1 Peter 1:13-16 Why gird up the loins of your mind, be sober… Why ought the holiness of God to be a reason for our holiness? I. BECAUSE HOLINESS IS THAT IDEA OF HIMSELF WHICH GOD IS MOST INTENT UPON COMMUNICATING TO MAN. II. EVERY OTHER MORAL CONCEPTION THAT YOU CAN FORM OF GOD WHEN YOU ANALYSE IT WILL CARRY YOU BACK TO THE FUNDAMENTAL THOUGHT THAT GOD IS A HOLY BEING. He is said to be good. Goodness, if you analyse it, will bring you back to the idea of doing that only which is pure and fit and just and right. III. THE RELATION WHICH SUBSISTS BETWEEN MAN AND GOD MAKES IT INDISPENSABLE THAT MAN SHOULD BE HOLY, OR PURE IN HIS PURPOSE, and this for several reasons. The Scriptures inquire, "How can two walk together, except they be agreed?" What harmony can there be between light and darkness, good and evil, right and wrong, purity and impurity, sin and holiness? Two persons may be most strongly attached where one supplements the other. So, even in the marriage relation, absolute identity of tastes is not always essential to the highest happiness; but, while there may be the supplementing of one with the other, if there be antagonism, there can he no sympathy or union. So that, if we are expecting to be accounted the children of God, there must be sympathy, truth, identity. (C. S. Robinson, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: Wherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; |
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