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Profaning the Name of the Lord: How Can or Do People Do It? (Part Two)
Moses meets the LORD in Exodus 3:1-6 and I’m stopping in verse 6:
1 Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro his father in law, the priest of Midian: and he led the flock to the backside of the desert, and came to the mountain of God, even to Horeb.
2 And the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush: and he looked, and, behold, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed.
3 And Moses said, I will now turn aside, and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.
4 And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush, and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, Here am I.
5 And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
6 Moreover he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God.
Moses is in the special presence of God at the burning bush. God said, “Here am I.” So He’s there. And then there God commands Moses to do something that would treat his proximity to God’s special presence as sacred. God calls this place, “holy ground.”
Holy Ground and Reverence My Sanctuary
What makes the ground holy where Moses stands? It is the nearness to the special presence of God. God is there. Moses knows it.
God gave Moses a symbolic means by which he could set apart this place where he stood, show it to be unique or majestic. Moses could demonstrate respect to God through a physical act, one that had not as of yet been established as a signal of reverence. It wasn’t just in the heart where and how this occurred. God expected and expects more. Later in Leviticus 19:30, God says through Moses to the people of God, “Reverence my sanctuary.” God doesn’t say how, assuming that they would understand how to obey this command.
A parallel elsewhere in the Old Testament for consecrating something is the truth of a “solemn assembly.” God mandated solemnity for holy occasions, again implying the knowledge of an application. By taking his shoes off, Moses could distinguish the occasion of meeting with God at the burning bush. It made the circumstance a more solemn one.
Solemnity
People today do not, as a whole, like solemnity. They want chipper, vivacious, bouncy, funny, and casual, informal, and laid back. Silly most times is better than solemn. I could give more descriptions of the variations of what people want that revolve around self-interest. True reverence in most cases is not even an option any more. It is a deal-breaker for attraction. People are in fact put to sleep by solemnity, because it’s just boring to them. In that sense, the people keeping something solemn lose their audience and ruin the meeting.
Music is a major component for promoting the opposite of solemnity and reverence. Churches choose what people want, which corresponds more to the wants of a majority. Scripture commands, “Abstain from fleshly lust,” and churches accommodate and promote fleshly lust with their music. Music can express solemnity, majesty, and something sacred. It distinguishes itself from the spirit of the age or what some today call a “vibe.”
The lack of reverence and solemnity trickles into many other various aspects of culture, which at one time did more to reflect on the nature of God. Work places and educational institutions among other spheres of authority had dress codes. The organization expected fulfilled standards for language and other forms of conduct. I was recently watching a podcast in which the spokesman used “normalcy” to describe the way it once was, but generally no more.
Put Into Practice
I’ve been alive long enough to remember when opening the top button of the dress shirt signaled a drop in the solemnity of the occasion. Someone had to keep his hair combed and completely orderly to communicate the proper respect. Churches did not look like theaters. No one would want this juxtaposition or association with the profane. The architecture of a building needed a solemn or reverent appearance larger in scale than removing ones shoes, but in the realm of that ideal.
Weddings were a holy convocation. This was a solemn covenant before God. It was not an expression of personality, hipness, coolness, or popularity. Plans revolved around the expression of God’s character or nature. As an activity, it was kept distinct from something common, playful, or vulgar. I’m using the wedding as an example so that you can imagine occasions and how they change in culture away from God.
Someone writing about the exact subject of this series, said the following in 2017:
Implicit in the rejection of the sacred is the idea that there should be no restraints for anything. It is unjust that there be anything set beyond the reach of others. It is wrong that anyone is recognized as being more than someone else.
Thus, in a society that has lost a notion of the sacred, no one stands out, no prizes are awarded, and disordered passions must never be held in check. Everyone must be equal, whatever the cost. There can be no sanctuary for any privileges. Nothing can be withheld from others. Rather, everything must be available to all.
The Separateness of God
God is High. Required solemnity acknowledges the separateness of God. To give Him His proper recognition, protocol must reflect His Highness. This is setting Him apart.
