"Come as you are" or "sanctify yourselves"?

Today we hear a great deal about how we should come to church just as we are.  I recall a life-size ad that was posted for many weeks at a local mall in Wisconsin.  It had a picture of a guy in a T-shirt holding a Bible, a big tattoo visible on his arm, wearing jeans.  The ad asked, "Would Jesus wear jeans to church?" There was no gospel on the ad anywhere, although the religious organization claims to be evangelical.  Even if someone were to (wrongly) think that the answer to that question is, "Yes," unless wearing the jeans and the tattoo were an idol, one could answer "Yes, but who cares? Why aren't you giving these lost people the gospel instead of asking them a silly question about clothing?" On the other hand, if the casual clothes are an idol that one is not willing to forsake to take up the cross and follow Christ, then the ad makes sense; we can "put down the cross and serve ourselves," can keep everything in the world that the jeans and tattoo represent, instead of taking up the cross and following Christ.  

But is the answer really "yes"?  Are we supposed to come to church as we are?

Scripture regularly contains the following phrase when people were entering the presence of the infinitely holy Jehovah (in each case the Hithpael of the verb qds, "holy"):

Ex. 19:22 And let the priests also, which come near to the LORD, sanctify themselves, lest the LORD break forth upon them.

Lev. 11:44 For I am the LORD your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

Lev. 20:7 Sanctify yourselves therefore, and be ye holy: for I am the LORD your God.

Num. 11:18 And say thou unto the people, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow, and ye shall eat flesh: for ye have wept in the ears of the LORD, saying, Who shall give us flesh to eat? for it was well with us in Egypt: therefore the LORD will give you flesh, and ye shall eat.

Josh. 3:5 And Joshua said unto the people, Sanctify yourselves: for to morrow the LORD will do wonders among you.

Josh. 7:13 Up, sanctify the people, and say, Sanctify yourselves against to morrow: for thus saith the LORD God of Israel, There is an accursed thing in the midst of thee, O Israel: thou canst not stand before thine enemies, until ye take away the accursed thing from among you.

1Sam. 16:5 And he said, Peaceably: I am come to sacrifice unto the LORD: sanctify yourselves, and come with me to the sacrifice. And he sanctified Jesse and his sons, and called them to the sacrifice.

1Chr. 15:12 And said unto them, Ye are the chief of the fathers of the Levites: sanctify yourselves, both ye and your brethren, that ye may bring up the ark of the LORD God of Israel unto the place that I have prepared for it.

1Chr. 15:14 So the priests and the Levites sanctified themselves to bring up the ark of the LORD God of Israel.

2Chr. 29:5 And said unto them, Hear me, ye Levites, sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the house of the LORD God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place.

2Chr. 29:15 And they gathered their brethren, and sanctified themselves, and came, according to the commandment of the king, by the words of the LORD, to cleanse the house of the LORD.

2Chr. 29:34 But the priests were too few, so that they could not flay all the burnt offerings: wherefore their brethren the Levites did help them, till the work was ended, and until the other priests had sanctified themselves: for the Levites were more upright in heart to sanctify themselves than the priests.

2Chr. 30:3 For they could not keep it at that time, because the priests had not sanctified themselves sufficiently, neither had the people gathered themselves together to Jerusalem.

2Chr. 30:15 Then they killed the passover on the fourteenth day of the second month: and the priests and the Levites were ashamed, and sanctified themselves, and brought in the burnt offerings into the house of the LORD.

2Chr. 30:24 For Hezekiah king of Judah did give to the congregation a thousand bullocks and seven thousand sheep; and the princes gave to the congregation a thousand bullocks and ten thousand sheep: and a great number of priests sanctified themselves.

2Chr. 31:18 And to the genealogy of all their little ones, their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, through all the congregation: for in their set office they sanctified themselves in holiness:

2Chr. 35:6 So kill the passover, and sanctify yourselves, and prepare your brethren, that they may do according to the word of the LORD by the hand of Moses.

So the world, and most of evangelicalism, says to come to church just as you are, the same way you come to any worldly event.  Indeed, making no difference between the common or profane and the holy temple of God in this age is important enough to many evangelicals that they will refrain from giving people the gospel to instead focus upon the importance of coming to church in your T-shirt and jeans sporting your tattoo with your modern Bible version.  Come as you are, sing to God the tunes of the world, and add a little religion to your life--your life which is all about you.  By contrast, Scripture affirms, over and over again, that one is to sanctify himself before coming into the presence of the holy, holy, holy God.

So, in a true church, where the special presence of God is found in a manner comparable to the holy of holies in the Old Testament tabernacle (Gk. naos), you should not come just as you are.  You should sanctify yourself--you should come in a way that is distinctly different, that is not common, not profane, but set apart to the righteous Lord and God who dwells in a special way in His true church.  Jesus Christ walks in the midst of His churches, and He still hates any profanation of God's worship the way He did when he took a whip and drove out the moneychangers and merchants from the Temple (John 2) and when He sent fire from heaven to burn up those who failed to sanctify Him in their worship (Leviticus 10).

Nor should true churches set up special meetings where the people of God specifically fail to sanctify themselves in their appearance and come into the presence of God in an informal, casual, common way so that lost people who visit feel more comfortable.  There is no model for this in Scripture, and when in the New Testament a lost person comes under conviction after visiting church, it is because of the truth of the Word he has heard from the godly example and speech of the church members, not because they decided not to sanctify themselves. That is not the way to get the lost to confess "God is in you of a truth" (1 Corinthians 14:25), but to get them to confess:  "There is nothing special here."  Much less should church services be turned into carnivals with give-aways to attract children who would not come for Christ but will come for candy.

On the other hand, if you are going to a religious organization that does not fit the Biblical criteria for one of Christ's true churches, you might as well come as you are and make no difference between the holy and the common, since Christ is not there anyway.  Go for it!  But don't deceive yourself and think that you are doing anything that is for the glory and honor of God when you are there.  It's about you.  Be honest.

So, considered Biblically, a religious organization with a "seeker-sensitive, come as you are" philosophy of ministry is saying "God is not here.  This is about us and what we want. No to Immanuel, yes to ourselves.  The Bible says 'sanctify yourselves' before coming into God's presence--but we say exactly the opposite."

On a side note, the Keswick / Higher Life idea that "You cannot sanctify yourself" is the opposite of what the passages of Scripture above teach.  The sons of God, enabled by grace, do indeed sanctify themselves; that is one of the ways that God sanctifies them.

Please do not draw the conclusion from this article that the lost need to make themselves worthy before they can come to Christ. This post is about God's people and how they should come into the presence of God in His church, not about how the lost should come to Christ as empty-handed sinners with nothing but their sin.  Please also do not conclude that we should discourage lost people who know nothing about God's Word from hearing preaching or attending services if they do not dress nicely enough.  That is not what the post is about either.  Nor did the post say anything to the effect that the outside is more important than the inside; that is not the case. God does care about sanctifying all of who we are, inside and outside.  Do not take the post for what it does not say, but what it does say.

Let's just be honest with these passages of Scripture and recognize that the saints should sanctify themselves in their hearts, minds, and appearance before they come into the special presence of the God who commanded, "Be ye holy, for I am holy" (1 Peter 1:16; Leviticus 11:44).  Not soli mihi gloria, but soli Deo gloria.

-TDR