholar. So into this vacuum stepped the insight of what was discovered in other religions, that there are items which are taboo or set apart and that there are items which are profane or common. So much for one part of our story. This is the root story for the far left side of the tracks.
Spurgeon’s efforts had to have credibility as well. He was not opposed to being objective, but he questioned some of the objectivity of Wellhausen and others, who felt comfortable with some critical views on Scripture that Spurgeon could not agree was objective. This came to a head, while he was part of what was called the Baptist Union.
Spurgeon ended up leaving the Baptist Union, following his accusation that some of its members were on a downgrade path in regard to Scripture. So the controversy became known as the Downgrade Controversy. Spurgeon’s favorite call to others of like mind was to “come out and be separate.”
This battle cry from the midst of a crisis, appears to have replaced Spurgeon’s earlier definition of holiness as wholeness. As he says in one of his sermons about holiness means wholeness, “as I have said many times.” Instead, following the controversy and even more his death not many years after, the definition for holiness took on the idea of “be separate.” So much for another part of this story. This is a root story for the far right side of the tracks.
The evangelicals at this time, were regarded by people like Spurgeon as weaker comrades in the battle against any kind of downgrade. The movement on the issue of holiness seems to have tried to steer a middle course in this controversy. It seems to have contributed very little, except perhaps wedding the idea of set apart to that of be separate. That was their so-called weaker course of peace. They later appeared more comfortable with the pursuit of being scientific in the twentieth century. So much for the final part of this story. This is a root story for the evangelical middle of the tracks.
What was lost in all of these movements and events was that the meaning of holy shifted. It shifted from primarily meaning whole according to Luther, Calvin (see later Jonathan Edwards), (Richard) Hooker, Wesley?? (see his favorite commentator, John Bengel), and Spurgeon. They did also recognize a secondary meaning of separate.
It did not matter whether losing the idea of whole as the primary definition was intentional or not. It got lost and forgotten. I want to recover our forgotten ways.
A forgotten idea may seem novel, until it is realized it was forgotten. It is no longer totally new when it is in fact old. If you want to see the tip of the iceberg of what was lost, please see my earlier posts, especially the oldest. We badly need renewal. A movement with ties to the past (re=again), with ties to the present (new) and ties to the future (al=for all of time). We need to continue improvements, yet we need the past too.
In Christ,
Pastor Jon
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Holy Means Whole: According to Andrew Murray, Part II
Here is the other part from Murray that I could not wait to get out on the internet. It reads in part:
Note C (p. 208)
The Holiness of God
There is not a word so exclusively scriptural, so distinctly divine, as the word holy in its revelation and its meaning. As a consequence of this divine origin, it is a word of inexhaustible significance. There is not one of the attributes of God which theologians have found so hard to define, or concerning which they differ so much. A short survey of the various views that have been taken may teach us how little the idea of the divine Holiness can be comprehended or exhausted by human definition, and how it is only in the life of fellowship and adoration that the holiness which passes all understanding can, as a truth and a reality, be apprehended.
1. The most external view, in which the ethical was very much lost sight of, is that in which holiness is identified with God’s separateness from creation, and elevation above it. Holiness was defined as the incomparable glory of God, his exclusive adorableness, his infinite majesty. Sufficient attention was not paid to the fact that though all these thoughts are closely connected with God’s Holiness, they are but a formal definition of the results and surroundings of the Holiness, but do not lead jus to the apprehension of that wherein its real essence consists.
2. Another view [from #1], which also commences from the external, and makes that the basis of its interpretation, regards holiness as simply an expression of a relation. Because what was set apart for God’s service was called holy, the idea of separation, of consecration, of ownership, is taken as the starting-point. And so, because we are said to be holy, as belonging to God, God is holy as claiming us and belonging to us too. Instead of regarding holiness as a positive reality in the divine nature, from which our holiness is to be derived, our holiness is made the starting-point for expounding the Holiness of God. `God is holy as being, within the covenant, not only the Proprietor, but the Property of his people, their highest good and their only rule’ (Diestel). Of this view mention has already been made in the note to Sixth Day on Holiness as Proprietorship.
3. Passing over [from #2] to the views of those who regard holiness as being a moral attribute, the most common one is that of purity, freedom from sin. `Holiness is a general term for the moral excellence of God. There is none holy as the Lord: no other being absolutely pure and free from all limitations in his moral perfection. Holiness, on the one hand, implies entire freedom from moral evil, upon the other, absolute moral perfection’ (Hodge, Systematic Theology). The idea of holiness as the infinite purity which is free from all sin, which hates and punishes hit, is what in conception is the most prominent idea. The negative stands more in the foreground than the positive. The view has its truth and its value from the fact that in our sinful state the first impression the Holiness of God must make is that of fear and dread in the consciousness of our sinfulness and unholiness. But it does not tell us wherein his moral excellence or perfection of God really consists.
