Based on Lev. 18-20, this week we come to the matter of, Chosen to Be Holy with a Holy Living to Express the Holy God and Become the Holy City. Hallelujah, God chose us to be holy just like Him!
In eternity past God chose us to be holy and without blemish before Him in Christ. In the present we are being sanctified, that is, we are being saturated with Christ as the Spirit to not only be separated from anything common unto God but also be saturated with Christ as the Holy one to be made holy like Him.
In eternity future we will be the New Jerusalem, the holy city, a corporate entity fully saturated with God and separated unto God.
God wants to gain us as His people who are holy, separated and sanctified unto Him, a people who have a holy life and a holy living for Him to live among us and be expressed through us.
We need to realise, however, that holiness and being holy is something that has been spoiled and misunderstood in today’s Christianity, for many say that holiness is sinless perfection, and they equal being holy to being perfect and having no sin.
To be holy is to be different and distinct from everything that is common; only God is holy, and He wants to make us the same as He is, holy, by not only separating us outwardly unto Himself but also by saturating us inwardly with His element.
He wants us to be holy in all our manner of life, and we can do this not because of ourselves but because God is holy (1 Pet. 1:15-16). Because our God is holy, he is making us the same as He is in life and nature, in His holy life and holy nature, but not in the Godhead.
He chose us in eternity past to be holy even as He is holy, because He wants a full, complete, and resplendent expression of Himself in the universe. Now in time He is sanctifying us to make us the same as He is in his holy nature, and in eternity future we will be the same as He is because we will be the New Jerusalem, the holy city.
This New Jerusalem is the bride, the wife of the Lamb. We are not going to the New Jerusalem but we are becoming the New Jerusalem. This holy city is different and distinct from anything that is common.
The New Jerusalem is the church as the reality of the Body of Christ in its ultimate state and consummation. God put eternity in man’s heart – He put in each man a divinely implanted sense of purpose worming throughout the ages which nothing under the sun but only God can satisfy (see Eccl. 3:11, Amplified Bible).
Therefore, we need to see the vision of eternity, live the life of eternity, and do the work of eternity. The vision of eternity is the vision of the New Jerusalem, the holy city.
The life of eternity is for us to live out the New Jerusalem. The work of eternity is to work out the New Jerusalem. We are here to live out and work out the New Jerusalem by becoming as holy as Christ is.
To live out the New Jerusalem is to become the New Jerusalem, and to work out the new Jerusalem is to build up the New Jerusalem.
Every believer should be a little New Jerusalem – when people contact us, they should see in us the features and characteristics of the New Jerusalem, such as the tree of life, the water of life, the throne of God, etc.
Also, every local church should be a miniature of the New Jerusalem, which is the holy city. All the things ascribed to the New Jerusalem should be also ascribed to us personally and corporately in our experience.
We need to have a holy life and a holy living both personally and corporately so that we become the holy city, the New Jerusalem.
God Chose us to be Holy unto Sonship and He’s Sanctifying us unto Sonship
There are two cluster of verses in the New Testament that show us that sanctification is for sonship.
In Eph. 1:4-5 we are told that God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and without blemish before him in love, and then we are told that we are predestinated unto sonship. We have been chosen to be holy and predestined to be sons of God.
Holiness is unto sonship, sanctification us for sonship.
In Heb. 2:10-11 we see that Christ is leading many sons into glory, and both he who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, that is, we and Christ have the same Father.
The way Christ leads us into glory is by sanctifying us; sanctification is for sonship, and both sanctification and sonship are carried out by the Spirit.
For us to be sanctified by the Spirit we need to have our entire being in the spirit; we must walk, behave, act, and do all things in the spirit all day long, so that we may be sanctified in a dispositional way.
We have been sanctified positionally by being separated unto God, but now we need to be dispositionally sanctified by being saturated with God. To be saturated with God we need to have our entire being in the mingled spirit because the sanctification for sonship is still going on (Rom. 8:4; 15:16).
We need to take care of the sanctifying Spirit speaking and working in our spirit. It is the Spirit who sanctifies us for sonship.
The dispensing of the Spirit is carried out in His sealing the believers, as seen in Eph. 1:13. This sealing is the anointing of the Spirit, the soaking and saturating of the Spirit in our spirit.
When He seals us, He stamps His image on us, He saturates us with His element, and He is claiming ownership of us; the more we’re sealed with the Spirit, the more Christ is expressed through us, the more of His element we have, and the more we belong to Him.
To be sealed by the Spirit we need to read the holy word of God (John 17:17), listen to spiritual speaking to get more of the holy word, and we need to come to the meetings. The finer dispensing of the sanctifying and sealing Spirit keeps us in the one accord.
The divine sanctification for the divine sonship is the center of the divine economy and the central thought of the divine revelation in the New Testament.
Sanctification is a great matter, and we could say there are four major aspects: the Spirit’s seeking sanctification, the Spirit’s regenerating sanctification, the Spirit’s transforming sanctification, and the Spirit’s glorifying sanctification.
