BE HOLY
Leviticus 19:1-4 NET.
1 The LORD spoke to Moses: 2 “Speak to the whole congregation of the Israelites and tell them, ‘You must be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy. 3 Each of you must respect his mother and his father, and you must keep my Sabbaths. I am the LORD your God. 4 Do not turn to idols, and you must not make for yourselves gods of cast metal. I am the LORD your God.
God has always called his people to be holy. This command is found in today’s text and elsewhere in the Old Testament. It is also repeated in the New Testament, just in case believers under the New Covenant might think that holiness is no longer important to God.
The Apostle Paul reminded the Christians in Ephesus of this command:
“Blessed is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in Christ. For he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we may be holy and unblemished in his sight in love” (Ephesians 1:3-4). I don’t know what goes through your mind when you hear the words “every spiritual blessing.” Still, when I read those words, my mind did not automatically go to the idea of holiness. But for Paul, to be blessed spiritually is to be holy and unblemished.
I want that. I want it more than I want to be blessed physically. I want it not just as a hope for my future but also as a present reality that I experience now. It is comforting to know that God has already blessed me with that holiness in Christ. But I’m not satisfied with a mere expectation of future holiness. I want what God wants for me now.
The Apostle Peter addressed this two-fold reality – the fact that we have a hope of future glory and a need to manifest that holiness in the present. He said:
“Therefore, get your minds ready for action by being fully sober, and set your hope completely on the grace that will be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed. Like obedient children, do not comply with the evil urges you used to follow in your ignorance, but, like the Holy One who called you, become holy yourselves in all of your conduct, for it is written, “You shall be holy because I am holy” (1 Peter 1:13-16).
For Peter, holiness was not just a future hope. It was a standard of action in the present. Holiness must be more than an idea. It must be a calling and a lifestyle. But Peter recognized that there would be obstacles to living by that standard. He challenged his readers to stop following the evil urges that they used to follow when they didn’t know better. He called them to stop letting the world around them dictate their behavior. The Apostle Paul directed the Romans to do the same thing when he said, “Do not be conformed to this present world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may test and approve what is the will of God — what is good and well-pleasing and perfect” (Romans 12:2). That is another challenge for New Testament Christians to walk in holiness.
The world is telling us that holiness is impossible, but the word tells us that it is not only possible; it is our calling. A holy life today is proof that we will inherit a holy universe in the future. If we cannot learn to live in holiness today, we will always be subject to the accusations of the enemy that we are not authentic. Now, the question for us today is how do we walk in holiness? How can we live so under God’s control that the accusations bounce off?
When we go up and down the highways, there are cars with blue lights that flash. They catch people who disregard the speed limits. There are two ways to avoid blue light anxiety. You can listen for warnings that the police are present in your area and adjust your speed when they are near. Or you can monitor your speed and always drive within the limit. As far as holiness is concerned, we cannot use avoidance tactic number 1. The reason is – unlike the patrol cars – God is always present. The only avoidance tactic that works is maintaining control of your life at all times. Holiness has to become our normal.
So, again, the question: How do we walk in holiness? How do we spend our days doing the right thing so that we never have to fear heaven’s blue lights? Today’s passage from Leviticus 19 gives us some insight into what holiness means to God. It is written under the Mosaic covenant, but it spells out four principles that can be applied to the life of any believer anywhere, anytime. I want us to get familiar with these principles because they can help us live in God’s standard of holiness.
First, the principle of identity (1-2).
The whole congregation of the Israelites was required to be holy—not just Moses, the leader, Aaron and the priests and Levites, the tribal leaders, the fanatical super-committed Nazarites, or the soldiers. Every man, woman, and child were required to be holy. They were united under God, and it was God’s holiness that formed the ground and purpose for their holiness. God told them that they must be holy because He is holy.
In his book, The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses, Vern Poythress writes, “The people could not survive alongside the tabernacle unless they respected the holiness of God and maintained holiness among themselves. Or, to put it another way, now that the people themselves had in some sense become a dwelling place of God through the erection and consecration of the tabernacle, they had to maintain practices exhibiting the principles of God’s dwelling.”[1]
Not only had God rescued them from Egypt and promised to bring them to the promised land, but he also agreed to go with them as they traveled. Every step they took was as representatives of God, who was among them. They were no longer just the children of Israel. They now had the identity as a nation of being God’s own. Hence, their actions and lifestyles had to correspond to that new identity.
