1 Peter 1:15-16 (NIV) But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” The main idea behind holiness is not moral purity but the idea of “apartness.” The idea is that God is separate, different from His creation, both in His essential nature and in the perfection of His attributes. But instead of building a wall around His apartness, God calls us to come to Him and share His apartness. He says to us, “Be holy, for I am holy.”
When we fail to see God’s apartness, we begin to believe that He is just a “super-man.” Then we don’t see that His love is a holy love, His justice is a holy justice, and so on with all of His attributes. Holiness is not so much something we possess as it is something that possesses us. In this, the God of the Bible is radically different from the pagan gods commonly worshiped in New Testament times.
This Sunday we will look at these verses in their context as we focus on 1 Peter 1:13-19.