4. It is an advance on this view [#3] when the attempt is made to define what this perfection of God is. A thing is perfect when it is in everything as it ought to be. It is easy thus to define perfection, but not so easy to define what the perfection f any special object is: this needs the knowledge of what is nature is. And we have to rest content with very general terms defining God’s Holiness as the essential and absolute good. `Holiness is the free, deliberate, calm, and immutable affirmation of himself, who is goodness, or of goodness, which is himself’ (Godet on John 17:11). `Holiness is that attribute in virtue of which Jehovah makes himself the absolute standard of himself, of his being and revelation.’ [likely Godet again]
5. Closely allied to this [“#4] is the view that holiness is not so much an attribute, but the `whole complex of that which we are wont to look at and represent singly in the individual attributes of God.’ So [Johann] Bengel looked upon holiness as the divine nature, in which all the attributes are contained. In the same spirit Howe says of holiness as the divine beauty, the result of the perfect harmony of all the attributes., `Holiness is intellectual beauty. Divine holiness is the most perfect beauty, and the measure of all other. The divine Holiness is the most perfect pulchritude [def. physical beauty], the ineffable and immortal pulchritude, that cannot be declared by words, or seen by eyes. This may therefore be called a transcendental attribute that, as it were, runs through the rest, and casts a glory upon every one. It is an attribute of attributes. These are fit predications, holy power, holy love. And so it is the very luster and glory of his other perfections. He is glorious in holiness’ (Howe in Whyte’s Shorter Catechism). This was the aspect of divine Holiness on which Jonathan Edwards delighted to dwell. `The mutual love of the Father and the Son make the third, the personal Holy Spirit, or the Holiness of God, which is his infinite beauty.’ `By the communication of God’s Holiness the creature partakes of God’s moral excellence, which is perfection, the beauty of the divine nature.’ `Holiness comprehends all the true moral excellence of intelligent beings. So the Holiness of God is the same with the moral excellency of the divine nature, comprehending all his perfections, his righteousness, faithfulness and goodness. There are two kinds of attributes of God, according to our way of conceiving him: his moral attributes, which are summed up in his Holiness, and his natural, as strength, knowledge, etc., which constitute his greatness. Holy persons, in the exercise of holy affection, love God in the first place for the beauty of his Holiness.’ The holiness of n intelligent creature is that which gives beauty to all his natural perfections. And so it is in God: holiness is in a peculiar manner the beauty of holiness (Psalm 29:2; 96:9; 110:3). This renders all the other attributes glorious and lovely.’ `Therefore, if the true loveliness of God’s perfections arise from the loveliness of his Holiness, the true love of his perfections will arise from the love of his Holiness. And as the beauty of the divine nature primarily consists in God’s Holiness, so does the beauty of all divine things.’ [This is implied elsewhere to be Andrew Murray’s view also.]
6. In speaking of God’s Holiness as denoting the essential good, the absolute excellence of His nature, some press very strongly the ethical aspect. The good in God must not be from mere natural impulse only, flowing from the necessity of his nature, without being freely willed by himself. `What is naturally good is not the true realization of the good. The actual and living, will, to be the good he is m must also have its place in God, otherwise God would only be naturally ethical. Only in the will which consciously determines itself, is there the possibility given of the ethical. The ethical has such a power in God that his is the holy Power, who cannot and will not renounce himself, which must be, and would be thought to be, the holy necessity f the goodness which is himself – to be the Holy. The love of God is essentially holy; it desires and preserves the ethically necessary or holy, which God is’ (Dorner, System, Vol. I).
7. It was felt that in such views [#3-6] that there was not a sufficient acknowledgment of the truth that it is especially as the Holy One that God is called Redeemer., that that he does the work of love to make holy. This lead to the view that holiness and love are, if not identical, at least correlated expressions. `God is holy, exalted above all the praise of the creature in his incomparable praiseworthiness, on account of his free and loving condescension to the creature, to manifest in it the glory of his love.’ `God is holy, inasmuch as love in him has restrained and conquered the righteous wrath (as Hosea says, 11:9) and the judgment is exercised only after every way of mercy has been tried. This holiness is disclosed in the New Testament name, as exalted as it is condescending, of Father’ (Stier on John 17).
