“Holy God”

Luke 8:26-37

March 4, 2007

Dr. Jerry Nelson

If God the Son, Jesus, started coming to our church I’m afraid it wouldn’t be very long before many of us would ask him to leave.

If Jesus came and spent time in our high schools, very soon students would want him to go.

If he started working where you work it wouldn’t be long before both management and employees would want to get rid of him.

And I believe that if he didn’t change his methods and his message, we’d do the same thing to him today they did 2000 years ago, we’d finally kill him.

And I believe men and women would kill him today for the same reason they killed him then – because he is holy!

Holiness disturbs us.

It threatens us and it disqualifies us.

When God lived on earth, his presence eventually provoked one of two responses: humility or hostility.

Indifference was not an option because God’s presence didn’t offer that option.

The same is true today.

You can’t say you believe in the God of the Bible and live indifferently toward him.

Many years ago A. W. Pink wrote:

“Men imagine that the Most High is moved by sentiment, rather than actuated by principle. They suppose that his (sovereign control) is such an idle fiction that Satan is thwarting God’s designs on every side. They think that if he has formed any plan or purpose at all, then it must be like theirs, constantly subject to change. They openly declare that whatever power God possesses must be restricted, lest he invade the citadel of man’ free will and reduce him to a machine. They lower the (fully effective) atonement, which has actually redeemed everyone for whom it was made, to a mere remedy which sin-sick souls may use if they feel disposed to; and they (reduce) the invincible work of the Holy Spirit to an offer of the gospel which sinners may accept or reject as they please. The God of this century no more resembles the supreme Sovereign of the Holy Bible than does the dim flickering of a candle (resemble) the glory of the midday sun.” “A God whose will is resisted, whose designs are frustrated, whose purpose is checkmated, possesses no title to Deity, and so far from being a fit object of worship, merits naught but contempt.” (A.W. Pink, The Attributes of God, 28-29)

I have today taken on the task of once again describing the indescribable, the ineffable, the inexpressible – the holiness of God.

I’m certain it would be easier to describe a sunset to a sightless man than to describe the holiness of God.

And why is it so hard to describe a sunset to a blind man?

Because you have no common ground from which to start.

How do you describe red?

So it is in describing holiness – we are talking about the nature of God that is so different from anything we experience that we have no common ground – almost no common language for comparison.

Nonetheless, I want to give you two words on which to hang our thoughts for today, as we look at how people experience the holiness of God:

transcendence and purity.

The word transcendence means to “climb across”.

It has to do with exceeding usual limits.

To transcend it to rise above the limits of knowledge or experience.

When we speak of the holiness of God as his transcendence then we are talking about how He is so far above us, so beyond us, so different from us, as to be foreign to us.

Look with me at Luke 8 and see how people experienced it when God became flesh.

Luke 8:26-35

They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes, which is across the lake from Galilee. ²⁷ When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs. ²⁸ When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, "What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don't torture me!" ²⁹ For Jesus had commanded the evil spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.³⁰ Jesus asked him, "What is your name?" "Legion," he replied, because many demons had gone into him. ³¹ And they begged him repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss. ³² A large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into them, and he gave them permission. ³³ When the demons came out of the man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.³⁴ When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off and reported this in the town and countryside,

What is most interesting to me is how the people responded to Jesus at that point in time.

8:35

“and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus' feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.

And in their fear what did they ask Jesus to do?

8:36-37

³⁶ Those who had seen it told the people how the demon-possessed man had been cured. ³⁷ Then all the people of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them, because they were overcome with fear.

Why were they so afraid?

Because they experienced the presence of holiness.

This was a person beyond their ability to comprehend.

Here was a man who was so different, so other, that their instinctive response was fear!

About 60 years ago Orson Wells broadcast the radio program called the “War of the Worlds” - it was a fictional account of an invasion of New Jersey by Martians.

So realistic was the broadcast, so convincing were Well’s words that people thought it was for real.

How did they respond? I don’t mean in the broadcast or the movie; I mean in real life? FEAR

One man took up a gun to go kill the Martians.

Martians were so totally foreign in the minds of people that they were perceived as an immediate threat.

To the Garasenes of the Galilee, Jesus was so completely different, so uniquely other, so transcendent, so outside their experience, that he didn’t fit any category they could imagine AND he was a threat.

They were in the presence of the holy.

R.C. Sproul reminds us that when Jesus calmed the storm one day on Galilee he created a fear in his disciples that was greater than their fear of death from the storm.

