Dear Amy,

What exactly is this holiness to which we are called?

Perhaps we have some idea that it is about purity and being set apart for God, but how easy it is to misunderstand what this means. To make a generalisation, the Pharisees, as earnest as anyone has ever been in their desire to honour the Lord, so failed to understand what was required here that their very lives became an offence in God’s nostrils.

My Bible dictionary includes in its definition “moral and ethical wholeness”. We would do well however to consider what the Bible itself has to say. Leviticus Chapter 19 in its entirety is going to help us.

And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy. Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father, and you shall keep my Sabbaths: I am the LORD your God. Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves any gods of cast metal: I am the LORD your God.”

― Leviticus 19:1-4

Holiness is very much about what we do and that what we do honours the Lord, his laws, and his precepts. But it is so much more than this, some of which we have seen already.

“When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, neither shall you gather the gleanings after your harvest. And you shall not strip your vineyard bare, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard. You shall leave them for the poor and for the sojourner: I am the LORD your God.”

― Leviticus 19:9-10

Holiness is also about protection and provision for the weak and the vulnerable. The Lord has a heart for such as these, and so must we if we are to be a holy people.

And there’s more.

“You shall not oppress your neighbour or rob him. The wages of a hired worker shall not remain with you all night until the morning.”

― Leviticus 19:13

How interesting. In a chapter on holiness, we find specific instruction that we are not to wield power over others. The hired worker is at the mercy of the one who hires him, and holiness demands that mercy be shown.

And then we get onto some aspects of holiness which may be somewhat surprising, but nevertheless must be understood.

“You shall not let your cattle breed with a different kind. You shall not sow your field with two kinds of seed, nor shall you wear a garment of cloth made of two kinds of material.”

― Leviticus 19:19

Oh wow! How arbitrary and irrelevant does this sound to 21st Century ears? And yet it is absolutely relevant. How so?

The principle here is that God’s holy people, called and set apart, must never become compromised by those among whom they live. How easily do we tend towards assimilation into the practices and morality of the day. May it never be so! See how this is underlined with specific examples next.

“You shall not round off the hair on your temples or mar the edges of your beard. You shall not make any cuts on your body for the dead or tattoo yourselves: I am the LORD.”

― Leviticus 19:27-28

These were practices of the Canaanite pagans. As prohibitions they certainly sound strange to us in these modern times, so we must reframe them. Let’s not overlook how modern pagans pipe profanity and blasphemy and lewdness directly into their living rooms via streaming television (well, perhaps not in your village, Amy!), how strangers in society are dehumanised and ostracised, how social media have displaced actual relationship, how loneliness has become normalised, how brazenly are idols pursued⸺career, success, family, respectability. In the face of all these we must remain holy, and holiness means they must be repudiated.

And finally these:

“You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbour as yourself: I am the LORD.”

“You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God.”

― Leviticus 19:18, 34

An outworking of holiness is love itself. This should not surprise us because love is the essence of moral and ethical wholeness, isn’t it? And so holiness can be understood as an attitude of the heart that completely and comprehensively honours the Lord and which is outworked both in our internal thought lives and in our external behaviour in every aspect of our lives, without compromise.

Doesn’t holiness seem to cover so much? My favourite theologian summarises it like this.

Christian holiness is a number of things together. It has both outward and inward aspects. Holiness is a matter of both action and motivation, conduct and character, divine grace and human effort, obedience and creativity, submission and initiative, consecration to God and commitment to people, self-discipline and self-giving, righteousness and love.

― J.I. Packer, A Passion for Holiness, Chapter 1

You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.

― Leviticus 19:2

May love and holiness be the defining characteristics of all of our lives, Amy! 🙏❤️