Unified through Holiness

2 Corinthians 6:16-7:1
16 And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? for ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.
17 Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord, and touch not the unclean thing; and I will receive you,
18 And will be a Father unto you, and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Almighty.
7:1 Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

To better understand the Apostle Paul's address to the Corinthian church we look to the Old Testament. As we know, God made a covenant with Abraham which passed from generation to generation. This covenant was established and set. We find God delivering the children of Israel from bondage in Egypt, aiding them in defeating numerous peoples more mighty than themselves so that they might possess the Promised Land, working miracles through the rod of Moses, feeding them with manna from heaven and setting them apart to be a people unto Himself. As a requirement God continues to tell them to put away idols and not to worship other gods. We find, however, over the course of their generations that they continued to slip back into familiar ways and patterns. They became an idolatrous people. Though God judges them many times, His covenant still stands. He longs for them to be His people; separated, consecrated and holy unto Him alone.

Many centuries later after the birth, death and ressurection of Jesus Christ and the gift of the Holy Ghost the Apostle Paul brings this message to the Corinthians. And still many centuries later the Church of today finds itself in need of this message. We are living under the New Testament/Covenant and so of course what applied then still applies today. In light of that let's look at what the Apostle Paul wrote prophetically to our Church.

In verse 16 a very important question is posed. What agreement hath the temple of God with idols? An idol is something that we give more reverence and respect to than we give to God. It is not limited to the worship of false gods but also and more often for our time includes desires. Most Christians would not allow themselves to be entagled in worshipping false gods. How often do we set up idols of televison, the computer, food, celebrities, etc. that keep us from fulfilling the will of God? We give so much attention to these things and wonder when the day is over what happened to our time. We learn in this verse that we are the temple of the living God and God wants to dwell in us and walk in us. But how can that happen if we don't clean the temple and make room for Him to enter in?

Verse 17 is a sobering exhortation to separate from the world. We know that though we are in the world, we are not of the world. By the renewing of our minds we can be transformed (Romans 12:2). When we separate ourselves God promises, I will receive you.

In verse 18 God promises to be a Father unto us and we will be His sons and daughters. We understand that because of Christ we have received the Spirit of adoption whereby we can cry Abba, Father. Its the Spirit of God that bears witness with our spirits which teaches us we are the children of the Almighty God. (Romans 8:15-16).

Now verse 1 of chapter 7 is where we find the key. Because of the promises that have been made to us to be heirs and joints heirs with Christ we are to cleanse ourselves of all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. The word flesh is easily understood because we know the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak (Matthew 26:41). Spirit here is the word for the Greek pneuma. In this instance it refers to affections, emotions or desires. So we cleanse ourselves from the lusts of the flesh and also from affections, emotions and desires that will cause us to fall into the trap of sin. By doing this we begin the work of perfecting holiness in the fear of God. Perfecting is the word for the Greek epiteleo which means to take upon one's self. In other words we put holiness on as a cloak. If we put it on we must understand that it can be taken off. If it is ever taken off it is of our own volition. There is work involved in keeping holiness on. This work is done, as we do all things, by the grace of God. As we live by God's grace we are able to walk in obedience and live in the fear of God. When we fear God we reverence Him and understand that His way of righteousness and holiness is so much better for us then anything we could ever imagine.

Until next time, let's put ourselves in remembrance to take the highway set before us; the way of holiness!