Last week we talked about Esh Oklah, El Kanna—consuming fire, jealous God. This was spoken by Moses in Deuteronomy 4:24. He was reminding the children of Israel of all they had been through since leaving Egypt, as well as reminding them of their actions and God’s responses. As Moses was reminding them not to have any other god or idol other than Him, he said, “Yahweh your Elohim is Esh Oklah, El Kanna.” “The LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.”
Why do you think the Lord said that his name is El Kanna, jealous God?
I think it is a reminder that he wants our total devotion, worship, and adoration. He has, does, and will pursue us because he wants us WITH him. He is jealous FOR us.
Malachi 3:2-3 says “But who will be able to endure the day he comes? Who will be able to survive on the day he appears? He is like a purifying fire and like a cleansing soap. He will act like a refiner and a purifier of silver.” What does it mean to you that he is a “purifying fire, a refiner and purifier of silver”?
To me it tells me that he holds me when I am going through trials that are meant to refine me and burn away the impurities/sin in my own life. He is molding me into what he needs me to be.
This week we will be studying Qedosh Yisrael, which means Holy One of Israel. I will admit, like a lot of these names, I look at it and wonder how I am going to teach this name. We have studied other names whose characteristics point to God’s holiness. This name, itself, means Holy. He is holy, his name is holy.
Qidosh Yisrael is described to us in Leviticus 19:2. Yahweh is speaking to Moses and giving him instructions for how the Israelites are to live. Yahweh says, “Tell the whole congregation of Israel; Be holy because I, Yahweh your Elohim, am holy.” However, the first time the name is used is in 2 Kings 19:22 when the Assyrians were threatening Jerusalem and mocking God. King Hezekiah brought the letters from the Assyrians to the temple and prayed to God. God’s response was delivered through the prophet Isaiah and Yahweh said, “My dear people in Zion despise you and laugh at you. My people in Jerusalem shake their heads behind your back. Whom are you defying and slandering? Against whom are you shouting? Who are you looking at so arrogantly? It is Qedosh Israel!”, The Holy One of Israel.
So God himself is saying that he is Holy.
If I asked you to describe God, how would you describe him?
We would probably say all powerful, all knowing, omnipotent, forgiving, loving, creator, etc.
There are three places in scripture that use the statement “GOD IS”.
John 4:24- “GOD IS a spirit. Those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.”
1 John 4:7-8-”Dear friends, we must love each other because love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born from God and knows God. The person who doesn’t love doesn’t know God because GOD IS love.”
1 John 1:5-”This is the message we heard from Christ and are reporting to you; GOD IS light, and there isn’t any darkness in him.”
He is all of those things BECAUSE he is Holy. None of that can exist without his holiness.
In Isaiah 6, Isaiah is explaining a vision of God’s majesty. He said, “Angels were standing above him. Each had six wings: With two they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. They called to each other and said, “Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh Tseboath! The whole earth is filled with his glory. Their voices shook the foundations of the doorposts, and the temple filled with smoke.”
Now this scene shows that the angels are declaring his holiness. And it’s not like they just say one time “Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh Tseboath”, no it is being repeated, constantly. Picture yourself in a superbowl stadium in the middle of the game and everyone starts shouting “Holy, holy, holy”. Its in stereo, its repetitive, its a declaration of his holiness, of who he is. It’s not a question, its a statement.
But what does it mean to be holy?
Webster defines it as “exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness”. Humanly it means to be “set apart”. In scripture it is scared.
Braxton’s chair is holy. That is his chair. He is the only one “allowed” to sit in it. It is set apart, it is “holy”. Don’t tell him I said that.
Now, because God is holy, there is nothing imperfect in God. God can do everything except one thing. He cannot lie, he cannot sin because he is Holy.
In Exodus 19, two months after the Israelites came out of Egypt, they came to the desert of Sinai. This is where Yahweh called Moses up onto the mountain and talked to him. Yahweh said, You have seen all the things that I did in Egypt and how I carried you out. “If you carefully obey me and are faithful to the terms of my promise then out of all the nations you will be my own special possession, even though the whole world is mine. You will be my kingdom of priests and my holy nation.”
