I'm beginning to feel like the "Shell Answer Man" [Linked Image]

Calvin's Institutes Book 4, Chapter 1,
Section 17. Fourth objection and answer. Answer confirmed by the divine promises.

Since they also argue that there is good reason for the Church being called holy, it is necessary to consider what the holiness is in which it excels, lest by refusing to acknowledge any church, save one that is completely perfect, we leave no church at all. It is true, indeed, as Paul says, that Christ "loved the church, and gave himself for it, that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish," (Eph 5: 25-27).

Section 19. Appearance of the Church in the days of Christ and the apostles, and their immediate followers.

Then what kind of age was that of Christ and the apostles? Yet neither could the desperate impiety of the Pharisees, nor the dissolute licentiousness of manners which everywhere prevailed, prevent them from using the same sacred rites with the people, and meeting in one common temple for the public exercises of religion.


R.C. Sproul clearly promotes the concept of "Holy space" in the last chapter of The Holiness of God, entitled "Holy Space & Holy Time", Sproul writes,

Quote
In our contemporary experience, we experience holy space in church sanctuaries. The biblical word church refers to people, not buildings. Yet when people gather for worship, they need a physical place of meeting. Because the church building is the place deigned for worship, we have come to abbreviate the term church building as simply church. In this sense, churches are designed and built to serve as a kind of sacred space reserved for a place of encounter with the holy. ...

It can be argued that such threshold thinking obscures the biblical truth that God is omnipresent and that all creation is sacred as the theatre of God's operations. But the Bible is much more positive about the idea of space. The consecration of sacred space does not end with the close of the Old Testament. it is rooted and grounded in the act of creation itself, and something profoundly important to the human spirit is lost when it is neglected.
What I am saying, and what Sproul is teaching is NOT that a building, a physical structure nor a particular plot of ground is now INHERENTLY and ACTUALLY "sacred/holy". nope Rather, wherever the true people of God gather for worship, that place and time is sacred/holy. God is omnipresent to be sure and always has been, yet it is written how He has manifested Himself in a special way as well and particularly in places of worship, whether they were an earthen altar, in the desert, in a tent/tabernacle or a stone temple. And although no one particular place or physical structure is now designated as "holy", as is the belief of the Jews, nevertheless, places of true worship are "holy ground" and need to be recognized as such by giving due respect to them when worship is performed among the gathered saints.

Then there is the testimony of the WCF, Chapter XXI:

VI. Neither prayer, nor any other part of religious worship, is now, under the gospel, either tied unto, or made more acceptable by any place in which it is performed, or towards which it is directed:[27] but God is to be worshiped everywhere,[28] in spirit and truth;[29] as, in private families [30] daily,[31] and in secret, each one by himself;[32] so, more solemnly in the public assemblies, which are not carelessly or willfully to be neglected, or forsaken, when God, by his Word or providence, calleth thereunto.[33]

27. John 4:21
28. Mal. 1:11; I Tim. 2:8
29. John 4:23-24
30. Jer. 10:25; Deut. 6:6-7; Job 1:5; II Sam. 6:18, 20
31. Matt. 6:11; see Job 1:5
32. Matt. 6:6; 16-18; Neh. 1:4-11; Dan. 9:3-4a
33. Isa. 56:6-7; Heb. 10:25; Psa. 84:1-12; 100:4; 122:1, Luke 4:16; Acts 2:42; 13:42, 44


Yes, there are many today who would reject this view but I am not deterred in holding it as truth when understood correctly. evilgrin

[Linked Image]

simul iustus et peccator

[Linked Image]