Holiness, many have heard the word. But how many have taken the time to really understand what it is to be Holy?
To really understand and grasp what holiness is according to God we have to examine both Old Testament and the New Testament
Someone who reads just one or the other will miss the complete picture of what it means to be Holy.
But when read together we get a complete picture.
The word Holy is defined as: Set apart, different, other, or otherness
When people think about the word holiness nowadays they think of words like purity, perfection, sinlessness. Our minds go straight to morality.
But that's not actually what the word means at its core. We’ll see where those connotations came from as we go along. But in the ancient world the word holy was used to describe anything out of the ordinary, not normal or other.
Our God obviously fits this definition as well. Not only does he fit the definition, he is the epitome, the apex of holiness. Yahweh is set apart from all other Gods; he is different from them as he wasn't created by human hands. He alone is the one, true God… Yahweh is set apart from all of creation as creator. All powerful, all knowing Yahweh is the very standard of holiness.
Holiness Lessons from the Old Testament
With the definition of holiness we can learn more about holiness from Israel. The Israelites were God's chosen people. Different from any other people group on the earth. A people chosen to be in a covenant relationship with God.
They were by definition Holy.
Which makes chapter 19 of Leviticus kind of strange
Leviticus 19 starts out this way:
The Lord also said to Moses, “Give the following instructions to the entire community of Israel. You must be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.
Here we have God giving a command to his people Israel who by the very definition of Holy are a Holy people. They have been set apart from the rest of the world by means of their covenant with God and yet God commands them to be Holy…
And then for the rest of the chapter God begins to instruct them on how to live moral lives.
And this teaches us that in God’s view, holiness and living a moral life are not separate from each other. This is where our contemporary understanding of the word holy comes from. It comes from a biblical context.
Now to fully understand what is going on here and to learn more about holiness we have to understand some things about Levitical law and how God thinks vs how the world thinks.
Now when the world thinks of things like morality they have two ways of thinking. Good, and Bad
But when we examine Levitical Law and the way God views things there are 3 ways of thinking…
There are Holy, Sacred and Godly things. Things pertaining to God, used for his purpose
There are Clean, Common and Good things. The everyday things, good things but not holy and set apart for God’s purposes
And then there are Unclean, Sinful and Bad things
And there is also a ladder of sorts that connects the 3, you can go both up and down the ladder
You can take a Holy thing and make it Common. This happens when you profane the Holy, desecrate what is sacred. You do this by treating something that is Holy and Sacred with Irreverence and Disrespect
You can take a Common/Clean thing and make it Sinful or Unclean. You do this by corrupting what is good/common or polluting what was clean
But you can also go the other way and redeem the Unclean, Sinful, Bad things
You can take something that is Unclean, Sinful and Bad and cleanse it. Removing the impurities and corruption making that thing Clean, Common, Good.
And you can take something that is Common, Clean or Good and make that thing Holy, Sacred and Godly. And you do that by consecrating it.
Now as a side note Unclean and Sinful are not synonymous in Levitical Law. Everything that is sinful is unclean but not everything that is unclean is sinful. Much of Old Testament law has to deal with ritual purity and hygiene rather than morality. So some things that would make you unclean include exposure to dead bodies, certain bodily fluids, skin diseases as well as menstruation. But just because these things are unclean that doesn't mean they are sinful.
The chart isn't perfect but it gets the idea across effectively
Now on this chart the thing to focus on in regards to understanding chapter 19 is the word consecrate and the process of making something Common into something Holy.
The word consecrate means to dedicate formally to a divine purpose; to declare something sacred.
Now when either a person or an object, is consecrated to a God that means 3 things for the thing being consecrated.
1. What is consecrated now belongs exclusively to that God
2. What is consecrated can now only be used for that God’s purposes
3. The thing that was consecrated must now take on the character of the God it was consecrated to.
And these things are what God was beginning to instruct Israel how to do in Chapter 19.
