The Completion of Holiness

 August 16 2020

2 Corinthians 6 and 7:1

         This past while since I’ve been home more I’ve found that I really enjoy cooking and baking. The internet is loaded with recipes so it isn’t hard to find something to try. I should say though that I only really enjoy cooking or baking if what I’m making turns out the way it is supposed to. It’s hard to go to all the trouble of putting ingredients together only to end up with something less than you hoped for. This past while this is what has been happening to a few of my cakes I’ve tried to bake them and they’ve come out a little gooey on the inside. As I tried to figure out what was going on it seems as if our ovens thermostat may be on the fritz. The easy part in getting the oven fixed is that remembering when we purchased it which isn’t to difficult to figure out. We, of course, got it when the tree wrecked our house seven years ago. So, if the oven has been faithful for seven years I guess I can’t complain.

         When I was trying to figure out how old our oven was I just automatically used the event of the tree wiping out our house as a reference point. It’s funny that the tree hitting our house is our defining story even though we have lots of other stories we could tell. When we look back and remember though we always include that what we’re remembering was either before the tree hit the house or after the tree hit the house. I often wonder if other families have defining stories like our family does, an event that happened that kind of changed the course of all other events after it. The family of Israel, the people of God, had such an event. What is surprising is that this event wasn’t what most people would expect, the event of their leaving Egypt as free people under the leadership of Moses. I mean, after all this event was the event that formed them into a nation under the rule of God. Yet as defining as leaving Egypt was there was something else that happened to the people of Israel that shaped and molded how they looked at the world. The reason that this even had such a profound effect upon the people of Israel is that it was very traumatic, an unbelievable happening that even though it was predicted and prophesied that it was going to happen was still quite a shock to everyone when it did happen. This event I’m talking about is what the Bible speaks of as the exile. The exile was where the people of Israel who lived in Judah were taken into captivity by the Babylonians in Five Hundred and Ninety Seven B. C. Now, why this defeat at the hands of the Babylonians came as such a surprise is that the people of Israel believed that God would keep them safe, after all his Temple was at the center of Judah in Jerusalem. Surely God would not allow anything to happen to them as long as the Temple was there? What the people did not understand is that God had grown tired of his peoples idol worship, idol worship that led them into behave in grossly immoral ways. So, what God let his people know, through the various prophets that he called forth, is that he was going to allow Babylon to overrun Judah and take his people into captivity because of their transgressions. Yet even though this seemed like the end of the people of Israel being the people of God, God also told his prophets that he was going to do something that the world had never seen; God was going to bring his people back to the land that he had promised their ancestors. This was unusual because when an invading country overwhelmed a country and took their inhabitants captive those captives were taken away never to be heard from again. Not so with God’s people. They were going to be brought back home, led by God and his servant in much the same way that Moses had once first led the people to the Promised Land. Well, what God promised did happen and through what is very much a miracle, the Babylonians allowed the people of Judah to go home, to go and rebuild the city of Jerusalem and to rebuild the ruined Temple. And even though the people of Judah did return there was always the feeling among the people of Israel that the exile was never truly over, there was always a lingering doubt that what was supposed to have happen actually really happened. The grand visions of the peoples return as pictured by the prophet Isaiah were never experienced. The problem of course, was that the root cause of what had caused the exile, the peoples captivity to sin had never been dealt with.

         Now, I am surprised a little that in churches we don’t ever really talk about the exile all that much even though it is the defining event for the people of Israel. It is perhaps that people don’t really see the relevance the exile has to the way were living today. This is where what Paul has to teach us in our scripture for today is so important for us. You see, as we have said for the past couple of weeks Paul has been teaching about the new covenant how God’s law is to be written on our hearts, how we are to know God in an intimate way and how having his law upon our hearts and knowing God enable us to love him with all of our hearts, our souls and our strength and love our neighbor as ourselves. What we cannot forget is that this new covenant was in response to God’s people returning from exile. In the thirty first chapter of Jeremiah where we learn about the new covenant we also find God telling his people that there is hope for their future because one day their children would come back to their own country. The whole chapter is about how God is going to bring his people back to the country that he promised to them and when this happens this is when he would enter into a new covenant with them. The importance of this new covenant is that only through this new covenant would people be finally able to be free from the power of sin, free from the curse which causes people to be far from God.