They asked, “Who is this?” or “What kind of man is this?”

They could find no category for Jesus.

For Jesus merely spoke, he didn’t pray, he didn’t plead with the Father, he spoke and the winds obeyed.

· The disciples had met Romans, Jews, Greeks, and Barbarians.

· They had met good men and bad men, smart men and ignorant ones.

· They had met men who acted in unusual ways and were called holy men but they were still merely men.

But this man, how do you classify him?

Only one word captures it – “holy!”

Unique, truly one of a kind, other, outside of our experience or comprehension, holy. (R. C. Sproul, The Holiness of God, chapters 3 and 4)

Rudolf Otto, a theologian of a previous generation, coined the phrase, “mysterium tremendum” – the awesome mystery.

He said there is a vague, incomprehensible something in the universe, surrounding the universe and experienced in the heart of every person.

There is a sense that there is something out there, something uncreated – a presence that is outside our experience.

In all of human nature there is this instinct that there is something besides us.

To the animist, the Moslem, even to the non-religious religions, it is that “mystery” drives their religions.

According to the Apostle Paul in Romans 1, all people have that instinctual knowledge of the existence of God – the awesome mystery BUT instead of bowing, they create their own god – one they can manage.

Did the Gerasenes believe in God?

I suppose they did – at least they believed in their concept of god.

Their god was worshipped in a certain way but most importantly he left them alone to pursue life as they saw fit.

Like most people, they believed in god but their god was for religious purposes not real life.

In what we call “the real world,” natural laws rule.

Then imagine seeing all your assumptions about natural law violated.

The Gerasenes saw a man instantly, dramatically and impossibly healed.

Not a long, slow recovery, not a temporary remission, but a miracle.

Imagine seeing, as people did when God was in the flesh:

· gravity suspended when a 160 pound man walked on water,

· bread and fish created out of nothing,

· optic nerves restored with muddy spit,

· wine instantly made from water without grapes or process,

· a three-day-dead body (Lazarus) brought to life.

But what do you do with that information?

Do you compartmentalize it, tucking it into a file marked “religious but irrelevant?”

Does God really matter here and now or is he part of a different realm, the religious realm of “back then” or for another time like “someday” or “when I die?”

Have we created separate categories in our thinking?

Is there a kind of nonessential church/religious life and then real life?

Or is there an alive, thinking, acting God who is actually there and actually here?

C.S. Lewis wrote, “An impersonal God – well and good. A subjective God of beauty, truth and goodness better still. A formless life force surging through us, a vast power that we can tap, best of all. But (a real) God, alive, pulling at the other end of the cord, perhaps approaching at infinite speed…that is quite another matter. There comes a moment when children who have been playing at burglars hush suddenly: was that a real footstep in the hall? There comes a moment when people who have been dabbling in religion suddenly draw back. Supposing we really found God? We never meant for it to come to that. Worse yet, supposing he found us?” (C.S. Lewis, Miracles, 98)

So when the Garasenes met God – the holy one – they were terrified.

They were afraid because here was an awesome mystery, one who was unique, wholly other, one who didn’t fit their categories.

But more than that, they wanted him to go away because when they stood in the presence of this holy God he disqualified the way they lived their lives.

Pastor and author Eugene Peterson reminds us of two realities, two worlds, two kingdoms, the seen and the unseen.

There is the world of the here and now, the world we can see and touch, the world we physically experience.

We know this world is broken.

Even if everything went right in life, we know it ends in death.

But worse yet, it does not always go right and in fact for millions it goes far more wrong than right and it still ends in death.

But the Bible says that there is another Kingdom that has been born.

It is not a dream or false hope, it is in fact a kingdom, in one sense, more real and more lasting than the world and time that we live in now that we think is so enduring.

Jesus initiated that Kingdom when he came the first time and it is growing and will culminate in full flower when Jesus comes again. (Eugene Peterson, The Contemplative Pastor, 34)

Jesus made it clear that there are people who are part of that kingdom as evidenced by their receiving and following him and there are people who are not part of that kingdom as evidenced by their not receiving and following him.

“Seek first the kingdom of God…” Jesus said.

But we live most of life as if there is only one Kingdom and it is the one we can see, the one we can manage and “milk” for all we can get while we are alive.

But God’s holiness, his presence and actions when he was physically here, suggests that something else is going on beyond what we can see - another Kingdom and another God/King.

