We Are Going To Be Holy, Because Jesus Is Already

Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”



This appears to be a wisdom saying drawn from the Old Testament.  It occurs four times in the book of Leviticus (11:44, 11:45, 19:2, 20:7).  Each time, it is in the context of specific behavior, being holy according to the dietary rules (ch. 11), being holy according to reverence paid to parents (ch. 19), and being holy in the context of not going to strange religious practices (ch 20).  I must be from a dark side parental mindset when I read these passages.  Moses has to reinforce these rules with calls to be holy because these were precisely the behaviors that the people were most disobedient about.



And God chose not to destroy them.



That may be the most miraculous part of the Mosaic law, the fact that God did not destroy those people.  They gave Him a run for His money at every turn.  He got so angry that he threatened to destroy them once and start again with the family of Moses.  No lie.



“You shall be holy, for I am holy.”  It is not a statement of requirement.  It is a statement of promise.  Even those stiff necked people were going to be holy , because God is Holy.  It is the promise that Peter is drawing upon when he said “For it is written…”  In other words, this is particularly important for the readers to track in on.



Holiness is a virtue that comes from God, from obedience to God, from seeking to do God’s will, from doing as Jesus did.  It is the setup Peter begins his letter with.  It is the call he issues to his readers now.  It comes from the transformation of the worst behaviors to those acceptable, even approved of, even adored by our God in heaven.  Such is the practice of faith.



I have yet to meet someone who truly feels himself or herself truly worthy of God, they would not consider themselves holy by any stretch of the imagination.  But the promise Jesus gives to us through Peter’s words are that we can be holy, and we shall be holy, because God already is.

Did Peter Know He Was Writing "The Bible"?

Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

In this phrase where Peter is citing “The Bible”, I do not believe he knew or even suspected that he was writing “The Bible”.  “…as it is written…” is citing at least four places in the book of Leviticus, where this ‘holy’ thing is referenced. (11:44, 11:45, 19:2, 20:7).  The Bible, as he was referring to it, was drawn from the Law of Moses.  But, as a citation, it gives special authority to the reference.  We do exactly the same thing when we reference Bible verses today, singling out special authority to make our case. 

Is it significant that Peter did not suspect he was adding to “the Bible” when he wrote these letters?  I think it is.  I believe that it kept him honest to his task, which was not writing an enduring religious tract for the renewed faith established by Jesus, but was an eyewitness testimony of Jesus Christ to a specific bunch of guys that Peter apparently had some connection to as a missionary.

How might it have changed what Peter wrote if he realized that the citations he was making from the Law of Moses would, in turn, be treated just as holy and important as those citations from the Law of Moses?  I think he would have written to a different standard.  I think he would have felt the burden of what was expected of The Bible and we would have lost so much of what makes Peter's letters so valuable to us. 

I believe the value of The Bible is how it expresses the honest truths of its writers, drawing from their times and places to relate to us their experiences of God.  How they understood God and God's mission on the earth has given us our faith today.  They were writing for us, about God.  If they'd known what they were writing would become The Bible, I think they would have spent more time writing for God, maybe about us.

The biblical authors were just like us, people struggling to take their faith in God and the lives they lived and put them together for the betterment of their audiences.  I believe that is how God inspired them to write what they wrote. 

God said, "You shall be holy, because I am holy."  God sanctified their experiences, blessed their writings, and has given to us a guide on how we, in turn, live in the faith we have been given in Jesus Christ.

Holiness Does Not Mean Perfection, Or We Are Doomed To Failure

Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”



“Be holy”, is this the impossible command?  It appears to be a call to perfection in everything that we do.  And that simply is not going to happen, not in this lifetime.  In the first twelve verses, where Peter lays the plan, power, and presence of Jesus (yes, deliberate alliteration), there is a lot of mention of heaven and the life to come.  That is when perfection will be achieved, not here.  



I would suggest that holiness is something other than perfection.  Otherwise, I would like to think that Peter would give us a more honest approach.  “Try to be holy”, “strive after holiness”, “quest for the holy ways of the Father”, something along those lines would be more honest.  It speaks of a beginning and a growing edge to the achievement of the goal of being holy in all our conduct, while still recognizing that sin is dominant in the world.



