I have not departed from the commands of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my daily bread. Job 23:12 (NIV)
Job, as part of his defense against the accusations of sin by his friends, gives us this verse to show how truly he has followed the commands of God. He clearly declares that not only has he NOT departed from the commands that have come from the lips of God, but he has treasured the words of God more than his daily bread.
How many of us today could make that claim? How many of us can truly say that we have not departed from God’s commands? How many of us could really truly say that we would rather read and study our Bibles than eat?
Some might say that a person would have to be some kind of religious nut to say those kinds of things. Or they might say that Job was an exceptional person, a real saint, whereas we are just normal flesh-and-blood people. Nobody could possibly obey God completely, or so the usual argument goes. And (for some strange reason) this kind of reasoning brings comfort to us and seems to relieve some of the conviction we feel when someone brings up this kind of verse. But is that reasoning true?
It’s amazing to me, especially as a member of a holiness denomination, a person who can testify to the saving and sanctifying power of God in my own life, how many people, even “good Christians,” believe that we cannot live our daily lives without sinning. I am regularly shocked by how many people have discarded the biblical statements: “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight.” (Ephesians 1:4 NIV); “Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord.” (Hebrews 12:14 NIV); “As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:14-16 NIV). (And that’s just the NEW Testament! There are dozens more in the Old Testament!)
Some people have tried to play with the words to lower the bar of holiness that is expected of people, declaring that holy doesn’t actually mean holy; it just means something more like “saved.” In other words, as long as you have said the Sinner’s Prayer, then you are saved, and you are considered holy by God even while you are still sinning. But if God actually meant that, why would he say “But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do.” Doesn’t that imply that our holiness is to resemble in some important ways the holiness of God?
Some other people say that some people are holy, but the majority of Christians really can’t pull off holiness, so obviously, God gives most of us a pass on real holiness and just expects it from the “super saints.’ But I can’t find anywhere in my Bible where God lists two classes of Christians, or has different standards as if there were two classes of Christians. Instead, passion for God and a real holiness that results from that passion seems to be the expected norm for ALL Christians.
The apostle John holds the bar high in ways that are not open to misinterpretation:
Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.
Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. He who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. He who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God. This is how we know who the children of God are and who the children of the devil are: Anyone who does not do what is right is not a child of God; nor is anyone who does not love his brother.
1 John 3:4-10 (NIV)
The fact is, real holiness, real ethical purity, is and always has been the standard for God’s people, both in the Old Testament times and in the New Testament times. And we in the New Testament dispensation have something that can actually remove from us our hearts of stone and replace them with hearts of flesh; give us compliant and obedient hearts instead of the rebellious ones that we were born with. And that something, actually someONE, is the Holy Spirit. The Old Testament saints received the Holy Spirit in spurts, but we can have the Holy Spirit as a permanent resident in our hearts, actively conveying to us God’s presence as well as changing us from the inside out into the very image of Jesus.
Some people seem to be threatened by this high standard of holiness. Some even complain that such a high standard is unrealistic and discouraging to the ordinary person. But every saint of God is nothing more than an ordinary person who is made extraordinary not by some special talent or special set of genes, but simply by living in the presence and power of the Holy Spirit.
And if Job could live in obedience to all of the commands from the lips of God, if he could treasure God’s words more than his daily bread to the point where even God Himself declared him blameless (Job 1:8), and do it without the indwelling presence of the Holy Spirit, then we should be much more able to pull it off with His presence.