By Francis Frangipane
The Lord did not cease being holy when the New Testament began; His nature did not change. When Jesus taught His disciples to pray, He began with “Hallowed be Thy name.” If we would truly know Him as He is, we need an Old Testament fear of the Lord combined with the New Testament experience of His grace.
Understanding God’s Holiness
Now when Solomon had finished praying, fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and the sacrifices, and the glory of the Lord filled the house. The priests could not enter into the house of the Lord because the glory of the Lord filled the Lord’s house. All the sons of Israel, seeing the fire come down and the glory of the Lord upon the house, bowed down on the pavement with their faces to the ground, and they worshiped and gave praise to the Lord. –2 Chronicles 7:1-3
What an unparalleled event in the history of man! After Solomon dedicated the temple, the glory of the Lord descended and filled His house. What was this glory? It was the light, the bursting forth into man’s world, of the radiant holiness of God Eternal. It signified that the Lord’s actual person had drawn near. So great was this appearance of glory that the priests could not enter the temple. After the fire fell and the Lord’s glory filled the temple, we read, “Then the king and all the people offered sacrifice before the Lord. And King Solomon offered a sacrifice of 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep” (2 Chron. 7:4-5).
Consider this: the king offered 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. They were not serving an invisible God by faith– they were in the manifested presence of the Creator Himself! Solomon could have offered one million oxen, yet it would not have satisfied the demands of his eyes as he beheld the glory of God! It is only our fathomless ignorance of who the Lord truly is that suggests a limit on any sacrifice we bring Him.
As Solomon’s offering reveals, the more we see God as He is, the more compelled we are to give Him our all. Yet herein lies a dilemma that every present-day Christian must face: though most know of God intellectually, few know Him in His glory. Our churches tend to be sanctuaries of formality, not of the Divine Presence.
If we are part of that sector of Christianity that has rejected ritualism, in its place we simply offer varying degrees of informality. But where is God? Where is His creative, unlimited power in our gatherings? When was the last time our pastors could not stand to minister because the glory of God overwhelmed them? Such was the revelation of God in the Old Testament.
The Hebrew people knew God was holy–that was both their virtue and their problem, for He was too holy for them, as sinful individuals, to face. They served Him without relating in love to Him. For a vast majority of the Jews, their offerings were not born out of an eagerness to seek God’s presence as much as they were an effort to satisfy His unalterable justice (Heb. 2:1-2).
The common man never approached God Himself but brought his required offerings to the local priests. The priests, in turn, had a multitude of regulations and preparations that had to be fulfilled before they themselves could approach God. There were daily, weekly, and annual sacrifices, sin offerings, and sacrifices of praise for harvests, as well as assigned offerings for restored health. Whatever the need, when the priests approached the Almighty, they could not come near without the shedding of blood or the offering of grain. They had washings, the burning of incense, and the recitation of certain prayers, all which had to be fulfilled in precise detail with the most exacting adherence to the requirements of the ceremonial law.
To further illustrate the Old Testament perception of God, we are told in Leviticus that Aaron’s priestly sons brought a “strange offering” to the Lord. When they did so, “fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord.” In consoling Aaron, Moses said, “It is what the Lord spoke, saying, ‘By those who come near Me I will be treated as holy.'” And the Scripture says, “So Aaron, therefore, kept silent” (Lev. 10:2-3). In Aaron’s mind, the holiness of God justified the instant death of his unholy sons!
Ultimately, the relationship between God and the Hebrews was not one of fellowship; it was almost strictly a matter of proper ritual and obedience to the Law. Other than the prophets and a handful of kings, few lived in harmony with the higher ways of God.
As Christians, through the blood of Jesus, God has opened the way for us to enter the holy place of His presence (Heb. 10:19-22). For the Hebrews, however, only the high priest entered the holy place and then just once a year on the Day of Atonement. Before he entered, a rope was tied around his leg and small bells sewn into his clothing. Thus, in the event he suddenly died or collapsed while in the Holy of Holies, the quieted bells alerted his fellow priests, enabling them to pull him from the sacred room without violating the Law (Exod. 28:35).
What we perceive in the carefulness of the high priest characterizes the attitude of the Old Testament Jew: no one dared approach the holy, living presence of God without perfectly fulfilling the Law. Eventually the Jews stopped writing and speaking the sacred name of God. Even His name was too holy to be uttered in this world.
Understanding God’s Grace
This very sense of God’s holiness is one of the main reasons why the first-century church in Jerusalem was so powerful. As Jews, they knew the holiness of God’s law. But as Christians, they possessed the knowledge of His grace; they knew personally the Lamb, the perfect sacrifice, who had come and fulfilled the requirements of the law. God, even He whom the Jews worshiped, had taken human form and given Himself for sin!
Many Christians the world over celebrate the forgiveness of sins in Christ, but they end their experience with God there. Jews, who knew historically the fearful justice of God, still lived outside the Divine Presence because they did not understand the forgiveness of sins in Christ. But it is the union of both truths that produces power in our lives and leads us into the reality of God.
Abraham was about to sacrifice to God his beloved son Isaac. (Remember, anyone who has seen God as He is willingly offers his all.) As they walked up the mountain, Abraham spoke prophetically. He said, “God will provide for Himself the lamb” (Gen. 22:8). While we must be willing to give to God our all, we must remember that our all is not good enough. God has provided His own Son, the perfect Lamb, as access to Himself.
There are many times when we feel unworthy, when we seek to escape from the person of God. In these times the last one we want to face is God in His holiness. But in the midst of our unworthiness, let us call upon the Lord. We can escape to God for forgiveness.
When John the Baptist looked at Jesus, he told his disciples, “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). The Lamb of God has taken away not just the sins of the world but your sins as well. Christ’s sacrifice is much more than all the bulls and sheep ever offered throughout all of time; He perfectly satisfies the demand of God’s holy justice. And while the high priest drew near with fear and terror, we can draw near with confidence through the blood of Christ–so great and complete is the sacrifice God has provided (Heb. 4:16)!
The justice of God’s law is holy, but the sacrifice of the Son of God is holier still, for “mercy triumphs over judgment” (James 2:13). The Lord who filled Solomon’s temple with His presence will fill, and is filling, His people today. We have the inexhaustible sacrifice Himself seated upon the throne of grace–it is He who is calling us to boldly come before Him. Enter, therefore, into His glory by the blood of the Lamb. Let Jesus wash your heart of its sins. For our goal is to live in the presence of the very same holy God who appeared in His glory to the Hebrews!
Adapted from Francis Frangipane’s newest book, Holiness, Truth and the Presence of God available at www.arrowbookstore.com.