8. The large measure of truth in this view {#7] is met by an expression in which the true aspect os the Holiness of God are combined. It is defined as being the harmony of self-preservation and self-communication. As the Holy One, God hates sin, and seeks to destroy it. As the Holy One, he makes the sinner holy, and then takes him up into his love. In maintaining his love he never for a moment loses his divine purity and perfection in maintaining his righteousness. He still communicates himself to the fallen creature. Holiness is the divine glory, of which love and righteousness are the two sides, and which in their work on earth they reveal.
`Holiness is the self-preservation of God, whereby he keeps himself free from the world without him, and remains consistent with himself and faithful to his Being, and whereby he, with this view, creates a divine world that lives for himself alone in the organization of his Church’ (Lange).
`The Holiness of God is God’s self-preservation, or keeping to himself, in virtue of which he remains the same in all relationships which exist within his Deity, or into which he enters, never sacrifices what is divine, or admits what is not divine. But this is only one aspect. God’s Holiness would not be holiness, but exclusiveness, if it did not provide for God’s entering into manifold relations, and so revealing and communicating himself. Holiness is therefore the union and interpretation of God’s keeping to himself and communicating himself; of his nearness and his distance; of his exclusiveness and his self-revelation; of separateness and fellowship. ‘
`The divine Holiness is mainly seclusion from the impurity and sinfulness of the creature, or expressed positively, the cleanness and purity of the divine nature, which excludes all connection with the wicked. In harmony with this, the divine Holiness, as an attribute of revelation, is not merely an abstract power, but is the divine self-representation and self-testimony for the purpose of giving to the world the participation in the divine life’ (Oehler, Theology of the Old Testament 1:160).
`Opposition to sin is the first impression which man receives of God’s Holiness. Exclusion, election, cleansing, redemption – these are the four forms in which God’s Holiness appears in the sphere of humanity; and we may say that God’s Holiness signifies his opposition to sin manifesting itself in atonement and redemption, or in judgment. Or as holiness, so far as it is embodied in law, must be the highest moral perfection, we may say, “holiness is the purity of God manifesting itself in atonement and redemption, and correspondingly in judgment.” By this view all the above elements are done justice to; holiness asserts itself in judging righteousness, an in electing, purifying, and redeeming love, and thus it appears as the impelling and formative principle of the revelation of redemption, without a knowledge of which an understanding of the revelation is impossible, and by the perception of which it is seen in its full, clear light. God is light: this is a full and exhaustive New Testament phrase for God’s Holiness (1 John 1:5) (Cremer).
This view is brought out with special distinctness in the writings of J T Beck. `It is God’s Holiness which, taking the good which was given in creation in strict faithfulness to that good and perfect will of God, as the eternal life-purpose of love, in righteousness and mercy carried out to its completion in God himself to a life of perfection. God does this as the Alone Holy. In the world of sin divine love can only bring deliverance by a mediation in which it is reconciled to the divine wrath within their common centre, the Holiness of God, in such a way that while wrath manifests its destroying reality, love shall prove its restoring power in the life it gives’ (Beck, Lehrwissenschaft, 168, 547
…. [ a lot is left out here that will be added later, p,214a – p. 217a]
Careful reflection will show us that in each of the above views [#1-8] there is a measure of truth. It will convince us how the very difficulty of formulating to human thought the conception of divine Holiness proves that it is the highest expression for that ineffable and inconceivable glory of the divine Being which constitutes him the Infinite and Glorious God.
…. [217b continued]
This section is packed full of wheat and chaff. I will comment on it more later. But suffice to say, Murray did his homework.
In Christ,
Pastor Jon
Note C (p. 208)
The Holiness of God
There is not a word so exclusively scriptural, so distinctly divine, as the word holy in its revelation and its meaning. As a consequence of this divine origin, it is a word of inexhaustible significance. There is not one of the attributes of God which theologians have found so hard to define, or concerning which they differ so much. A short survey of the various views that have been taken may teach us how little the idea of the divine Holiness can be comprehended or exhausted by human definition, and how it is only in the life of fellowship and adoration that the holiness which passes all understanding can, as a truth and a reality, be apprehended.
1. The most external view, in which the ethical was very much lost sight of, is that in which holiness is identified with God’s separateness from creation, and elevation above it. Holiness was defined as the incomparable glory of God, his exclusive adorableness, his infinite majesty. Sufficient attention was not paid to the fact that though all these thoughts are closely connected with God’s Holiness, they are but a formal definition of the results and surroundings of the Holiness, but do not lead jus to the apprehension of that wherein its real essence consists.
