I Pet. 1:15 ... "Like the Holy One who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior."
This text presents one of the greatest words of the Bible, the word holy. Translating the Hebrew qadosh in the Old Testament and the Greek hagios in the New Testament, it is here applied first to God and then to men. This is to be expected since God is holy in a primary and independent way while man's holiness is secondary and dependent upon God's grace. The essential meaning of the term involves two connected ideas: (1) separation from all that is defiled, and (2) devotion to all that is divine and pure. To achieve the first of these requirements only is insufficient, for unless the love and longing for holiness is maintained, sin will eventually filter back into one's life and contaminate him again. This is the lesson Jesus teaches in the parable about the man who, being cleansed of evil and set free from pollution, feels strange and invites seven wicked spirits to enter into him, (Mt. 12:43-45).
God is certainly holy in the sense that He separates Himself from everything unclean. An Old Testament prophet worshipfully said to God, "Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, and You cannot look on wickedness," (Hab. 1:13). This observation is complemented by the statement of God's response to man's indulgent evil, "Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God , and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear," (Isa. 59:2). In fact, God is exalted so high above all wickedness that He is immune to its enticement. We are assured that "God cannot be tempted by evil," (Jas. 1:13). That God is pure is evident from His absolute separation from and utter disgust with defilement. To be holy, those who serve God must separate themselves from the defilements which permeate our environment. In a vision, the prophet Zechariah saw Joshua the high priest clothed in filthy garments standing before the angel of the Lord. He was then commanded to remove these garments and replace them with clothing that was pure and clean. The Lord then said, "See, I have taken your iniquity away from you," and told him he was now fit to enter into his priestly services. The filthy clothing represented sin, and Joshua was not allowed to minister to God until he was purified, or made holy, (Zch. 3:1-7). And so it is with Christians today who are also priests unto the Lord, (I Pet. 2:9).
In our efforts to please God and draw near to Him, (Jas. 4:8), we must strive to be conformed to His state of being holy. We have just seen something of what it means for God to be holy, and therefrom we can understand something of what we must do to "be holy in all (our) behavior." We must first learn to withdraw from everything that is defiling in our mental, verbal, and behavioral experiences. The New Testament abounds in passages which deal with the specifics of this kind of personal exodus, but one especially pertinent quotation to be inserted here is this: "'Therefore, come out from their midst and be separate,' says the Lord,' and do not touch what is unclean, and I will welcome you'," (II Cor. 6:17).
As we disengage ourselves from "the defilements of the world by the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ," (II Pet. 2:20), we must devote ourselves to the purity and uprightness of the Christian life to which we have been redeemed. The "defilements of the world" will always be around us, enticing us and sometimes even making ugly spots on our souls. But "hating even the garment polluted by the flesh," we must "keep (ourselves) in the love of God, waiting anxiously for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ," who will remove those defiling pollutions, for "He is able to keep (us) from stumbling, and ... make (us) stand in the presence of His glory blameless with great joy," (Jude 21, 23-24). Being holy as Christians is therefore not an unattainable ideal but an expected reality as God looks down upon His people.