Even before our regeneration, the Spirit sought us out, and our repentance and believing is due to the seeking Spirit sanctifying us (see Luke 15:8-17; 1 Pet. 1:2).
Then, we believe into the Lord, and the Spirit’s regenerating sanctification transpires in our spirit – that which is born of the Spirit is spirit (John 3:6).
After regeneration, the Spirit’s transforming sanctification takes place in our soul to saturate us with His holy element (2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2).
Finally, the Spirit’s glorifying sanctification will transfigure our vile body of humiliation into a glorious body with no more lust, weakness, sickness, or death. Hallelujah! Sanctification is really the hinge of God’s carrying out His eternal economy.
Thank You God for choosing us and predestinating us unto sonship, so that we may be holy and without blemish before You in love. Thank You for coming in and seeking us out, sweeping in us and shining on us with Your word so that we may come to our senses and return to You. Thank You for regenerating us with Your life so that we may become children of God. Amen, Lord, keep us in the process of sanctification unto sonship so that we may become sons of God expressing God in the divine life!
God Chose us to be Holy and He makes us Holy by Imparting His Holy Element into us
God chose us to be holy – He chose us in Christ to be holy and without blemish before Him in love (Eph. 1:4).
What does it mean to be holy? Today’s Christian teachings have spoiled this matter of holiness and being holy. In the Bible the word holy is not referring to sinlessness or perfection; this is a religious concept that hinders so many from actually entering into this reality.
Holiness is neither sinlessness nor perfection; even more, holiness means not only to be sanctified, separated unto God, but also different, distinct from everything that’s common, and to be saturated with God’s holy nature.
Only God is holy, distinct from anything and anyone who is common, and He chose us to be holy. God makes us holy by imparting Himself, the holy One, into us, so that our whole being may be permeated and saturated with His holy nature.
This means that we as God’s chosen ones can partake of God’s divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4) so that we may have our whole being permeated with Himself. This is different from being perfect, sinless, or pure; this is to have our whole being saturated with God until we become the same as He is – holy.
Only our God is holy (Lev. 11:44; 1 Sam. 2:2), and any place, thing, matter, or person related to God is holy, for whatever is both of God and for God is holy (see Lev. 20:26; Num. 16:5; Neh. 8:9; Exo. 30:37).
When God reaches us, He comes to us as the Spirit, the Holy – the Holy Spirit (see Luke 1:35; Matt. 1:20; 28:19; see Rom. 1:4).
In the Old Testament we don’t have the term, the Holy Spirit (the occurrences in Psa. 51:55 and Isa. 63:10-11 should be rendered, The Spirit of Holiness), because it is only in the New Testament that God comes to us as the Holy Spirit.
In Luke 1:35 the Holy Spirit came to Mary to bring God into man. The Spirit comes to us as the Holy Spirit to bring God into man. Holiness brings God to man and man to God, even bringing God into man and man into God.
When God gets into us, we are holy; when we get into God, we’re even more holy, and when we’re mingled with God, we’re most holy. Wow!
We as believers in Christ are called “saints” (Eph. 1:1) not because we are sinless or perfect but because God chose us to be holy, He is making us holy, and we have the Holy Spirit in us.
We need to be in touch with God and even be one with God; our seeking should not be that we would be perfect or sinless, but that we would be saturated and soaked with God, the Holy One, so that we may be holy as He is holy.
We are one spirit with the Lord (1 Cor. 6:17), and this Spirit with our spirit wants to saturate us with God to make us holy even as God is holy.
God made Himself one with us by coming into us as the Spirit, and daily we are being saturated and soaked with God. God chose us to be holy, and He makes us holy by imparting Himself – the Holy One – into our being. Hallelujah!
Thank You Father for choosing us in Christ to be holy. Thank You for sending Your Spirit, the Holy Spirit, to not only separate us and sanctify us unto You but also to saturate us with Your holy element. Amen, Lord, saturate us and permeate us with Yourself until we become as holy as You are. We open our whole being to You, Lord, so that You may sanctify us fully by imparting Your holy element into our being to sanctify us and make us holy. May there be more saturation with the Spirit, the Holy, in our daily living today!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ed Marks for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Ephesians, msg. 3 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Leviticus (2), week 7, Chosen to Be Holy with a Holy Living to Express the Holy God and Become the Holy City.
- Hymns on this topic:
# God, our Father, we adore Thee! / We, Thy children, bless Thy Name! / Chosen in the Christ before Thee, / We are “holy without blame.” (Hymns #5)
# And the God of peace Himself sanctify you wholly, / And may your spirit and soul and body / Be preserved complete, without blame, / At the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Scripture song)
# Oh, sanctify us, Lord; now add Thyself to us, / In our experience, Thy Person spread in us, / That in reality the church be glorious, / O Lord, do add Thyself, we pray. (Hymns #1135)
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