Whole Means Healthy so Stop the Opposite

Sometimes Christians behave badly unknowingly. There is a lot on the line when I say that holy means either whole or set apart. They point in diametrically opposed directions for action.

Let me illustrate. This morning on my cutting board, I began with a whole carrot. Because I want to eat the carrot with greater ease later today, I quartered the carrot. In the one case, I was dealing with a whole carrot. In the other case, following my action of cutting the carrot, I was dealing with a carrot that was quartered rather than whole. This is how stark the contrast is between these two ideas, when it comes to taking or choosing a course of action.

The root idea of set apart comes from the action of cutting. The root idea of wholeness is reflected in the opposite action of the leaving the carrot whole. It is seen in the action of uncut. One biblical scholar even uses the analogy of an uncut stone in Deuteronomy to express wholeness.

Allow me to mention one piece of history to reflect how much your course of action can effect others. Then I will return to the present and your decisions.

One very important event in the history of the church in the late 1800s was set off by a course of action that may have been effected by understanding holy as set apart. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, a great British preacher, left the Baptist Union over what he called the Downgrade. This whole episode became known as the Downgrade Controversy. What is important is that one of his themes was from the verse that says: "come out from among them and be ye separate" (KJV). Now while this verse does not have holy directly in it. You can see the likely connection that Spurgeon may have made in his mind, if he understood holy as set apart.

Spurgeon had said many times in his sermons that holy means moral wholeness. Yet he also said in other sermons that holy means separateness or being set apart . He also may have brought in the idea of purity in relationship to this word, because of his extensive reading of the English Puritans.

I have a strong sense that when push came to shove for Spurgeon, he made his decision to leave the Baptist Union partly because of his understanding of holiness as separation or being set apart. It was not uncommon from the time of Martin Luther until his day for Christians to recognize both of these meanings for this word.

His action was not just his own. He influenced an entire movement and gave energy at least indirectly to the fundamentalist movement later. Could his course of action been different, if he understood holy as only moral wholeness? It is possible.

Our courses of action will be different, if we understand holy as meaning either as cut or uncut. Holy is a major word for giving us lifestyle instructions in the Bible. It is even on many of its published bindings. It influences courses of action.

I pray that we have not behaved badly as Christians, because we have misunderstood this word. I fear that I did for many years behave badly, because I misunderstood it. I grew up with only the meaning of set apart. I may then have behaved even more extremely than Spurgeon.

I pray that you will be cautious in deciding whether to cut the carrots apart in your life. You may find the strong possibility that you should have left the carrot whole. That could be a little hard to swallow later. As one person puts it, "Be prudent ... when dealing with the unknown or the unpredictable."

Spurgeon did not have some of the scholarly resources we have today to influence his understanding of holy. We do have them. We will be held responsible for our course of action in a way that he was not. We will be judged more harshly, if we choose the wrong course of action.

Please show due caution in cutting yourself off from others. Remember, you could be taking precisely the opposite course of action to what God would have you do.

In Christ,

Jon