Peter's call to holiness

But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy." (1 Peter 1:15-16)

The interpretation of the above is straightforward: Peter said God is holy and we are to be holy in all we do because it was written, “Be holy, because I am holy”. This is despite the phrase “Be holy, because I am holy” was first quoted in the Old Testament in the Book of Leviticus.

In Bible interpretation we first try to understand what the writer was trying to put across, or the theme of a particular passage(s). Often Biblical writers, Paul, particularly, wrote with great flow, meaning, their singular theme ran over many verses, even chapters (chapters, being put in there by us).

In more recent times, I have engaged some of the “overly” grace believers in discussions on the internet, I realised that their doctrines are very skewed indeed. I was “attacked” for exhorting effort to be holy by a mere signing off, with a prayer of asking God to help me to be holy in line with 1 Peter 1:16. This was how I signed off:

“God, help me to be holy as you are holy, in keeping with 1 Peter 1:16
AC”

Such overly grace believers’ tendency is to argue that we, the traditional institutional church (“ICs”, as they called us) use isolated and often singular verse to expound on the need for people to live right, be righteous and be holy in the things we do, to confess, and ask for forgiveness for our sins. Do not be taken in by their allegations that believers’ positions on such matters of right living, repentance, confession, and asking for forgiveness are based on isolated singular verses in the Bible; it is not like that. Before I expound on this passage of the Apostle Peter in this first epistle of his, let me quote that even the Apostle Paul, in 2 Cor 7:1 echoed the same:

Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God. (2 Cor 7:1)

[Added: 07/07/2011 - Another call by the Apostle Paul is found in his epistle, 2 Timothy, particularly in 2 Tim 2 & 3. The key text there being 2 Tim 2:21: - "If a man cleanses himself from the latter {ignoble, from v20}, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work."

You can hop over to this separate article,"You must choose to cleanse yourself from ignoble", to see the importance of our part to cleanse ourselves from ignoble (whole list of ignoble from the epistle was given in the article).]

The truth is that, often, there were singular themes running in the passages of Biblical authors, not singular verses; and when it is the former, it meant that the issue in the heart of the author was very important, and if we believe that the writings in the Bible were God-inspired, then, it meant it was also very important in the heart of God.

Sometimes, it makes one wonders what the overly grace believers were driving at. The overly grace believer has one, and only one belief in their entire theology – By grace, God has, through the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Cross, forgiven us for all our sins, past, current, and FUTURE, ALL DONE AT our born again, nothing for God to forgive anymore, no blemishes to talk about, no unrighteousness or un-holiness can ever be present in a believer regardless of the individual sinning subsequently. I do not want, in this article, to discuss what is amiss in this theology which has gained many followers among Christians, but for those who are curious enough, you may read my separate article, “1 John 1:9 is for believers”, to gain a better understanding of the danger in such a “grace, and nothing but grace” theology.

Back to the passage in discussion, the Apostle Peter was calling the children of God to be holy, and this singular theme ran all the way from 1 Peter 1:14 to 1 Peter 2:12, minimally. I will put down here, some of the relevant verses to illustrate the importance of seeing flow in biblical interpretation:

1 Peter 1:14-16 -
14As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. 15But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."

1 Peter 1:21-22 -
21Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God. 22Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart.

Yes, there is recognition of purification of being born again in the above verses.

1 Peter 2:1-3 -
1Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. 2Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.

We are To GROW IN OUR SALVATION, and that is including growing in matter of holiness and righteousness.

1 Peter 2:5 -
5you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

As we grow, we are BEING built to be a holy priesthood.

1 Peter 2:11-12 -
11Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. 12Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us.

There we have it, Peter made a "closure" with the call for us, BELIEVERS, to abstain from sinful desires which war against our soul, and to live right, and do good deeds so that we may glorify God. By the way, sinful desires come from the sinful nature that is still in us.

This is how I read (passages in the Bible), and may I encourage you to do likewise. If there is no need of us to work on righteousness and holiness, why do you think we have so many such passages in the New Testament? And please, they are addressing believers, more than they were addressing non-believers, if we are truly honest with ourselves.

For those who do not want to avoid, but want to face the fact that holiness and righteousness are top priority with God, you may want to read other articles under the “Holiness series” caption; recommended reading: Way of Holiness - Way of the Lord.


For those who ask, “But what if I sin again, and again? What am I going to do?” Go do 1 John 1:9. But will God forgive me again and again? Jesus was asked a similar question by Peter himself {Matt 18:21-22}. His answer gave us the assurance, if He had asked that we do that, to forgive, and forgive, and forgive, and …., forgive a brother, how much more would He not forgive us, when we confess and ask Him for forgiveness!



Anthony Chia, high.expressions - God, I know you hate profanity against your holiness, help me Lord, to refrain from that.

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Be holy because I am holy

Can we ever be holy?
What does it mean, practically?
What must we do?

Way of Holiness
Isaiah 35:8a - And a highway will be there; it will be called the Way of Holiness.
I have expounded this on my blog entry:  Way of Holiness - The Way of the Lord. I encourage you to read this entry to appreciate why holiness is so important.

I will just summarise the key reasons for holiness:
1. God is holy and unholy cannot be with holy
2. When we are holy, God will receive us
3. Without holiness , you will not see God

Can we ever be holy?
1 Peter 1:14-16 - As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he[the Lord] who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: "Be holy, because I am holy."

