Leviticus 20:8

Leviticus 20 belongs to the part of the book often called the Holiness Code (Leviticus 17–26), which sets out the purity and holiness God requires of his covenant people. The chapter lists offences punished by death: offering children to Molech and turning to mediums (Leviticus 20:1–6), and then incest, adultery, bestiality and homosexual acts. Most of these were already forbidden in Leviticus 18:6–23, along with the offering of children to Molech (Leviticus 18:21), and chapter 20 adds the penalties.

Verses 7 and 8 come straight after the warnings about Molech and the mediums, and the word “therefore” ties them to what came before. Those who give their children to Molech or seek out mediums defile themselves, so God’s people are to set themselves apart for him. The chapter ends on the same note, repeating the call to be holy because God is holy and has set Israel apart from the nations to be his own (Leviticus 20:26).

Israel received these laws at Sinai, a people lately brought out of long bondage in Egypt and about to enter Canaan. The nations of that land sacrificed their children, practised divination and sorcery, and lived in the sexual sins that chapters 18 and 20 forbid. God’s command to be holy set Israel against all of it. It grew out of the covenant he made with them at Sinai, where he called them his peculiar treasure, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Exodus 19:5–6). Their way of life was meant to show his character, and their holiness bore witness to the nations around them that the God of Israel stands apart from every other god.

“Sanctify” translates qâdash, a root meaning to be clean, or to make, pronounce or treat as clean, in both the ceremonial and the moral sense. To sanctify yourself is to set yourself apart from what is common and defiled and to give yourself to God. The command in verse 7 is reflexive, “sanctify yourselves”, so it calls each Israelite to a deliberate choice. It covers ritual purity and moral consecration together, a turning away from defilement and a turning toward God’s purposes.

“Holy” is qâdôwsh, an adjective from the same root, meaning sacred, ceremonially or morally. The first command speaks of the act of setting oneself apart, and the second of the state that follows from it. The two build on each other, so that consecration leads into a holy character. To be holy is to belong to God in conduct as well as in ritual, with his own purity showing in the lives of his people.

This call runs through the whole book. God gave it earlier (Leviticus 11:44–45), and again at the head of the chapter before this one: “Ye shall be holy: for I the LORD your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2).

Both commands in verse 7 rest on its last words, “for I am the LORD your God”. The laws of Moses often close with a reason of this kind, and here the reason is God himself. “LORD” stands for Yᵉhôvâh, God’s own covenant name, meaning the self-existent or Eternal One. He is unchanging, faithful to his covenant and sovereign over all, so he has the right to set the moral standard for his people. “Your God” adds that he has bound himself to Israel and chosen them as his own. Their holiness is the fitting answer to who he is and to what he has done for them.

Holiness lies at the centre of God’s commands because it lies at the centre of who God is. His holiness is his perfect moral purity, his majesty above all he has made, and his complete separation from all sin. A people who bear his name and live in fellowship with him must be like him, and the defilement of the nations around them would break that fellowship. So the command to be holy is a call to be like the One who chose and redeemed them. A psalm puts it in one line: “Exalt the LORD our God, and worship at his holy hill; for the LORD our God is holy” (Psalm 99:9).

Verse 8 turns from the call to its practice: “And ye shall keep my statutes, and do them.” The Hebrew chuqqotay, “my statutes”, means the rules and decrees God has laid down, which express his will and his character. To keep, shâmar, first meant to hedge something about with thorns, and so to guard it, protect it and attend to it. Israel was to watch over God’s laws with care, the way a person guards a treasure or keeps a solemn oath. To do, ʻâsâh, is the broadest Hebrew word for doing or making, and here it means carrying the statutes out in daily life.

The two verbs together cover the whole of obedience: the heart that holds God’s law fast and the hands that perform it. This was how Israel would live out the identity God had given them and stay faithful to his covenant.

The verse ends, “I am the LORD which sanctify you.” The words ani Yᵉhôvâh, “I am the LORD”, recur all through these laws, setting God’s own name behind each one as its warrant. Here they are joined to qâdash once more, now in the Piel stem, which means to cause to be holy, to set apart or to consecrate. In verse 7 Israel is told to sanctify themselves. In verse 8 God says that he is the one who sanctifies them. He sets them apart from the common and the profane, purifies them and dedicates them to his own service, and that work of his goes on.

Both are true at once. Israel is to set itself apart and keep God’s statutes, and the power to do it comes from the LORD, who has already made them his and keeps making them holy. Their obedience answers his grace and rests on it. God calls, God enables, and his people respond. God speaks in the same way of the Sabbath, which he gave as a sign that he is the LORD who sanctifies his people (Exodus 31:13). Ezekiel looks ahead to the day when God will put his own Spirit within his people and cause them to walk in his statutes (Ezekiel 36:27).

Holiness means the same thing in both Testaments: being set apart for God and reflecting who he is. Its expression and its power are made full in Christ. In Israel holiness was bound up with ritual purity, the sacrifices, obedience to the law and the nation’s distinctness from the pagan world around it. In the New Testament it is first of all an inner change worked by the Holy Spirit and made possible by Christ’s atoning death, and the separation that matters most is separation from sin.

The law showed God’s perfect standard, and it also exposed how far people fall short of keeping and doing his statutes. Jesus kept every requirement of it. He is “the Holy One of God” (Mark 1:24), tempted in every way as we are, yet without sin (Hebrews 4:15). What the old sacrifices pictured, his sacrifice accomplished: “we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10). Christ “of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption” (1 Corinthians 1:30), so believers are holy in him from the moment they are joined to him. This is often called positional holiness.

From there believers grow in holiness, which is often called progressive sanctification. The Holy Spirit, the Comforter whom Christ sent (John 14:26), lives in them and enables them to walk in newness of life (Romans 6:4), so that the righteousness of the law is fulfilled in them (Romans 8:4). Paul urges believers to present their bodies as living sacrifices and to be transformed by the renewing of their minds (Romans 12:1–2), and God’s purpose is that they be conformed to the image of his Son (Romans 8:29). Peter takes up the words of Leviticus for the church: as the God who called you is holy, so be holy in all your conduct, “Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15–16). Hebrews calls us to “follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).

So “I am the LORD which sanctify you” comes to its fullness in Christ. The command of verse 7 becomes a gracious call to share his character, and the God who gives the command gives the power to keep it.

Holiness is God’s calling on us, grounded in his unchanging character and needed for a living relationship with him. The ceremonial practices of the law of Moses are fulfilled in Christ, and the statutes we keep and do are God’s moral commands and the teaching of Jesus. Holiness means a deliberate separation from the defiling influences around us, and moral purity in thought, word and deed, because our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit. It means giving our time, gifts and resources to God’s service and glory.

Our holiness is a grateful response to the grace that saved us, and it can never earn salvation. The strength for it comes from the Spirit who lives in us, so we can keep God’s commands with willing hearts and trust the LORD who began this work to sustain it and complete it. A people set apart in this way shows God’s holiness to a watching world, as Israel was meant to do among the nations.