"Absolute Holiness"
And this is the basic law of the Temple: absolute holiness! The entire top of the mountain where the Temple is built is holy. Yes, this is the basic law of the Temple. (Ezekiel 43:12 NLT)
Holiness. It's God's most well known & yet maybe least understood attribute. It is hard to grasp a God that is holy because the very definition of holiness is uniqueness. God is unique, distinct, other-than, separate. His ways are not our ways & his thoughts are not our thoughts. It is appropriate then to admit our lack of understanding. Maybe that's the first step in understanding God as holy.
As God is showing Ezekiel the measurements of the temple, he says that the whole mountain is holy, even absolute holiness! This is the main attribute of the presence & person of God. This is why only once a year the high priest was allowed into the manifest presence of God. And furthermore, this is why a sacrifice is needed in the first place. For how else can sinful man be reconciled to holy God? It does not seemed possible. The only way is for a meditator. Someone who understands both sides. Someone who can represent both God & man. And the OT sacrificial system points us to the God-man who would come to make things right between us again.
Jesus came to satisfy the absolute holiness of God & to redeem absolutely wicked sinners. He stood in the presence of God in absolute holiness & took our sin in our place. He entered into God's holy place & offered himself as the sacrifice for sins. He is the mediator. He is the God-man. He is the bridge between an absolutely holy God & absolutely unholy man.
And not only this, but we now share in his holiness. We who are in Christ have been clothed in his righteousness. We are no longer separated from God but welcomed into his holy presence because we have been made holy.
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