You Shall Be Holy

Leviticus 11 is a long list of animals that chew the cud, fish with fins and scales, birds that may not be eaten, and creatures that swarm. Many readers skim it. Yet the chapter does not end with an item on the list. It ends with a reason.

Leviticus 11:44-45 For I am the LORD your God; and you shall sanctify yourselves, and you shall be holy, for I am holy; and you shall not defile your souls (nephesh נֶפֶשׁ neh'-fesh) with any swarming thing that creeps upon the earth. For I am the LORD who brings you up from the land of Egypt, to be your God; and you shall be holy, for I am holy.

The command “you shall be holy, for I am holy” comes twice in two verses, and this is the first time those words appear in the Bible. They do not close the Ten Commandments or the laws of sacrifice; they close the food laws.

The word is qadosh קָדוֹשׁ kaw-doshe': holy, set apart, belonging to God and not to common use. So the list closes with its reason. God’s people are to be holy, because He is holy.

Separated to Be His

Leviticus comes back to the same words again and again:

Leviticus 19:2 Speak to all the congregation of the sons of Israel, and you shall say to them, "Holy you shall be, for holy am I, the LORD your God.

Leviticus 20:7-8 And you shall sanctify yourselves, and you shall be holy, for I am the LORD your God. And you shall keep My statutes (chuqqot חֻקָּה khook-kaw') and do them; I am the LORD who sanctifies you.

Near the end of chapter 20, the food laws and the holy people are tied together in a single paragraph:

Leviticus 20:22-26 And you shall keep all My statutes (chuqqot) and all My judgments (mishpat מִשׁפָּט mish-pawt'), and do them, that the land where I am bringing you to dwell in it not vomit you out. And you shall not walk in the statutes (chuqqot) of the nation which I am sending away from before you; for all these things they did, and I abhorred them. And I said to you, You shall possess their ground (adamah אֲדָמָה ad-aw-maw'), and I, I will give it to you to possess it, a land flowing with milk and honey; I am the LORD your God, who has separated you from the peoples. And you shall separate between the clean beast and the unclean, and between the unclean bird and the clean; and you shall not make your souls (nephesh) detestable by beast or by bird or by anything that creeps on the ground (adamah), which I have set apart for you as unclean. And you shall be holy to Me, for holy am I, the LORD, and I have separated you from the peoples to be Mine.

The order matters. First comes “I am the LORD your God, who has separated you from the peoples.” Then, “you shall separate between the clean beast and the unclean.” Last, “I have separated you from the peoples to be Mine.” God separated His people, and they in turn separated at the table. The table was where a holy people practiced being separated.

One more phrase deserves attention: “you shall not make your souls (nephesh) detestable by beast or by bird.” What goes into the mouth reaches the nephesh, the whole living person, and that is why the Torah never treats the table as a small matter.

Peter, writing to believers from the nations, takes up the same words:

1 Peter 1:14-16 As obedient children, do not be conformed to the epithymiai(lusts, desires, strong cravings) of your former ignorance, but as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, "Be holy, for I am holy."

“It is written,” Peter says, and the place where it is first written is Leviticus 11:44-45, at the close of the food laws. The man who said “nothing koinos κοινός koy-nos'(common, worldly) or akathartos ἀκάθαρτος ak-ath'-ar-tos(impure, unclean) has ever entered my mouth” (Acts 11:8) quotes the end of the food chapter to the church, and he adds “in all your conduct.” Far from lowering the call for the nations, he hands it to them.

The verse just before matters too: “do not be conformed to the epithymiai(lusts, desires, strong cravings) of your former ignorance.” A few lines later Peter writes that they were redeemed “from your futile way of life inherited from your fathers” (1 Peter 1:18). He calls them out of their former ignorance into the holiness God first spoke over His people at the close of Leviticus 11.

Three Times Before the Throne

When Isaiah saw the Lord, the seraphim were calling to one another:

Isaiah 6:3 And this one called to that one, and said: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts (tzevaot צָבָא tsaw-baw'); the fullness of all the earth is his glory."

When John saw the throne, the four living creatures were saying the same:

Revelation 4:8 And the four living creatures, each one of them having six wings apiece, are full of eyes around and within, and they do not cease day and night saying, "Hagio(holy), hagio(holy), hagio(holy) is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is and who is coming."

In both visions the cry is the same, three times over: holy first, holy second, and holy third.

The New Testament makes this the goal of the believer’s life:

Hebrews 12:14 Strive for eirene εἰρήνη i-ray'-nay(peace) with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Revelation 22:11 Let the one doing wrong continue to do wrong, and let the filthy one continue to be filthy, and let the righteous one continue to practice dikaiosyne δικαιοσύνη dik-ah-yos-oo'-nay(righteousness), and let the holy one continue to be made holy."

