Topical Studies
What the Bible says about
Holy Means Set Apart
(From Forerunner Commentary)
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1 Samuel 8:5
In ancient Israel's saga of rebellion against her Creator, one incident stands out due to its brazenness. When an aged Samuel appoints his greedy and unrighteous sons as judges in his place (I Samuel 8:1-3), the elders of Israel demand that he instead install a king "to rule over [Israel] like all the other nations" (I Samuel 8:5, Amplified Bible; emphasis ours throughout). Grieved by this request, Samuel takes the matter to God, who tells him that the real issue is that the people had rejected God from being King over them (verse 7). In reality, they were demonstrating their lack of trust in God. Though not saying it in so many words, this nation whom God had perfectly redeemed from Egypt found their Sovereign to be untrustworthy. Samuel gives the assembled people a prophetic glimpse of life under a human king (verses 10-18). Yet, even after this inspired warning, the people maintain that they want "a king over us, that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles" (verses 19-20). Even though it is not the ideal, and it is not what God would have chosen for them, He gives them what they ask—a government like the nations around them had. Sometimes God's most effective judgment is to give His people what they want and let them suffer for it. God knew that Israel would someday be influenced by surrounding nations and desire a similar form of government. Knowing His people's hardness of heart, He gives instructions regarding that scenario, such as that He would choose the king, that the king would not be foreign-born, etc. However, His true intention was for Israel to be "a kingdom of priests and a holy [set apart] nation" (Exodus 19:6). Earlier, they had been "a people dwelling alone, not reckoning itself among the nations" (Numbers 23:9). God reminds them: "I am the LORD your God, who has separated you from the peoples" (Leviticus 20:24). The Israelites' great distinction was that they were not like the other nations—and God desired that they remain that way. The problem was not the king per se, for long before, God had promised that kings would come from Abraham (Genesis 17:6) and that Judah would be the royal tribe from which the King of Kings would come (Genesis 49:8-10). The problem was Israel's desire to be like the nations, as it showed that they did not trust the system God had established or did not trust God to change it if it needed to be changed. God was supposed to be their King (Exodus 15:18; Judges 8:23; I Samuel 12:12). But during the tumultuous time of the Judges, Israel deteriorated spiritually first, then politically. They did not recognize their spiritual King, and not having a physical one, everyone did what was right in his own eyes (Judges 17:6; 21:25). During this time, Israel was in constant danger of invasion. God frequently chastened them by allowing a foreigner to rule over them, letting the people experience the contrast between His goodness and the oppression of the profane. Israel's response to this was to seek a physical king to lead them against their enemies. This they did rather than seek the spiritual King who could give them victory but also required their submission. The elders rightly discerned the wretched spiritual condition of Samuel's sons but missed the fact that the leaders God appointed were simply representative of the unrighteous people they governed. Their solution was to borrow a page from the world around them and have a king, while God's solution was for His people to turn back to Him. Man gravitates toward a system of human checks and balances that allows him to retain a measure of control. He replaces God's instructions with a constitution, which becomes the law of the land. He sets time limits on how long a person can hold authority and develops intricate procedures for choosing a leader. In contrast, those who trust in God rely on His governance without feeling the need to serve in an advisory capacity. They have confidence in His sovereign ability to elevate those chosen at the right time or to remove them at the right time, if necessary. They also have faith that, even when He promotes an unrighteous leader as a means of judging His people, the outcome will still be positive if it causes them to turn back to Him. For as long as there has been a "world" to eschew, there has also been the great temptation of God's people to imitate it. Yet each time they have given in, it has borne bitter fruit. On the wilderness journey, the Israelites continually compared their circumstances to the world they knew in Egypt. After settling in the land, they compared their situation to the pagan world around them. What they did not do was compare themselves against God's desire for them. When God's people imitate the priorities, values, and methods of the world, they begin to lose their distinctiveness and holiness. They lose that divine setting-apart that is part of God's grace. They may gain some acceptance from the world, but the terrible cost is an uneasy or damaged relationship with the Creator that results from rejecting His rule over them.