The cherubim around the throne room of God without ceasing treat God with His deserved solemnity. God requires this of these creatures, but He also reveals this scene in many places in the Bible (Ezekiel 1, Isaiah 6, Revelation 4-5). He expects people to mimic this reality. It’s not there in the Bible to ignore. These heavenly creature use two sets of six wings to cover their faces and cover their feet (Isaiah 6:2). This signifies reverence and humility, modesty and respect, ways to give God His proper due and treat Him with appropriate worthiness.
Scripture is replete with means of solemnity and reverence. Either the opposite or some variation that diverts from this solemnity and reverence is then profaning. Some kind of profaning occurs with the diminishing of reverence and solemnity.
More to Come
Why is the Holy Ghost the “Holy” Spirit?
A few weeks ago on 9/17/2021 we answered the question “Why is the Holy Spirit named the Holy ‘Spirit'”? We learned that the answer to that question is that, most fundamentally, the Holy Spirit is called the “Spirit” because He proceeds from the Father and the Son in a manner comparable to being breathed forth, just as the Father and the Son are Father and Son because the Son is eternally begotten by the Father.
What about the “Holy” in this most frequent designation of the third Person in the Trinity? Just as we saw in the last post that the Holy Ghost is not in His essence “Spirit” in a sense any different than the Father and Son are Spirit, so the Father’s essence is infinitely holy, the Son’s essence is infinitely holy, and the Spirit’s essence is infinitely holy (for the three possess the identical undivided essence, as they are homoousios), so the Holy Spirit is not in that sense any more or any less holy than the infinite holiness that is a glorious attribute of the Father and the Son.
So why, then, the “Holy” Spirit?
First, the Holy Spirit is so called because He possesses the infinite Divine holiness, in contrast to all created spirits (and it should not surprise us that the Holy Spirit is the immediate Agent of Christ casting out unclean spirits.) Second, as One who is utterly transcendent and pure in His being, and One who is to the highest degree consecrated to and in the closest union with the Father and the Son–that is, as One who is holy, and in accordance with the order of operations in the Trinity where the Divine acts are from the Father, through the Son, and by the Spirit, because the Son is eternally of the Father, and the Spirit eternally from the Father and the Son, the Spirit is the Divine Person who immediately acts in making men holy. In other words, He is called the Holy Spirit because His nature is holy and His operations or works are holy and produce holiness in redeemed creatures.
So the title “Holy” is not expressive in particular of the Spirit’s procession or spiration from the Father and the Son; the Name expressive of the Spirit’s manner of subsistence in the Trinity is “Spirit,” as “Father” and “Son” are the Names expressive of the first and second Person’s manner of subsistence. “Holy” is not indicative of His ontological personal property, but “Spirit” is indicative of ontology, like Son and Father. “Holy” instead is a title frequently adjoined to the personal Name “Spirit” of the third Person in a manner somewhat comparable to the way in which “Lord” is affixed to the name “Jesus.”
Since the Spirit is eternally from the Father and Son, He draws us into fellowship with the Father and the Son. He is termed the “Holy Spirit” because He is infinitely consecrated to the Father and Son, perfectly holy in His own essence, and set apart from created spirits as possessor of Divine holiness to the highest degree, who is holy the way only God is holy. Proceeding from the Father and the Son, He is the One who applies the work of Father and Son He makes us holy.
