Holiness also refers to God’s perfect, righteous character. A. W. Pink explains, “The sum of all moral excellency is found in him.”1 No other purity comes close to the purity of God. He holds the full measure of all that is good and right. Every act, thought, and intent of God is completely righteous and perfect. He does not err or fail, nor does He act unjustly toward His creation. 

And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest.—REVELATION 15:3–4
Prayer
Gracious Triune God, there is none like Thee. Thou alone art high and lifted up and worthy of my worship. Indeed, Thou art holy, holy, holy. As Thy child, please tune my heart toward Thine, and shape my mind by the power of Thy Word. Be pleased with the meditation of my soul, for Christ’s sake. Amen.
Biblical Perspective
Can you think of a time when you have been the stranger? Or maybe you might be able to think of a time when you have felt completely different from other people? Similarly, God is altogether different from us. He is in complete control; we are not. He is perfect and righteous; we are not. He is God; we are not.
The holiness of God points to two specific elements of God’s character. First, it points to the fact that God is fully set apart and different from anything and anyone else. Second, it points to the fact that He is morally righteous in His manifold perfections. In Genesis 2:3, God set apart the seventh day as “holy,” which means it was to be different from all the other days. In Exodus 3:5, God tells Moses that the ground on which he stood was “holy” ground, which means that it was set apart and different. Paul tells Timothy that whoever is cleansed from sin is “sanctified” (2 Tim. 2:21). Being holy, in the first place, then, means that God is altogether different and set apart in glory, power, wisdom, righteousness, authority, goodness, love, truth, grace, and knowledge.
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If ultimate authority is given to our senses, then doubts about God’s goodness will abound. However, if our confidence in God’s goodness depends primarily on His own special self-revelation in Scripture, then the here and now finds its context within the framework of the cross and the triumphant return of Christ. Counselors act as wise guides when they lead their counselees to greater awareness of their location in the history of redemption. By this awareness, counselors and counselees direct their life responses as praise for God’s everlasting goodness and His steadfast love—even when it doesn’t make it to our experiential senses.

If you live long enough, you will suffer. If you counsel long enough, you will hear some stories of unimaginable suffering. Our awareness of the fallenness of the order in which we live should, in theory, prevent our shock when listening to our counselee’s pains. Often, that is not the case. Some stories are just jaw-dropping.
Some circumstances remind us of the dreadful days narrated at the end of the book of Judges. “There was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes” (Judg. 21:25). The atrocities multiplied as the evil of men grew more and more evident, to the point that even reading a narrative like that of the Levite and concubine makes us cringe (see Judg. 19).
But then, we find ourselves cringing once again in the counseling chair. We hear stories about child sexual abuse, spiritual authoritarianism, spousal serial betrayals, and so many other evils that are hard to believe. And yet, as counselors, we are just “reading” the story. In front of us sits a brother or sister who is experiencing those hardships, and each blow of pain is a challenge to their faith: “Where is your good God?”
When goodness doesn’t make sense (or, to our senses), the biblical counselor is responsible for reminding the afflicted counselee of the rest of the story. To be biblical in our counseling, we must help the counselee contextualize his human experience, no matter how challenging they are, within frames of redemptive history. This contextualization entails at least three scenes: 1) the counselee’s present suffering, 2) Christ’s redemptive suffering, and 3) the promised end of suffering with the return of the King.
First Scene—Sensed Evil
The problem of evil hurts the most at the experiential level. Yes, theodicy involves various logical challenges for academics to discuss. The difficulty of those theoretical challenges does not compare, however, to what is experienced by those going through seasons of intense pain and suffering. For the afflicted, circumstances seem to shout moment after moment in accusation, “Where is your God?” (Ps. 42:3, 10).
The wise counselor will not use that truth from Romans 8:28 glibly or too quickly. Yes, we do believe that God is working all things for those who love Him.
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Written by S. Donald Fortson III |
Monday, December 12, 2022
What actually happened in the 19th-century American South was a bowing to social pressure to re-interpret the Bible in ways that supported race-based slavery. As a society, the South viewed itself as suffering injustice at the hands of a self-righteous North. This cultural ethos put enormous pressure on all southern Christians to conform to the norms of their culture. A similar pattern is being observed in American churches today that are succumbing to cultural demands to re-interpret the Bible to support homosexuality. The hermeneutical twists used to discredit the clear teaching of Holy Scripture on homosexuality is evidence of a desperate frenzy to re-interpret Christianity in order to make it palatable to the homosexual community.

