He was proved holy

“These were the waters of Meribah, where the Israelites quarreled with the Lord and where He was proved holy among them.” (Numbers 20:13)

 

Divine character of God Jehovah the Creator of all things could be styled ‘holy’ in one word. Christ, the Lord of Faith, is the Trinity God as the Son of God. He had many encounters with people in the world because He is God who came down to the world as the Son of Man. Here we need to know the fact necessary to be more careful the more in intimate relations because being intimate each other, it rather may not be aware of and not respect the authority of dignity of the other party. In such an occasion, the sense of holiness is absorbed into love and grace, so that we would might be ignorant of what the holiness is. The holiness of God the Lord is frequently expressed in the Old Testament. And when the holiness of God is disregarded, disciplinary action and destruction come close to man strictly.

 

The incident <the waters of Meribah> in the desert after Israelite’s departure from Egypt is known to many well. One of the sins people do in general is a resentment and complaint toward God the Lord. Thinking about it, resentment is one of common mistakes that people make one another. Yet resentment is a very bad attitude or habit even among people. If you meet certain problem, you need to find out its cause first and should prepare a way of rational solution. In the process to do it, if you put any resentment and try to find a solution with ill mind even a little, you wouldn’t get a good result. Just because there was no water to drink, the people Israel exploded complaint impatiently. It was their bad habit to resent every time there was a problem, and that was a foolish attitude turning upside down the vessel of blessing.

The authority of man and God must be absolutely distinguished. The characteristic of modern theology and its religious attitude is something similar to a fellow feeling between God and man. “God is in me, and I am in God,” this is the lesson of the vine tree Jesus has taught in John 15:1~8. The organic relationship in which Jesus lives in myself and I live in Jesus is the complete way for my soul to be able to live forever. But what should keep just in mind from that theory is the significant fact that Christ is the Creator God, Logos. Jesus is the Lord who had come on the earth, and God who is holy forever.

God’s holiness involves together absolute righteousness, dignity, and grace. People’s resentment in the desert, which was occurred because of the lack of water, is reasonably understandable. Even so, they committed wrong acts that undermined God’s holiness. It needs our rational understanding importantly of course, but prior to that, the attitude of believing following God’s grace and righteousness is much more important. Unfortunately Israelite people did not have an absolute belief to follow God the Lord’s justice then. The word ‘Meribah’ means ‘fight’. Would do people have to obey the Lord or fight against Him? The people of Israel had to be disciplined by God’s ‘dignity’ because quarreled against God. When they blamed God for having nothing to eat and drink, Jehovah sent the fire snakes to bite them. Aaron and Moses also were not allowed to enter the promised land of Canaan on that reason. We should have an absolute faith fearing God’s holy dignity.

When people asked for water, God made them drink water by beating to Moses a rock. It is natural that water was needed in the desert, so it is not wrong itself to ask for water. However, it is a big fault to resent without faith and damage God’s holiness because of it. Wouldn’t God gave them water even though they had asked for it reasonably in faith? We must remember Jesus’ lesson deeply, saying, “If you seek righteousness with the kingdom of God, you will add this and that.” The Lord God knows all that man wants and man needs. Man’s essential task is to obey to make live as God wants. God is infinitely gracious as the holy Existence, besides He rules the creatures strictly as the Almighty too. In that reason, even Moses and Aaron hadn’t been easily forgiven on their own mistake, and they were rejected to enter the land of Canaan.

 

Moses and Aaron’s actions do not seem to be clearly at fault. But their fault was that they “did not believe in it and did not show holiness in the sight of the Israelite.” as written in Numbers 20:12. They obeyed God’s orders, but they did not show people a holy and determined attitude of faith. An obedience of Simon of Cyrene, who had borne the cross by chance on the way to Golgotha, is also important, but a spontaneous and true obedience that represents God’s holiness can be the icing on the cake forever.

 

(Written by Koonoh, Pastor of JDO Presbyterian Church in Korea, on Sept 26th 2021)