It’s Sunday morning, and I usually like to take this time of quiet to sip coffee and read something useful. Something edifying and peaceful. Today, it’s another passage from J. C. Ryle’s Holiness, this one telling me that “A holy man will follow after purity of heart.” Remembering the context of the book, I must avoid thinking this is another item on the checklist that will get me into heaven. Ryle is telling us that following after purity of heart is not something you do to become holy; it is something you do because you are holy. I understand the necessity at times to “power through” some of life’s tough spots where you might have to ask yourself if you’re really into this kind of thing, but in reality, one who is holy will by nature seek purity of heart.
Ryle goes on to say, “He [who is holy] will dread all filthiness and uncleanness of spirit, and seek to avoid all things that might draw him into it. He knows his own heart is like tinder, and will diligently keep clear of the sparks of temptation. Who dare to talk of strength when David can fall? There is many a hint to be gleaned from the ceremonial law. Under it the man who only touched a bone, or a dead body, or a grave, or a diseased person, became at once unclean in the sight of God. And these things were emblems and figures. Few Christians are ever too watchful and too particular about this point.”
I love the point he makes about the ceremonial law. Yes, Israel was instructed to believe that even to walk over a grave would pollute one so much as to be unworthy of fellowship with God. I’m sure this sounds silly to us now, but it’s what Ryle says after that matters – “these things were emblems and figures.” Not the pure reality, but signs that point to the absolute purity of God and the impossibility that we humans could bring ourselves to his level.
Yes. Impossible. And that’s the point. I see far too much evidence that people gauge their self-worth by their own skewed and imperfect judgement. As a matter of fact, that many may bristle at what I’m saying here proves it. “How dare you be so bold as to say that I’m not good enough! You have no right!” If we humans were a self-centered, self-righteous lot through the ages, it’s certainly reached hyper-drive proportions now. Decades of telling ourselves, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me” actually have us believing it.
But when we assess our value by our own standard, the end result falls far short. We’re far too forgiving of ourselves. And so here is where we bring in the ceremonial law and understand what it’s telling us – that God is so holy and pure that just touching a grave makes us all the more corrupted by comparison. In reality though, we don’t even need such an exact act to do the job. We do it every day, many times a day, when we don’t measure up in even the simplest of things. We turn our backs on those in need. We curse others in our thoughts because they’re not doing it our way. We take shortcuts on the job, or tell half-truths to others and ourselves to justify our actions.
To measure up to God himself is an impossible standard, and that’s the point that he gets at with the gospel – that we can’t do it ourselves in so many ways, but that God himself has made a way that reconciles us to him even in our failures: Jesus Christ. And it’s not simply that we receive Jesus and we’re in, free to do whatever we please. This is a mistaken assumption many (especially those who at heart oppose Christ) make. It’s that we receive him and are changed, and it’s in this that we willingly and eagerly follow after purity of heart.