Warrior Saints

If one reads Leviticus, one sees a primary theme running through all of it: Holiness. The spiritual leaders of Israel were priests. The Christian as their successors are exactly the same. If every Christian is to be a holy priest in a holy priesthood, then they are the spiritual successor to the Levitical priests.

He shall not defile himself, being a chief man among his people’’ ~Leviticus 21:4.

They were in charge of the sanctuary of God; they taught the people the Word of God; they offered the sacrifices on God’s altar and when called upon, they determined the will of God for the people. They were set apart for a purpose that was unique among all other people. Their obeyance to the standard was militant in its precision and requirements. In effect the Levite priests were servant warrior priests. If these people see themselves as leaders lording over others, they have already fallen victim to mentality that will essentially make them useless to God. God will have difficulty working through these types of people. They’re to be servants, warriors and neighbors.

Warrior priests. They fought the spiritual battles through God. So too the Christians today. Said another way, Warrior Saints. Just as the military holds their warriors to a higher code of ethics, so too should Christians hold other Christians in obeyance and order. This idea is all over the Old and New Testament. What is an embarrassment for one Christian is an embarrassment for all. How one Marine behaves reflects the entire Marine Corps. Whenever we minimize the holiness of God, we’re in danger of minimizing human sinfulness, and the combination of these two errors results in the minimizing and demeaning of other Christians. What is worse and more damaging is that it defames the cross of Jesus Christ. We all know well the non-believers rallying cry against the Christians, “Hypocrite!”

Holiness isn’t necessarily just a thing (noun). It is also action (verb). God’s holiness that he imparts to us isn’t a static thing, like a block of ice or stone. Holiness is active and alive, a “sea of glass mingled with fire’’ (Revelation 15:2). Holiness speaks of action, movement and doing things at the human level. Holy and active like Jesus was in the Gospels. Jesus was especially active in the Gospel of Mark doing things for the kingdom. It is not an accident that the Greek word εὐθέως/eutheós, translated “immediately,” which appears 41 times. Jesus immediately did this or Jesus immediately did that. Holiness in action IS Christ. Though the word does not always mean “just then,” it serves to propel the kingdom forward with speed and and accuracy like an arrow in flight from a warriors bow.

Holiness also made God a servant as Philippians 2 clearly showed us in God serving as atonement for sin in his death. Just as a soldier is a servant in a much bigger cause. In God’s economy up is down and the servant is deemed mightier and more holy. In fact, to be the master in this world one must learn to serve. For men the trailhead for the path to holiness is found in humility. Warriors on a trail. Warriors marching on a path carved through this world. A journey that has rules and guidelines on a path laid out ahead of time by commander. We need to stay on the trail and go to where the trail empties out to. These are the places of spiritual engagement.

Philippians 2:8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Yet even now as I type this, I see an absence of church discipline and high standards. Current Christian conduct indicates that we don’t take holiness too seriously. In our promotions, we try to “sell’’ the church to the world by conveying the unbiblical idea that Christianity is “fun’’. Current Americanized Christianity tries to show that every pagan ought to join our ranks and start living in our paradise. Sorry folks, a majority of the time we’re in a war zone or on a battlefield not a playground. The world is always trying to get Christians to acquiesce to their point of view. Succumb to their flawed thinking and sin. To not only encourage their sin but instead applaud it. No. Just no. Holiness is at odds with what the world is and purveys.

Eight times in Scripture, God said, “Be holy, for I am holy.’’ God’s commandments are God’s enablement. If He said for you to do it be assured He will equip you to complete that mission. Because He commanded a task, He assures us that it’s possible. Possible to do what? Live a holy life. To spread the Gospel. To be different from the world but still thrive. We don’t need to be the world to accomplish our mission. We need to be diligent and follow orders. I know based simply on observation and the fruits of their actions that a huge swath of Christianity is failing like the Jews did in the Old Testament.

Whatever else the church may be known for today—popularity, celebrity, smooth talking, business, buildings, budgets, crowds, busy schedules—it certainly isn’t known for its holiness. How many of these Christians do you know that you could honestly say, “He/She is a man/woman of God’’? The church is failing and it isn’t God’s fault. Then whose is it? I posit that it is the so-called teachers, leaders and wolves among the sheep. The Devil enters your life and churches every day. It’s your job as the warrior saint to root out the sinister element and expel it. It can come as ideas, feelings or even in human form.

Holiness and the ability to discern it begins at the altar of God in your life. It begins with the ability to admit our sin and repent from it. It begins in Scripture so we are trained enough to recognize when something isn’t holy. When it stands as a direct affront to God. If we think we're going to become holy because of my sincere resolutions, spiritual habits, or theological knowledge, we’re heading towards a cliff of certain failure. Apart from Christ, we aren’t capable. The Cross reveals to us God’s hate of sin while simultaneously showing us the path to holiness. The trailhead for the warrior saint is marker by the cross. Impossible to miss. It’s not the obedience to the letter of the commands given to us that gains us holiness either, it is the discipline to realize that the battle is won at the Resurrection. Everything else is just the enemy’s tactical diversion to throw us off his trail while we are in pursuit.

A lack of holiness is not just adversely affecting regular people, it is affecting Christians. The nation’s steady decline is not just the product of sins like pornography and drug use. It is the Christians not being salt and light in a dying world. The lack of holiness in Christianity is now contributing to the quickening slide of America into irrelevance. God promised His people that He would ‘vomit them out’ if they persist in their rebellion and that is exactly what is now taking place. Idolatry and worship of every single thing that is not God is rampant in and out of the American Church. Secondly, sexual immorality might now be more rampant inside the church than outside of it. These are the two sins that God especially singled out as polluting the land.

“Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants’’ (Leviticus 18:24–25).

What we are currently seeing transpire in America is basically God vomiting us out through the very land we are in. America’s decline is God puking us out like a vile taste in His mouth. The land is merely a symbol of God’s sovereignty over us. Christians should be doing all we can to uphold holiness. The individual Christian and even the church doesn’t have the authority to impose God’s laws on the citizens of America. The problem though is the church who was to be separate and a beacon on a hill is now practicing the things of the world. They are accepting it, conforming to it, becoming it. When the church becomes like the world, it will no longer have any influence to change the world as it IS the world. 

In this way holiness is not a private affair, it is a public/communal one. We either stand unified in obedience or we fall individually in disobedience. We are now in danger of not only losing battles but losing the overall war in America (and the world at large). Why are we not doing enough to help others? Why aren’t we reading the Scriptures for the correct answers instead of relying on subjective opinions of social influencers and self-proclaimed experts? We are we doing what makes us feel good instead of doing what is morally, ethically and biblically correct. We're in a war. A war needs warriors to carry out their duty otherwise people needlessly suffer and die. Pray for peace but know there will always be spiritual warfare.