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Exodus 31:13
“You are to speak to the people of Israel and say, ‘Above all you shall keep my Sabbaths, for this is a sign between me and you throughout your generations, that you may know that I, the Lord, sanctify you.’”
Holiness is such a distinguishing attribute of God that He is truly “the Holy One of Israel” (2 Kings 19:22). The Lord is known in His holiness, and if we do not understand that God is holy, we do not understand Him at all.
Thus far in our look at the holiness of God, we have been focusing on holiness in the sense of being set apart. God, the Creator, is distinct from His creation, independent of it, transcending all its limitations. As transcendent Lord, He is holiness itself and the source of holiness in creatures. In these ways, holiness is an incommunicable attribute of God. In another sense, however, holiness is a communicable attribute of God. Here we will focus especially on the concept of holiness as moral purity.
We see that divine holiness includes moral purity in texts such as Leviticus 19, where we are commanded to be holy as the Lord is holy (vv. 1–2). The chapter then goes on to list many moral imperatives for God’s people, forbidding theft, oppression, injustice, sexual immorality, and so on (vv. 3–37). Clearly, part of what it means for human beings to be holy is to obey these commandments, and in so doing they are holy as God is holy. In other words, human holiness involves doing what is good and right because God does only what is good and right.
Because of the impact of the fall on the human race, such moral purity is elusive apart from the grace of God working in us. As Paul tells us in Romans 3:12, “no one does good” (except Jesus, of course). We must be made holy by another because we cannot make ourselves holy. Consequently, rightly comprehending the holiness of God requires us to acknowledge, as today’s passage does, that it is the Lord who sanctifies us (Ex. 31:13).
We will look at sanctification, the process by which we are made holy, in more detail in a few months when we study the doctrine of salvation. Today we will note that while we do not sanctify ourselves, we are not passive in being made holy either. It requires some effort on our part, including observing the Sabbath, or the Lord’s Day as it is known under the new covenant (Ex. 31:13). As we worship and rest on the Lord’s Day, we are reminded of the great works of God in creation and salvation, that He has made us a new creation and is conforming us to Christ (Rom. 8:29; 2 Cor. 5:17). In turn, that leads us to seek all the more to obey Him and love Him.
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
The Reformed theologian Petrus van Mastricht writes that “we should strive that God, who is thrice holy, holiness itself, and the source of all holiness, would sanctify us entirely.” We cannot make ourselves holy, but we can place ourselves in contexts that will be conducive to God’s work in making us holy, such as corporate worship and Christian fellowship.
For further study
- Leviticus 20:8
- John 17:17
- 1 Thessalonians 5:23
- Hebrews 13:12
The bible in a year
- Joshua 1–3
- Luke 1:39–80