David C. Grabbe
A Government Like the Nations
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Daniel 12:7
Who are the "holy people" in this verse? Are they the church of God? If so, what is their power that is completely shattered right before the end? I Peter 2:9 could back up the interpretation that the "holy people" are the church of God: "But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people . . ." (emphasis ours throughout). However, the church is not the only group of people whom God has declared holy. Ancient Israel was also designated by God to be holy: -
For you are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth. (Deuteronomy 7:6; 14:2) -
Also today the LORD has proclaimed you to be His special people, just as He promised you, that you should keep all His commandments, and that He will set you high above all nations which He has made, in praise, in name, and in honor, and that you may be a holy people to the LORD your God, just as He has spoken. (Deuteronomy 26:18-19) Israel was holy, not because of their purity of conduct or irreproachable morality—far from it—but because God declared them to be so. They were holy in the sense of being set apart—not because of any inherent goodness but because of the oath that God swore to their fathers (Deuteronomy 7:7-8). Therefore, while the Israelite nations at this end time are not holy in their conduct, they are still holy in that God has set them apart to fulfill a purpose. Notice that Daniel 12:7 does not say that the people are shattered, but that their power is shattered. If we interpret the holy people to be Israel in general, their power would be representative of their political clout, military ascendancy, financial control, and cultural influence. The Hebrew word translated here as "power" is elsewhere translated predominately as "hand," indicating the means or agency by which something is accomplished. It is easy to understand a prophecy about the "hand"—strength, effectiveness, means, capabilities—of the nations of Israel being completely shattered before the end, for many such prophecies are well-known. But what would the "power" of the church be? Because of the church's overriding focus in times past on preaching the gospel to the world, we would typically answer that the power of the church is related to its effectiveness in preaching the gospel. However, notice Acts 1:8: But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. Similarly, Paul tells Timothy that Christians have not been given "a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind" (II Timothy 1:7). When these two verses are put together, they show that it is the Holy Spirit—the essence of God's mind, and the agency by which the Father and the Son live in the Christian—that is the "power of the holy people" where the church is concerned. More specifically, the church's power is God Himself, the Source of that Spirit. Jesus even tells His disciples that "all power" had been given to Him in heaven and on earth (Matthew 28:18). In recent church history, God empowered His servants to preach the gospel in a way that had not been done for 1,900 years. But to limit the church's power merely to its ability to preach publicly is to limit God Himself—for He is involved in far more than merely making a witness to the world before the end (Matthew 24:14). His work is centered on true belief (John 6:29)—which begins with the prodding of the Holy Spirit and ends in the regenerated Christian inheriting the Kingdom of God. This work requires much more than a public witness; it requires the transformation of individuals from sinful humans to spirit-composed members of the God Family. The means—the power—of that transformation is God, through the agency of His Spirit. If the church's power—Jesus Christ, living in us by His Spirit—were ever "completely shattered," the gates of the grave would prevail against the church, and God's purpose would fail! But we know that cannot be so. Even though it is prophesied that the "holy" peoples of Israel will fall, and even though the church of God may not always preach the gospel powerfully to the world—depending on what God is doing at any point in time—we can have every confidence that the power of the New Covenant church will never be shattered, for that power is God Himself! In general, the book of Daniel contains prophecies of world-ruling empires that are mentioned only as they encounter Israel. The "holy people" of Daniel 12:7 could just as easily represent the nations of Israel, and the fact that their "power" can be shattered strongly implies that God's power is not under discussion. Defining the power of God's church as "shatterable" reveals a humanist bent, as it assigns importance based on corruptible human action rather than the will and outworking of the unassailable Head of the church. In fact, such an inclination on our part may have been part of the cause of the church's scattering in the first place! Jesus Christ will lead and sustain His church—in that we can, and must, trust.
David C. Grabbe
The Power of the Holy People
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