Salt Guide to Practical Holiness

SALT GUIDE TO PRACTICAL HOLINESS INTRODUCTION ____________________________________________________________ negative sentiment for the world with an equal positive sentiment for the divine moral in order to please God. Hebrews 1:9 Re- ligion without biblical holiness (the pursuit of moral excellence) is a superficial re- ligion no matter how emotional it is (See Amos 5). The new liberation gospel proposes to introduce a religion of humanly induced sensational results with no regard for personal sanctification. I John 3:5; Romans 8:29 It is a spurious gospel that implies devotion to God is adequate, and then tolerates an af- fection for the world, ruthlessly eliminating the pre-eminence of sanctification. Scriptural holiness teaching is not the pe- culiar thinking of an ancient age or the tra- dition of a culture. Holiness: acts of obedience to God's commandments (Word) out of a willing heart. But scripture in the very beginning reveals that the whole primary objective of re- demption is the achieving of a new moral creature of the divine kind. There is nothing recorded in scripture that Good, Evil is not implicated and/or involved in the struggle between good and evil. The encounter between Eve and the snake in Adam, Eve Genesis two was a moral encounter. Con- science, law, covenant, as well as all re- corded history in the Bible, every verse of poetry, every prophecy carries the moral message of the divine intent, the perfection of man. Every parable, every verbal allusion of the Bible Master, the gospel writers and especially the scenes of Calvary, cry out to declare the su- Holiness premacy of God's dream for man, that Calva- ry's purpose is to restore man to a state of moral purity. There is no other message in the Bible but holiness! First, the holiness that describes

SALT GUIDE TO PRACTICAL HOLINESS INTRODUCTION ____________________________________________________________ the moral excellence of God. Secondly, that holiness imputed (HAGIAZO) and thirdly, the holiness imparted (HAGIOSUNE) to man by the glorious unfathomed powers of the cross! Suddenly, in this latter day the biblical Fathers, Faith of traditions of our praying fathers, perfected through the centuries in dungeons and candle- light, revivals, revelations and perse- cutions, are being challenged and discredit- ed. This down-play of holiness in pulpit Bible colleges has morally disarmed two generations of church youth of any knowledge- able concepts of true holiness of life. At the same time personality has been played Apostate Church up. Beauty queen contests, physical contact, petting, heavy dating, remarriage, talent Immorality contests, soapies, swimming parties, "moder- ate" drinking, dancing, dirty stories, pre- Evil Influences occupation with sports and fashion, cosmetic classes in the church and remarriage at the church altars are only some of the practices becoming common in "Bible believing" church- Convictions es. Theology is out and Meology is in! We have come by the conscience of Gasparoni, the Italian bandit who hoped for heaven because he had never committed murder on Friday. This trend clearly reveals the new pre-occu- pation of the modern Christian with the body. Body Religion A natural outcome when the pure doctrine of sanctification is no longer imperial to Christian thinking. (See Dichotomy of Salva- tion) BIBLE CARRIES MORAL MESSAGE The Bible is the book of the divine ethic. It is man's only source of the revelation of the divine moral. Scripture contains many revelations, the chief of which would certainly be God's reve- lation of Himself, His moral self. But the Bible contains another record that necessi- tated the revelation of God - the history of sin. The whole redemptive plan came into Sin existence because of sin. Therefore Bible History scripture is a history of sin, giving us its origin in Lucifer. The Bible traces sin from Lucifer

SALT GUIDE TO PRACTICAL HOLINESS INTRODUCTION ____________________________________________________________ the heavenly war, through the history of creation, the world, Golgotha's victory and finally (in the book of Revelation), God's systematic extermination of sin from earth. An understanding of sin and God's sentiment toward it is essential to having right concepts of all other biblical doctrines and Soteriology especially the doctrine of Soteriology (salvation) SALT is not only intended to be a work of proper definition, but also a work of emphasis. It is intended to apply common and correct theological definition to the scriptures on the subject of practical holiness, as well as to meet the challenge of immoral world influences and the new amoral church creed. We will now consider the source of all trouble, the body! THE BODY OF SIN I live in a body. My every day Christian Body life is lived in the body. I live, move and have my being, my existence through the medium of the body. The mind and spirit are fused to it in such a way that as goes the state of my body, so goes my mind and spirit. SALT deals with the sanctification and holi- ness of the body, its relationship to God (a positive relationship) and its relationship to the world (negative relationship). Satan cares not that the modern Christian adopts mental and spiritual faith in Christ as long as he can keep the Christian from presenting the body in sanctification. Neither does Satan care to control the Christian body - so long as he can render it unsurrendered to the Lordship of Christ by neutralizing powers of environmental influence (worldliness). The objective of this holiness commentary is two-fold: 1) To emphasize the importance of the biblical teaching on the implications of body-life in the processes of sanctification. Modern interpretation deals chiefly with the sanctification of the latent part of man, the mind and spirit. SALT deals with holiness of the body and how liberal fundamentalism's preferential exclusion of the body cancels the possibility of sanctification negating