God was teaching the Israelites how to consecrate themselves to become Holy to reflect their Holy God.
Because being Holy according to God is more than just being different and set apart, it also means:
That we belong to God exclusively
That we are to be used for his purposes only
And that we reflect the character of God
Now before we jump into the New Testament there’s a foundation we need to build to understand the significance of what we’ll learn
Because something else that we learn from Levitical Law and the chart above. Its how these 3 things can mix together and what the results are when they do
When you have Holy things and they mix with common things, do the Holy things make the Common things Holy or do the Common make the Holy things Common?
The Common things make the Holy thing Common. Much like when clean things mix with unclean things.
When you drop a freshly cleaned plate into the trash are you now able to eat your food off the plate and the trash?
Of course not! You have to clean the plate again.
Because the Unclean things make the Clean things dirty.
And then we have Holy and Unclean or Sinful things. And in the Bible these two things are NEVER to come into contact with one another.
And we can see the importance of this in how the Old Testament temple was constructed.
God’s presence, his raw glory and holiness resided in a room called the Holy of holies or the Most Holy Place. The Holy of Holies was separated by a veil from the room it was inside which was called Holy Place and that room was separated from the rest of the temple, which was separated from the rest of the Israelite camp.
So God resided in a room that was separated from another room, and that room was separated from the temple which was separated from the camp.
The only people that were allowed into the Holy Place were the Temple priests.
And the only person allowed into the Most Holy Place where God's raw presence was the High Priest, and he was only allowed to enter one day a year. The Day of Atonement. And he was only able to enter after he followed the proper steps laid out in Leviticus 16. An entire chapter full of instructions, sacrifices and rituals the High Priest must go through in order to be properly consecrated and enter the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement.
And the reason the Temple was constructed this way was so that God could reside amongst his people while being separated from anything that was unclean or unconsecrated.
Now what if the High Priest failed to follow all the instructions laid out in Leviticus 16? Or what if an unclean person decided to enter the Holy of Holies? What would happen?
Well normally a Holy thing that comes into contact with the unconsecrated or unclean would become profane or corrupted.
But our God is incorruptible so… what would happen?
The answer is found in Leviticus 16:2
The Lord said to Moses, “Warn your brother, Aaron, not to enter the Most Holy Place behind the inner curtain whenever he chooses; if he does, he will die. For the Ark’s cover—the place of atonement—is there, and I myself am present in the cloud above the atonement cover.
The unclean, unconsecrated person would die.
Because God’s holiness is dangerous to the unconsecrated.
Now we move onto the book of Isaiah. Because something crazy happens in the book of Isaiah. Something that takes so much of what we just learned and throws a curveball at it.
And it takes place in Isaiah chapter 6
It starts out like this:
It was in the year King Uzziah died that I saw the Lord. He was sitting on a lofty throne, and the train of his robe filled the Temple.
So the scene opens with Isaiah standing inside the temple in the presence of God
Now Isaiah was Jewish, he grew up learning the Law, knew the customs and rules of temple worship.
Only priests allowed in the Holy Place. Only the High Priest allowed in the Holy of Holies in the very presence of God and only one day a year
And here Isaiah finds himself standing before God himself, seeing him with his own eyes, inside the Temple, inside the holy of holies.
Now with what we just learned, how do you think Isaiah responds to this… unique situation he’s in?
Probably how anyone would respond faced with their inevitable smiting
Isaiah 6:5
Then I said, “It’s all over! I am doomed, for I am a sinful man. I have unclean lips, and I live among a people with unclean lips. Yet I have seen the King, the Lord of Heaven’s Armies.
This guy starts freaking out! But look at what Isaiah says I have unclean lips, and I live among a people with unclean lips.
Isaiah knows he’s unclean, he lives amongst people who are unclean. He knows what is Holy and what is Unclean must never come into contact. And because of that he is going to die.
But he doesn't! Instead something completely unexpected happens!