One approach of gay-affirming scholarship has been to claim the church has modified its interpretations over the centuries. This includes not only change in views and practice from the Old Testament to the New Testament but also modifications in Biblical interpretation during the Christian centuries. Presbyterian theologian Jack Rogers asserts, “Christian people for centuries assumed that their Bibles condoned slavery and the subordination of women to men.  Yet, over time and often reluctantly, people came to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading to accept people of African origin and women as full and equal members of the church … the Holy Spirit is once again working to change our church – making us restless, challenging us to give up culturally conditioned prejudices against people of homosexual orientation.” (1)
This supposed parallel between Christians in the past using the Bible to justify slavery and the contemporary Church using Scripture to condemn homosexuality is both misleading and confused in its account of church history. Historically, there is no connection between Christian attitudes towards slavery and homosexuality. But, there does appear to be a historical resemblance between present-day attempts to re-interpret the Bible to support homosexuality and past misuse of the Bible in order to prop up race-based slavery. In both cases Biblical teaching has been co-opted to support a politically-popular position enabling Christians to comfortably fit into the cultural values of their times.
Slavery was a reality of life in the ancient Mediterranean world including the Greco-Roman period when Christianity emerged. It was regulated in Old Testament Israel and within the New Testament community. In ancient cultures persons were forced into lifelong servitude as spoils of war or became slaves due to debts that had to be repaid. Ancient slavery was not limited to one’s racial identity nor did it always involve kidnapping to force people into servitude. Slaves were bought and sold in the ancient world.
Christ’s apostles attempted to regulate slavery among believers according to ethical principles consistent with Christian faith. The apostles gave no explicit directives for all Christians to immediately free slaves, however, the implications of the Christian message pointed to the equality of all men and women before God. The book of Philemon bears witness to the continuing reality of slavery among converts to Christianity. Paul exhorted believing slave owner Philemon to treat his slave Onesimus, who was also a convert, as a Christian brother (Philemon:1:16). To the church at Colossae, Paul wrote, “Masters, treat your slaves justly and fairly, for you know that you also have a Master in heaven.” (Col. 4:1). These were radical ideas for the first-century Roman world. One observes these same themes in the writings of the Church Fathers who continued to challenge the slave-holding Christian empire to live out the gospel implications of equality of all human beings. (2)
The New Testament unmistakably affirms the essential equality of all men and women, “for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God by faith” (Gal. 3:26). Due to this new reality, “There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus” (Gal.3:28). Part of the apostolic ministry was to break down old existing relational barriers among Christians and one such barrier was master/slave relations which now must reflect the new reality of oneness in Christ.  The New Testament also reaffirmed the Old Testament prohibition of man-stealing and selling (Ex.21:16). In the list of those who live “contrary to the sound teaching that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God” one finds these sinners: “murderers, fornicators, sodomites, slave traders, liars, perjurers.” (1 Tim. 1:10). It is ironic that some want to support homosexuality with appeals to Biblical support for slavery when this text in fact places them side by side as sinful.
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(1) Jack Rogers, Jesus, the Bible, and Homosexuality: Explode the Myths, Heal the Church. 2nd edition (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2009), 58. Methodist New Testament scholar Richard Hays rejects this theory of coupling homosexuality, subordination of women and slavery. Hays observes: “Though only a few Biblical texts speak of homoerotic activity, all of them express unqualified disapproval. In this respect, the issue of homosexuality differs significantly from matters such as slavery or the subordination of women, concerning which the Bible contains internal tensions and counterposed witnesses.” Richard B. Hays, “Awaiting the Redemption of our Bodies” in Homosexuality in the Church, ed. Jeffrey S. Siker (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 9,10. See also chapter 16 “Homosexuality” in Hays’ book: The Moral Vision of the New Testament: A Contemporary Introduction to New Testament Ethics (NY: Harper Collins, 1996).
(2) For a brief survey of the Church Fathers on slavery, see Jennifer A. Glancy, Slavery as a Moral Problem in the Early Church and Today. (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2011); her discussion of St. Basil’s opposition to Christian slave holding is particularly noteworthy.  See also Glancy’s New Testament study, Slavery and Early Christianity (NY: Oxford University Press, 2002).
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