I had mentioned that my husband and I have been studying what the Bible says about being holy. Poor you… I’m bursting with lots more to say about this topic!
We had learned that holy means to be “set apart for a specific purpose.” So my next question was, “Why was I, Anne Elliott, set apart?” Think about it! God, majestic and mighty and creator of the universe, looked down at all the people on earth, throughout all time, and chose — me?!
Why would God choose me? I seriously have no idea! I cannot comprehend it.
Isaiah felt like this. He wrote,
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying.And they were calling to one another:
‘Holy, holy, holy is YHWH Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.’At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.
‘Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, YHWH Almighty'” (Isaiah 6:1-5).
God was so set apart, so “holy,” lifted so high above all mankind and any glory that Isaiah could imagine! Even the angels could not describe Him, saying, “Holy, holy, holy,” three times to emphasize how set apart He was.
The only thing Isaiah could do was cry out that he was “unclean,” just as a leper cries, “Unclean,” when he approaches any other person.
Yet this set-apart and mighty God chose Isaiah and set him apart for a specific purpose. (Read more about it in Isaiah 6.) God cleansed Isaiah with a coal from the altar of sacrifice, and the blood of Jesus has cleansed me from all sin, too (Leviticus 14:19, 1 John 1:7).
Set Apart by His Spirit
Like Isaiah, God chose me by His Spirit so that I also would be holy, set-apart and clean, to be used for a specific purpose.
“To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints [set apart]…” (Romans 1:7).
“Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy [set apart] and pleasing to God” (Romans 12:1).
“[I am] a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified [set apart] by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:16).”
“To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified [set apart] in Christ Jesus and called to be holy [set apart], together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours” (1 Corinthians 1:2).
“For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy [set apart] and blameless in his sight” (Ephesians 1:4).
“Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy [set apart]; without holiness no one will see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).
“To God’s elect, strangers in the world… who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, for obedience to Jesus Christ and sprinkling by his blood” (1 Peter 1:1-2).
It’s not enough for me to be chosen and set apart. God did it for a “specific purpose.” Can you see what that purpose is?
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— 9 not by works, so that no one can boast. For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do” (Ephesians 2:8-10).
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy [set apart] and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience” (Colossians 3:12).
“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).
Yes, we are “set apart” to be “set apart,” which seems to mean that we are doing good works. According to Ephesians 2:8-9, we don’t do good works to become set apart. No, God’s Spirit has already sanctified us, or set us apart. However, because He chose us, He gives us the set-apart task of being different from the world, by the good things we do.
Set Apart by His Word
Just as the Holy Spirit set us apart so that we would be set apart, the Word of God sets us apart so that we will proclaim the Word of God.
We are set apart by the word of God…
“Sanctify them [set them apart] by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17).
…so that we will proclaim the word of God.
“After they prayed, the place where they were meeting was shaken. And they were all filled with the Holy [Set-Apart] Spirit and spoke the word of God boldly” (Acts 4:31).
“[I am] a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified [set apart] by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:16).”
Note that proclaiming the Word of God is our “priestly duty.”
“You also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy [set-apart] priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ… But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy [set-apart] nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:5, 9).
Set Apart by His Commands
We are also sanctified (set apart) by the command of God so that we will keep the commands of God.
“It would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than to have known it and then to turn their backs on the sacred [set-apart] command that was passed on to them” (2 Peter 2:21).
“I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy [set-apart] prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles” (2 Peter 3:2).
“So then, the law is holy [set apart], and the commandment is holy [set apart], righteous and good” (Romans 7:12).
“…the saints [set-apart ones] who obey God’s commandments and remain faithful to Jesus” (Revelation 14:12).
In fact, John tells us that the way others can look at our lives and know we are saints [set-apart ones] is because we keep God’s commands.
“We know that we have come to know him if we obey his commands. The man who says, ‘I know him,’ but does not do what he commands is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But if anyone obeys his word, God’s love is truly made complete in him. This is how we know we are in him: Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did” (1 John 2:3-6).
Together with All the Saints
Some would say that only the Jews were to keep God’s commandments, yet the Bible says that all who believe in Jesus are saints, or set apart, whether Israelite or Gentile.
“[I am] a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles with the priestly duty of proclaiming the gospel of God, so that the Gentiles might become an offering acceptable to God, sanctified [set apart] by the Holy Spirit” (Romans 15:16).”
“God, who knows the heart, showed that he accepted [the Gentiles] by giving the Holy [Set-Apart] Spirit to them, just as he did to us” (Acts 15:8).
“To the church of God in Corinth, to those sanctified [set apart] in Christ Jesus and called to be holy [set apart], together with all those everywhere who call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ—their Lord and ours” (1 Corinthians 1:2).
“Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with the saints [set-apart ones] and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy [set-apart] temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:19-21).
Set Apart for a Purpose
So let me wrap it up for today with looking at exactly what it means to be set apart.
- If I am set apart for a specific purpose, then obviously if I go back to my former purpose, I won’t be set apart any more.
- If I am not set apart and clean, God will not use me.
- If in my old life, my purpose was to live in wickedness and uncleanness, then my new purpose is to be righteous and clean.
- Holiness seems to be comprised of separating from uncleanness.
“I put this in human terms because you are weak in your natural selves. Just as you used to offer the parts of your body in slavery to impurity and to ever-increasing wickedness, so now offer them in slavery to righteousness leading to holiness. When you were slaves to sin, you were free from the control of righteousness. What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death! But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves to God, the benefit you reap leads to holiness, and the result is eternal life” (Romans 6:19-22).
“If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred [set apart], and you are that temple” (1 Corinthians 3:17).
“Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters nor adulterers nor male prostitutes nor homosexual offenders nor thieves nor the greedy nor drunkards nor slanderers nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified [set apart], you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God” (1 Corinthians 6:9-11).
“But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy [set-apart] people” (Ephesians 5:3).
“But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy [set apart] in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation” (Colossians 1:22).
“Finally, brothers, we instructed you how to live in order to please God, as in fact you are living. Now we ask you and urge you in the Lord Jesus to do this more and more. For you know what instructions we gave you by the authority of the Lord Jesus. It is God’s will that you should be sanctified [set apart]: that you should avoid sexual immorality; that each of you should learn to control his own body in a way that is holy [set apart] and honorable, not in passionate lust like the heathen, who do not know God; and that in this matter no one should wrong his brother or take advantage of him. The Lord will punish men for all such sins, as we have already told you and warned you. For God did not call us to be impure, but to live a holy [set apart] life. Therefore, he who rejects this instruction does not reject man but God, who gives you his Holy [Set-Apart] Spirit” (1 Thessalonians 4:1-8).
“In a large house there are articles not only of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay; some are for noble purposes and some for ignoble. If a man cleanses himself from the latter, he will be an instrument for noble purposes, made holy [set apart], useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work. Flee the evil desires of youth, and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Timothy 2:20-22).
“Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy [set apart] and godly lives” (2 Peter 3:11).
Next week, we’ll look at exactly how the Bible defines cleanness and uncleanness, so that we can be “useful to the Master and prepared to do any good work.”
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