Being Saturated with God’s Holy Nature to have a Holy Living as God’s Holy People

In Leviticus God charged His people to have a holy living according to His holy nature; we as believers in Christ are God’s people, and we need to be saturated with God to be as holy as He is holy and thus live a holy life.

Just as the people of Israel in the Old Testament, we were chosen by God to be His people, and now God dwells among us. However, in order for us to be God’s people among whom He can dwell and rest, we need to be trained to have the living that matches Him.

For example, if the president of the United States would come to your house to live with you for one week, your living and behaviour will be different. If the apostle Paul, Martin Luther, Watchman Nee, and Witness Lee would come to live with you for one week, their very living and being will train you to live in a different way.

As God’s people, we need to be delivered from the natural way of living and worship and be brought up to God’s standard. We need to take Christ as the reality of all the offerings, enjoying Him and experiencing Him as all the offerings so that we may have peace with God, be pleasing before Him, and satisfy God.

Only Christ satisfies God, and when we take Him as our sin offering for the sinful nature within us, as our trespass offering for the sinful deeds we make, as our meal offering to feed on Him and be supplied, as the peace offering to have peace with God, and as the burnt offering to be absolute for God and for His satisfaction, we have peace with God, we are acceptable to Him, and we can enjoy Him in Christ and with Christ.

Christ as the reality of the offerings has to be wrought into our being through our experience and enjoyment of Him, and we need to offer this Christ we have experienced to God for His satisfaction.

The offerings are good for us to enjoy God and be mingled with God, and to have God assimilated into our being to become our very constituent.

By enjoying Christ and experiencing Him as the reality of all the offerings, we enter into God as the reality of the tabernacle, and we become part of the divine-human incorporation. The way for us to become part of the tabernacle of God with man, the corporate expression of God on earth, is by partaking of Christ as the offerings.

We need to daily take Christ as our sin offering, burnt offering, trespass offering, peace offering, and all the other offerings, applying Him in our experience and enjoying Him with God, so that we may be inwardly reconstituted with His element and become an organic part of His corporate expression.

God Charges us, His People, to have a Holy Living According to His Holy Nature

Again and again in Leviticus God tells His people that they should be holy even as He is holy. He doesn’t want His people to be defiled but be like Him, holy (Lev. 11:44-45). We as God’s people need to sanctify ourselves and keep His statutes, for He is holy, and so should we be (Lev. 20:7-8).

We should not profane His holy name but sanctify it, and God Himself is the One who sanctifies us to make us His holy people with a holy living (Lev. 22:32-33). Our God is a holy God, and He has chosen us, His people, to be holy before Him.

In order for us to live a holy life, we need to put off the old life and put on the new (see Eph. 4:17-5:14). The people of Israel were charged to put off the former Egyptian conduct (Lev. 18:3), which means that we as believers need to put off the former, old way of living.

Furthermore, the Israelites were charged to not walk in the custom of the Canaanites, into whose land they would enter; this means that we, after being saved, should not be conformed to the living and conduct of the worldly people.

We are God’s people, and we need to have a holy living. God charged His people to have a holy living according to His holy nature (see Lev. 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:7, 26; Exo. 19:6; 22:31; Deut. 14:2; 26:19; 28:9).

Being holy because God is holy signifies that we need to walk according to God’s holiness and live a holy life with a holy living (see Lev. 19:2; 20:7; 1 Pet. 1:15; 2 Pet. 3:11). According to the holy One who called us – God Himself – we also need to be holy in all our manner of life.

All these things in the world will be dissolved and perish, so we need to have a holy living with a holy manner of life and godliness. This means that we need to put off the old manner of life, the old living, the old man, and put on the new man with a holy living, for us to live a holy life according to God’s holiness.

Both in the Old and the New Testament God’s requirement of His people is for them to be holy even as He is holy, having a holy living and a sanctified life.

How can we have a holy living? We are common, sinful, and natural, but when we enjoy God and partake of His holy nature, we are separated unto God and saturated with Himself.

Nothing separates us unto God and causes us to have a holy living more than the mutual enjoyment between God and man.

