Set Apart to God

Love Not the World Part 3

What we set our heart upon is what we love

In the ongoing debate about God's sovereignty and human responsibility, which some refer to as free will, one side commits a travesty in its representation of the Gospel. A travesty is a false, absurd, or distorted representation of something. In this case, the something is the Gospel. You do your best to be sure you are on the correct side, and it disturbs me greatly that there are sides.

Set Apart to God for His Eternal Purpose

Set apart is from the Old Testament name of God, Yehovah Quadesh (Quadesh is Holy or to make holy or The LORD that Sanctifies), which means to be set apart for a holy purpose. God is holy as he is set apart from all His creation. When God created, He did so from nothing. We did not come from God; we came from nothing.

"In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth," and He did so for His purpose. God was going to make Himself known to His creation. In his first letter, John tells us in 3:2, 3, "We know that when He appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. 3 And everyone who has this hope [fixed] on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure." The only way a person can see God is to see Him as He is. Furthermore, seeing God has a transforming effect. God cannot be phony or misrepresent Himself in any way because that would be dishonest. God is anything but disingenuous. For further thought, 2 Corinthians 3:18 says, "But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as from the Lord, the Spirit."

In times without measure, the question has been asked: Why is there evil in the world? Because God wants us to see Him correctly, He discloses His hatred of evil and love for sinners. He made hell for the devil who would make himself to be God; there can only be one God. To worship anyone but the true God is idolatry and sin; for this reason, there is not only heaven but also hell. God is pure, holy, undefiled, and separate from sinners, and even as a man and tempted as we are from without, He sinned not.

Set Apart to God by His Sovereign Choice

We live in a world where everything is understood by how it appears. People grow up and study hard, and therefore, they are intelligent. Of course, people are different, and we're not all equal, but are we willing to accept the spiritual why?

In Exodus 31:1-5, "Now the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 2 "See, I have called by name Bezalel ... 3 "I have filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and all [kinds of] craftsmanship..." The ultimate purpose for the gifts that he and other men received was for the building of the tent of meeting, the altar, the utensils, and clothing for the priests in the worship of God.

It becomes all too easy to see people for what we think they are, as if all their abilities come from within them as if God has nothing to do with it. Nothing could be further from the truth. God filled those men with the Spirit of wisdom; they did not create themselves. Before becoming a Christian, my father used to say during the Oscar Awards, "Oh, how they love to throw bouquets at themselves." When does God get the glory in a world of human accomplishments? Never!

In the context of Exodus 31:1-11, we are made to understand where the glory needs to go by verses 12 to 18. God was speaking to Israel through His servant Moses. God called Abraham, and through Him, He would use a people through whom the law, covenants, promises, prophesies, and, ultimately, the Messiah or Savior would come. Moses was to tell the people, "...You shall surely observe My sabbaths..." For what reason? "...that you may know that I am the LORD who sanctifies you ...for it is holy to you." God was to be worshipped on the seventh day. He chose the people who were to reveal the truth to the world. God created the heavens and the earth, and He was to get the glory.

As surely as God chose and empowered Bezalel to build the Tabernacle, He chose every person to become a child of God according to His divine will. We are given the good news of the Gospel by the Apostle Paul when he penned the words of Romans 8:28, "And we know that God causes all things to work together for the good of those who love God, to those who are called according to [His] purpose." 29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined [to become] conformed to the image of His Son..."

In these verses, we are given the glory of God's sovereign goodness, grace, love, calling, purpose, foreknowledge, predestination, and conformity to the image of His Son. Only a person who sees God as He is can understand that the wretchedness of this fallen world is working together for the good purposes of the one and only loving God.

Grace alone and not some sovereign free will of men causes wicked sinners to respond to God's call. Why do few respond and not the many even throughout all eternity? God's call is not impotent; it is effective. Call from Romans 8 can mean to call as a parent calls their child in for dinner. It can mean to invite like with a wedding invitation. However, it can also mean summoning like a King in supreme authority with the power to exact a servant's death without question. Do you view God as if he were an impotent person or as the supreme ruler of the universe that He is?

Those whom God foreknew are those upon whom He placed His everlasting love and intimacy as a man and woman bound for life within the bonds of a holy covenant. According to Ephesians 1:4, "God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him." Such salvation is according to His grace and not some choice by the efforts of sinful men bound in the bondage of corruption. The spiritual reality of sinners is Romans 6:17, 18: "But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you became obedient from the heart to that form of teaching to which you were committed, and having been freed from sin, you became slaves of righteousness." If you do not understand the human condition, you will interpret free will as men enslaved in sin and able to choose Christ before they have been set free by being born again. The alternative is true, because they were chosen by God's grace and ordained to eternal life, Acts 13:48.

Set Apart to God and from the World

1 Cor. 1:2, Sanctification is as much a calling as is justification. "To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their [Lord] and ours:"

In 1 Cor. 6:9-11, Sanctification is the other side of the justification coin by which God's people are chosen, set apart, and transformed into new people. "Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, 10 nor thieves, nor [the] covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers, will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 Such were some of you; but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Spirit of our God."

In 1 Peter 1:1, 2, It is the sanctifying work of the Spirit by which sinners are chosen to obey Jesus Christ. "To those who reside as aliens ...who are chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, by the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to obey Jesus Christ and be sprinkled with His blood: May grace and peace be yours in the fullest measure."

In 2 Thess. 2:13-14 (emphasis added), We give thanks to God for choosing us (Not we choosing Him) to a salvation through being set apart to God and from the world (The world believes in free will and not sovereign grace). "But we should always give thanks to God for you, brethren beloved by the Lord, because God has chosen you from the beginning for salvation through sanctification by the Spirit and faith in the truth. It was for this He called you through our Gospel, that you may gain the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ."

Set apart to God means we have been set apart from the world, so that God may get the glory for our salvation, which amounts to turning from sin by our bahavior, attitude, thoughts, words, and motives by the work of the Spirit that works within us.