Lesson 9.1: Contagious Holiness

Proposition:

The Bible suggests that Holiness, not defilement, is Contagious. This is the idea behind Dedication and Consecration; items, place, and people are made holy, set apart, special.

Evidence:

Exodus 13:1

Exodus 29:33-37, 43-46

Exodus 30:25-30

Leviticus 6:24-27

Deuteronomy 22:9 (NASB) (use Deuteronomy 27:30-31 for further reference)

1 Corinthians 7:14

Leviticus 10:1

Analogies:

We are well-acquainted with the concept of contagion. If you have young children in the public school system, you are perhaps more keenly aware of contagion than anyone. If one kid in a classroom has a cold, everyone will eventually have that cold. If one kid brings in lice, everyone ends up getting treated for lice. Kids share germs like they are they are throwing candy in a parade.

Contagion can be thought of in another way, as in a contagious spirit or attitude. For example, her enthusiasm is contagious. We say that of both positive and negative emotions or attitudes.

Typically, when it comes to contagion, we view it as an undesirable mode of being (sickness) that comes into contact with a desirable mode of being (health), and alters that which is desirable into something undesirable. In other words, taking someone healthy and making them sick.

Have you ever heard of anyone coming in contact with a sick person and not getting sick? Absolutely! If you have a strong gut biome, a healthy microflora, and a robust immune system, you may not catch the flu or the colds that are going around. Not to say you don’t get their contagious germs in your body, but rather than succumb to their ills, you process them as invaders and kick them to the curb before they disrupt your day.

Have you ever heard of a healthy person coming in contact with a sick person and the sick person becoming well? I can think of one guy. (He went around the Sea of Galilee making a thing of that kind of stuff) Yes, I’m talking about Jesus!

Besides the Son of God, have you met anyone in your day-to-day life who transmits their health and wellness to the sick persons who touch them? I sure haven’t. Outside of the sphere of laying hands on people and praying for healing, this concept of the healthy making the sick healed, and not the other way around, is actually foreign to us. Our modern sensibilities don’t like it because it looks and sounds too much like phenomena and too little like science.

But why should it? Who is to say physical contagion cannot pass bilaterally?

According to Joshua Torrey’s synopsis of Craig L. Blomberg’s book Contagious Holiness; Jesus’ Meals with Sinners, he writes.

“Throughout the Gospels, Jesus flips the role of the table and holiness/impurity on its head. Instead of meals being a way of defining the righteous in the world, Christ presents a wide open table and makes purity contagious. When Christ eats with sinners He is not worried with sinners rubbing off on Him. His mission is to have His holiness fall onto others.”

Conclusion:

Rather than what is common defiling what is consecrated, we see that the consecrated thing makes what is common holy instead. From this, we can conclude that God, the ultimate Holy One, is not afraid of our common condition, our tame, or defiled state. God is not worried that we will tarnish him or ruin his perfection. No. It is humanity that is susceptible to change and effect when we approach God.

Whatever comes in contact with God is either Made Holy or Burned Up. The manner in which you enter His presence matters! Humility and Obedience or Pride and Self-Righteousness?

Evocation:

1. Has this understanding of holiness been part of your faith journey or have you had the belief that your sin is dangerous to God?

2. Why do you think you’ve held your views on holiness?

3. How does the story of Moses’ sons death in approaching God in Leviticus 10:1 affect you?

4. What hope did this understanding give you?

5. What questions does it stir up?