In G. K. Beale’s The Temple and the Church’s Mission,
he says, “The prophet Ezekiel portrays Eden on a mountain (Ezek. 28:14,
16). Israel’s temple was on Mount Zion (e.g., Exod. 15:17), and the
end-time temple was to be located on a mountain (Ezek. 40:2; 43:12; Rev.
21:10).”[1]
The fact that the Garden is viewed as the place of the first mountain
is very interesting in light of the Bible’s emphasis on mountains and
temples. Beale notes that early Jewish commentary also saw a unique
relationship between Eden, a high mountain, and Israel’s temple. He
references 1 Enoch 24-25 and comments:
The early Jewish book of 1 Enoch says the tree of life would
be transplanted from Eden, which was on a ‘high mountain’, to the ‘Holy
Place beside the temple of the Lord’ in Jerusalem…, implying that the
tree’s former location in Eden was also a sanctuary.[2]
The entry for “Mountain” in Dictionary of Biblical Imagery reads:
Almost from the beginning of the Bible, mountains are sites of
transcendent spiritual experiences, encounters with God or appearances
by God. Ezekiel 28:13-15 places the *Garden of Eden on a mountain.
*Abraham shows his willingness to sacrifice Isaac and then encounters
God on a mountain (Gen 22:1-14). God appears to Moses and speaks from
the *burning bush on “Horeb the mountain of God” (Ex 3:1-2 NRSV), and he
encounters Elijah on the same site (1 Kings 19:8-18). Most impressive
of all is the experience of the Israelites at Mt. *Sinai (Ex 19), which
*Moses ascends in a *cloud to meet God.
A similar picture emerges from the NT, where Jesus is associated with
mountains. Jesus resorted to mountains to be alone (Jn 6:15), to *pray
(Mt 14:23; Lk 6:12) and to teach his listeners (Mt 5:1; Mk 3:13). It was
on a mountain that Jesus refuted Satan’s temptation (Mt 4:8; Lk 4:5).
He was also transfigured on a mountain (Mt 17:1-8; Mk 9:2-8; Lk
9:28-36), and he ascended into heaven from the Mount of Olives (Acts
1:10-12).[3]
Jesus also designated a mountain in Galilee from which he gave the
Great Commission to the eleven (Matthew 28:16). Jesus is both the
tabernacle of God among men (John 1:14) and a temple (John 2:19-22) who
builds the new temple (Ephesians 2:19-22 [his body, the church]).
Hebrews 12:18-24 contrasts Mount Sinai and Mount Zion in the context of
the transition from the Old Covenant to the New Covenant. God’s people
have gone from one mountain to another. Surely these mountains are
symbols of the Old Covenant and the New Covenant and have their
foundation in the first mountain-temple, the Garden of Eden.
http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/holiness-beyond-words byDavid Mathis|
August 23, 2012
Holiness starts with God. Discussions about holiness get off on the
wrong foot when they begin with what we don’t do, rather than with who
God is.
This is essential to keep in mind as we talk about sanctification — the process of our becoming holy.
Before we get too far down the road with the derivative holiness of the
creature, let’s tune into the original holiness of the Creator.
The holiness of God, says R.C. Sproul in his classic book,
is “one of the most important ideas that a Christian can ever grapple
with. It is basic to our whole understanding of God and of Christianity”
(12).
Holiness Carries Us to the Brink
In trying to define the almost indefinable, John Piper draws in an illustration from the end of C.S. Lewis’s The Voyage of the Dawn Treader.
There Reepicheep, the gallant mouse, sails to the end of the world in
his little coracle. Says Piper, “The word ‘holy’ is the little boat in
which we reach the world’s end in the ocean of language.”
The possibilities of language to carry the
meaning of God eventually run out and spill over the edge of the world
into a vast unknown. “Holiness” carries us to the brink, and from there
on, the experience of God is beyond words.
The reason I say this is that every effort to define the holiness of
God ultimately winds up by saying: God is holy means God is God. . . .
The very god-ness of God means that he is separate from all that is not
God. There is an infinite qualitative difference between Creator and
creature. God is one of a kind. Sui generis. In a class by himself. In
that sense he is utterly holy. But then you have said no more than that
he is God.
. . . God is the absolute reality beyond which is only more of God. When asked for his name in Exodus 3:14,
he said, “I am who I am.” His being and his character are utterly
undetermined by anything outside himself. He is not holy because he
keeps the rules. He wrote the rules! God is not holy because he keeps
the law. The law is holy because it reveals God. God is absolute.
Everything else is derivative.
God’s Utterly Unique Divine Essence
Having set the table, Piper then asks, What is the holiness of God? Before venturing a definition, he bids us listen to three texts.
1 Samuel 2:2: “There is none holy like the Lord: for there is none besides you” Isaiah 40:25: “To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him? says the Holy One.” Hosea 11:9: “I am God and not a man, the Holy One in your midst.”
He draws it together with this explanation:
In the end, God is holy in that he is God
and not man. . . . He is incomparable. His holiness is his utterly
unique divine essence. It determines all that he is and does and is
determined by no one.
His holiness is what he is as God which no one else is or ever will
be. Call it his majesty, his divinity, his greatness, his value as the
pearl of great price.
In the end, language runs out. In the word “holy,” we have sailed to
the world's end in the utter silence of reverence and wonder and awe.
There may yet be more to know of God, but that will be beyond words.
Once we’ve stood in utter silence, captured by his god-ness,
speechless with wonder and awe, filled with reverence and unmatched
admiration for our Creator and Redeemer, then we’re ready to talk about
holiness in the created and redeemed. And only then.