Every aspect of their lives now had to conform to God and his will. They could not decide to go somewhere apart from where God was going. Their tribes camped around the Tabernacle. They advanced when God told them to advance. They stayed put when God told them to stay put. God was among them – making decisions for them – keeping them from danger. But God could not endorse their sins, nor could he look the other way when they rebelled. Being delivered did not make them free from accountability. They were even more accountable to God now that they had identified with him.
Second, the principle of morality (3a).
God told them that they had the moral responsibility to respect their parents. Of course, there were more moral responsibilities than just that, but that was an excellent place to start. This chapter contains a mix of ethical and ceremonial obligations. It shows that God is concerned with both. There would always be Israelites who were only worried about looking like good followers, so they focused on the ceremony and omitted the weightier matters of the Law. Those weightier matters were the moral obligations.
Nowadays, some take grace for granted and flaunt their sinfulness. They say things like, “I’m not perfect, just forgiven.” What people hear when we say such things is, “I am a believer in grace, but I cannot be trusted with your teenage daughter.” God’s word never condones immorality. We saw in Matthew chapter 25 recently that there will be many who appear before the Lord on Judgment Day convinced that they are true Christians only to discover that they were not. They may have talked about eternity, but they were not prepared for it. They had the opportunity to use their gifts for the gospel but did not. They thought they were sheep, but they were goats. Jesus said that the true sheep cared about others. Moses told the Israelites that to be holy, they had to respect their parents. Loving others had to start at home.
Third, the principle of conformity (3b).
God tells the Israelites that to be holy, they had to keep his Sabbaths. This had nothing to do with going to church on Saturday. There was a whole barrage of rituals and regulations prescribed by God for his people to adhere to. There were sacrifices and offerings. There were Feasts and fasts. There were rules and regulations about what to wear, what to eat, what to say when, who to marry, and who not to marry. God expected every Israelite to conform to his standard of living. The reason for this requirement is also stated three times in today’s text. The reason is
אֲנִ֖י יְהוָ֥ה אֱלֹהֵיכֶֽם. In English, “I am Yahveh, Your God.” The reason for all of these regulations was not to get saved. The reason is that the Israelites claim that Yahveh is their God. So, they are responsible for conforming to his will.
Fast-forward to today, and there have been a few changes because we are no longer under the Mosaic covenant. Christ fulfilled the law by becoming our one sacrifice. His death atoned for sin once and for all, so there is no longer a need for sacrifice. We are no longer under obligation to conform to the regulations about the Sabbath days. But there are still some things that God expects us to do in order to identify with Jesus, our Savior. Baptism is the initial rite of admission into the New Covenant community. The Lord’s Supper is the ongoing rite. In addition to this, the instructions given to us by the Apostles in their letters to the churches help us to set standards of behavior so that we identify ourselves as Christians and our fellowships as Christian churches. The means of conformity have changed, but the principle of conformity remains.
Finally, the principle of loyalty (4).
God commands his people not to turn to idols. When they were in Egypt, their captors worshipped idols. God instructs them not to go back. He tells them to forsake their old way of living and their old way of thinking. They would be tempted to go back to the old way of doing things, but God says don’t. He also instructed them not to make for themselves gods of cast metal. Egypt had been filled with gods, goddesses, and idols. The nations surrounding the Israelites, when they arrive at the promised land, will also be filled with gods, goddesses, and idols. But holiness cannot be achieved by being religiously inclusive.
This same principle of undivided loyalty is found throughout the pages of the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians, Paul warns believers not to eat food offered to idols because it could lead to participation with demons. Paul lists idolatry as one of the works of the flesh (Galatians 5:20). John tells his readers to guard themselves against idols (1 John 5:21). In Revelation, he predicts that this world will suffer great pandemics, but they will still refuse to repent. They will “not stop worshiping demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood — idols that cannot see or hear or walk about” (Revelation 9:20).
Those dead idols are still with us in this generation. We have not rid ourselves of them. Anything that competes with your loyalty to God and Jesus Christ is an idol. We are warned to guard ourselves from them. You cannot be holy and idolatrous at the same time. Holiness is a matter of undivided loyalty. It makes no sense to brag about not having any idols in your house if the house itself is an idol. There are people today who live in their idols, drive their idols, work for their idols, play with their idols, watch their idols on the screen, and plan for retirement so they can spend more time with their idols, but still insist that they are not idol worshippers.
We need to start asking ourselves what things in our lives are competing with our devotion to Christ and his gospel. God instructed the Israelites through Moses to live as a holy nation. They failed to live up to those instructions. The same God who called them to be holy is calling us to live holy lives today. Be holy because your God is holy.
[1] Poythress, Vern S. The Shadow of Christ in the Law of Moses. P & R Pub., 1991. p. 42.
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