“Be holy for I am holy.” That is the command of our God in both the Old Testament and the New Testament, but that also raises questions. If we are to be holy, what exactly is holiness? Is our holiness and God’s holiness the same or is it different? And of course, the ageless question, how exactly do we achieve this holiness to which we are called?
We probably should begin with God’s holiness. “… for I am holy.” When we speak of God as holy, we are saying he is “wholly other” or “wholly above.” God is unlike any other being, He is absolute perfection. There is not even a microscopic trace of anything other than perfection in Him. He is high above all others, no one compares to Him. Every other attribute is governed by His Holiness—holy mercy, holy grace, holy love, holy wrath. We can’t even grasp that kind of holiness, let alone achieve it.
So what kind of holiness is God indicating for us when he says, “Be holy ….” We certainly can’t be “wholly other” or “wholly above.” For us, holiness may be defined as “wholly apart.” When God called Israel out of Egypt, he set them apart from other nations. He gave them specific instructions to govern their lives so that the world would know that they belonged to Him.
When Peter repeated the command regarding holiness in the New Testament (1 Peter 1:16), he talked specifically to believers and indicated that we needed to be set apart from the world. We are to be governed by God’s standards not the world’s or our own. Holiness calls us to be distinct, “wholly apart,” not perfect.
That leaves the last question. How do we achieve this holiness to which we are called? That can only come from a right relationship with God through the work of Jesus Christ our Savior. We cannot achieve holiness through our own efforts. To try to be holy without first being born-again in Christ Jesus is to descend into legalism, not the freedom found in Christ. Remember what Paul wrote to the Ephesians? “God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus.” [Eph 2:6 NIV]
Seated with Christ Jesus in the heavenly realm is truly “wholly apart” from the world. As we learn to live in that, we can truly “be holy for I am holy.”