How mind-numbing is it that this holy God not only stoops to pardon
our sin, but also empowers us to share in his holiness? True to the word
holy, it’s a reality that carries us beyond words. http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/holiness-beyond-words
“Do first things first” is the takeaway from Laura Vanderkam’s new eBook What the Most Successful People Do Before Breakfast. Morning is “prime time for self-improvement,” USA Todayreports in reviewing Vanderkam’s work. The article says,
Here are some of the things she says go-getters do before most people finish their first cup of coffee:
•Exercise. A dawn workout is common among CEOs and other high-powered types.
•Meditate or pray. Monks aren't the only ones who start the day on a spiritual note.
•Work, often on personal or long-term projects outside the scope of their daily duties.
•Fix a family breakfast — sometimes as a substitute for a family dinner — or play with their kids.
The counsel is to tackle the most important things first, “before the
demands of the day intrude. Interruptions and emergencies tend to
strike later in the day; motivation tends to wilt. And people who start
the day with a win can build on the momentum all day long . . . .”
So it seems the old commonsensical proverb holds: Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.
Starting on a Spiritual Note
Family, work, and exercise are all important, but perhaps it’s the mention of meditation and prayer that most distinctively catches the Christian attention. Which raises the question, Vanderkam’s work aside, Is there a Christian way to make the most of your mornings?
While some may think of morning as “prime time for self-improvement,”
would the Christian approach be to treat morning as prime time for
sanctification — or at least as a spiritual fueling up for the day?
Early in the Morning
The history of the church is filled with men and women who put “first
things first” through going Godward to start their day. This shouldn’t
be that surprising given that it’s recorded of our great Hero himself
that “rising very early in the morning, while it was still dark, he
departed and went out to a desolate place, and there he prayed” (Mark 1:35).
And, of course, his “very early” morning resurrection (Mark 16:2) is pregnant with significance.
Getting Your Soul Happy in God
George Mueller
(1805–1898) is remembered for his massive ministry to orphans in
England over a century ago. But here’s something else to remember about
Mueller. He writes in his autobiography about the life-changing find he
made about the power of mornings. His discovery was that
the first great and primary business to
which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord.
The first thing to be concerned about was . . . how I might get my soul
into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished . . .
For Mueller, this meant that “the most important thing I had to do
was to give myself to the reading of the word of God and to meditation
on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned,
reproved, instructed; and that thus, while meditating, my heart might be
brought into experimental communion with the Lord.”
Obtaining Food for the Inner Man
And Mueller gets practical. He says that, after a short prayer,
asking for God’s blessing on his time of reading, “the first thing I did
. . . was to begin to meditate on the word of God, searching as it were
into every verse to get blessing out of it; not for the sake of the
public ministry of the word; not for the sake of preaching on what I had
meditated upon; but for the sake of obtaining food for my soul.” This
is not self-improvement, but feasting one’s soul at the banquet of God.
By meditation, Mueller means “not the simple reading of the
word of God, so that it only passes through our minds, just as water
runs through a pipe, but considering what we read, pondering over it,
and applying it to our hearts.”
A Happy State of Heart
Mueller found the result of such Bible meditation soon became prayer
in its varied forms — whether confession, thanksgiving, intercession, or
supplication — and “that my inner man almost invariably is almost
sensibly nourished and strengthened and that by breakfast time, with
rare exceptions, I am in a peaceful if not a happy state of heart.”
In short,
. . . it is as plain to me as anything
that the first thing the child of God has to do morning by morning is to
obtain food for the inner man. As the outward man is not fit for work
for any length of time, except we take food, and as this is one of the
first things we do in the morning, so it should be with the inner man. .
. .
How different when the soul is refreshed and made happy early in the
morning, from what it is when, without spiritual preparation, the
service, the trials, and the temptations of the day come upon one!
Encouragement and Challenge
Vanderkam’s book and Mueller’s experience should be no small
encouragement for those who are naturally morning larks, bouncing out of
bed before dawn, ready to face the challenges of the day with their
best energies. If this is you, harness it. Make the most of your morning
by seeking your soul’s happiness in God. When you think of “doing first
things first,” consider going deep in the Scriptures, scouring them for
fresh glimpses of Jesus, and daily rehearsing their central message —
the gospel — that is always for the Christian “of first importance” (1 Corinthians 15:3).
For the in-betweeners who can do either late nights or early mornings
(but not usually both in the same day!), you have your challenge — with
good incentive — for taking intentional steps to seek the Spiritual
discipline of getting to bed earlier. A practical key to getting up
early, and getting right away to the day’s most important things, is
getting to bed early. Which is so much tougher than it sounds. Vanderkam
recognizes this is the deal-killer for many. "Going to bed early is not
that easy for many people."
Jesus for Night Owls Too
For the natural night owls and late-risers — who may not feel
motivated by this discussion, but discouraged, and even condemned, by
the whole thing — consider this: The Jesus who got up early, while it
was still dark, to pray, and rose from the dead very early in the
morning, is the same Jesus who will not break a bruised reed or quench a
smoldering wick (Matthew 12:20). He is not just our example, but our Substitute. He is the one who says,
Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will
give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am
gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my
yoke is easy, and my burden is light. (Matthew 11:28–30)
In this Jesus is grace enough for utter freedom from condemnation,
and grace enough for unexpected change and small strides forward over
time. This Jesus is worth running to straightaway for soul-satisfaction —
whether you’re up before the sun or rolling out of bed at the crack of
afternoon.
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
