Holiness
When it comes to words that are frequently used in church contexts, sometimes it is necessary to step back and parse what a word really means. Holy is one of these words. In what follows, I’d like to offer a brief description of the word holy and then examine the word through some illustrations that are intended to open a new lens to look at scripture through.
Holy has to do with categories. If something is “holy”, that means it belongs in the category of special or unique. Often the pitfall has been to focus on moral goodness or purity when the word is used. While the word can often carry this significance, that understanding is secondary. One way to better understand a word is to look at its opposite. For holy, the opposite is not ‘evil’, but ‘common’. As a simple illustration, the Sabbath is understood to be a holy day. If evil was holy’s opposite, the Sabbath would be holy and the rest of the days of the week would be evil. The correct description is that the Sabbath is holy and the rest of the days of the week are common.
My wife and I do a budget every month. In our budget we have categories of what money goes where. If I were to classify the money going towards housing and feeding my family as the most important, I could designate that part of my income as holy. I set that money apart and make sure it gets used in light of its special task. Once all the important categories are taken of, the leftover money can be used for common purposes; whether that be funding hobbies, eating out or a latte at a coffee shop.
If I spent my grocery money on hobbies and had no money left to feed my family, I would have violated the holy purpose of that income. In breaching the boundary that should be maintained between holy and common, I will have introduced problems in my life. Maintaining holiness means maintaining appropriate boundaries and categories that allow us to live life appropriately.
When we come to scripture, Leviticus is the place where we read the most about holiness. It is there we find that God says “Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.” (Lev 14:44). In a number of English translations it would sound like this is an imperative instructing the listener to achieve holiness. However, the verb form that is translated into English is not in an imperative form. The King James tries to cary the nuance through by stating “you shall be holy”, yet it remains a challenge not to hear this as a command. If we take the earlier provided description of holy, we see that God is designating his people as intrinsically in a different category. In other words, God’s people have a status of “holy”, and they are to live in light of the fact that they have been set apart for a special purpose. Holiness is not something we seek to attain, rather we as God’s people live in light of the holy status he has bestowed upon us.
If we consider all this, as we read through scripture, we can start to see holiness as a multi-dimensional map that aligns different facets of life according to appropriate purposes. Whether it's the calendar (sabbath, holidays/holy days versus common days), relationships (family, marriage, friendship), worship (God as holy/unique - no other gods before you), we see that holiness defines the boundaries in life. When people live in light of these sacred spaces created by these boundaries, life works better. When we spend grocery money on toys, or ignore the established boundaries, chaos and disorder gets introduced to life.
I once had a teacher who said, “It’s not if boundaries are violated, but when they are violated”. None of us will live perfect lives. We all break the order that God has established. The same teacher went on to say that when boundaries are violated, it is priests who do boundary maintenance. One focus of the book of Leviticus is priests maintaining God’s holy people by doing boundary maintenance.
One of the principles that comes from the Protestant Reformation is the priesthood of all believers. As Jesus followers, we are called together to do the work of priests. We have our great high priest who restored us, and we are set apart to embody that reality to the world around us.
Holy has to do with categories. If something is “holy”, that means it belongs in the category of special or unique. Often the pitfall has been to focus on moral goodness or purity when the word is used. While the word can often carry this significance, that understanding is secondary. One way to better understand a word is to look at its opposite. For holy, the opposite is not ‘evil’, but ‘common’. As a simple illustration, the Sabbath is understood to be a holy day. If evil was holy’s opposite, the Sabbath would be holy and the rest of the days of the week would be evil. The correct description is that the Sabbath is holy and the rest of the days of the week are common.
My wife and I do a budget every month. In our budget we have categories of what money goes where. If I were to classify the money going towards housing and feeding my family as the most important, I could designate that part of my income as holy. I set that money apart and make sure it gets used in light of its special task. Once all the important categories are taken of, the leftover money can be used for common purposes; whether that be funding hobbies, eating out or a latte at a coffee shop.
If I spent my grocery money on hobbies and had no money left to feed my family, I would have violated the holy purpose of that income. In breaching the boundary that should be maintained between holy and common, I will have introduced problems in my life. Maintaining holiness means maintaining appropriate boundaries and categories that allow us to live life appropriately.
When we come to scripture, Leviticus is the place where we read the most about holiness. It is there we find that God says “Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy.” (Lev 14:44). In a number of English translations it would sound like this is an imperative instructing the listener to achieve holiness. However, the verb form that is translated into English is not in an imperative form. The King James tries to cary the nuance through by stating “you shall be holy”, yet it remains a challenge not to hear this as a command. If we take the earlier provided description of holy, we see that God is designating his people as intrinsically in a different category. In other words, God’s people have a status of “holy”, and they are to live in light of the fact that they have been set apart for a special purpose. Holiness is not something we seek to attain, rather we as God’s people live in light of the holy status he has bestowed upon us.
If we consider all this, as we read through scripture, we can start to see holiness as a multi-dimensional map that aligns different facets of life according to appropriate purposes. Whether it's the calendar (sabbath, holidays/holy days versus common days), relationships (family, marriage, friendship), worship (God as holy/unique - no other gods before you), we see that holiness defines the boundaries in life. When people live in light of these sacred spaces created by these boundaries, life works better. When we spend grocery money on toys, or ignore the established boundaries, chaos and disorder gets introduced to life.
I once had a teacher who said, “It’s not if boundaries are violated, but when they are violated”. None of us will live perfect lives. We all break the order that God has established. The same teacher went on to say that when boundaries are violated, it is priests who do boundary maintenance. One focus of the book of Leviticus is priests maintaining God’s holy people by doing boundary maintenance.
One of the principles that comes from the Protestant Reformation is the priesthood of all believers. As Jesus followers, we are called together to do the work of priests. We have our great high priest who restored us, and we are set apart to embody that reality to the world around us.
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