Copyright © S P Townsend
Lev 11: 44,45 I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy. Do not contaminate yourselves by any creature that moves about on the ground. I am the Lord who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; so be holy, because I am holy.
Lev 20: 7,8 Consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am the Lord your God. Keep my decrees and adhere to them. I am the Lord, who makes you holy.
John 17: 14-19 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world. I do not pray that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of it. Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth. As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. I sanctify myself for them, that they too may be truly sanctified.
The words “consecrate” and “sanctify” mean the same thing: to set apart for sacred use, or to make holy. To be holy means to be set apart from the common, the secular or the profane. Holiness implies a separation from evil, but it implies far more than this – a separation from the ordinary, from the every-day, from the mundane, and a separation for God’s special use.
During my student days I was in digs in Weymouth. The landlady had a sitting room, beautifully furnished. But during the many months I lived there I think I only ever used that sitting room once, when a special guest was visiting. It was set aside for very special occasions, not for everyday life.
The temple in Jerusalem was meant to be treated similarly. It was special – not for everyday activities. That is why Jesus cast out the traders from the temple area. Not because they were cheating people. Not because they were evil. But because the temple was a holy place, a special place, set aside as a place to meet with God. The ordinary and the everyday were an intrusion and a distraction.
Peter wrote in his first letter, ‘As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. Instead, just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, for I am holy."’ (1 Peter 1: 14-16).
What does it mean then for God to be holy? It means that He is separate. It means that He is different from everyone and everything else. It means that He is unique; He has no equal, none to whom He may be compared. We cannot study man and hope thereby to gain an understanding of God, nor can we study the universe and hope thereby to identify those characteristics that define who God is. He is indescribable, indefinable, ineffable. God has many attributes: He is eternal, almighty, omniscient, omnipresent, Spirit, Light, Love. These all in one way or another reflect how different God is from His creation, how much greater and beyond it. The word that sums all of these up, that expresses how separate God is from all He has made, is “holy”. In heaven, around the throne of God, four seraphs never stop calling out this fact.
‘Each of the four living creatures has six wings and is covered with eyes all around, even under his wings. Day and night they never stop calling out: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.’ (Rev 4:8)
‘The same year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. They were calling to each other: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."’ (Isa 6:1-3)
So when God calls us to be holy in the same way that He is, He is calling for something very profound indeed.
You see, the utensils in the temple where holy – set aside for sacred use, and used for no other purpose. But they were not said to be holy as God is holy. A dish, however beautifully fashioned, and however expensively made, is still a dish, which can be compared with another similar dish used for everyday, mundane purposes. To be holy as God is holy the dish would have to be indescribable, indefinable, and incomparable with any other utensils. It would have to be remade, reformed, refashioned.
But God calls us to be holy as He is holy. This means that His desire and purpose for each of us is that we, too, would be set apart, different, beyond the mundane and the ordinary: special, like Him.
Now we need to reject the voice of the enemy in this respect. He wants to persuade the world that holiness is a thing to be avoided, the reserve of the pompous, the critical, the judgemental, the hypocritical, those who see themselves as better than others, the joyless, the dour, the sanctimonious. But these do not describe what is holy at all, they describe what is wordly, earthly, common and ordinary.
Instead God calls us to be special, to be with Him, to be like Him. He calls us to share his very being and his glory. Listen again to these words from the prayer of Jesus.
"I do not only pray for them. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that they all may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they, too, be in us so that the world may believe that you sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one, just as we are – I in them and you in me. May they be brought to perfect unity so that the world will know that you sent me and have loved them, even as you have loved me. Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the world was created. Righteous Father, although the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you sent me. I have revealed you to them, and will continue to reveal you in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them." (John 17: 20-26)
You may not feel special today. You may feel very ordinary, very insignificant, overlooked and unnoticed. That is how the enemy wants you to feel. He will send any number of messengers to tell you that you are worthless, nobody, nothing. But God calls you to be holy, to be special, to be beyond the ordinary, to be a jewel in His hand, cherished, loved and precious.
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called God’s children! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not recognise us is that it did not recognise him. Dear friends, now we are God’s children, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. Except that we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Everyone having this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.” (1 John 3: 1-4)
Now you may have noticed a strange paradox in the verses we read from Leviticus: “Make yourselves holy, because I am the Lord who makes you holy.”
It is God who makes us holy, because it is only God who can transform us and remake us in his likeness. You must be born again, said Jesus. You cannot be like God without being born from his seed. A beech tree will never grow into an oak tree, because it will always grow according to the genetic pattern in its seed. You will never be holy unless you are born of holy seed, The wonderful news is that God has promised: to all who receive him, to those who believe in his name, he gives the right to become children of God - children born not of natural descent nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God. (John 1: 12,13).
And yet God calls us to participate with Him in making ourselves holy. This is how the apostle Paul exhorted the Christians at Philippi.
“Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed - not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence - continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose.” (Phil 2: 12,13).
How do we sanctify ourselves? By seeking to be like him; by spending time with Him; by putting ourselves in the position where we will hear His voice clearly; by responding to His leading and prompting; by softening our hearts before him, by responding to one another in humility.
“With unveiled faces we all reflect the Lord's glory. And we are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, coming from the Lord, who is the Spirit.” (2 Cor 3:18)
Copyright © S P Townsend