Holiness and Law Holiness and Law

The relationship of holiness to law is a very real and important one, however much neglected. Attention has been diverted, in recent years, to erroneous concepts by the influential work of Rudolf Otto, The Idea of the Holy (1923). Holiness cannot be defined in and of itself. It is a “transcendental attribute” of God and must be defined first of all in relation to Him.

Thus, first , holiness must be defined, in terms of Scripture, as separation, nontrespassable, with the implication ofdevotion. It has reference to the “unapproachableness” of God. As Vos pointed out, it has an ethical significance: it refers to God’s majesty and omnipotence.135 In reference to man, “the meaning is never simply that of moral goodness, considered in itself, but always ethical goodness seen in relation to God.”136 Israel became holy because God in His electing grace made His covenant people His sons by adoption (Deut. 14:1-2).137

Now the fact that holiness involves separation, or, very literally, a cutting , makes apparent immediately its basic and essential relation to law. The law simply states the principle of the cutting or separation. Wherever there is law, there is inescapably a line of separation. Conversely, wherever there is no law, there is no line of separation. Antinomian sects may speak earnestly of holiness, but, because of their denial of law, they have denied the principle of holiness.

It follows, therefore, that we can say, second , that every biblical law is concerned with holiness. Every law, by setting a line of division between the people of the law as against the outlaws, the people outside the law, is concerned with establishing a principle of separation in terms of God.

Some laws set forth also the principle of separation in a symbolic as well as a literal form. For example, in Numbers 19:11-22, separation from death is required, and ritual purification after contact with the dead (see also Lev. 5:2-3; 11:8; 21:1-4; 22:4, 6; Num. 31:19-20; 9:10). Israel had been called to be a holy people (Ex. 19:6; 22:31; 23:24; Lev. 19:2; Deut. 7:6; 14:2, 21; 26:18-19). Since “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matt. 22:32), to be God’s covenant man means separation from death itself ultimately. This separation is set forth in these laws. Their destiny beinglife, the covenant people of God are to regard death as something from which they are being separated by God. It is clear that the Mosaic law affirmed the principle of quarantine against communicable diseases in full recognition of their contagious nature, but, even more basically, the law of separation was operative in such legislation to affirm the holiness of God’s people (Lev.13; Deut. 24:8). God’s people are destined for health as well as life, and hence they

are “cut off” from diseases symbolically as well as in protection from contagion.

Not only death and disease were to be separated from the people of life, but also eunuchs and bastards (Deut. 23:1-2). Various forms of self-mutilation (Lev.19:27; Deut.14:1-2) were forbidden, as was tatooing (Lev. 19:28). Sickness and age might mar the body; the people of God were forbidden to mar it. Some of these marks represented covenants with other gods, an added factor in separation from them.

With respect to the ban on eunuchs and bastards, i.e., their being barred from the congregation, it is to the tenth generation. According to one editorial footnote in the Talmud, entering in to the congregation of the Lord meant “eligible to intermarry with Israelites,”138 and, according to another editorial note, the expression “to his tenth generation” meant “the stigma is perpetual.”139 The ban on intermarriage was probably a real factor; certainly the penalty would work to make

intermarriage difficult. But this does not get to the root of the matter. The ban was not on faith; i.e., it is not stated that the bastards and eunuchs nor, in Deuteronomy 23:3, that Ammonites and Moabites, cannot be believers. There is, in fact, a particularly strong promise of blessing to believing eunuchs in Isaiah 56:4-5, and their place as proselytes was real even in the era of hardened Pharisaism (Acts 8:27-28). The Moabitess Ruth intermarried twice, first with a son of Naomi, then with Boaz, to become an ancestress of Jesus Christ (Ruth 1:4; 4:13, 18-21; Matt. 1:5). There is no reason to doubt that eunuchs, bastards, Ammonites, and Moabites regularly became believers and were faithful worshipers of God.Congregation has reference to the whole nation in its governmental function as God’s covenant people. G. Ernest Wright defined it as “the whole organized commonwealth as it assembled officially for various purposes, particularly worship.”140 Themen of the legitimate blood line constituted the heads of houses and of tribes. Thesemen were the congregation of Israel, not the women and children nor excluded persons. All the integrity and honesty required by the law was due to every “stranger” (Lev. 19:33-34), and it was certainly not denied to a man’s illegitimate child, nor to a eunuch, an Ammonite, or a Moabite. The purpose of the commandment is here the protection of authority. Authority among God’s people isholy; it does require a separateness. It does not belong to every man simply on the ground of his humanity.

The Berkeley Version reading of Deuteronomy 23:1-3 would allow for the admission of these excluded persons at the tenth generation. There is some ground for such an interpretation in terms of Deuteronomy 23:7-8, where the Edomites are given entrance into “the assembly of the LORD” on the third generation.

The grounds for exclusion are significant. Edom met Israel with open, honest enmity (Num. 20:18, 20), and Egypt worked to destroy them (Ex. 1:22), but Ammon and Moab instead worked to pervert Israel (Num. 22; 25; 31:16), after Israel showed them forebearance (Deut. 2:9,19, 29). A faint echo of this principle appeared in Napoleon’s treatment of Surgeon-major Mouton, who had demeaned the Princess of Lichtenstein and the men of her household. Napoleon, summoning Mouton before his staff, declar ed, “Understand this, gentlemen, one kills men, but one never puts them to shame. Let him (Mouton) be shot!” Later, Mouton’s life was spared and he understood the lesson.141 Edom and Egypt sought to kill Israel; Ammon and Moab tried to pervert and degrade Israel, and their judgment was accordingly severe.

