In the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 21 and verse 42, Jesus said:
Did ye never read in the scriptures,
The stone which the builders rejected,
The same was made the head of the corner;
This was from the Lord,
And it is marvellous in our eyes?
Therefore say I unto you, The kingdom of God shall be taken away from you, and shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof.
And he that falleth on this stone shall be broken to pieces: but on whomsoever it shall fall, it will scatter him as dust.
The First Epistle of Peter, chapter 2, verse 7:
For you therefore which believe is the preciousness: but for such as disbelieve,
The stone which the builders rejected,
The same was made the head of the corner;
And,
A stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence;
For they stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed.
But ye are an elect race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, that ye may show forth the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light:
Which in time past were no people, but now are the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
These passages belong, as you see, to that very solemn—in some respects, and on one side, tragic—truth: that all that could and should have been the inheritance and vocation of Israel was lost by them, and to them, because of their unbelief, and was transferred to the church, the holy nation, as the church is here designated by Peter.
It is Peter who has taken those Old Testament words—and the words which the Lord Jesus Himself took from the Old Testament and transferred to Himself. It is Peter who has done that.
Peter has a peculiar place in this transition—an interesting place, a very instructive place. The Lord had said, “Peter”—a piece of rock—“upon this rock,” Peter’s testimony undoubtedly, “I will build My church.”
There is no doubt about it that, in Peter’s mind, the stone which was rejected of the builders and became the head of the corner was identical with the rock upon which the church would be built. Peter was the one who had that statement from the Lord, and it is Peter who, so many years afterward, takes up the thought here in his letter: the stone, the rock, the building, the church—“thereupon, therearound, I will build.”
The Lord had, in that very connection—the rejected stone becoming the head of the corner—said, “The kingdom shall be taken from you, and given to a nation bringing forth the fruit thereof.” To Peter He had said, “And I will give you the keys of the kingdom.”
And here is Peter using this very phrase, “a holy nation,” answering to that which was in the declaration of the Lord Jesus: “The kingdom of heaven shall be taken from you and given to a nation.”
Now Peter, here speaking of a holy nation, says, “to show forth the excellencies,” corresponding to “bringing forth the fruit thereof.”
Peter opens this letter by indicating that he is addressing the scattered of the Dispersion, scattered in all these many nations and places and parts of the earth. He says, “Ye saints, scattered in the Dispersion over the earth, ye are a holy nation.”
Not, “You are going to be,” but now, as scattered everywhere, you are a nation. Yet you are different from the nations.
Our present emphasis this morning is upon this one word: “Ye are a holy nation.” A holy nation. Upon that word, holy, the tragedy of Israel took place; the frustration of all the divine intention was effected.
Upon that one word, the church inherits all that. You see, the whole changeover—the terrible tragedy and loss of Israel, and the glorious inheritance of the church—it just hangs upon one word: holy. Holy. Everything rests upon that.
If Israel’s loss of the divine intentions for that people as a nation is all due to this one thing, failure in what God means by holiness, and if the church comes in only on that ground, then it is a very governing thing, is it not, this matter of what the Lord means by holiness?
We could go so far as to say there is no guarantee of the church retaining its inheritance and vocation beyond this holiness. It could very well be said, even in this dispensation, the Christian dispensation, “It shall be taken from you and given to those bringing forth the fruits thereof.”
That is the only ground. You know, no more than Israel can we claim to stand and abide on mere tradition, on mere external practice and teaching. The basis with God is holiness—what He means by holiness.
No one can contemplate the awfulness of Israel’s tragedy over these two thousand years without feeling that here we are in the presence of something very, very great, important, and, in a sense, something very terrible: this matter of holiness.
You know there are other words into which this one word is translated. It simply means, we often say, sanctified—separated, set apart for God. There are many ways of expressing it. That is what it is.
This is something which belongs to God solely and wholly. Belonging to God, it is safe; it is holy; it is sanctified; it is separated from all that is contrary to God. That is holiness.
Now, for light on this matter, we of course have to go back to the Old Testament. We begin with the realization that after man’s disobedience at the beginning—and that is the heart of the trouble of all unholiness, as is here stated—the whole world, to use the phrase of an apostle, fell into the arms of the wicked one.
“The whole world lieth in the wicked one.” That is the revelation of the early chapters of the Bible, is it not?
Then God moved to extricate from that world, in the lap of the wicked one, a people. We have His move with Abraham.