         As we look at the second through the seventh chapters of Second Corinthians what we discover is that Paul has used this idea of the exile extensively and he especially used prophecies about the return from exile to drive home his points. When Paul speaks of being in the triumphal procession in the second chapter of Second Corinthians, he is recalling the prophecy where God would be the victor over Babylon and it is God who would lead his people home. When Paul speaks of being a pleasing aroma, he is most likely quoting from the Twentieth chapter of Ezekiel where we hear God tell Ezekiel, “As a pleasing aroma I will accept you when I bring you out from the peoples and gather you out of the countries where you have been scattered. And I will manifest my holiness among you in the sight of the peoples. So, Paul in his letter, right from the beginning has got the return from exile on his mind. 

         We have to keep in mind that the return from exile is Paul’s theme for his letter when we come to our scripture for today otherwise it might seem that Paul has gone off on some strange tangent. No, what Paul is doing in todays scripture is teaching us how, now with the new covenant, God has brought us back to himself. No, longer does anyone have to dwell in a far country, far from the Heavenly Father who loves them. God tells us, “In a favorable time I listened to you, in a day of salvation I have helped you.” This is God’s promise given to his people in exile found in the book of Isaiah and it is this promise that Paul uses to urge his readers to not receive the grace of God in vain but instead to work together with God. Now, the way Paul words this should make us stop because this phrase “in vain” as we might remember is part of the second command of the Ten Commandments where we are not to take the name of God in vain. Paul is thus pointing out that the new covenant which empowers us to love God with all of our heart, our life and our resources in effect empowers us to keep the first of the Ten Commandments to have no other gods because now we love only the one true living God. So, it only makes sense that Paul would go on to bring up the second commandment to not take the name of the Lord in vain. This commandment is about the people of God bearing the name of God, living a life which exalts the name, the unchanging characteristics of God. This means that we as people of God are to be people slow to anger, people of steadfast love and faithfulness, willing to forgive transgressions and sins. This is what we are to do as we work with God is to bring honor and glory to his name. To bear God’s name in vain then is to live a life where even though we know God and love God the life we lead does not show that the name of God rests upon us so that the reputation of God is ruined because of the way we live. This is Paul’s concern at the beginning of the sixth chapter of Second Corinthians. 

         Now, in order for us to not receive God’s grace in vain what is necessary is that we are no longer living in exile. This is where this idea of exile becomes so important to us here in the twenty first century because the exile  represented the people of God being taken to a far off country to symbolize that even though they were God’s people they were instead actually far from him. Being in exile wasn’t about pagans, or Gentiles who of course had no relationship with God; no, exile is about people who thought they had a relationship with God but found out too late the relationship they had was not as good as they thought it was. The answer as to what was wrong in the people of Israel’s relationship with their God was revealed at the crucifixion of Jesus. There the people of Israel, relying upon the power of their flesh, in horrible violence, put to death the Son of God who relied upon the power of the Spirit. All seemed lost until three days later Jesus walked out alive of the tomb on Easter morning. You see, what caused the people of God to be so far from God that they would crucify God’s own Son was their reliance upon their flesh. So, to come out of exile, to come out of Babylon is a call by Paul to leave the ways of the flesh behind. When Paul states that he puts no obstacle in anyone’s way, he is declaring that the road out of exile, the road out of a life lived by the power of the flesh has been made smooth; there is nothing to prevent anyone from living life in the power of the Spirit. Paul references the Sixtieth Chapter of Isaiah when he writes that his heart is open wide. Isaiah was writing about the returning children of Israel and he wrote “Lift up your eyes all around and see; they shall all gather together, they come to you; your sons shall come from afar, and your daughters shall be carried on the hip. Then you shall see and be radiant; your heart shall throb and grow large with delight.” This is what Paul was witnessing, the sons and daughters of God returning to him and Paul was thrilled, his heart was wide open with delight.