To the Garasenes, this Jesus presented a different way of understanding and living life.

But they liked the “god” and the life they had.

The same is true today.

The God many people know is a mild mannered Clark Kent type who changes into superman to help us out when we need it but otherwise stays politely out of the way.

We like the God who is somewhere out there, who might intervene if we get in real trouble and who will rescue us when we die.

But we don’t want a truly Holy God who interferes with our lives.

Do you believe in God?

What kind of God do you believe in?

You say you are

· not a pantheist (believing that God is the sum of all that is)

· nor a polytheist (believing in many gods)

· but that you are a monotheist (believing in one God.)

Okay, so you are a monotheist but that doesn’t tell me much about your God.

For God is not simply a number, even the number one.

The God of the Bible, the God of reality, is HOLY.

· He, and no other, is the great “I am.”

· He is the uncreated creator, the uncaused cause.

· He gives definition to eternal, infinite, omnipotent.

· He is before all things and in him all things hold together.

God is the only being to which the word “is” eternally applies.

He eternally was and is and will eternally be.

But if such a God exists, a God who is being, who is person,

if every detail of life is continually and sovereignty influenced by that God,

and if we are being held accountable by that God for our every thought, word and action, then he matters and he matters now!

So again I ask do you believe in God and what kind of God do you believe in?

One man wrote, “We are told repeatedly that the vast majority of people believe in God. But human beings, particularly modern ones, are reluctant to surrender their concept of an abstract, impersonal deity. Their “god” is very comfortable; it does nothing and demands nothing. Like a bottle of aspirin sitting in a medicine cabinet, it can be taken out, dusted off and used at our convenience to assuage our cosmic aches and pains. Such a god will not pursue you; will not interfere in your private affairs. There is no danger that the earth will quake, lightening will flash and the mountains will melt like wax at that god’s approach. There is no question of owing it our absolute allegiance or of standing open before it to give account of ourselves.” (Thomas Trevethen, The Beauty of God’s Holiness, 28-29)

But if he is the God the Bible says he is, how can we live a minute without paying attention to him?

If God is holy, then everything people believe instead of him is useless.

If God is holy then other gods are figments of imagination.

If God is THE transcendent God then he has a claim on our lives that will not allow us to go on in life as usual.

Is it any wonder the Garasenes wanted him out of the way?

Is it any wonder that we domesticate God and put him in a box marked “religion”?

He disqualifies our assumptions.

He disturbs our lives.

His very presence calls us to change.

When Leonardo deVinci was about to depict the face of Jesus in his painting of “The Last Supper” he prepared himself with prayer and meditation.

Still, however, when he raised his brush to give visual expression to that sacred person, his hand trembled.

Today we are in the presence of God’s transcendent holiness.

And it calls us to humility and obedience.

Of Charles Lamb the English essayist it was written:

“One time having fun with some friends, the question was asked how we would feel if some of the greatest among the dead were to appear, suddenly in the flesh again.

Then one asked, “And what if Christ were to enter the room?”

At that Lamb’s countenance changed and as was his manner when he deeply moved, he stuttered,

“You see if Shakespeare entered we should all rise; but if Jesus appeared, we must kneel.”

That raises the second characteristic of God’s holiness.

I have been speaking thus far of his transcendence, his otherness.

I turn now to his purity.

There is a moral excellence about Jesus that disallows even thoughtful critics of Christianity to be critical of Jesus.

Isn’t that interesting to you?

Even the most severe critics of Christianity are complimentary of Jesus.

His purity, his moral excellence is the source of that uncommon respect.

Sin is universal.

It is the deep dark mystery of human existence, the stumbling block to reason, the problem of problems, the source of all misery.

And many people are willing to admit their defects, their folly and foibles – at least admit them in some general way.

But in Jesus we have the one solitary and absolute exception to the universal nature of sin.

Jesus never sinned.

Too often when we think of holiness, we think of dull, lifeless inactivity.

We think that to be holy a person must withdraw from life.

In the very enjoyable Christmas story, “The Best Christmas Pageant Ever”, the little girl who played Mary, we are told, was supposed to look pure/holy.

So she put Vaseline on her eyelids and stood perfectly still looking absolutely serene – as if from another world.

That’s our concept of holiness – withdrawn from reality.

But Jesus was immersed in the affairs of life.

He was not inactive like some monk in seclusion.

He went from before sunrise to late in the day, hiking, preaching, healing, counseling, and defending.

