Leviticus 20:26 And you shall be holy to me: for I the LORD am holy, and have severed you from other people, that you should be mine. I. Let us endeavour TO EXPLAIN THE MEANING, AND THE FORCE OF THAT REASON FOR WHICH HOLINESS IS SO UNIVERSALLY ENJOINED. "Ye shall be holy: for I the Lord your God am holy." And so God's holiness is made the motive for ours. And why? The Lord our God is holy; therefore should we labour to become so likewise, in order that we may become like Him in the most lovely and glorious of His attributes. We should labour to become like Him in the most lovely and glorious of His attributes in order that by so doing we may become well-pleasing in His sight; and, by becoming well-pleasing in His sight, to attain to that eternal happiness which God hath prepared for all those who, because they are like Him, He will condescend to love. II. Having seen why the holiness of God is proposed to us as the motive to become holy, let us proceed to examine into THE NATURE OF THAT HOLINESS WHICH WE ARE COMMANDED TO IMITATE, THAT WE MAY HAVE A MODEL OF THAT WHICH WE ARE TO PURSUE. 1. First of all, then, we are taught that God is a Spirit. As the heavens, therefore, are higher than the earth, so also must we place our conceptions of what constitutes the essential holiness of the High and Lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, above the pollution of every earthly passion. Therefore in knowing, in the first place, what is the model of that holiness of God which you are to pursue, you must first of all remember that no earthly pleasure, no carnal imagination must have a place within the sanctuary of the heart. The utter banishment of all these lusts, then, both from our minds (lest they be defiled), and from our actions (lest they become unholy), must be the first of our labours, must be our perpetual care. 2. But God is not holy in Himself alone, He is holy also in His acts towards every creature in His power. And herein we have another point on which we are to labour after the similitude to God's holiness; we must throw aside every regard towards the persons of men, which courts the lofty, which rejects and despises the lowly man; we must account the welfare of all an object of our care; we must consider none too mean to be helped by our hand — none too high to mete out to them things which are expedient and their due. We must think of all, we must feel for all, we must be just to all; and so to show forth the similitude of God's holiness to all. 3. Thus holy in Himself, and holy in His acts, God is holy, in the third place, in the manner in which He regards both sin and the sinner. The face of the Lord is against them that do evil; and the wicked, though he be exalted, shall not stand in His sight, for He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. To turn, then, away our eyes, lest we look upon vanity, and to separate ourselves from all commerce with ungodly men — to give no encouragement to transgression, nor to the transgressor — to have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather to reprove them, both in word and deed — these are the duties to which in imitation of God's holiness this third particular would more particularly direct us. III. BUT WHO IS SUFFICIENT FOR THESE THINGS? Imperfectly as we have delineated the holiness of the Lord, few as are the features which we have had time to detail, yet who can consider his own failings in life without confessing how feebly he has attained to the conformity of the Almighty's holiness? When the text is taken in itself, as the measure of the duty required of all, and when we compare it with our weak and wavering performances, there is nothing left for man but destruction and despair. But the same God, who hates every unholy person and thing, has made a way to escape, that we may be able to bear it. Christ has fulfilled the law of holiness for man ; and He who knew no sin, has been made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him. This is at once the apparently great mystery, and this the consolation of our religion. (C. Benson.) Parallel Verses KJV: 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. |
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