Family Resemblance

“and you shall be holy to Me, for I, the LORD, am holy and have set you apart from the nations to become Mine.” Leviticus 20:26

Family Resemblance

Holy – If holiness means separation and consecration, does that mean that Christians are to retreat from the common into the sacred world?  If God wants us to be holy, does that mean we must set up fences protecting us from all the evil out there while we live in isolated sacred spaces?  For centuries, the church took the position that the world was not the realm of God’s handiwork.  The world was evil and God called us to something higher, nobler, away from the world.  The current vocabulary about the “unchurched” has this sort of implication.  People on the inside are somehow “better” than people on the outside.  This thinking suggests that we need to bring the “lost” into the church to save them from the world.

But when we look at the context of God’s command for holiness, we discover something quite amazing.  Leviticus and Deuteronomy, the great books of the Law, cover all of life’s activities, from work to family to social relationships, from trade to worship to legal issues.  Holiness is not relegated to the “sacred”.  Holiness demands that all the activities of life be sacred.  Holiness describes God’s wish that everything we do resemble His character in the world.  Life is not divided into the sacred and the profane.  God’s perspective is that life belongs to Him and it should all be set apart for Him.  In fact, sin is simply life lived without separation to God.  Sin is anything done outside of consecration to Him.

Walter Kaiser suggests that holiness is God’s organizing principle of life.  It touches everything about living.  Holiness guides us about what is good, what is right and what is just.  Holiness reaches out into the common, profane world and absorbs all of it.  The reason that there is no gap between the sacred and the profane is not because the sacred has been accommodated into the profane but because the sacred has transformed the profane.  All of life is sacred under the banner of holiness.

Can you be a holy employee?  Can you have a holy family?  Can you enjoy holy relationships with your neighbors?  Can you handle your finances with holiness?  Does holiness affect the way you shop, what you eat, where you drive?

If you’re living in the mix between “sacred” and “common”, you haven’t understood God’s family resemblance yet.  When we follow Him, holiness is the air we breathe.