John Owen in his Pneumatologia: A Discourse Concerning the Holy Spirit provides a helpful explanation (pgs. 55ff., Owen, Works vol 3):
Again; He is called, by way of eminency, the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Ghost. This is the most usual appellation of him in the New Testament; and it is derived from the Old: Ps. 51:11, רוּחַ קָדְשְׁךָ, “The Spirit of thy Holiness,” or “Thy Holy Spirit.” Isa. 63:10, 11, רוּחַ קָדְשׁוֹ,—“The Spirit of his Holiness,” or “His Holy Spirit.” Hence are רוּהַ הַקָּדוֹשׁ and רוֹּחַ הַקֹּדֶשׁ, “The Holy Spirit,” and “The Spirit of Holiness,” in common use among the Jews. In the New Testament he is τὸ Πνεῦμα τὸ Ἄγιον, “That Holy Spirit.” And we must inquire into the special reasons of this adjunct. Some suppose it is only from his peculiar work of sanctifying us, or making us holy: for this effect of sanctification is his peculiar work, and that of what sort soever it be; whether it consist in a separation from things profane and common, unto holy uses and services, or whether it be the real infusion and operation of holiness in men, it is from him in an especial manner. And this also manifesteth him to be God, for it is God alone who sanctifieth his people: Lev. 20:8, “I am Jehovah which sanctify you.” And God in that work ascribes unto himself the title of Holy in an especial manner, and as such would have us to consider him: chap. 21:8, “I the Lord, which sanctify you, am holy.” And this may be one reason of the frequent use of this property with reference unto the Spirit.
But this is not the whole reason of this name and appellation: for where he is first so mentioned, he is called “The Spirit of God’s Holiness,” Ps. 51:11, Isa. 63:10, 11; and in the New Testament absolutely “The Spirit of Holiness,” Rom. 1:4. And this respects his nature, in the first place, and not merely his operations. As God, then, absolutely is called “Holy,” “The Holy One,” and “The Holy One of Israel,” being therein described by that glorious property of his nature whereby he is “glorious in holiness,” Exod. 15:11, and whereby he is distinguished from all false gods, (“Who is like unto thee, O Jehovah, among the gods? who is like thee, glorious in holiness?”) so is the Spirit called “Holy” to denote the holiness of his nature. And on this account is the opposition made between him and the unholy or unclean spirit: Mark 3:29, 30, “He that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness: because they said, He hath an unclean spirit.” And herein first his personality is asserted; for the unclean spirit is a person, and if the Spirit of God were only a quality or accident, as some fancy and dream, there could no comparative opposition be made between him and this unclean spirit,—that is, the devil. So also are they opposed with respect unto their natures. His nature is holy, whereas that of the unclean spirit is evil and perverse. This is the foundation of his being called “Holy,” even the eternal glorious holiness of his nature. And on this account he is so styled also with respect unto all his operations; for it is not only with regard unto the particular work of regeneration and sanctification, or making of us holy, but unto all his works and operations, that he is so termed: for he being the immediate operator of all divine works that outwardly are of God, and they being in themselves all holy, be they of what kind soever, he is called the “Holy Spirit.” Yea, he is so called to attest and witness that all his works, all the works of God, are holy, although they may be great and terrible, and such as to corrupt reason may have another appearance; in all which we are to acquiesce in this, that the “Holy One in the midst of us will do no iniquity,” [Hos. 11:9], Zeph. 3:5. The Spirit of God, then, is thus frequently and almost constantly called “Holy,” to attest that all the works of God, whereof he is the immediate operator, are holy: for it is the work of the Spirit to harden and blind obstinate sinners, as well as to sanctify the elect; and his acting in the one is no less holy than in the other, although holiness be not the effect of it in the objects. So, when he came to declare his dreadful work of the final hardening and rejection of the Jews,—one of the most tremendous effects of divine Providence, a work which, for the strangeness of it, men “would in no wise believe though it were declared unto them,” Acts 13:41,—he was signally proclaimed Holy by the seraphims that attended his throne, Isa. 6:3, 9–12; John 12:40; Acts 28:25, 26.
There are, indeed, some actions on men and in the world that are wrought, by God’s permission and in his righteous judgment, by evil spirits; whose persons and actings are placed in opposition to the Spirit of God. So 1 Sam. 16:14, 15, “The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him. And Saul’s servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee.” So also verse 23, “The evil spirit from God was upon Saul.” So chap. 18:10, 19:9. …
To return; As he is called the Holy, so he is the Good Spirit of God: Ps. 143:10, רוּחֲךָ טוֹבָה תַּגְחֵנִי;—“Thy Spirit is good; lead me into the land of uprightness;” so ours:—rather, “Thy good Spirit shall lead me;” or, as Junius, “Spiritu tuo bono deduc me,”—“Lead me by thy good Spirit.” … So Neh. 9:20, “Thou gavest them” רִוּחֲךָ הַטּוֹבָה, “thy good Spirit to instruct them.” And he is called so principally from his nature, which is essentially good, as “there is none good but one, that is, God,” Matt. 19:17; as also from his operations, which are all good as they are holy; and unto them that believe are full of goodness in their effects.