Other causes of ceremonial and physical uncleanness were cited: an issue of blood (Lev. 15:2-16, 19-26); childbirth (Lev. 12:1-2, 4-5); menstruation (Lev. 15:19-30; 18:19); sexual intercourse, as against the fertility cult belief that it involved communion with the gods (Lev. 15:16-18; 18:20); unclean persons (Num. 19:22); the spoils of war (Num. 31:21-24); and also the unauthorized touching or eating of holy things (Lev. 22:3, 14). The humanistic approach sees a daintiness with respect to things in these laws, or else a puritanical abhorrence of them. Nothing could be further from the truth. The point at issue is not man’s response to things but his holiness in terms of separation to the living God. Many of the things cited constituted, in paganism, particular ways of holiness; here, the ground of holiness is separation unto God.

The subject of vows is closely linked to holiness. To vow is to devote something or one’s self to God, to sanctify it to Him. The laws of vows, as well as the laws of redemption of things vowed, appear in Leviticus 22:21; 27:1-29; Numbers 6:3-21; 30:1-15; Deuteronomy 12:6, 26; 23:21-33. Vows were voluntary, but an important aspect of the vow brings us to athird aspect of the laws of holiness. A man was always bound by his vow. Man, created in the image of God, was called to walk under God’s law and in obedience to the creation mandate. John Marsh has called attention to a telling aspect of man’s image-responsibility:

A man is always unconditionally bound by either kind of vow (i.e., vows of every kind, and . . . a vow of abstinence). It is interesting to note that for the Hebrew mind even a man’s word should accomplish that which is imposed: God’s word, of course, always did: it could not return to him void. A man might cherish intentions to do certain things and not be bound by them. But once his intention was expressed in words, then the obligation was laid upon him unconditionally.

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Such a vow could only be made by a freeman. Once made, the vow had to be fulfilled. The vow of an unmarried woman could be overruled by her father; being under authority, she was not free to do as she pleased. The same was true of a married woman (Num. 30:1-16). A divorced woman or a widow was free to vow, being independent. The implication was clear. A woman’s holiness and devotion is subject first of all to the authority of her husband. God’s law disallows all vows of service which a woman vows without her husband’s or father’s consent. A woman’s holiness is not to be found in an evasion of her place.

A special kind of vow was that of the Nazarite (Num. 6:2-21). A Nazarite was a man or a woman who vowed a vow and for a season observed strict laws of separation in the course of the discharge of his vow. Abstinence from strong drink of any kind, and from grapes and raisins, no cutting of the hair, and separation from the dead marked the noticeable aspect of his vow. The usual period of the vow was brief. There was no separation from the routine of family life and work. The essence of the Nazarite’s separation was not in the abstinence but in the separation “unto the Lord” in the discharge of a particular service or vow.

A fourth aspect of holiness appears in matters of food. No flesh torn by beasts of the field could be eaten (Ex. 22:31), i.e., meat not properly butchered (Lev. 7:22-27). The firstfruits were given to the Lord (Ex. 23:19; 34:26), indicating thereby the holiness of the entirety. The eating of fat and blood was forbidden (Lev. 7:22-27; 19:26). Clean and unclean animals for eating are listed (Lev. 11); while dead animals and other unclean animals are forbidden to the covenant people, if foreigners regard them as good food, there is no harm in selling them such items (Lev. 17:10-16; Deut. 14:21). Fruit trees should be allowed five years growth before they are regarded as “circumcised” and edible (Lev. 19:23-26); the circumcision of the tree was its ceremonial picking in the fourth year in dedication to the Lord. Foods forbidden by God should be “abominable” to His people (Lev. 20:25; Deut. 14:13-21). There is no question but that these laws were and are basic to good health; there is also no question about the fact that they are laws of holiness. These laws of holiness are a “blessing” (Deut. 12:15) to the physical life of God’s people, i.e., to their health. In this respect, they are another law of separation from death. Health is thus an aspect of holiness, and the fulness of health is in the resurrection.

A fifth aspect of holiness has reference to dress. Tranvestite dress is an “abomination” to the Lord (Deut. 22:5); it is a sterile and perverse hostility to God’s created order. Similarly, wearing a garment of mingled materials, wool and linen together (Deut. 22:11; cf. Lev. 19:19) is forbidden. To bring diverse things together in an unnatural union is to despise the order of God’s creation.

Sixth, the very land itself is holy and can be defiled even by leaving a hanged man up overnight (Deut. 21:22- 23). In brief, the land itself must be regarded as separated and devoted to God. We have here an instance of case law. If a body left out overnightdefiles a land, how much more so man’s abusive use of the soil, his contempt of God’s creation, and his attempt to hybridize and mingle what God ordained to be separate?

Finally, seventh, it should be noted that, while evangelical Christians today are greatly concerned with personal holiness, the Bible is also concerned with national holiness. The summons to be a holy people, repeatedly declared, has ref erence to the nation, called to be “an holy Nation” (Ex. 19:6). The holiness of a nation rests in its law structure. Where God’s laws are enforced, and true faith protected, there a holy nation exists. The cutting edge of the law is the principle of national holiness. Without this foundation of law, no holiness can exist. By means of God’s law, a nation devotes itself to life; without God’s law, it is devoted to death, “cut off” from the only true principle of life.

At every point, thus, holiness brings us face to face with very material laws. Every biblical law is concerned with holiness. All law creates a line of division, a separation between the law-abiding and the lawbreaking peoples. Without law, there can be no separation. The modern antipathy to and open hatred of law is also a hatred of holiness. It is an attempt to destroy the line of separation between good and evil by abolition of law. But, because God is holy, law is written into the structure of all being; law cannot be abolished: it can only be enforced, if not by man, then surely by God.