Holy Moly!

Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy. (Leviticus 19:2)

Of all God’s commandments, none is more challenging than Leviticus 19:2. “Be holy!” In the New Testament, Peter repeats this mandate but makes it even more challenging by adding that we are to be holy in all our conduct (I Pet. 1:15-16) This is essentially the same directive that Jesus gave to his disciples; “You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matt. 5:48)  And this is what Paul was getting at when he instructed us to be “imitators of God” (Eph. 5:1) The Bible is crystal clear about this: we are commanded to be holy – like God. Holy moly! What’s going on here?  

Any definition of holiness (and the related term sanctification) must begin by noting its two most fundamental aspects. First, the word means to be set apart for God and his purposes. Pots and pans in the temple were considered holy, not because they were of a higher quality than other pots and pans, but rather because they were devoted exclusively to the service of God. Second, holiness is the quality of being like Jesus. It means that the image of God is now stamped upon our hearts and lives. 

In an effort to get our arms around what this call to holiness is all about, permit me to humbly offer the following observations:

This is a command.

God is not suggesting holiness as a possible option for a few zealous souls. No. He is demanding that all of his children imitate the character of his Son Jesus. The consequences will be severe for those who fail to do what God says: “Without holiness, no one will see the Lord” (Heb. 12:14) This means that if we are not walking in holiness, we are living in disobedience to a clear command of God. But here is the good news. We can be sure that our loving Father would never demand something that he is not ready to help us achieve. As John Wesley loved to say, “Every command in holy writ is only a covered promise” (Sermon XXV). 

This is a command addressed to the redeemed.

It is important to recognize that the call to holiness comes only after redemption. In forgiving our sins, God has done a great work for us. But now, he tells us that he longs to do a great work in us. God’s purpose is to conform us to the image of his Son (see Rom. 8:29). He not only removes sin’s guilt and penalty. He intends to break sin’s power! Now perhaps we can better understand the many commands in Scripture urging believers to take another step and go deeper in their faith: “Be filled with the Spirit” (Eph. 5:18), “Present your bodies as a living sacrifice” (Rom. 12:1), “Put off the old man… and put on the new man” (Eph. 4:22-24),  “Put to death what is earthly in you” (Col. 3:5), etc. These commands are addressed to the redeemed! Yes, salvation is so much bigger than forgiveness and the promise of heaven. God intends to make us like himself. And he won’t give up on us until the work is done (see Phil.1:6).   

This is a command addressed to the redeemed to be something (not to do something).

It is a pivotal moment in our spiritual journey when we discover that God’s demand for holiness is not a mandate to “do holy things.” Doing holy activities will not make you holy any more than eating hot dogs will make you a wiener! The Pharisees fell into this trap. They thought holy behaviors produced holiness. They believed that if they stopped doing bad things (drinking, cussing, stealing, etc.) and started doing good things (reading the Bible, praying, tithing, etc.), they would become holy. But rather than producing the image of God, these activities produced only legalism, hypocrisy, and nitpicking!      

God is far more interested in who we are than in what we do. He is preeminently focused on the state of our hearts, not so much on our outward behaviors (see II Sam. 16:7; Jer. 17:10; Rom. 8:27; I Thess. 2:4; etc.). For the new believer, this discovery can be quite unsettling. Although it is a relief to learn that, ultimately, we will not be judged by our outward performance, it is terrifying to realize that God will judge us by what he finds in our hearts. As a young Christian, when I first became aware of this, I was dismayed, because on the inside I was a gurgling cauldron of double-mindedness, selfish ambition, and sin. C. S. Lewis described my condition well when he wrote about his own initial discovery of indwelling sin. He looked inside his own heart and “there I found what appalled me; a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds. My name was legion” (Surprised by Joy, p. 226). Let’s be honest; if God’s requirement for holiness means that our hearts must be pure, we are all in big trouble!

This is a command that is impossible!

The writer of Proverbs laments: “Who can say, ‘I have made my heart pure; I am clean from my sin?’” (Prov. 20:9). And yet the church today is full of people who imagine that if they work hard enough and long enough they will eventually be holy, they will somehow grow into the image of Jesus. This kind of thinking has given rise to what is perhaps the reigning heresy in the church today; we become holy by trying harder. In other words, many believe that they are justified by faith, but sanctified by works. The tragic results of such faulty thinking are all around us:  

• Some believers live in perpetual frustration and defeat, and yet thy are driven forward by the incessant mantra, “Try harder! Try harder!” 

• Others have stopped trying all together and adopted a defeatist form of Christianity that normalizes sin and spiritual mediocrity.  

• Still others have given up in despair and fallen back into unbelief. “The gospel just doesn’t work for me,” they say.  

Dear friend, learning what doesn’t work is often a pre-requisite for learning what does. Let me humbly urge you to consider a fourth option: trust God to do what you can’t do for yourself. 

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. He who calls you is faithful; he will surely do it. (I Thess. 5:23-24. emphasis added.). 

So, be holy! God can do what you can’t. 

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