Holiness Is Dangerous

Yesterday I came across a verse that jumped out at me. I've been reading through Ezekiel, and was in the middle of a section of the book where God takes Ezekiel all around the temple to measure it. They take a measuring line and for chapters they write out the blueprints in longhand of the temple in Ezekiel's vision. It actually was pretty mind-numbing for me, but then they get to the kitchen. (A place that always piques my interest.)

Ezekiel 46:20

"He said, “This is the kitchen where the priests will cook the guilt offering and sin offering and bake the grain offering so that they won’t have to do it in the outside courtyard and endanger the unprepared people out there with The Holy.”"

The thought gripped me that the priests could endanger the people by exposing them to The Holy. Earlier in Ezekiel God is firing the priests because they have stopped teaching the people the difference between the ordinary and the sacred, the Holy.

In Christ's grace we who are unholy are sanctified, that is we are made holy; not that we could earn or deserve it. But I wonder if we see Holiness naively, and treat it haphazardly. Holiness is dangerous.

--Ben