2. Another view [from #1], which also commences from the external, and makes that the basis of its interpretation, regards holiness as simply an expression of a relation. Because what was set apart for God’s service was called holy, the idea of separation, of consecration, of ownership, is taken as the starting-point. And so, because we are said to be holy, as belonging to God, God is holy as claiming us and belonging to us too. Instead of regarding holiness as a positive reality in the divine nature, from which our holiness is to be derived, our holiness is made the starting-point for expounding the Holiness of God. `God is holy as being, within the covenant, not only the Proprietor, but the Property of his people, their highest good and their only rule’ (Diestel). Of this view mention has already been made in the note to Sixth Day on Holiness as Proprietorship.
3. Passing over [from #2] to the views of those who regard holiness as being a moral attribute, the most common one is that of purity, freedom from sin. `Holiness is a general term for the moral excellence of God. There is none holy as the Lord: no other being absolutely pure and free from all limitations in his moral perfection. Holiness, on the one hand, implies entire freedom from moral evil, upon the other, absolute moral perfection’ (Hodge, Systematic Theology). The idea of holiness as the infinite purity which is free from all sin, which hates and punishes hit, is what in conception is the most prominent idea. The negative stands more in the foreground than the positive. The view has its truth and its value from the fact that in our sinful state the first impression the Holiness of God must make is that of fear and dread in the consciousness of our sinfulness and unholiness. But it does not tell us wherein his moral excellence or perfection of God really consists.
4. It is an advance on this view [#3] when the attempt is made to define what this perfection of God is. A thing is perfect when it is in everything as it ought to be. It is easy thus to define perfection, but not so easy to define what the perfection f any special object is: this needs the knowledge of what is nature is. And we have to rest content with very general terms defining God’s Holiness as the essential and absolute good. `Holiness is the free, deliberate, calm, and immutable affirmation of himself, who is goodness, or of goodness, which is himself’ (Godet on John 17:11). `Holiness is that attribute in virtue of which Jehovah makes himself the absolute standard of himself, of his being and revelation.’ [likely Godet again]
5. Closely allied to this [“#4] is the view that holiness is not so much an attribute, but the `whole complex of that which we are wont to look at and represent singly in the individual attributes of God.’ So [Johann] Bengel looked upon holiness as the divine nature, in which all the attributes are contained. In the same spirit Howe says of holiness as the divine beauty, the result of the perfect harmony of all the attributes., `Holiness is intellectual beauty. Divine holiness is the most perfect beauty, and the measure of all other. The divine Holiness is the most perfect pulchritude [def. physical beauty], the ineffable and immortal pulchritude, that cannot be declared by words, or seen by eyes. This may therefore be called a transcendental attribute that, as it were, runs through the rest, and casts a glory upon every one. It is an attribute of attributes. These are fit predications, holy power, holy love. And so it is the very luster and glory of his other perfections. He is glorious in holiness’ (Howe in Whyte’s Shorter Catechism). This was the aspect of divine Holiness on which Jonathan Edwards delighted to dwell. `The mutual love of the Father and the Son make the third, the personal Holy Spirit, or the Holiness of God, which is his infinite beauty.’ `By the communication of God’s Holiness the creature partakes of God’s moral excellence, which is perfection, the beauty of the divine nature.’ `Holiness comprehends all the true moral excellence of intelligent beings. So the Holiness of God is the same with the moral excellency of the divine nature, comprehending all his perfections, his righteousness, faithfulness and goodness. There are two kinds of attributes of God, according to our way of conceiving him: his moral attributes, which are summed up in his Holiness, and his natural, as strength, knowledge, etc., which constitute his greatness. Holy persons, in the exercise of holy affection, love God in the first place for the beauty of his Holiness.’ The holiness of n intelligent creature is that which gives beauty to all his natural perfections. And so it is in God: holiness is in a peculiar manner the beauty of holiness (Psalm 29:2; 96:9; 110:3). This renders all the other attributes glorious and lovely.’ `Therefore, if the true loveliness of God’s perfections arise from the loveliness of his Holiness, the true love of his perfections will arise from the love of his Holiness. And as the beauty of the divine nature primarily consists in God’s Holiness, so does the beauty of all divine things.’ [This is implied elsewhere to be Andrew Murray’s view also.]
6. In speaking of God’s Holiness as denoting the essential good, the absolute excellence of His nature, some press very strongly the ethical aspect. The good in God must not be from mere natural impulse only, flowing from the necessity of his nature, without being freely willed by himself. `What is naturally good is not the true realization of the good. The actual and living, will, to be the good he is m must also have its place in God, otherwise God would only be naturally ethical. Only in the will which consciously determines itself, is there the possibility given of the ethical. The ethical has such a power in God that his is the holy Power, who cannot and will not renounce himself, which must be, and would be thought to be, the holy necessity f the goodness which is himself – to be the Holy. The love of God is essentially holy; it desires and preserves the ethically necessary or holy, which God is’ (Dorner, System, Vol. I).