Isaiah 6:6
Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”
So this angel takes a piece of coal, a piece of coal that has been consecrated, that belongs to God, that is used solely for the purposes of God, a piece of coal that is Holy… and places it on lips that are unclean!?
And when the coal touches Isaiah’s lips it's not corrupted, rather it transforms him, it cleanses his unclean lips and makes them clean.
What's going on here, what could this mean!?
Well I'm not gonna tell you. Not right now at least. I'm just gonna leave you with that we’ll come back to it soon though.
Holiness Lessons from the New Testament
Now our final lesson on what it means to be Holy can be found by examining two NT stories found in Mark 5:25-34 and Matthew 8:1-3
But lets first examine an important New Testament character named Jesus
Jesus Christ the son of God, God himself, the second person of the Trinity, the epitome of holiness comes down to Earth to live amongst mankind. Sinful, unclean mankind.
And based on what we know about Holy and Unclean things that sounds like a recipe for disaster.
People dropping dead everywhere. Right!? Well, let's see.
Let's read Mark 5:25-34
And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse. When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.” Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.
At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”
“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’ ”
But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth. He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”
Okay that definitely brings up some questions. Now keep this story in the back of your minds as we read Matthew 8:1-3 and then we’ll piece it together after.
Matthew 8:1-3
Large crowds followed Jesus as he came down the mountainside. Suddenly, a man with leprosy approached him and knelt before him. “Lord,” the man said, “if you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean.” Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!” And instantly the leprosy disappeared.
Here in these two stories we see two unclean people, a leper and a bleeding woman coming into contact with holiness itself. The God of the universe, the apex of holiness. 2 Things that are never to come into contact!
Now the Holiness of Jesus wasn't corrupted, as we said earlier God is incorruptible. But neither were these 2 killed on the spot!? Why?
Well this is because Jesus came down to Earth as one of us. His raw holiness and glory veiled by his human form. Still present, as he was fully God but veiled by his humanity as he was also fully human.
Okay, but not only were they not destroyed, they were transformed and healed. They were made clean. What’s going on!?
Here is the fulfillment of what was being foreshadowed in Isaiah 6
Jesus Christ, God himself revealing more aspects of his character to humanity. And our final piece to understanding the full picture of what it is to be Holy.
And that piece is this… Holiness, Holy people make unclean things clean.
Now you might ask yourself well, what's changed? Why is it that the same holiness that was once so dangerous to the unclean now used to purify it?
And the answer to that is God's grace and the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross
Jesus’ sacrifice atoned for our sins, our uncleanliness. And the moment Jesus died on the cross the Bible tells us that the veil in the Holy of Holies, the one that separated God's presence, his holiness from the world was ripped in two. Meaning God no longer has to be separated from us.
And now God’s presence and holiness has found a new home inside each person who declares Jesus as Lord.
And with that final piece we can now see the complete picture.
In God’s eyes Holiness is to be Set Apart from the World, different from the rest of the world in how we behave in how we think and how we live.
Being Holy means we belong exclusively to God. This is what 1 Corinthians 6:19 means when it says You Do Not Belong to Yourself!
Being Holy means we are used only for God’s purposes. This is what Jesus meant in Luke 9:23-24 when he said
23 Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must give up your own way, take up your cross daily, and follow me. 24 If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it.
We must die to ourselves, our work, our desires, our goals must be consecrated and devoted to bringing God glory.
It means we must reflect the character of God.
We must listen to our consciences, to the leading of the Holy Spirit. We must study the word, know the character of God and take on that character. We must be sanctified!
And it means that we are to make Unclean things Clean
We are to share the Gospel! The good news! Make disciples of all nations. Teach others about Jesus. Be a light to a dark world, provide peace to those who are hopeless.
This is what it is to be Holy. And it's not optional.
Hebrews 12:14
Work at living in peace with everyone, and work at living a holy life, for those who are not holy will not see the Lord.