In Jesus, both being holy and being perfect live together in harmony.  But in us, it would appear that we can be holy without being perfect.  Which leads us to the ten million dollar question, what is it to be holy?



God decides what is holy, not us.  God sanctifies things, like the tabernacle and the temple in Jerusalem.  He sanctifies individuals, like the high priest, like the kings and prophets whom he anointed to their roles (“to sanctify”=to make holy).  The very call that we spoke of last is the imparting of God’s holiness to us who are called.



That does not mean there is not a proper response to being made holy.  It does not mean that we should not strive after the things of God.  But it does mean that failure is not a consideration.  By Jesus’ death and resurrection, the judgment due to us was taken upon Him.  Mercy is what remained.  In all our conduct, we are called to be holy, and the pressure of failure is removed.  That is a total life commitment to the God who has chosen us.  Are you willing?

Called By The Holy One

Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Being “called”, called by Jesus, what an incredible and terrible privilege that Peter is laying upon his readers and upon us.  We are being called by one who is ‘holy’.  How much more is added to the burden upon us by being called by someone who is ‘holy’?   It might be nice if it were just a phone call.  That would come to an end and we could…move on?  Or return to what we were?

It is a simple word, ‘called’, but it is uniquely powerful.  We carry on a legacy of those called by God, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Joshua, Deborah, David, Isaiah, Esther…  A legacy of Peter, Mary the mother of Jesus, James, Mary Magdalene, all called to serve.

The individuals that God has called, the individuals that Jesus, also God, has called, when they are names in the Bible, how do we even think we can measure up?  Until we realize that those whom God has called are no different from us, fallible, broken human beings, just like us.

The key is that the one who is calling us is holy.  That does not mean we have an impossible standard to try and meet.  Because we won’t.  Simple as that.  The one who is calling us is holy, and by His Spirit, he will surround us with his Holiness.

That doesn’t make us super beings.  It doesn’t make us perfect.  But it does make us something more wonderful.  It makes us forgiven.   

Holy, Being Holy Like Jesus...No Pressure...

¹⁵Instead, as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; ¹⁶for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”

Peter looks now to how we should behave.  The benchmark for proper behavior is ‘holiness’, being holy as Jesus himself is Holy

¹⁵Instead, as he who called you is holy, It is a simple declaration.  The question is, what is it to be holy?

be holy yourselves in all your conduct; To be holy is to undertake an activity, an activity that is all-consuming as to who we are.

¹⁶for it is written,  There is to follow a quote from the Old Testament.  The words and the context to be looked at and considered.

 “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”  Is this a promise or is this a demand?  What is Peter drawing from in the Old Testament, the bible of his readers, to make his point in this situation?

The only time the word ‘holy’ is used up to this point is in the title of the “Holy Spirit”, and that is an English translation of a single Greek term.  Holy has a particular usage that we shall consider in more detail in this sentence.

A Christmas Devotional

Tis the night before Christmas and I’ll soon be asleep, but there are things to put down before I ask the Lord to keep.  Just some random thoughts to share.

The Creator of the Universe, all-knowing and all-powerful, chose to come down as a homeless, vulnerable baby, as far from the all-power as one might imagine.

To demonstrate His great power, God used Caesar Augustus to move the whole empire so that Mary and Joseph might travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem, where the prophets foretold.

When the Wise Men saw Jesus’ Star rise in the East, was it the choir of angels ascending on high from their appearance to the shepherds?

Mary, the Mother of Jesus, was the only person to be there at his birth, his death, and his rebirth.

All the hype that has built up in the world of ‘secular’ Christmas cannot touch the appearance of that choir of angels.

The ‘pagan’ influences that have entered Christmas, i.e. the tree, the mistletoe, the holly, whatever else,  they are simply tribute to the greatest gift we have ever received.

If you read Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol”, the author rejoices in the birth story of Jesus as the backdrop for the redemption that comes upon Scrooge-something that rarely translates into the screen adaptations.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!