Holiness or Hellishness?
In his blog article "ON HATING MY NEIGHBOR’S HOLINESS, HATING GOD, AND HELL," Derek Rishmawy describes how, when a person hates and envies another person because of that neighbor's striving toward holiness, he is actually hating God Who is the source of all holiness, and thus descends into the pit of a self-imposed hell.
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!
The Church teaches that "God is everywhere and fills all things" – the Lord Jesus, God incarnate, even descending into hell for us. So the hater is stuck forever in the presence of the God Whom he hates. By quoting Charnock's Existence and Attributes of God, the above article emphasizes – "The purity of God is contemned, in hating and scoffing at the holiness which is in a creature. Whoever looks upon the holiness of a creature as an unlovely thing, can have no good opinion of the amiableness of Divine purity."
What is God's holiness like? Remember when Moses saw the burning bush and the Lord said to him – "Take off your sandals because the place where you are standing is holy ground!" And on Mount Sinai, the Lord revealed Himself in a dark cloud, thunder and lightning, telling the Israelites to purify themselves and keep back from the mountain so they wouldn't be killed by the Lord's holiness. A radio preacher recently said that God's holiness is even more than the near-total purity of the air in a semiconductor factory he visited: the workers must pass through a long building to get cleaner and cleaner, then don protective suits, not to protect themselves but to protect the semiconductors from them! We need the germs in the air to live, for our digestion and our immune systems to function. And the water used to clean the semiconductors is so pure that if we were to drink it, it would kill us because alll of the minerals have been removed, so it would rob our bodies of the minerals we need to live. That's real purity!
The two sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, were struck dead when they presumed to touch the Ark of the Covenant (Leviticus ch. 10). Remember when Aaron and Miriam complained against Moses (Numbers ch. 12) and the Lord rebuked them by causing leprosy to appear on Miriam. Recall the rebellion in the wilderness against Moses, when Korah, a Levite, protested against Moses' leadership (Numbers ch. 16): the earth opened up and swallowed 250 men. In both cases, their complaints were that they were just as holy as Moses, but this simply isn't true: there are degrees of holiness and degrees of what a person is permitted to do. Levites, even the sons of Aaron, were not allowed to approach the Ark of the Covenant, only a specially chosen priest could do that.
So the Christian's striving toward holiness is a relative thing: we can never in this life attain perfect holiness and purity, but we can try. The saints are saints because they realize how sinful they were and still are. When Christ was transfigured on the mountain, He revealed His glory and holiness to the three apostles as much as they could bear it. And because St. Paul learned of this, he wrote to the church in Rome – "Therefore I urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service. Don't be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God" (Romans 12:1-2). That word "transformed" is exactly the same word in Greek as "transfigured" – we as believers should be "conformed to the image of His Son" (Romans 8:29).
As the Apostle John, who witnessed Christ's transfiguration, wrote – "Beloved, now we are children of God, and it is not yet revealed what we will be. But we know that, when He is revealed, we will be like Him; for we will see Him just as He is. Everyone who has this hope set on him purifies himself, even as He is pure". We cannot fathom the perfect purity and holiness of Christ our God, but we have the firm hope and confidence that when we see Him, we will be made like Him.
God is perfectly holy, in contrast to the Christian's only striving toward holiness by struggling against the lusts of the flesh and spirit. If the above is what holiness is like, then what is hellishness like? St. Paul wrote – "But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you won't fulfill the lust of the flesh. ...Now the works of the flesh are obvious, which are: adultery, sexual immorality, uncleanness, lustfulness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, outbursts of anger, rivalries, divisions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, gluttony, and things like these; of which I forewarn you, even as I also forewarned you, that those who practice such things will not inherit the Kingdom of God" (Galatians 5:16 & 19-21).
According to the Church Fathers, the last vice listed above, gluttony, is actually the "gateway drug" leading to all the other sins of the flesh: after all, as the tired excuse goes, we all need to eat, don't we? But that's not the right question: the real problem is not knowing when to stop eating, while we are still hungry because the sensation of being full lags behind actually having eaten enough. So giving into the vice of gluttony leads to satisfying the other lusts of the flesh... including sexual immorality, hatred, and jealousy. We hate others who are holier and purer than ourselves precisely because we are jealous of them.
Claiming to be smarter than Christians, able to outsmart even God, to have "science" on their side (actually, it is the ideology of "scientism" – the belief that science can explain everything and can cure all diseases that we bring upon ourselves), people who hate God descend into hellishness, as St. Paul writes –
"Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools, and traded the glory of the incorruptible God for the likeness of an image of corruptible man, and of birds, and four-footed animals, and creeping things. Therefore God also gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to uncleanness, that their bodies should be dishonored among themselves, who exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen. For this reason, God gave them up to vile passions. For their women changed the natural function into that which is against nature. Likewise also the men, leaving the natural function of the woman, burned in their lust toward one another, men doing what is inappropriate with men, and receiving in themselves the due penalty of their error. Even as they refused to have God in their knowledge, God gave them up to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not fitting; being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, evil habits, secret slanderers" (Romans 1:22-29).
There we find the same ideas as in the article we quoted at the outset: envying and slandering one's neighbor because he or she is holier and purer. Today we are experiencing "Cancel Culture" in which people who willingly indulge the lusts of the flesh actually project their guilt onto those whom they hate, calling them "haters" and "bigots." But what will be the consequences of such "vile passions"? Again, St. Paul writes –
"Or don't you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don't be deceived. Neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor male prostitutes, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor slanderers, nor extortioners, will inherit the Kingdom of God. Such were some of you, but you were washed. But you were sanctified. But you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and in the Spirit of our God. 'All things are lawful for me,' but not all things are helpful. 'All things are lawful for me,' but I will not be dominated by anything. 'Foods for the belly, and the belly for foods,' but God will destroy both it and them. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body" (1 Corinthians 6:9-13).
Those who claim to have the law on their side so they can satisfy their bellies and live according to their fleshly lusts – again, slanderers are listed right along with adulterers, male prostitutes, and homosexuals – will not inherit the Kingdom of God. St. Paul repeats this idea in his letter to the Ephesians (5:3-5) – "But sexual immorality, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not even be mentioned among you, as becomes saints [holy ones]; nor filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not appropriate; but rather giving of thanks. Know this for sure, that no sexually immoral person, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, has any inheritance in the Kingdom of Christ and God."
Coveting, i.e. to be envious of what another person has, is essentially idolatry, putting one's own envy and hatred ahead of God. To be on the journey to become saints, however, is to forsake and forswear those sins of the mind and the flesh, and then "Pursue peace with everyone, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no 'root of bitterness' springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; that no one is sexually immoral or ungodly like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal" (Hebrews 12:14-16). Esau indulged the fleshly lust of gluttony and thus sold his birthright. Let us take heed, so that we do not sell out to our passions!
In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit! Christ is among us! He is and ever shall be!
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