         So, just as the prophets had foresaw, people were leaving the existence of captivity, their life in the flesh, a life far from God depicted by life in Babylon and they were coming home to God to a life of freedom in the Spirit of God.What Paul’s concern.was was that even though the people of Corinth had experienced life in the Spirit they were still, at the same time, trying to live according to the flesh. When traveling preachers came to town, the people of Corinth were enamored by the letters of recommendation that these preachers passed around. The people of Corinth were also impressed that unlike Paul these preachers were willing to enter into the accepted patron/client relationship receiving payment for their preaching. These were all ways of the flesh, the letters of recommendation elevating these preachers own abilities and getting paid was all about control in the power of the flesh. We also see this in the first letter Paul wrote to the people at Corinth where there were a number of issues that had their roots in the life of the flesh. The church had split into four factions and they quarreled among themselves as to which faction was the best. There were issues of immorality that went unaddressed, they took their grievances against each other to the public courts and when they came together for the Lord’s Supper instead of sharing their food as was expected everyone just ate on their own totally missing the point of the meal symbolizing their unity in Christ. Listen to how Paul describes the work of the flesh in the fifth chapter of his letter to the Galatians that the being in the flesh is marked by sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, and drunkenness. Do you see how many of these were happening in the church of Corinth even though they were believing that they were Spirit filled people of the new covenant? It was if when the people of Israel were at long last being led back by God to come home with him they decided to bring a few momentous of life in Babylon. Paul is saying that when you get out of Babylon you get out of Babylon and never look back. 

         Paul uses four different verses from the prophets of old to drive home his point that they needed to give up completely their old way of life. The first quotation Paul uses is from the thirty seventh chapter of Ezekiel who was a prophet in exile and God spoke to him and told him  that one day God’s dwelling would be with his people. God declares “ I will be there God and they shall be my people.” And further God told Ezekiel that he would make a covenant of peace with them. This is exactly what Paul has been teaching in his letter, that God makes his home with anyone who keeps his word. This is what establishes God’s new covenant with his people. Paul goes on to quote from the fifty second chapter of Isaiah where Isaiah in a vision sees the people of Israel leaving Babylon and he writes “Depart, depart, go out from there touch no unclean thing; go out from the midst of her, meaning Babylon, and purify yourself those who bear the vessels of the Lord.” What Isaiah is saying is that the people were not to bring the impurities of Babylon with them when they come home to Jerusalem to dwell with God. They were to purify themselves, to prepare themselves for a life lived at home with God. Next, Paul quotes from Ezekiel again this time from the twentieth chapter where God declares, “I will bring you out from the peoples and gather you out from the countries where you are scattered with a mighty hand and outstretched arm…” God is bringing his people out from the nations so that they might be set apart for the holy work of life in the Spirit. God’s intention has always been that his people would be separate from the nations in that their actions would be guided by the Spirit and not by the flesh. Finally, Paul quotes from Second Samuel, the seventh chapter where God promises to be a father to his people and they would be his children. This meant that God would discipline them yet his steadfast love would never depart from them.”It was God who would teach his children the ways of the Holy Spirit and he would discipline them out of love when they turned back to the ways of the flesh. As Paul goes on to say, these are the promises of God. God promises to make his home among us, he promises to be our God  and welcome us home. God promises to be our father, to guide and discipline us and to never take his steadfast love from us. This is why we are to cleanse ourselves from every defilement of the flesh, to be holy before our God.

         You see the problem with the way of the Spirit is that it is so radically different from the ways of the flesh that it just doesn’t seem right. I mean look at the life of Paul . He endured afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, riots labors, sleepless nights and hunger. Is it any wonder the people of Corinth were ashamed of Paul’s life? The way of the Spirit is the way of suffering, of being vulnerable, of bearing another’s sin at great cost to yourself. But what Paul found in the midst of all his trial is that he had patience, he had kindness, he had the Holy Spirit, he had genuine love and truthful speech and most of all Paul found he had the power of God which was infinitely greater than the power of his flesh. You see, Paul knew the beauty of  life at home with God and what he couldn’t understand is why anyone would want to go back to the captivity of Babylon. Yet you know, even today Christians get enamored with the ways of the flesh to which Paul would say to them “Cleanse yourself and bring your holiness to completion.” May we take Pauls teaching to heart today. Amen.