Jehovah-M'Kaddesh
Leviticus 20:7-8
Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. Keep my statutes and do them; I am the Lord who sanctifies you.
M'Kaddesh means to sanctify, set apart, make holy.
It was used of times, like the Sabbath, and places, as in the camp of Israel, Jerusalem and the Temple. It was applied to articles for worship and the setting apart of persons like the kings, priests and the nation of Israel (I Peter 2:9,10). Most importantly, it was used of the Holy Spirit, the person and agent of God's santicfying work. All things holy found their significance based on their contact with God.
To understand God is to understand that He is holy.
An old Scottish divine wrote of God's holiness in this way:
"It is the balance...of all the attributes of Deity. Power without holiness would degenerate into cruelty; omniscience without holiness would become craft (skill used in deceiving others); justice without holiness would degenerate into revenge; and goodness without holiness would be passionate and intemperate fondness doing mischief rather than accomplishing good."
It is what constitutes God's fullness and perfection as opposed to the false deities that were otherwise worshiped among men.
God's statutes were His holy commands which created the fabric of Israel's social, relational and civic lives. It is the same today.
1 Peter 1:13-25
Therefore, preparing your minds for action, and being sober-minded, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ. As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one's deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot. He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you who through him are believers in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God. Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God; for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
"Being a Christian is less about cautiously avoiding sin than about than about courageously and actively pursuing God's will."
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer
It is the prerequisite of God's revelation as Jehovah-M'Kaddesh and our holiness that brings us into God's Shalom, His peace.
Jehovah-Shalom
Shalom is one of the most important terms in the Old Testament and carries the meaning of wholeness and that which is full. In the physical and material sense, it meant one's welfare. It meant to make good, pay for, repay or make restitution. The word is most often and appropriately translated "peace" implying the harmony of relationship or reconciliation based on the completion of a transaction, the satisfying of a debt. Its meanings all point to the doctrine of Christ's atonement as the basis of our peace with God.
Judges 2:6-12
When Joshua dismissed the people, the people of Israel went each to his inheritance to take possession of the land. And the people served the Lord all the days of Joshua, and all the days of the elders who outlived Joshua, who had seen all the great work that the Lord had done for Israel. And Joshua the son of Nun, the servant of the Lord, died at the age of 110 years. And they buried him within the boundaries of his inheritance in Timnath-heres, in the hill country of Ephraim, north of the mountain of Gaash. And all that generation also were gathered to their fathers. And there arose another generation after them who did not know the Lord or the work that he had done for Israel. And the people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord and served the Baals. And they abandoned the Lord, the God of their fathers, who had brought them out of the land of Egypt. They went after other gods, from among the gods of the peoples who were around them, and bowed down to them. And they provoked the Lord to anger.
Judges 6:1-24
The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. And the hand of Midian overpowered Israel, and because of Midian the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds. For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. They would encamp against them and devour the produce of the land, as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance in Israel and no sheep or ox or donkey. For they would come up with their livestock and their tents; they would come like locusts in number—both they and their camels could not be counted—so that they laid waste the land as they came in. And Israel was brought very low because of Midian. And the people of Israel cried out for help to the Lord. When the people of Israel cried out to the Lord on account of the Midianites, the Lord sent a prophet to the people of Israel. And he said to them, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I led you up from Egypt and brought you out of the house of slavery. And I delivered you from the hand of the Egyptians and from the hand of all who oppressed you, and drove them out before you and gave you their land. And I said to you, ‘I am the Lord your God; you shall not fear the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell.’ But you have not obeyed my voice.” Now the angel of the Lord came and sat under the terebinth at Ophrah, which belonged to Joash the Abiezrite, while his son Gideon was beating out wheat in the winepress to hide it from the Midianites. And the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said to him, “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” And Gideon said to him, “Please, my lord, if the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all his wonderful deeds that our fathers recounted to us, saying, ‘Did not the Lord bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the Lord has forsaken us and given us into the hand of Midian.” And the Lord turned to him and said, “Go in this might of yours and save Israel from the hand of Midian; do not I send you?” And he said to him, “Please, Lord, how can I save Israel? Behold, my clan is the weakest in Manasseh, and I am the least in my father's house.” And the Lord said to him, “But I will be with you, and you shall strike the Midianites as one man.” And he said to him, “If now I have found favor in your eyes, then show me a sign that it is you who speak with me. Please do not depart from here until I come to you and bring out my present and set it before you.” And he said, “I will stay till you return.” So Gideon went into his house and prepared a young goat and unleavened cakes from an ephah of flour. The meat he put in a basket, and the broth he put in a pot, and brought them to him under the terebinth and presented them. And the angel of God said to him, “Take the meat and the unleavened cakes, and put them on this rock, and pour the broth over them.” And he did so. Then the angel of the Lord reached out the tip of the staff that was in his hand and touched the meat and the unleavened cakes. And fire sprang up from the rock and consumed the meat and the unleavened cakes. And the angel of the Lord vanished from his sight. Then Gideon perceived that he was the angel of the Lord. And Gideon said, “Alas, O Lord God! For now I have seen the angel of the Lord face to face.” But the Lord said to him, “Peace be to you. Do not fear; you shall not die.” Then Gideon built an altar there to the Lord and called it, The Lord Is Peace. To this day it still stands at Ophrah, which belongs to the Abiezrites.
The Israelites had lost their way as the people of God set apart for His purposes in the land. They were swept away by the gross idolatries and materialism of the nations that surrounded them because they found it enough to merely live, inhabit the land and multiply rather than be set apart as holy. They did not realize that their unity as a people and right to the land was fully intertwined with Jehovah-M'Kaddesh and His service. The covenant was based on "if you obey, then..." promises from God (II Chronicles 15:2). It was their mission to be examples, set apart from the corruption and abominations of the land to help turn the people of the land back to the worship of the one true God. By failing to do so, they no longer had a right to the land and lost their purity, peace, prosperity and freedom.
The word Shalom used by Gideon translated "peace" was translated some 170 times in the Old Testament. It expressed the greatest measure of contentment and satisfaction in life, the deepest desire and need of the human heart. As in the time of the judges, this peace is only found in repentance, a return to being set apart to God. Gideon understood that in the presence of Jehovah-M'Kaddesh, the only way to fulfill His holy requirements was through the Lord who becomes our peace. The Lord Jesus is the one who provides peace with the Father and in our lives.
Isaiah 9:1-7
But there will be no gloom for her who was in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he has made glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations. The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness, on them has light shone. You have multiplied the nation; you have increased its joy; they rejoice before you as with joy at the harvest, as they are glad when they divide the spoil. For the yoke of his burden, and the staff for his shoulder, the rod of his oppressor, you have broken as on the day of Midian. For every boot of the tramping warrior in battle tumult and every garment rolled in blood will be burned as fuel for the fire. For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.
Throughout Scripture, it is clear that God desires to bring both welfare and peace to the nations (Numbers 6:26; Jeremiah 29:11; Ezekiel 33:11).
Without the presence of Jehovah-Shalom, there is no peace in an individual's life (Isaiah 57:20-21; 59:7-8).
Without the presence of Jehovah-Shalom, there is no peace in a nation (Isaiah 26:2-3).
Luke 1:76-79
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High; for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways, to give knowledge of salvation to his people in the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, whereby the sunrise shall visit us from on high to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
The requirements for peace with God were ultimately satisfied through the cross of Jesus Christ - His sinless sacrifice and resurrection from the dead. He will ultimately return one day to bring God's peace, His Shalom, to His creation and all who are waiting for Him.
Romans 5:1-5
Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.
Second City Church: Revealed Sermon Series 2017