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Be Holy as I am Holy
You may perhaps have been puzzled by the title of this book, and found yourself wondering what holiness and mission have in common. Holiness we associate with personal sanctity, and we symbolize it with haloes, suggesting that saints are separated from the rest of us – often, indeed, withdrawing from the world altogether. Mission, on the other hand, means going out into the world – getting involved with all its activities. Why, then, begin a study of mission by talking about holiness?
The answer is: because it is with the idea of holiness that the Old Testament begins its awareness of Israel’s mission to the world, and if we are to understand our own mission as Christians, then that is where we, too, must begin.
Israel’s call to be holy
‘Be holy as I am holy.’ What does the Old Testament mean by holiness? The instinct that led us to suppose that saints are separated from others was correct, since to be holy originally meant, simply, to be separated, set apart. Holiness, first and foremost, was what differentiated God from men and women. Nevertheless, in summoning Israel to be his people, God demanded that they should share his ‘otherness’. They must ‘consecrate’ themselves to him – make themselves holy, separate from other nations. We are not, however, talking about individuals, but about Israel, the whole nation. As John Wesley aptly expressed it, centuries later, biblical holiness is essentially social holiness: it concerns the whole community.1 The demand is set out in Leviticus 11.44–45:
I am the Lord your God; consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy . . . For I am the Lord who brought you up from the land of Egypt, to be your God; you shall be holy, for I am holy.2
You will notice that what God demands is based on what God has already done – on what the theologians term ‘prevenient grace’. Yahweh has graciously chosen Israel as his special people, and her holiness depends on her relationship with him. She is to be holy as he is holy, to be like him. Holiness means living according to the revealed character of God. In Leviticus, ‘being holy’ is defined mainly in cultic terms. Israel is separated from other nations by rules about cleanliness. Later, however, the prophets interpreted holiness in what we would call ethical terms. God is ‘the Holy One of Israel’, and to speak of his holiness is to speak, in effect, of what he is. Since he himself is compassionate and just, what he requires of his people is, above all, justice and compassion for others. Those who are his people acknowledge Yahweh alone as God, and reflect his character as a righteous and loving God.
But why was Israel chosen as God’s people? What was the purpose of her call? There are two kinds of answer. The first concentrates on the relationship between God and Israel. She is the recipient of his grace, and must therefore serve him by her worship and in her manner of life. Although this answer rightly sees that God’s holiness demands purity on the part of his worshippers, and can lead to devotion and piety, it can also result in a community that is turned in upon itself and excludes outsiders. It takes the idea of separation from outsiders so seriously that it cuts them off. ‘Be holy’ is understood to mean ‘Keep aloof’. According to Deuteronomy, when Israel entered the Promised Land, God drove out the nations already there, and instructed his people to exterminate those who were delivered into their hands. They must not intermarry with other nations, lest they draw them away from serving Yahweh, their God. They must pull down their altars and burn their idols, since they, Israel, were ‘a people holy to the Lord’ (Deuteronomy 7.1–6).
We see a later example of this attitude in the exclusive policy adopted by Nehemiah and Ezra, who rigorously separated their community from other nations: they were God’s people – they alone – and they were concerned to keep their community pure. Later still, the members of the Dead Sea community at Qumran seem to have had a similar understanding of the meaning of holiness, since they endeavoured to keep themselves separate from anyone who was unholy.3 This was how the Pharisees – the name means ‘the separated ones’ – understood holiness, and how Paul had understood it before he became a Christian.4 One can depict this response diagramatically, by means of a straight line joining two dots. God has called us, his people, to be holy, but God’s grace apparently stops here, with us, the lucky recipients. The relationship between God and his people is seen as an exclusive one.
The alternative approach understood God’s purpose in choosing the Jews as extending beyond Israel to the other nations. Certainly God had separated them from other nations – but it was for a purpose, and this purpose, paradoxically, involved the other nations. This time, the relationship is triangular, involving God, Israel and the Gentiles, so our diagram now must be of a triangle instead of a straight line. It is adumbrated already in the call of Abraham, who is chosen by God to be the ancestor of a great nation. Nevertheless, God’s covenant with him includes the promise that he will be the source of blessing to all the nations of the earth.5
But it is the prophets who spell out the implications of what it meant to be God’s holy people – in particular the prophet who wrote some of the later chapters of Isaiah. He understood God’s call of Israel to be his people as a call to reveal him to the other nations. The basis of his understanding of Israel’s role was his conviction that Yahweh, the God of Israel, was the only true God, and the gods worshipped by other nations did not in fact exist. If this God – the Holy One of Israel6 – was the God of all the earth and all its peoples, should not they, too, be taught about him, and should they not worship a...