The Holiness Principle

"Be holy, for I am holy", God says in Leviticus, and Peter repeats it in his first letter. Be holy, for I am holy. Now, what does that mean, "be holy" ?

If you look at the respective Hebrew and Greek words for "holy", you will find that the concept expressed is that of separation. Being holy means to be set apart for God, basically.

How can we be holy nowadays, then, how can we set ourselves apart and consecrate ourselves for God ? We have to separate ourselves from everything that is ungodly, secular, abominable to the Lord. In today's world, this means we have to separate ourselves from society as the world we live in is largely ungodly, even within the church community we find more abominations and lawlessness than not. But the spirit does not enter into an unclean vessel, and we have to stir clear of those who work iniquity, if we want to follow God's statutes and be holy, as He is holy.

Of course this has something to do with polygamy too - How can you best be separate from society ? If you have a large family, or a community of brethren to rely on, that's how. And the more wives your husband has, and the more children you all have, the better are the chances that you will be truly independent of society's services. Don't despair if it does not happen in your lifetime, though. Abraham believed God when He promised to make Abraham's offspring as numerous as the stars, even if Abraham didn't even have a son at that point and was well beyond the age in which men usually father children. Yet he believed the Lord, and it was counted him as righteousness, so let us follow Abraham's and Sarah's example, believe God, think bigger, and develop a multi-generational vision, especially in troubled times as these.