Bavinck (Reformed Dogmatics, vol. 2 pg. 277) summarizes why the third Person is called “Holy” and called the “Spirit”:
And although the divine being we call God is “Spirit” (John 4:24) and “holy” (Isa. 6:3), in Scripture the term “Holy Spirit” is still a reference to a special person in the divine being distinct from the Father and the Son. He owes this name to his special mode of subsistence: “spirit” actually means “wind,” “breath.” The Holy Spirit is the breath of the Almighty (Job 33:4), the breath of his mouth (Ps. 33:6). Jesus compares him to the wind (John 3:8) and “breathes” him upon his disciples (John 20:22; cf. 2 Thess. 2:8). The Spirit is God as the immanent principle of life throughout creation. And he is called “holy” because he himself exists in a special relation to God and because he puts all things in a special relation to God. He is not the spirit of humans or of creatures but the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit (Ps. 51:11–12; Isa. 63:10–11).
You can learn more about the true God, the Triune God, in the class here.
–TDR
Psalm 106: Becoming Your Worship
Reading Psalm 106 this week, a psalm accounting the history of Israel, I came to verses 19-20:
19 They made a calf in Horeb, and worshipped the molten image. 20 Thus they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox that eateth grass.
Man was made in the image of God. Since he is made in God’s image, God is to be his glory. Let’s go through it.
First, they made a molten calf. Second, they worshiped it. Third, by doing those first two things, they changed their glory into the similitude of an ox. It wasn’t even an ox, something God made. It was an image that they made to look like an ox. Instead of being in the image of God, they took on the glory of the ox, which is significantly less. It eats grass. It doesn’t self-exist. It needs grass that God makes.
This activity lessens the man. It reminds me of the young man loitering around the “whorish woman” in Proverbs 6:26, who is “brought to a piece of bread.” The relationship of the young man to the woman is similar to the people of Israel related to their molten calf. The woman has power over him through her seduction, leading him, and his acquiescing to her diminishes him to something akin to a slice of bread. I often like to say that she turns him to carp bait.
Their glory, which is the summation or aggregation of their attributes, who they are, is changed by what they worship. I want to take it a step further. The God or god you imagine is what or who you become. When the true God is imagined in a lesser way, a way not according to his attributes, that is who you become.
You take on the image of who you worship. You are made in the image of God, but perversion is that the person becomes what he worships. This is seen in the use of the term, “holy” (qadosh קָדוֹשׁ) in the Old Testament. The masculine noun קדש (qadesh) denoted a male temple prostitute (Job 36:14, 1 Kings 14:24) and the feminine קדשה (qadesha) described a female religious prostitute (Deuteronomy 23:17). They became what they worshiped. They were separated unto the nature of their god, taking on their god’s image, its attributes.
These evangelical churches using the world’s music aren’t worshiping the true God. The lust with and by which they worship indicates they are becoming who they worship. It is sacred in the sense that it is separated unto the god of their imagination, which would be pleased by lust. The ecstatic worship of Babylonian mysticism carried with it sexual prostitution in Corinth and in Ephesus. True worship is not ecstatic. It worships God in truth, which is to worship God according to the revelation of scripture.
Your children very likely will become the worship of your church. When they turn into that worship, don’t be surprised. Even if it is true worship of the true God, that doesn’t mean that they will still turn out as the glory of God. They will still need to choose that for themselves. It is very tempting to change into the glory of the creature and not the Creator.
What or who someone worships designates his highest value. If the value is diminished, his values are too, and so he is. He is reduced. Worshiping the one and true God in the beauty of His holiness brings glory from the One he worships. The glory of God is the glory of man.
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