Etched in Stone
Of all of the things that Peter could have told his unsettled refugee readers, why in the world would he challenge them to “be holy”? Oh my friends, as you are about to hear in this PODCAST, the answer is far more profound than we could ever imagine.
Seriously.
13 Therefore, with minds that are alert and fully sober, set your hope on the grace to be brought to you when Jesus Christ is revealed at his coming. 14 As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance.15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:13-16)
First off. Where is it written, as Peter quoted, “Be holy, because I am holy”?
In Leviticus 11, this phrase appears twice, plus three more times in the Book of Leviticus as a whole. It truly is the overall theme of the Book of Leviticus, and even the entire Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy).
Truth be told, one part of the reason why Peter emphasized the need for God’s people to be holy is simply to survive in the midst of persecution and scattered throughout a land where the traditional Greek worldview was prominent… not unlike us today.
The fact of the matter is that we have diluted the meaning of the word “holy”.
I think that the proper Biblical context – all too familiar to Peter’s original readers, and maybe not so much for us today – is found in Isaiah 45:18
For the Lord is God,
and he created the heavens and earth
and put everything in place.
He made the world to be lived in,
not to be a place of empty chaos.
“I am the Lord,” he says,
“and there is no other.
God is at work in our world – in your life and mine – to replace chaos with order.
Now, in the Hebrew mind (as opposed to our western, Greek worldview), the opposite of chaos is not order. It is Shalom. Today, we rightly translate that Hebrew word to mean “peace”. But, it truly means so much more than that. It also is the blessing of a well-ordered life. The opposite of chaos.
God set apart Israel and metaphorically married her, making her holy, at Mount Zion with a holy covenant… one that was literally etched in stone.
When the Lord finished speaking with Moses on Mount Sinai, he gave him the two stone tablets inscribed with the terms of the covenant, written by the finger of God. (Exodus 31:18)
With His own finger, God etched His vows to His people in stone.
You see, here were two tablets, both identical, inscribed with a summary of God’s holy covenant. Why to tablets? Because there are always two parties involved in every covenant and one tablet is assigned to each party.
Now, according to Hebrew law, if one of the parties broke the covenant, it shattered the covenant and broke the relationship.
Now, God knew that we would never be able to keep His commandments. So, what hope could we possibly have when we know and He knows that we have sinned against Him and broken the holy covenant?
Well, God placed, in the Tabernacle, then in the Temple, within the Holy of Holies, inside the Ark of the Covenant, His copy and our copy of his holy covenant…
As if to say, “I know that you are incapable of keeping our covenant, so I will keep it for you.”
This is why Jesus clarified in Matthew 5:17-18
“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18 For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.
In other words, Jesus came to fulfill the covenant for each of us, knowing we couldn’t do it on our own.
(This podcast is by Dewey Bertolini. discovered by Christian Podcast Central and our community — copyright is owned by the publisher, not Christian Podcast Central, and audio is streamed directly from their servers.)