I believe that many things are always, either right or wrong, i.e. one way or the other, no two ways about them. For example, for Christians, you cannot worship another god beside the Lord God Almighty.

On the other hand, there are few things that can be viewed in a spectrum kind of way (although, it may be possible to break down the thing into all its components and look at each and every component individually, to decide whether it is right or wrong). Holiness, for example, is one of them. You can view holiness from a scale of say, 0 to 10; where 10 is the holiness of God, perfect holiness. This being the case, one may be tempted to say that it would be alright to score 2, and be contented with that. But for any endeavour, if 10 is the perfect score, would 2 do, especially, if you are going to be contented with that? Where will it lead you to? Another may ask, then can I ever achieve 10 for holiness? For that matter, is it possible for man to achieve any holiness?

I believe if it is not possible for man to achieve any degree of holiness, God would not ask it. I also do not believe once you accepted Jesus as the Saviour, you straightway become holy to the degree of 10 and remain so, all the time, kind of auto-refreshing by Jesus. I accept the holiness of Jesus is 10, and the suggestion that on imputation of Jesus’ holiness upon a person, the degree of holiness imputed is to the degree of 10; but I do not believe the state remains at 10 without maintenance. I can accept that each time all your sins are forgiven you and you are cleansed by the blood of Jesus, your holiness can reach 10, by virtue of the imputed holiness of Jesus but that holiness can fall. Does that then mean, it is not our business or our fault if we are not having a high score? No, God said “Be holy, because I am holy”. That means we are accountable.

What does it mean, practically?
The next gives us the big picture:
2 Cor 6:16 - 2 Cor 7:1
16 What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: "I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they will be my people." 17 "Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you." 18 "I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty." 2 Cor 7:1 - Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.

From the above text, we can see God promised to be our God and Father, and be with us, and we, be His people and children on the conditions (v17) that we stay off unrighteousness (be separate from the unbelievers or be no longer of the world, and “touch” no unclean thing), and to have ourselves cleansed of contamination to the body and spirited soul, in our perfecting of holiness in the fear of God (KJV uses "fear of God", instead of "reverence for God").  We need to stay off unrighteousness, and we need to have ourselves cleansed of contamination to our body and spirited soul.

The Apostle Paul was urging us to perfect holiness.  So, we must try to remain in the high end of the spectrum with an eye for perfection, i.e.  stay high and aim for 10.  Ask Jesus for forgiveness, each time we faltered, try again and try harder, with the help of the Holy Spirit.  One important difference between a Christian and a non-Christian is that the former has the Holy Spirit while the latter does not.   I think the more holy you get, the more sensitive to the Holy Spirit you become, and the easier you get a conviction that something is not holy.  But be careful not to hide under the excuse of “I did not feel any conviction” and refuse to repent and leave an unholy situation.  Very often, it is not that you did not feel any conviction but it was that you ignored it when it first came to you.  Believe me, when you did that for another time or two, often you would no longer think the particular situation was wrong; you have numbed your conscience.

Grow, you must
Recently, an itinerant preacher of many years said a very important thing to me, he said that God can even use a person with poor spiritual state to do his work but for continual moves in the Spirit for the Lord, the person must grow. I think he hit the nail right on the head. Jesus came into our lives when we were yet sinners – in poor spiritual state.

Also, from time to time we heard of or even witnessed isolated but unmistakable moves of God through certain individuals (God worked through them) when such persons apparently were not “very righteous”. I think in many cases, such moves remained isolated (i.e. God did not move through the individuals anymore or on a consistent basis) because the individuals did not grow in the areas that God expects.

Holiness is one area, I believe we must grow. That we are not yet perfect, God knows, but Paul is right to say that we are to perfect holiness. I now believe that if we want God to use us consistently in supernatural work (in particular), we have to be perfecting holiness. A person who “does” supernatural work consistently, bears the name of God all over him, do you think an unholy man will be allowed to be the bearer of the name of the holy God?

Also, God does allow us to go through situations which we may not like, to cause us to grow, including in the area of holiness. Hebrews 12:10 - Our fathers disciplined us for a little while as they thought best; but God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness.

What must we do?
Firstly, we need to understand what falls under the area of holiness. Secondly, we need to know how we could get defiled and guard those gates. So, there will be a 3rd article on this subject of holiness.

For now, let us “chew” on this subject. For a Christian, I am saying there is no-auto refreshing of holiness. If you faltered, repent, get refreshed, try harder to stay holy with the help of the Holy Spirit. God expects us to grow but not necessarily expecting that you have arrived (we all grow at different rates and are at different stages of our growth, God may expect more from certain individuals, but the same is not expected of you, at least not yet). But do not take the grace of God for granted. Do not give up trying either, that is what the Devil wants you to do. You are on the way of Holiness, do not let anyone or anything get you off the highway. If you are not yet a Christian, you need to be one before you can travel on this Way. Talk to a Christian on how to know Jesus.


Not that I have achieved perfection, but that we may all learn and press on (Phil 3:14),
Anthony Chia, high.expressions - perfecting holiness is a high expression to God

Comments are welcome here. Alternatively, email them to me @high.expressions@gmail.com. Or just email me your email address so that I can put you on my blog (new entry) notification list. To go back to blog main page, click here.