7. It was felt that in such views [#3-6] that there was not a sufficient acknowledgment of the truth that it is especially as the Holy One that God is called Redeemer., that that he does the work of love to make holy. This lead to the view that holiness and love are, if not identical, at least correlated expressions. `God is holy, exalted above all the praise of the creature in his incomparable praiseworthiness, on account of his free and loving condescension to the creature, to manifest in it the glory of his love.’ `God is holy, inasmuch as love in him has restrained and conquered the righteous wrath (as Hosea says, 11:9) and the judgment is exercised only after every way of mercy has been tried. This holiness is disclosed in the New Testament name, as exalted as it is condescending, of Father’ (Stier on John 17).
8. The large measure of truth in this view {#7] is met by an expression in which the true aspect os the Holiness of God are combined. It is defined as being the harmony of self-preservation and self-communication. As the Holy One, God hates sin, and seeks to destroy it. As the Holy One, he makes the sinner holy, and then takes him up into his love. In maintaining his love he never for a moment loses his divine purity and perfection in maintaining his righteousness. He still communicates himself to the fallen creature. Holiness is the divine glory, of which love and righteousness are the two sides, and which in their work on earth they reveal.
`Holiness is the self-preservation of God, whereby he keeps himself free from the world without him, and remains consistent with himself and faithful to his Being, and whereby he, with this view, creates a divine world that lives for himself alone in the organization of his Church’ (Lange).
`The Holiness of God is God’s self-preservation, or keeping to himself, in virtue of which he remains the same in all relationships which exist within his Deity, or into which he enters, never sacrifices what is divine, or admits what is not divine. But this is only one aspect. God’s Holiness would not be holiness, but exclusiveness, if it did not provide for God’s entering into manifold relations, and so revealing and communicating himself. Holiness is therefore the union and interpretation of God’s keeping to himself and communicating himself; of his nearness and his distance; of his exclusiveness and his self-revelation; of separateness and fellowship. ‘
`The divine Holiness is mainly seclusion from the impurity and sinfulness of the creature, or expressed positively, the cleanness and purity of the divine nature, which excludes all connection with the wicked. In harmony with this, the divine Holiness, as an attribute of revelation, is not merely an abstract power, but is the divine self-representation and self-testimony for the purpose of giving to the world the participation in the divine life’ (Oehler, Theology of the Old Testament 1:160).
`Opposition to sin is the first impression which man receives of God’s Holiness. Exclusion, election, cleansing, redemption – these are the four forms in which God’s Holiness appears in the sphere of humanity; and we may say that God’s Holiness signifies his opposition to sin manifesting itself in atonement and redemption, or in judgment. Or as holiness, so far as it is embodied in law, must be the highest moral perfection, we may say, “holiness is the purity of God manifesting itself in atonement and redemption, and correspondingly in judgment.” By this view all the above elements are done justice to; holiness asserts itself in judging righteousness, an in electing, purifying, and redeeming love, and thus it appears as the impelling and formative principle of the revelation of redemption, without a knowledge of which an understanding of the revelation is impossible, and by the perception of which it is seen in its full, clear light. God is light: this is a full and exhaustive New Testament phrase for God’s Holiness (1 John 1:5) (Cremer).
This view is brought out with special distinctness in the writings of J T Beck. `It is God’s Holiness which, taking the good which was given in creation in strict faithfulness to that good and perfect will of God, as the eternal life-purpose of love, in righteousness and mercy carried out to its completion in God himself to a life of perfection. God does this as the Alone Holy. In the world of sin divine love can only bring deliverance by a mediation in which it is reconciled to the divine wrath within their common centre, the Holiness of God, in such a way that while wrath manifests its destroying reality, love shall prove its restoring power in the life it gives’ (Beck, Lehrwissenschaft, 168, 547
…. [ a lot is left out here that will be added later, p,214a – p. 217a]
Careful reflection will show us that in each of the above views [#1-8] there is a measure of truth. It will convince us how the very difficulty of formulating to human thought the conception of divine Holiness proves that it is the highest expression for that ineffable and inconceivable glory of the divine Being which constitutes him the Infinite and Glorious God.
…. [217b continued]
This section is packed full of wheat and chaff. I will comment on it more later. But suffice to say, Murray did his homework.
In Christ,
Pastor Jon
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