Revelation 14:12 Here is the steadfast endurance of the holy ones — those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua.

Without holiness “no one will see the Lord,” and at the end the holy one is to “continue to be made holy.” The holy ones themselves are described as “those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Yeshua,” the two together.

The New Testament calls believers hagioi ἅγιοι hag'-ee-os, holy ones, saints. A saint is not a believer of a higher rank. Paul wrote to the whole church in Corinth, with all its divisions and drunkenness, as those “called hagioi(holy ones)” (1 Corinthians 1:2). It is what every believer is called to be, and what every believer is called to become.

How a Person Becomes Holy

Here the matter must be made very clear. No one makes himself holy by keeping food laws, and no one is saved by them. A person is made clean by the blood of Yeshua:

1 John 1:7; 1:9 But if we walk in the light, as He is in the light, we have koinonia κοινωνία koy-nohn-ee'-ah(fellowship) with one another, and the blood of Yeshua Messiah His Son cleanses us from all sin. … If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

He receives Yeshua, and he is filled with the Spirit:

Ephesians 5:18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the pneuma πνεῦμα pnyoo'-mah(spirit),

The verse sets two things against each other: being drunk with wine and being filled with the Spirit. Chapter 34 showed that the priests were forbidden wine before coming near the holy, “that you do not die,” and that some in Corinth came drunk to the Lord’s Supper. The believer comes instead filled with the Spirit, and the Spirit bears fruit:

Galatians 5:22-25 But the karpos καρπός kar-pos'(fruit) of the pneuma(spirit) is agape ἀγάπη ag-ah'-pay(love), joy, eirene(peace), patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no nomos νόμος nom'-os(law). Now those who belong to Messiah have crucified sarx σάρξ sarx(flesh) with its pathema πάθημα path'-ay-mah(passions, sufferings) and epithymia ἐπιθυμία ep-ee-thoo-mee'-ah(desires, cravings). If we live by the pneuma(spirit), let us also walk by the pneuma(spirit).

The fruit of that life is a body given back to God:

Romans 12:1-2 I urge you therefore, brothers, through the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice — holy, well-pleasing to God — which is your logikos λογικός log-ik-os'(reasonable) latreia λατρεία lat-ri'-ah(worship, service). And do not be conformed to this aion αἰών ahee-ohn'(age), but be transformed by the renewing of your nous νοῦς nooce(intellect, spiritual domain), so that you may discern what the thelema θέλημα thel'-ay-mah(will) of God is — the good and well-pleasing and perfect.

Paul asks for a living body rather than a dead animal on an altar, and his next words use the same verb as Peter, syschematizo, found only in these two places in the New Testament: “do not be conformed to this aion(age).” Peter, for his part, tells the believers who they now are:

1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.

In calling them “a holy nation,” Peter is quoting what God said to Israel at Sinai: “you yourselves shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Exodus 19:6).

The order, then, is this: a person is cleansed by Yeshua’s blood, filled with the Holy Spirit, and walks in the commandments as the fruit of that life. Grace comes first, and holiness is the life that grace produces.

Eager, Not Grim

Some hear all this and imagine a grim life of rules and worry. Picture instead a bride on the morning of her wedding. She takes care over every detail, not because someone is grading her, but because she is about to meet the one she loves. Every detail matters to her, and none of it is a burden.

That is the spirit of the New Testament’s call to holiness:

Titus 2:14 who gave Himself for us to redeem us from every anomia ἀνομία an-om-ee'-ah(Torah-lessness), and to purify for Himself a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds.

Romans 12:11 not lagging in diligence, fervent in pneuma(spirit), serving the Lord;

Revelation 3:19 Those whom I phileo φιλέω fil-eh'-o(love) I rebuke and discipline; so be zealous and metanoeson(repent, spiritual domain).

These verses speak of a people redeemed “from every anomia(Torah-lessness),” purified to be “a people for His own possession, zealous for good deeds,” “fervent in pneuma(spirit),” and called to “be zealous and metanoeson(repent, spiritual domain).” That is not the voice of a scold. It is the voice of a Lord who loves His people enough to call them higher.

When Nehemiah’s people wept at the reading of the Torah, they were told, “the joy of the LORD is your stronghold” (Nehemiah 8:10). And John names the hope that sustains it:

1 John 3:3 And everyone who thus elpis ἐλπίς el-pece'(hope)s in Him purifies himself as He is pure.

The goal of the food laws, of the purity laws, and of everything in Part Three is this one word: holy.

That leaves one hard question. If God’s people were called to be holy, and the holy table and the holy word were given to train them, why has the church read the very same Bible in such different directions?