A holy God must have a holy people. That which God has taken to be His own, which He has separated unto Himself must be holy even as He is holy. God took Israel out of Egypt into Canaan that they might be made a separate people shut in to Himself that through His presence in their midst as their Lord and Leader, they might learn to do His will and obey His laws. He had called them to be a holy people. He had separated them so that they might become a holy people. Their changed position from Egypt to Canaan presupposes a corresponding changed condition in all their manner of living. His very proprietorship of them demanded holiness. That which belongs to God must be holy, for God cannot presence Himself with unholiness, neither can He use in His service that which is unclean. If He did so, He would deny His own nature and dishonor His own name. What God is, that which belongs to Him must be, or else God would lay Himself open to the charge of being a partaker of the sin of His people. Because they were a separated people, God commanded them to be a holy people and to put all uncleanness of every kind away from them. He told them that the real purpose of their redemption had been their sanctification.

Leviticus 20:24, 26 

“I am the LORD your God, which have separated you from other people. And ye shall be holy unto me; for I the Lord am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine.”

2 Chronicles 29:5, 15-16

“And said unto them, Hear me, ye Levites, sanctify now yourselves, and sanctify the house of the Lord God of your fathers, and carry forth the filthiness out of the holy place. And they gathered their brethren, and sanctified themselves, and came, according to the commandment of the king, by the words of the LORD, to cleanse the house of the Lord. And the priests went into the inner part of the house of the Lord, to cleanse it, and brought out all the uncleanness that they found in the temple of the LORD into the court of the house of the Lord.”

God has taken the believer to be His own and His proprietorship of the life is in itself a call and a challenge to holiness. God has redeemed us that He might possess us, and He possesses us so that He may conform us to the image of His Son. Christ saved us so that He might sanctify us.

1 Thessalonians 4:7

“For God hath not called us unto uncleanness, but unto holiness.”

Ephesians 5:25-27

“Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, that he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing, but that it should be holy and without blemish.”

The position of the believer in Christ is a call and a challenge to holiness. It also reveals God’s provision for the life of holiness which He expects of the believer. God requires Christians to live “as becometh saints” but the power for such a life is not in ourselves but in Christ Himself. Through identification with Him in His death and resurrection we have been planted into Christ and He environs us with His own holiness. We are “holy—in Christ.”

Ephesians 5:3

“But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints.”

Philippians 4:21

“Salute every saint in Christ Jesus.”

The presence of Christ in the believer is a call and a challenge to holiness. “I am holy—be ye holy.” Perfection of life is God’s only standard. In Christ incarnate we find divine holiness in a human life and nature. Through Christ crucified, that holy, divine nature was imparted to us. In the risen, ascended Christ indwelling we have the very presence of the Holy One in power. In virtue of what Christ did for us, we are made holy, and in virtue of what He does in us, we are kept holy. Christ Himself is our sanctification.

1 Peter 1:15-16

“But like as he who called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living; because it is written, Ye shall be holy; for I am holy.”

1 Thessalonians 5:23-24

“And the very God of peace sanctify you wholly; and I pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Faithful is he that calleth you, who also will do it.”

There is a vast difference between believers in this conditional aspect of sanctification. Some who have been Christians for a quarter of a century may show little evidence of a holy life, while one who has known Christ but a short time may have much “fruit unto holiness.” The progressive realization of holiness in life depends upon the believer’s response to God’s provision for it in Christ. With some, this progress is a steady inflow, while with others, it comes through a special experience that seems to them as marked as that of conversion. 

Source: “Life on the Highest Plane” by Ruth Paxson

Dear Lord, make us holy as You are holy.