YOU SHALL BE HOLY (Part 4 of 7)

I. What is Holiness?
II. Holiness is a Behavior Not a Covering
III. Teaching Holiness Through the Laws of Cleanliness
IV. The Consequences of Not Being Holy
V. The Challenge for the 21st Century Church
VI. Living as a Holy Person
VII Do Not Wear Clothes of Wool and Linen Woven Together

THE CONSEQUENCES OF NOT BEING HOLY

Why does the LORD God desire His people to be holy? Said another way, what are the consequences for people who are not concerned with maintaining a state of holiness? The Book of Nehemiah ends with the condition of a people who are quickly losing their holiness:

“In those days I saw in Judah some who were treading the wine presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sacks of grain and loading them on donkeys, as well as wine, grapes, figs and all kinds of loads, and they brought them into Jerusalem on the Sabbath day. So I admonished them on the day they sold food. Also men of Tyre were living there who imported fish and all kinds of merchandise, and sold them to the sons of Judah on the Sabbath, even in Jerusalem.” (Neh 13:15-16)

Nehemiah witnessed a large disregard for the Sabbath. As Gentiles, we might think this is no great sin, yet it is a violation of one of the Ten Commandments given to maintain a separation between the Jewish people and the rest of the world. In other words, the Jewish people were not maintaining their holiness by maintaining the Sabbath, but were becoming common with the world. What do you think would be the consequences of their behavior?

“In those days I saw that the Jews had married women from Ashdod, Ammon, and Moab. As for their children, half spoke in the language of Ashdod, and none of them was able to speak the language of Judah, but the language of his own people…Even one of the sons of Joiada, the son of Eliashib the high priest, was a son-in-law of Sanballat the Horonite, so I drove him away from me. Remember them, O my God, because they have defiled the priesthood and the covenant of the priest hood and the Levites.” (Neh 13:23 & 28-29)

The cause and consequence seem straight forward. The Jewish people stopped performing the commandments that were given to keep them holy, a separate and distinct people. As a result, they begin socializing with the nations of the world to the point where even a son of the high priest was marrying the daughter from a foreign nation. If the people of Israel did not return to the commandments, if they did not become holy, the nation would melt into the mixing pot of the world, cease to be a separate and distinct people, Jesus would not have come, and Gentile believers would lack a redeemer.

The man who restored holiness to the people was the prophet Ezra. It is said of Ezra by the later Rabbis, he “was worthy that the Torah should be given to Israel by his hand, were it not that Moses had forestalled him…(since) when the Torah had been forgotten by Israel, Ezra came up from Babylon and restored it.” This high praise of Ezra has some merit in that Moses gave the Torah and Ezra restored the Torah.

The Bible records how on the first day of the seventh month, “Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men, women and all who could listen with understanding,” (Neh 8:2). Ezra stood on a wooden podium (Neh 8:4), then,

“Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people for he was standing above all the people; and when he opened it, all the people stood up, Then Exra blessed the LORD the great God. And all the people answered, ‘Amen, Amen!’ while lifting up their hands; then they bowed low and worshiped the LORD with their faces to the ground…they read from the book, from the law of God, translating to give the sense so that they understood the reading,” (Neh 8:5-8).

Ezra understood that it was necessary for national survival that the people commit themselves to the study and application of the words of Moses. Ezra is credited with establishing the weekly Torah portion (parasha) readings that lead the nation through a complete reading of the five books of Moses each year. When believers read the Bible on a regular basis, they follow a pattern established centuries ago, a pattern that would have been followed in the first century synagogues that Jesus attended. The readings of Moses were later expanded to include portions of the prophets, referred to as the Haftarah. Four hundred years after Ezra, in the synagogue in Galilee, Jesus was called upon to read the weekly portion that had been determined centuries earlier.

Tradition relates that, before his death, Ezra was instrumental in the formation of the “Keneser ha-Gedolah.” This name is translated as “The Great Synagogue” or “The Great Assembly”, or even "The Men of The Great Assembly" since it consisted of officials to act for the whole assembly of Israel, (Ezra 10:14). The Great Assembly existed from the middle of the fifth century until about 200 BC, although some believe it may have ended as early as 300 BC.

By tradition, the Great Assembly consisted of 120 scribes, sages, and prophets, “men who were family heads, one from each family division, all of them designated by name,” (Ezra 10:16). These included the men listed in Nehemiah 10:2-29, along with Ezra, Mordecai, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malichi. The Great Assembly is credited with the inclusion of Ezekiel, Daniel, Esther, and the Twelve Minor Prophets in the biblical canon; the establishment of Purim as a Jewish feast; and the development the Jewish liturgy of prayers and blessings. The Great Assembly left the nation with three overriding principles to govern the continued development of faithfulness among the children of Israel: 

Be deliberate in judging, 
Raise up many disciples, and 
Make a hedge around the Torah.

Believe it or not, the policies of Ezra designed to establish holiness within the Jewish people received much criticism through the centuries and even today. To quote Abraham Cohen,

“Ezra’s policy has been criticized and condemned by Christian theologians – also by Jews occasionally – as responsible for the narrowness which, they allege, characterizes Judaism as a religion. But in retrospect it is evident that the policy was dictated by the circumstances of his age. Professor G.G. Moore has justly remarked, ‘The separateness of the Jew was one of the prime causes of the animosity towards them, especially in the miscellaneous fusion of peoples and syncretism of religions in the Hellenistic kingdoms and the Roman world; but it accomplished its end in the survival of Judaism, and therein history has vindicated it.’”

The efforts of Ezra and his contemporaries was to combat the normal forces of history where minorities melt into the existing majorities. Of all the ancient civilizations of history, only the Jewish people survive to the present as a separate and distinct people. The Jewish people survival was only possible through their adherence to the commandments, which separated them from the other civilizations of the world.

Throughout the Hebrew text, God establishes laws and judgments to keep the people of Israel separated from the other nations. Circumcision, cleanliness, kashrut, and the keeping of Sabbath are all intended to maintain a level of separation between the people of Israel and the surrounding nations. To the degree this separation was maintained, the people of Israel remained a unique people. However, from time to time when these walls of separation were torn down, the people would begin to assimilate with the nations around them. Over time, many Jews ceased to be a separate and distinct people dedicated to the LORD God. In history when complete assimilation was close, the LORD God brought persecution on the Jewish people from the days of Egypt to Spain to Germany in the 20th century.

(to be continued - Scott)