Here, dear friends, with all your interest in the life of Abraham and the incidents in his life, and all your study and reading of that life, remember that the heart of everything where Abraham was concerned was this one thing: to separate from this world.
So the word came to Abraham: “Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house. Get thee out.”
Now, this is a literal geographical movement that contains a spiritual principle: getting out of that realm lying in the wicked one.
So Abraham went out from the Chaldees. In a typical sense, he went out from this world, lying in the wicked one.
Then God promised him a son, made promise, and seemingly left him. He so often seems to do that after He has made a promise—leaves for a long time.
Did you notice? With one object. Why did God promise and then not fulfil His promise for so long, leaving Abraham so tested and tried by His promise, by His word? For this one thing only: that that son had got to be different from all other sons.
That son could not come by the natural way. That son could not be like all other sons of this world. He must be God’s act.
And so God saw to it that, although He had promised, the natural way was impossible—simply closed down, no hope along that line. And when at length Isaac was born, he was God’s miracle, something not of this world, but of God.
But even so, God was going to ratify and confirm that principle. The day came when the lad had grown, and the Lord said to Abraham, “Take thou thy son, thine only son, whom thou lovest, and offer him.”
And so to death Isaac must go, in which all the natural ties were severed and broken. And Isaac, being brought back as in figure by resurrection from the dead, was simply put on supernatural ground again.
The heavenly, divine, supernatural ground of things was confirmed by God in that event. You see what God is doing: putting everything on holy ground.
You know, God can give us things that are undoubtedly given to us by God, and we know it at the time; and then we lay hold and impinge upon them, hold them to ourselves, and so our natural life comes riding on this matter.
The Lord takes us through drastic experiences to sever our natural selves from divine things, to keep them holy. Because even our affections are not always pure, not always holy.
God put everything on that ground, outside of this corrupt, devil-ridden, devil-governed world. And who will not say that that is the state of the world today?
He did it with Abraham. That is where He made His start toward a holy nation. A holy nation. He laid the foundation in holiness.
When His promise and covenant with Abraham had reached the stage of a nation being in existence, Israel was in Egypt—in the world, no doubt about it, in the lap of the devil, the evil one.
Pharaoh is a type of the prince of this world. You see, the Lord takes pains to show what a tyrant he is, to show how evil he is.
I venture to say there is no one in this place this morning, and there are few people in this world, who would put up with half what Pharaoh put up with without letting those people go.
So God went through plague after plague, right up to the tenth, in death itself, for one purpose. On the one side, He is showing the nature of the evil one—how evil he is.
On the other hand, He met Moses, as you know, out there in the desert at the bush, alive with fire but never consumed. This is the man who is going to bring that people out of the power of darkness, out of the bondage of the prince of this world, out of this evil keeper.
God meets him there. And what does God say?
Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.
The instrument must, in figure and in type, be separated from the evil ground, the evil kingdom. No one can lead another soul out of bondage who is still in bondage himself. No one can help other people into light with God who is not separated from this world.
So the very instrument, Moses himself, has to come onto holy ground—consecrated ground, separated ground. Separated by what? Fire.
Between this world and that, between God and the evil one, there is a fire which never dies—a fire which draws the line of distinction between what is holy and what is not holy.
To Egypt he goes with his commission, and we know the story. Yes, there they are, in a kingdom, in a world, that is repudiated, and they have got to be brought out. But it is by virtue of precious blood: the blood of the lamb, the blood of the Passover, the mighty, efficacious blood of a lamb without spot or blemish.
Separated by precious, holy blood. This is Peter speaking again:
Knowing that ye were redeemed, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold, but with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot.
And then you would think that that had effected it. Forty years they are in the wilderness, and what is the one thing that comes out so clearly during those forty years? Although they are out of Egypt, Egypt is not out of them.
Though they are geographically separated, spiritually their hearts are still back in Egypt. They are talking about Egypt, hankering after Egypt.
And so we come to Jordan. There is a mighty, overflowing Jordan lying between them and that life as a nation which is to satisfy God and fulfil a holy vocation. The Jordan flows deep and strong between their hearts in Egypt and, at last, their hearts out of Egypt.
You see, the principle is working all the time. God is carrying this thing very deep.
And you pass on to later history. That nation goes into captivity and exile, and a remnant comes back. You remember that crisis in the Book of Ezra, when they had come back and the house was being restored and beautified.
A crisis arose. It was over one thing: the people had married foreign wives. The whole thing was spoiled, came under arrest. It was as though God said, “We are not going on with this.”
