(The New Man)

The new man was “created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” Eph. 4:24.

There is much that is being offered, which many believers call righteousness and holiness, but which isn’t that at all. Therefore God has established true righteousness and holiness as the only thing of consequence. It is found in the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of truth, and on Him all affected righteousness and assumed holiness will suffer shipwreck. Just as most men will loudly proclaim each his own love in spite of his lack of faithfulness, likewise many men hide their bad life in a deluge of choice expressions about holiness.

Some people are in the habit of traveling around to other believers, calling out, “We are so blessed by God,” in order to dupe them and get them to believe that they alone are right. That is akin to the Catholic icons you see around with a halo above the saints’ heads. This is how these people, through their preaching, put a saint’s halo on themselves, sugar-coating their words and turning their eyes toward heaven. But if you investigate their lives you will discover that their holiness is a mask and their righteousness doesn’t even go as far as that of the scribes and the Pharisees. Deceiving people and using godliness as a means of personal advantage, breaking their word and fleeing responsibilities, gossiping and backbiting are things they don’t take too seriously. “We must not look at each other, we must come away from people; we must only look at Jesus,” is what they say. However, it is precisely such people who must be thoroughly examined. God has not called His church to be a den of thieves covered in whitewash. “We must proclaim more grace,” they shout. God is never so gracious that He permits unrighteousness. Their shouting will never be able to change God’s nature, looking at them “through His fingers.” God’s kingdom is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, but not peace and joy on top of impurity.

Such people’s preaching about happiness, peace, and joy must therefore quite simply be thrown overboard; we must turn away from it so as not to be defiled by this frivolous spirit that plays with God’s righteousness and dances around its own “superior holiness” as Israel danced around the golden calf.

However, God—with eyes like flames of fire—will also know how to find these waterless clouds, and in His righteousness He will expose all the lies and the hypocrisy of those who have a seared conscience and who have formed their own holiness doctrine about God as it suits them. Because nothing is hidden that will not be revealed, He will bring to light what they try to hide in darkness. They proclaim liberty, while they themselves are slaves of corruption. 2 Pet. 2:19. When such people preach liberty, we realize that the end result is a poisonous swamp.