Set Apart for the Sake of Others

“…you will be for me…a holy nation.”

These are the words of Israel’s god Yahweh, spoken to the Israelites after he brought them out of slavery in Egypt. In another place the LORD calls his chosen people to “Be holy as I am holy”. Clearly “holiness” was high on God’s list of priorities for his newly redeemed people, but why?

To be holy means to be set apart. Out of all the nations on the earth, God chose Israel to be his own special, distinctive people. They were to stand out from those around them, not only because of the unique god they worshiped but also because of their moral character (though the two can hardly be separated - we become what we worship, it has been said).

This all sounds a bit…exclusive, right? It sounds like Israel was called to be a nation permanently riding around on a gigantic high horse, scoffing at others who aren’t as “holy” as they are. This seems like holiness for the sake of self-righteousness, or perhaps holiness for the sake of exclusivity and nationalist pride.

David Peterson, in his book Engaging With God, paints an altogether different picture of Israel’s vocation to be holy. He says of the Israelites (quoting W.J. Dumbrell along the way) that,

They were chosen to demonstrate what it meant to live under the direct rule of God, which is actually ‘the biblical aim for the whole world’.

Go back to Israel’s roots, and this reality becomes apparent. YHWH promised that through Abraham’s descendants, all the nations of the world would be blessed. Israel was to be a “light to the nations”, a manifestation of the kingdom of God here on earth. Yes, they were to be set apart from others, but they were to be set apart for the sake of others. It was distinction with a view to inclusion. Transformative holiness, you might call it.

Fast forward a couple of millennia, and we find a Jew, Peter, writing to Jews and Gentiles in Eastern Europe and calling them “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation”. The church -- consisting of men and women from every tribe, tongue and nation -- is Yahweh’s “called out ones”; she is simultaneously the recipient of the blessing promised to Abraham and the means of passing on that blessing to those in need of it. Like Israel, she is called to be holy, just as the god she worships is holy. But once again, this is not to be an exclusive holiness. The church is called to be set apart from others for the sake of others; a manifestation of the kingdom of God, drawing in those who remain outside of the Messiah Jesus, who did for the world what Israel could not do.

If whatever we call holiness is not something which engages with the needs of those around us, if our holiness doesn’t get our hands dirty (as it certainly did Jesus), then we have missed it. The history of Israel is a history of “missing it”. What will be the history of the church of this generation?