You read Ezra again. Whatever it did over that brought everything to a stop on this question of mixed marriages. All again a figure of this spiritual mixture which God will not have: unholiness.
The mark and line of distinctiveness between what is of God and what is not of God is drawn fast and hard.
Well, what are we going to say to all this? That is a very brief, imperfect survey. But, dear friends, do you see that the very beginning of the Christian life rests upon this one historic law of God, right through the ages, which He cannot overlook?
The beginning of the Christian life is called being born anew—or, more correctly, born from above. What does it mean?
It means all that Isaac’s birth and resurrection meant in figure. It means this: that by our new birth we are translated out of the authority of darkness into the kingdom of the Son of God.
By our new birth, our conversion—call it what you will—the very beginning of the Christian life is an absolute separation of two kingdoms, a transference from one into another.
One is an unholy realm into which we are born and to which we belong by nature. The other is a holy realm. “Ye are a holy nation,” a nation separated from this world unto God.
New birth means that. Oh, that that were made clear to all right at the beginning—how utter this thing is.
The Lord Jesus left people in no doubt about this cleavage—utter, absolute. You would take risks with people. You would say, probably, “Oh, why put them off? I run the risk of offending them. I discourage them,” saying, “Accept, accept, accept,” all the time.
He was taking all the risks necessary about this, because of the reality, the awful reality, of this: you cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven while you cling to this kingdom and never go to God in any way.
Two things cannot go together. One is unholy; the other is holy. By new birth, we cross a line which is a very broad line—as broad as the Red Sea and as the Jordan, as broad as the cross of the Lord Jesus.
It is a life of holiness that we have taken up, or entered into: a life of holiness, separation unto God, complete separation unto God.
It is to be a walk in holiness. How much the New Testament has to say about this: a walk in holiness that is separate unto God in heart, in spirit, in life, from this world.
And, if we knew it, a very large degree of our education—our spiritual education and our discipline in the Christian life under the hand of the Holy Spirit—has to do with those things in us which are mixed up.
We are trying to make the best of two worlds. We are trying to keep together in compromise things which do not belong together and are going to spell disaster for us—as truly as ever it spelled disaster for Israel, going to lose the kingdom.
A tremendous thing. The Lord calls for distinctiveness of life and testimony—real distinctiveness of life and testimony.
Is our life, dear friends—is your life and my life in this world, in our connections, associations, and so on—quite distinct? Is there no mistaking to what realm we belong, to Whom we belong? No mistaking?
Are we mixed in, compromising, keeping on good terms with this world and its people under the devil’s hand? If so, we stand to lose territory. We do.
What sort of testimony have you got where you work, in your business, in this association? What testimony have we got in the church? Are we really registering and making our mark in the church? Do we count in the church? Are we passengers?
Is there something quite distinctive about our lives that says, “That man, that woman, that young man, that young woman is utter for God”? No doubt about it. You see it all the time. They are utter for God. They are not playing at things. No compromise with them.
Now, this sounds hard, but it is necessary. Do you see what is involved, dear friends? The secret of power is holiness.
The secret of power is holiness. If our lives are powerless, it may be due to some lack, somehow, of this utterness for God, this separation unto God—some kind of compromise, somehow, somewhere, with the prince of this world who is robbing us of our spiritual power and vitality on his own ground.
The secret of power is holiness. Whatever you forget, remember that.
The secret of a testimony that counts is a holy life. It is not our teaching, our truth, our practice, religious ordinances, and so on—our forms. It is none of that in the first place.
Our real testimony is the testimony of a holy life. It counts far more than all our words. It really does.
And remember, this being true, this is the secret of divine support. The Lord will commit Himself to His own ground: holiness. The Lord will stand by those who stand for Him in His nature. The Lord will look after those who are utter for Him.
And whatever we may have in this life, in this world—we may have a lot—mark you, if we have not got the Lord with us at last, it is no gain. It is no gain. A terrible loss.
Israel had the ordinances, and the oracles, and the tradition, and all that mighty lot that they had; but at last they lost the kingdom. They lost the kingdom. It was no game, was it?
Well now, what are we concerned about? What are you concerned about? What am I concerned about? I can focus it all down to this one thing: I am concerned about the Lord being with us, and the Lord committing Himself to us.
And I am concerned about a testimony in power, a life that counts for God, leaving a mark for God, being remembered for what was of God.
This is the only justification of our having come this way at all. And, as I see it, all that depends upon this utter separation unto God, gathered into this word, holiness: “Ye are a holy nation.”
May we answer to the description. And to us will be the preciousness.