He spent hours with the slow to learn disciples.

He was ridiculed and defamed.

But he never spoke a word that had to be modified or retracted.

No half-truths, exaggerations or misstatements were ever uttered.

He never regretted a single thought.

He never had to apologize for a single word or action.

Never had to confess a sin or ask forgiveness.

Preaching great morality and practicing great morality are two very different things.

Moses, the great lawgiver was smeared with guilt.

David, who sang the noblest songs of God’s holiness, was himself the greatest of sinners.

But Jesus did what he taught.

Whether he was with family, the sick, his adversaries, his disciples, the rich or the poor, he was always the same.

What he was at 12 in the temple he was at 33 on the cross.

When he came to the end of his life on this earth, he prayed, “Father I have accomplished your will perfectly.”

Was that obnoxious pride, was that arrogant hypocrisy?

NO, the facts substantiated the claim.

In him was NO sin.

It is this purity, which makes him to us most attractive and most repulsive.

I earlier said that if God came to this earth again, the way he came last time, we would again kill him.

Why?

Because his perfection, his purity, stands in such sharp contrast to our sinfulness that we can’t stand it.

Many of you know the story, we told earlier, of Peter and the other disciples of Jesus fishing all night and catching nothing.

In the morning Jesus asked permission to board their boat and then he suggested they fish off the other side of the boat.

To their amazement they caught so many fish they could hardly haul them in.

In that moment, Peter got a flash of insight that he had never had before.

For some reason this incident triggered in him a new awareness of true holiness.

Standing in Jesus’ presence in that smelly fishing boat, Peter instantly felt self-conscious, embarrassed, conspicuous, and ashamed.

Standing in the presence of the Holy, Peter saw himself as he had never seen himself before.

It was like the brightest light of purity all of the sudden illuminated him – and every sinful thought, every wicked action, every imperfection was exposed.

Peter was being seen for who he really was.

And his response confirms it: “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man.”

I once received a letter that was, to me, incredibly sad.

In the letter the woman told of her pain of being exposed to God with all of the sin of an unbreakable habit.

She repeatedly confessed with tears of anguish only to return to her immoral conduct again and again.

As I read the letter, I could feel the torment of her soul.

She said she’d rather die than keep going through this.

If she could convince herself that her conduct was okay, she would be fine – but she knew Jesus – and his transcendent purity was a constant indictment.

Like Peter, there was a part of her that wished Jesus would go away because the awareness of her sin was a pain too great to bear.

I have known that feeling, too many times.

I’m so glad the Lord didn’t do what Peter asked.

I’m so glad the Lord doesn’t just go away.

Instead the Lord said something quite unexpected.

He said, “Peter, don’t be afraid.”

The great difference between Peter and the Garasenes who also asked Jesus to leave was that Peter admitted his sin.

And with Peter’s confession came forgiveness.

I am so grateful that as one sinner writing to another I could respond to the woman who wrote to me, and I could say for Jesus:

“Don’t be afraid.

“That same holy Jesus before whom you stand so indicted is the one who died for that very sin against which you now struggle.

“Don’t be afraid. He will forgive you and will empower you.”

As you come to him confessing your sin and your need for his forgiveness and grace – he will not leave you.

God’s purity makes us keenly aware of our own impurity.

But God’s purity is what also makes it possible for us to be forgiven.

Purity and transcendence describe the holiness of God.

How do we respond to such a God?

Humility, confession, and allegiance are the proper responses.

Prayer

Other notes:

“The loss of the traditional (understanding) of God as holy is now manifested everywhere in the evangelical world…Divorced from the holiness of God, sin is merely self-defeating behavior or a breach in etiquette. Divorced from the holiness of God, grace is merely empty rhetoric, pious window dressing for the modern technique by which sinners work out their own salvation. Divorced from the holiness of God, our gospel becomes indistinguishable from any of a host of alternative self-help doctrines. Divorced from the holiness of God, our public morality is reduced to little more than an accumulation of trade-offs between competing private interests. Divorced from the holiness of God, our worship becomes mere entertainment. The holiness of God is the very cornerstone of Christian faith, for it is the foundation of reality. Sin is defiance of God's holiness, the Cross is the outworking and victory of God's holiness, and faith is the recognition of God's holiness. Knowing that God is holy is therefore the key to knowing life as it truly, knows Christ as he truly is, knowing why he came, and knowing how life will end. (David Wells, No Place for Truth)