Moses took this to the leaders of the Israelites and they all agreed that they would follow God. So Yahweh told them that he is coming to them in a cloud so that THEY WOULD HEAR HIM SPEAK with you and will always believe you. They had two days to get ready. In those two days they had to wash their clothes and “they must set themselves apart as holy.”
Now, I don’t think I will ever be set apart as holy because I still have laundry needing to be washed, folded, and put up and it’s been way more than two days.
What is said here is confirmed in Deuteronomy 5 after Moses is recalling to the Israelites when God gave their ancestors the Ten Commandments on Mt. Sinai, in verse 22 he said, “These are the commandments Yahweh spoke to your whole assembly on the mountain. He spoke in a loud voice from the fire, the cloud, and the gloomy darkness. Then he stopped speaking. He wrote the commandments on two stone tablets and gave them to me.”
So Moses wasn’t the only one who heard the laws being given by God despite what our childhood Bible lessons taught us. They all heard it. Also, it wasn’t just the ten commandments written on those stone tablets, but all the rules and laws that God said to them.
In order to be holy, we must be sinless. In Genesis 3:8 it says that “In the cool of the evening, the man and his wife heard Yahweh Elohim walking around in the garden. So they hid from Yahweh Elohim among the trees in the garden.”
So before sin entered into the world, God walked alongside us, his creation. It was sin that separated us from him. He could no longer be physically with us because his holiness won’t allow him to be in the presence of sin. However, God already had a plan for this, in Genesis 3:21 it says, “Yahweh Elohim made clothes from animal skins for the man and his wife and dressed them.”
Where do animal skins come from? Do you think the animals took them off to share with Adam and Eve?
No. They were sacrificed.
Then we see in Genesis 4 that Cain and Abel also made sacrifices to God and Cain killed Abel because of jealousy.
So we see God’s plan to restore us to him in the first few chapters of the Bible. Because of God’s holiness he cannot be in the presence of sin. Jesus on the cross took on all that sin and God turned his back on him as recorded in Mark 15:34, “At three o’clock Yeshua cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” Which means, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
So, back to our key verse, Leviticus 19:2, “Tell the whole congregation of Israel: Be holy because I, Yahweh your Elohim, am holy.”
How do we become holy? How do we become set apart?
We become holy by having a relationship with God. We develop a consistent prayer life. We spend time in scripture. We obey what God laws and what he tells us to do. We practice confession and repentance. We replace selfishness with love, patience, kindness, mercy, and truth. We live in a community of believers. We grow together in faith and love. We live set apart. We act set apart.
2 Corinthians 7:1 says, “Since we have these promises, dear friends, we need to cleanse ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit and live a HOLY life in the fear of God.”
So if we remember that Elohim created us, El Roi sees us, El Shaddai is our Almighty, El Olam is eternal, Yahweh Yireh provides for us, Yahweh is our LORD, Adonay is our Master, Yahweh Rophe is our healer, Yahweh Nissi is our banner, Esh Oklah is a consuming fire, El Kanna is a jealous God, then it is easy to recognize Qedosh Yisrael as the HOLY One. (Yes there will be a test at the end of the year. You have been warned.)
God calls us to be holy, not because he wants to make life harder for us, but because he wants us to live with HIM. It’s all about relationship.
In the beginning He walked with God in the garden. Sin was the separator, the thing that keeps us from God. He never stopped pursuing us. He never stopped wanting us to be with him. He made a way. In the Old Testament it was animal sacrifices. In the New it was Jesus.
The sacrifice that Jesus made for us on the cross made the way for us to be holy. “Be holy because I am holy” is an invitation. An invitation to walk with Him. An invitation to live differently. To speak differently. To act differently.
Qedosh Yisrael is calling us to live “set apart”.
Have a great day with Jesus!
