Podcast: Play in new window | Download (9.9MB)
Holiness. This single word bridges our two parashas for this week. Acharei Mot (‘After the Death’) and Kedoshim (‘Holy Ones’), which cover Leviticus 16–20. These parashas contain many commandments from the Yom Kippur service to the command to love our neighbor. This morning, we will examine Adonai’s holiness and what it means that He calls us to be holy as well.
In Leviticus 19:2, we hear the command again, “…Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy.” The Hebrew word for holy, Kadosh, means set apart. The Land of Israel is holy, set apart from every other land. The Sabbath is holy, set apart from every other day.
But who decides what is holy? God’s Word makes clear that the Lord Himself is the definition of holiness. As A.W. Tozer writes in The Knowledge of the Holy:
“Holy is the way God is. To be holy He does not conform to a standard. He is that standard. He is absolutely holy with an infinite, incomprehensible fullness of purity that is incapable of being other than it is.”
So, Holiness is more than just God’s goodness or His perfection; it is His glorious and wonderful nature, everything about Him that makes Him greater than human beings and all of creation. We read in our first parasha the commandments concerning Yom Kippur, which teach us about holiness.
Only on this day could the High Priest enter the Most Holy Place, where the Lord’s presence dwelt on earth, and only after offering sacrifices for our sins. Leviticus 17:11 reminds us that blood is required for forgiveness, and each sacrifice displayed the true cost of sin: death.
Yet the fact that these sacrifices had to be repeated year after year revealed their limit. They could not make us truly holy.
In this ceremony and the entire sacrificial system, our sinfulness, our lack of holiness, is shown. In our society, we rationalize and justify our lack of holiness, but if we spent even a moment before Adonai, our sinfulness would be painfully exposed. The truth is that to approach God, we need His help to do so; we cannot save ourselves. So, the Lord gave our people the sacrificial system of the Mosaic Covenant.
The parashas continue with commandments against sexual sins, echoes most of the Ten Commandments, and charges us to love our neighbors as ourselves. There are also numerous commandments concerning practical holiness, how we are to act and think.
The Lord warns our people not to imitate the practices of the nations around us, a command that our history and our own lives show we have failed. Too often, Messiah’s community looks no different from the culture surrounding it, trading the holiness of the Lord for the approval of people.
As we read these commandments, we quickly see how far we fall short. But the Law is not evil; it is God’s gift, revealing our fallen nature and our need. So what are we to do? We need the Lord Himself to save us.
The Yom Kippur sacrifice and the entire Mosaic Covenant were gifts given by the Lord to our people, so that we could begin to approach the standard necessary for dwelling with Adonai. However, the Lord knew that we would break this covenant, and so He sent His Son, Messiah Yeshua, to be the final and perfect sacrifice for us.
He became the ultimate Yom Kippur sacrifice, not just providing temporary forgiveness to Israel, but permanent and lasting forgiveness to all people throughout all time. This is an everlasting forgiveness; it can never be taken away.
When we accept the atonement and forgiveness that has been provided for us through Messiah Yeshua, the Spirit of God enters our hearts. We are sanctified, set apart, and made holy, not because of who we are or what we have done, but because of the holiness of the Lord. This process of being made holy starts the moment we welcome Messiah Yeshua into our lives and continues through our lives in this fallen world.
The reality is that we will never be perfect in this life. But we have the promise of forgiveness, through repentance because of our wonderful Messiah. Many of us regret our sins, but do not repent.
True repentance is more than just “feeling bad”; it is making holy changes in our lives through the Lord’s power. It is being obedient to the Lord’s standard of holiness. I pray that if you have yet to truly turn away from unholiness towards our holy creator, that you will this day.
For those of us who are God’s disciples, we are called to live holy lives every day. Rabbi Paul gives this charge in 1 Timothy 4:15, “Practice these things, immerse yourself in them, so that all may see your progress.” Moving from lives of sin to lives of holiness is something we practice. It is putting on what is holy and good and taking off what is unholy and harmful.
Personal holiness is something active, something we do in our lives. We must ask ourselves in every situation if what we are doing is holy and right. If it is not, then we need to change our actions, through being in community and with the Lord’s power. Growing in holiness is also not just about “avoiding trouble”. Personal holiness enriches our lives, friendships, marriages, and relationship with God. The more we grow in our sanctification, the more vibrant, peaceful, joyful, and rich our lives will be.
May these parashas help us to understand the standard we are to strive to reach. May each of us look forward to our eternal home with Adonai, where we can look upon the Lord with joy, washed clean of our sins. May the Lord through His Spirit transform us daily to be more holy as He is holy.