Quote:
Originally Posted by Thankful Jane
The Bible literally commands "Be ye holy" (I Pet. 1:15-16). It does not say be ye mingled. It does not teach that we become holy (sanctified) by something called mingling or divine dispensing. It teaches that we become holy by confessing our sins and being cleansed by the blood of the Lamb.
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Overall, excellent comments. But I would add one thing to the above.
Confessing and being cleansed are only first steps in being holy. But I fear that we too often segregate holiness to only a state of being. If we only confess our existing sins and get cleansing by the blood of the lamb, what comes next. If life continues in the old way after that, we may have been very temporarily "set apart" yet almost immediately return to our unholy ways. We can argue in a somewhat Calvinist way that we have passed from death to life so we are deemed holy no matter what.
The passage you mention in 1 Peter says it well. It says to be holy in all that you do. Holiness is not just a state of being. It is a condition that is observable, not in still-life, but in action. In video. It is very linked to righteousness. If you are not righteous, you are not holy.
So the spiritual activities of confession and begin washed of the past are important. Those lay the groundwork for the next step to be done in holiness. But the next step is not a meeting. It is not PSRPing. It is not learning another "high peak" truth.
No. The next step is to live consistently with the holiness that you have attained in confession and washing. It is linked to righteous living. To obedience. Why? because those who claim holiness cannot retain that position while being disobedient and unrighteous.
And if you are being disobedient, unrighteous, and therefore unholy, you cannot claim to be taking in the supply of God because it produces good fruit — holiness, righteousness, obedience, joy, and peace. So those who are simply absorbing "dispensing" and waiting for righteousness to just happen must not be absorbing the supply of the vine because it actually produces certain fruit. It does not just keep accumulating in the branch with no discernible change in holiness, righteousness, and obedience.
In fact, based on the analogy of the vine and the branches given by Jesus, the branches do not simply absorb "life supply." If that were the case, then there would be no way to fail. If the metaphor is to be milked for every nuance, then branches would have no choice about receiving the life supply and producing fruit. In real life, branches that fail in their mission do not happen because they decided to fail. It is essentially external to them. There is a cause that is not able to be overcome by the normal flow of the tree's or vine's life. But in the analogy spoken by Jesus, the branch has some control. It must decide to abide in the vine and take in the flow. It must decide that it will take that supply and produce fruit.
Surely we human "branches" are incapable of producing the fruit Jesus was talking about without the supply of the vine. But we are not just along for the ride, whether a natural branch or one grafted in. We do not just take in supply and fruit just pops out. We must act according to the decrees of the vine.
Oops. Starting to move out of the vine metaphor. In fact, just like so many of the metaphors and analogies used in scripture, each one only says a little.
Or if they are all to be milked, then how does anyone deal with the parable of the embezzling steward who was going to get sacked. Seems he lowered the bills on several of his master's debtors and got praised for it. Surely Jesus is not supporting embezzling and stiffing your employer! In fact, the take away from this parable is so tangential to the story used that it mocks the whole idea of milking metaphors.
Just one more reason that Lee should not be trusted as a teacher. Under any circumstances. He created faux spirituality out of the filler — the 99% non-nutritive portion of the 1-calorie diet drink — and turned the attention from what is there to what is not.