One thing that we have come to know about God is the fact that, He does not talk carelessly. Despite the countless times that God sends His Word to men across generations, He does not behave incoherently with His Word. If God by Himself says, “You must be holy because I am holy,” according to 1 Peter chapter 1 verse 16; it then means, He said it because it is possible. The Word of God is not meant for men and theologians to gather, and begin to argue it in the flesh. How right would man be, if God is Spirit, yet we take it upon ourselves to subject His Word to both human debates and logic of our short-span-knowledge base? At another place, the Word of God also added that, “Pursue peace with all people, and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord”. This it not a hearsay, it is eternal just as every Word of God is living and true. If any of us decide to take it commonly, it is equivalent with calling our God a liar.

God is God, and His ways are not ideas and opinions for debates; they are commandments of life, and compasses, to direct our paths in communion and fellowship with Him is Spirit and truth. In the Kingdom of God, obedience sharpens our understandings of spiritual knowledge, while disobedience to God’s Words and instructions darkened and narrow our mind in the understanding of the ways of the Spirit. 

Quickly as we continue, I want you to consider this matter: if there were a particular market in your area, and your mind is made up to get a particular product from one of your customers, which you also know that except you go to get it from him or her in the market, you would definitely not get the quality you wanted. Friend, if while you were on your way to the market, you decided to trek off the market route, take to another direction that is opposite the market road, would you ever end up in the market to patronize your customer that day?

The matter is not that you are not away of where to get the goods, you need, but the problem is that, you refused to take to the right path to the market where the goods you need is sold. Of course, if you were to walk in obedience to the direction, you would have got what you needed. This is same way the matter of holiness is treated in the world. Men want to attain it on their own, and probably get credit for their deeds of religious practices; and obedience to one form of laws and the other.

According to Hebrews chapter Hebrews 7 verse 19, see what the Bible says, “For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did; by the which we draw nigh unto God.”

The Law made nothing perfect (holy, good, acceptable) because it was weak through the flesh. It is not as if the law itself was not perfect, no, it was perfect because it was spoken by GOD — He is the perfect God. But the medium by which it was used, engaged, expressed, and lived is imperfect which rendered the law weak. The same way the flesh is imperfect and weak, that was how the flesh rendered the law that were to guide it to gain perfection.

HOLINESS is a possibility in Christ Jesus alone. And men and women and children find it hard to accept the possibility of holiness; because they have rejected the provision of God for our Holiness. They excuse it away, and encourage one anther that no one is good; that even Jesus also said it ‘no one is good’.  They have gone to seek holiness in the laws and religion; but could not attain it. The term ‘no one is good’ as used by Jesus in the Bible is not refereeing to a regenerated man in Christ Jesus. He was not taking about men and woman who are born again. The expression is talking about the sinful man; the falling nature of man, the bio life, the corrupt life that man inherited from Adam. Of course, holiness of life is the nature of the life of God that have been restored to us in Christ Jesus through the redemptive work of His blood. Don’t forget, Jesus made the comment long before His crucifixion.

The teachings of Jesus on the possibility of any of us getting anything done, achieved, or attained is not in ourselves; it is not in our personal known-how, it is not in our sensual ability. Jesus said, “Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit. For apart from me you can do NOTHING.”

If you truly accept that Jesus is Holy, and He is in you, and you are in Him, of course, His holiness will be accounted for your own holiness. You don’t need to free or pluck yourself from the Vine and go about looking for your own works of holiness. When you abide in Jesus, whatever is true for Jesus is also true for you. And the manner of His life becomes your manner of life. As the Father is pleased with His anointed, so He has found delight in you.

‘Nothing’ as used in the above text means nothing absolutely. And Holiness is part of the nothing, it is not excluded. Jesus is the provision of God for all things that the church is yearning for, to boycott Jesus is to disregard the principle and institution of God. It pleases the Father to commit all things to the Son, Christ, not just for Himself alone, but also for all of us who will come to the Father through Him, the Way.

Do You Build Your Trust and Hope in The Law?

The Bible says, "The law made nothing perfect". The nothing also include you (and everyone). Put in a simple and direct terms, "The law made no man perfect". Meaning, there is no amount of the law that you or I could keep that it would suddenly make us perfect, pure, or acceptable before God. It didn't perfect those that received it directly, originally. Sir/Ma, we only came to hear of them, how would it then suddenly make us perfect if there was no record of such report by those who were originally given?

 

We only talk of the law and the prophets; we don't know the extent that the men and women that were under the law dread it. But we can get some ideas from the letter of apostle Paul: “It is a fearful and terrifying thing to fall into the hands of the living God [incurring His judgment and wrath]” (Hebrew 10:31).

We are only finding them comfortable in our embrace, because God is not dealing with us by the Law. If God were to be dealing with us based on the law, as it was with the children of Israel, we would be the first to run from it, and call it forbidden food.

While do you think the Pharisees and the leaders of Israel wanted to tear Jesus Christ apart for healing on Sabbath days (something that was not lawful for a topical Jew to do on the Sabbath), going with His disciples through the corn field on Sabbath days, do you think it was just because of the irrelevance they started feeling? No, it wasn't just about that.

They knew the terror that's associated with a nation that moves itself against the laws and the prophets. They were protecting their prestige, names, people, and nation from coming under the Judgment of God — incurring God’s wrath is what an Israelite wouldn’t be forward or quick to do.

But they were doing all of that against the Son of man in ignorance, because of their dull understanding of the scriptures, they could not decode the hour that had come upon them.

Jesus would tell them oftentimes, " Have you not read?" “Have you not?” “You search and keep on searching and examining the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and yet it is those [very Scriptures] that testify about Me; and still you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life” (John 5:39-40).

Friend, depending on the law to be made perfect is like doing the impossible. It doesn’t work! I might not know the part of the laws and the prophets that you have found comfortable to keep, but it will add nothing to you as far as your good standing with God is required.

Our Hope

"For the law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did."

Through Jesus Christ alone we can all attain to perfection. He is the end of the law for righteousness to all who believe. There is no other unrighteousness like a man or woman coming to God by any other means other than the One He has ordained, appointed — Christ the Saviour. Christ is our righteousness, not because of anything good that we have done, but that we have believed God in Him, and have run to refuge in Him; that we could share in His life and all the privileges that are in His life. He is our Peace; for in Him, we found Peace with our eternal Father and His.

Taking eyes off Jesus to look up to another; the law, the prophets, the saints of old, and as many as are named among men, it is a disbelieve and rejection of God's love. Christ will not account for such lives, but they shall give account of their lives all by themselves: how they have gone astray from the provision of salvation through the free gift of Grace and eternal life on the day of the Lord.

Run from the pending judgment that is to come. Keep believing and abiding in Him. Are you still outside the provision of the free salvation in Christ Jesus, return to Jesus? Submit to the Will of the Father in the Son, and you shall never perish.

Thanks for the gift of your time, I am John Ojoagbene!

Feel free to share your thoughts or testimony in the comment box below. I promise to respond to them as soon as possible!