We need to enjoy God, partake of His holy nature by pray-reading His precious promises in the word, and we will be separated from anything else unto God Himself to be a holy nation (Exo. 19:6).

When God enjoys us as His peculiar treasure and we enjoy Him as everything to us, we are absolutely separated from everything other than God unto God Himself, and we have a holy living and a holy life according to God’s holiness.

It is only when we partake of God with His holy nature that we can have His holiness lived out in us.

Lord, train us to have a holy living according to your holy nature. We put off the old life and put on the new – we put off the old man with its old way of living, and we put on the new man which is according to God. Lord, keep us enjoying You and partaking of Your holy nature, so that we may have a holy living and be a holy nation unto God! Save us from living according to the worldly ways and walking in the ways of the nations. Saturate us with Yourself, Lord, and infuse us with Your holy nature so that we may have a holy life with a holy living as Your holy people!

God Chose us to be Holy and He makes us Holy by Saturating us with His Holy Nature

Before the foundation of the world, we were chosen in Christ to be holy and without blemish before God in love (Eph. 1:4). He chose us – we had no choice but to respond and say Amen. And our destiny is clear: the holy city, New Jerusalem!

Whether we want this or not, this is our destiny: we are God’s people, He is a holy God, and He sanctifies us until we have a holy living to express His holy nature.

God dwells among us as a holy God, and He doesn’t want us to have the same kind of worldly living like the nations but have His mind, His view, and His thinking.

He shed His blood to separate us, sanctify us, and bring us to Himself, and He will train us how to be saturated, permeated, and constituted with Him so that we may have a holy life in the church life today.

The fact that God chose us to be holy even as He is holy means that He wants us to make us the same as He is in His holiness.

What does it mean to be holy? According to the natural concept, holiness is sinlessness or perfection. This thought is absolutely mistaken, for in God’s eyes to be holy doesn’t mean to be perfect or sinless.

To be holy means that we are sanctified, separated unto God; we are different, distinct, from everything that is common. Only God is different, distinct, from all things; He is holy – holiness is His nature.

The way God makes us holy is not by outwardly correcting us or adjusting us until we become sinless or perfect; He 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.

God doesn’t want us to merely have a behavior or outward living that are approved by Him; He wants to work Himself with His holy nature into us as we partake of His divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4), so that we may spontaneously have a holy living and live a holy life.

God wants to make us as holy as He is holy; He wants to make our being holy, the same as God in His nature and in His character.

God makes us holy by imparting Himself with His holy nature into our being so that we may be saturated and permeated with His holy nature and automatically live a holy life.

For us to be holy is to partake of God’s nature and to have our whole being permeated with God Himself.

Because God is holy, distinct, and different, for us to be holy means that we are one with Him; we are one with God because only God is holy, and we become His holy people who have a holy living (Lev. 11:44; 1 Sam. 2:2).

May we be those who daily partake of His holy nature and allow Him to work Himself into us so that He may saturate and permeate our inward being with Himself.

Lord, thank You for choosing us to be holy before the foundation of the world. Thank You for imparting Yourself with Your holy nature into our being so that we may be permeated and saturated with Your holy nature. Amen, Lord, impart Yourself with Your holy nature into us today so that we may be inwardly reconstituted with You and become Your holy people who have a holy living. We want to partake of Your nature by abiding in Your word with Your precious promises and walking according to the divine nature in us.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1982, vol. 2, “The Fulfillment of the Tabernacle and the Offerings in the Writings of John,” chs. 22-23, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Leviticus (1), week 1, God Training His People to Worship and Partake of Him and to Live a Holy, Clean, and Rejoicing Life.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # For you are a holy people / To Jehovah your God; / It is you whom Jehovah your God has / Chosen from among / All the peoples which are upon / The face of the earth / To be a people / For His personal treasure. (Scripture song)
  # To walk with Thee below! / To learn Thy holy ways! / And more to Thine own stature grow, / To Thine eternal praise! (Hymns #355)
  # Thou art all my life, Lord, / In me Thou dost live; / With Thee all God’s fulness / Thou to me dost give. / By Thy holy nature / I am sanctified, / By Thy resurrection, / Vict’ry is supplied. (Hymns #841)