For I am the Lord who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.

Leviticus 11:45

It is impossible to have an awareness of God without some understanding of the fact that he is holy. At the same time it is very difficult for us to wrap our minds around the concept of holiness. Holiness is difficult for us to understand because it is so foreign to our experience. We are well acquainted with brokenness and the miseries that accompany it in this life. We know all about sickness, sorrow, pain, and death. We have no trouble understanding sexual immorality, impurity, idolatry, enmity, strife, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, and things like these. But holiness, that’s an entirely different matter. In fact, one of the most helpful ways we can understand holiness is to see it as the absence of these and other sins. God is holy specifically because none of the previously mentioned sins apply to him. John says that “God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5). This is another way of saying that God is holy.

The overarching story of the bible is inseparably linked to the idea of holiness. God created man upright and holy, but man sought out his own schemes and brought ruin and destruction into the world through sin. Ever since the very first sinful action, God declared his intention to restore his creation and to return a collection of people to uprightness and holiness. The story of the bible is God’s creation of a holy people—a people set apart from sin. The biblical story is interesting because there are no holy people. God who is holy had to involve himself with people who are not holy. He who knew no sin had to engage those who knew nothing but sin. The drama of the biblical narrative is found when holiness and unholiness collide.

We see the drama of this collision throughout the Old Testament story. The story of the Tower of Babel is one of a holy God reaching down and destroying the sinful works of an unholy people. The story of the Flood is that of a global cleansing of an unholy world by its holy Creator. Things really got interesting when the holy God began calling unholy people to be holy for him. When God called to Moses from the midst of the burning bush, he had to give proper warning by stating, “Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground” (Exodus 3:5). When God gathered his people and made his presence known to them through the Ark of the Covenant, there were even greater warnings. The Ark was a visible representation of God’s presence with his people. It was so holy that no one could touch it and those who did immediately died. It was so holy that the room where it was kept was named the Holy of Holies, and only one person could enter this room and only once a year! The Ark of the Covenant not only represented God’s presence with his people, it also was an ever present reminder that those who are not holy cannot remain in the presence of the One who is holy. Like oil and water, holiness and unholiness do not mix!

That is, until the Holy One died and rose again. The climax of the biblical drama occurs when he who knew no sin became sin so that we might approach the holiness of God. Jesus Christ, the holy Son of God, became a Man of Sorrows. He became acquainted with grief and suffering. He did this so that we might be forgiven and so that we might receive his Holy Spirit! Christ did not die simply to forgive us of our sins. Christ died so that we might be made holy (Ephesians 1:4). If the Holy Spirit is in us, then the biblical drama will be played out in our lives as the Holy Spirit engages and removes the unholiness that consumes us.

God gives us the Holy Spirit so that we might actually become holy. This means that as the Holy Spirit works in our lives, we will be able more and more to die to sin and live to righteousness. Whereas God once used a flood to cleanse the earth of sin, he continues to use the Holy Spirit to cleanse the hearts and lives of his people. Like the rest of the biblical drama, the death of sin can be very dramatic. We tend to love sin and hate righteousness. We love darkness and hate the light. The presence of the Holy Spirit changes all that, but it can be turbulent. Being called to a life of holiness does not mean that we are called to a life of ease. As the Spirit works to make us holy, we often find that the choices we make for God are more difficult than the ones we would have made without him.

Paul tells us that the fruit or evidences of the Spirit’s work are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These are the distinguishing marks of holiness. These describe the way God treats us. God’s desire for us is that we be holy as he is holy. More than that, it is his plan and his work to make us holy. This is why Paul could write that he is confident that “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6). Not only does God command us to be holy, he won’t stop until we are! When we step back and see how God’s Word demonstrates his plan to impart holiness into his children, we can see that the words of Leviticus 11:45 are as much a promise as they are a command. “You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.”

Rev. Campbell Silman is Youth Minister at Plains Presbyterian Church in Zachery, Louisiana.