Recovering a Sense of the Holy in our Churches.

Last year before I moved to the Midwest, I saw a sign displayed at one of the local churches down South. Now I am not generally a fan of slogans on these signs but this one caught my attention. Simply put the sign stated "God's holiness reveals man's depravity. I thought that was a powerful illustration of biblical truth. The American church in general and the Black American church in particular has, in my opinion, lost a sense of the holy. Growing up as I did in the rural southern context, I still remember a time when Black American Christians had a sense of reverence for God. Even though much of what we practiced may have looked like folk morays to many others, the fact of the matter is that Black Christians used to have a sense of the sacred that seems very much missing today. Even as a child I remember how children seemed to innately understand the seriousness of the worship experience. We used to be silent at the appropiate times and we sometimes cried when we saw our parents get touched around the altar. We somehow knew that God was different than all else and that He was worthy of our serious attention. This seems to be missing in the contemporary Black church context. Just like the broader American Christian culture, our worship services today seem to be built on the assumption that worship is supposed to be a form of entertainment. Although I did not like R.C. Sproul's "The Holiness of God" because of all of its tangental illustrations, I think that the heart of the issue is the holiness of God. We have lost a sense of the holy in our churches because we have forgotten about God's main attribute, his holiness. In the Old Testament, God is proclaimed to be different than any other gods. The gods of the ancient near east were immoral gods who were worshipped by many abhorent practices consistent with their character. Israel's God was distinct in that He was perfectly holy in all of his nature. This is best illustrated in Isaiah when he saw that vision of God's holiness that also showed Isaiah that he had unclean lips. That God is holy is something we must always keep in mind when dealing with Him. That is why we are admonished in the Ten commandments to not take His name in vain and to never desecrate the Sabbath but rather keep it holy. Because God is holy, everything around him should reflect his holiness. One of the biggest problems in the church today is the belief that holiness in the lives of believers is optional and just a better way of life rather than an essential part of the Christian experience. The doctrine of sanctification is rarely preached in modern churches. When we look carefully at sanctification we see that it has two aspects that are both necessary for us to become holy. First we must be separated from sin in all of its various forms, then we must be separated unto God. It is not enough to reform behavior, it is vital that we have a transformation of the heart. As Jeremiah illustrates, the heart is desperately wicked. As David declares, we are shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin. As Jesus clearly taught, from the heart springs forth the issues of life and it is what is in the heart that defiles us. So we need to be regenerated in order to live holy lives. It is rather unfortunate that the language of imputation is missing from the modern pulpit. All throughout Paul's epistles the language of imputation is used to show how we obtain righteousness. Since our righteousness is as filthy rags we have nothing to offer God. So God has become our righteousness through Jesus Christ who bore the wrath of God on our behalf. Him that knew no sin became sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ This is beautiful that we who are Adam's posterity and have inherited his guilt and pollution can be redeemed from both by the blood of the lamb and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. So we no longer have to be separated from God by our sins but can be in union with Him through Christ. As the old him states, "be of sin the double cure, save from wrath and make me pure". God's people are to be a holy people. He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world so that we can be holy like He is. True, our holiness is only relative and cannot approach that of God but still the New Birth produces genuine and recognizable fruit in believers. Though the struggle with sin continues throughout the life of believers we can rest assured that as we strip of the old and put on the new, as we mortify our members, as we walk in the Spirit we are becoming more and more holy by identification with Christ, by being continually cleansed by his blood, and by constantly being led by the Holy Spirit. To be a believer is to be a holy nation and a royal priesthood reflective of the holiness of God. We must return to biblical preaching in our churches, emphasizing the holiness of God, the reality of our depraved condition, and the ultimate solution of becoming righteous through Christ. Then we will see revival in our churches and God will heal the land.