Holiness

Pastor Martin introduces a series on the fear of God by demonstrating its overwhelming prevalence throughout Scripture. He surveys thirteen Old Testament and nine New Testament passages to show that the fear of God is a dominant and pervasive theme from Genesis to Revelation, concluding that to be devoid of the fear of God is to be devoid of biblical religion, and that the measure of spiritual growth is the measure to which one increases in the fear of God.

Pastor Martin concludes his series on adoption by setting forth the responsibilities that flow from it, framing every obligation with the gospel pattern 'do because you have.' Following a thread he credits to J. I. Packer's Knowing God, he unfolds three great obligations of the adopted: pleasing the Father (drawn from Matthew 6 and 2 Corinthians 5:9), imitating the Father (from Matthew 5:43-48 and Ephesians 5:1-2), and glorifying the Father (from Matthew 5:13-16 and 1 Corinthians 10:31). He illustrates throughout with the pardoned criminal brought into the king's household and closes by urging believers to meet every temptation with 'I am a child of God.'

Pastor Martin devotes a full message to the lexical groundwork of sanctification, showing that the Hebrew and Greek word families translated 'sanctify/holy' primarily mean to set apart from common use for God. He illustrates this from Exodus (holy ground, firstborn, people, priestly garments), Matthew 23 and 1 Timothy 4 (temple sanctifying the gold, food sanctified by the word and prayer), then traces three streams from this 'mountain pool' of meaning: the sanctification of God (by himself and by his people), the sanctification of man (as responsibility, as privilege of position in mixed marriages, as divine promise), and the sanctification of the Redeemer (John 10:36, John 17:17-19). The pastoral aim is to equip the congregation to read Scripture without being deceived by sleight-of-hand teachers.

Pastor Martin turns from the agency of sanctification to the pattern of sanctification, asking by what standard the believer is to evaluate growth in grace. He unfolds the first three strands of the biblical fourfold pattern: God Himself (Be ye holy for I am holy), the moral law of God epitomized in the Decalogue (Romans 7:12 — holy, righteous, and good), and the entire spectrum of God's revealed will in Scripture, including the apostolic instructions, Old Testament biography, and even the principles woven into the civil and ceremonial law (1 Corinthians 9, 10; 2 Timothy 3:16). The fourth strand — Christ as the law incarnate — is held over for the next message.

Moving from the exceptional universal call to the normal New Testament usage, Pastor Martin examines the effectual call of God under two heads: its author and its results. From 1 Corinthians 1:9, 2 Timothy 1:8-10, and Romans 8:28-30 he shows that calling is God's activity exclusively and the Father's activity particularly — not God plus the sinner, not loving sovereignty plus moral suasion, but the same raw material of grace and the same hand of loving sovereignty that forged election and predestination. He then lays out the three results of this call: it effects vital fellowship and union with Christ, it always issues in holiness (the called are constituted saints and brought from darkness to light), and it always culminates in glorification. He closes by answering the common objection: calling is God's work, but believing and repenting remain the sinner's responsibility.

Pastor Martin expounds the second experiential privilege of adoption — the reality and certainty of God's paternal discipline — from Hebrews 12:1-13. He sets out three principles: the Father's love for his true children constrains him to discipline them (making the mathematical equation Father's love + adoption = discipline), God's discipline aims specifically at conforming us to the family likeness of holiness, and the proper response is to expect, understand, and submit to it. He closes with a sustained exhortation on the goodness of loving parental discipline both in the home and from God's hand.