#10 General Impressions #4

Divine Separation

In all dispensations there has been a discernible difference between the people of God and all other people on the earth. But the question arises: What is true separation? In the present age there is popular support for an essentially outward perspective regarding the separation of God’s people from the world. They do not go to certain places. They do not participate in certain activities. They do not dress in certain ways. They do not associate with certain crowds or groups. There are certain restraints upon the quality and nature of their conversation. And, while there is validity to all of this, many saints have an internal sense that this is not what truly constitutes genuine separation. Many times, this uneasiness about the root of genuine separation is a product of errant preaching. Bryan Chapell suggests this.

When the focus of a sermon becomes a moralistic—Don’t smoke, or chew, or go with the girls (or guys) who do—then listeners will most likely assume that they can secure their relationship with God through proper behaviors. Even when the behaviors advocated are reasonable, biblical, and correct, a sermon that never moves from expounding standards of obedience to explaining the source, the motives, and the results of obedience, places people’s hopes in their own actions. In such a situation each succeeding Sunday sermon carries the implicit message, “Since you weren’t good enough for God last week, hunker down and try harder this week.”[1]

This excerpt helps to identify much of the confusion in the minds of many sincere saints regarding the matter of separation. There must be more to separation than a moralistic list of “dos and don’ts.” And there is.

This wonderful book of Exodus provides us with one of the most precious passages regarding separation to be found anywhere in the Bible. It can be seen in Exodus 33:16:

For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? Is it not in that thou goest with us? So shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.

This passage clearly reveals the true foundation of separation. It is because God’s people are brought into a special, personal relationship with the Almighty that they are discernibly different from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.

This is certainly in keeping with the declaration made by the inspired apostle many years later when he said, speaking for the Lord:

And what agreement hath the temple of God with idols? For ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. Wherefore come out from among them, and be ye separate, saith the Lord.[2]

It is such precious passages as these, Exodus 33:16 and 2 Corinthians 6:16-17, that correct the fuzzy thinking of God’s people regarding the glorious separation that characterizes the lives of God’s people throughout all dispensations.

It is wonderful to see the foundations of redemptive truth laid for us in the Pentateuch. And, it is especially wonderful to find this blessed foundational revelation of the precious doctrine of Divine Separation as a result of redemption in the book of Exodus.

[1] Bryan Chapell, Christ-Centered Preaching (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1994), pp. 282-283. [2] 2 Corinthians 6:16-17.