This is Spoken Gospel.

We’re dedicated to seeing
Jesus in all of scripture.

In each episode, we see what’s
happening in a Biblical text

and how it sheds light
on Jesus and his gospel.

Let’s jump in.

God is teaching his people
how to live in his presence.

Since God is set apart, or holy,
Israel must be holy to dwell with him.

Appropriately, then, this section begins and
ends with a famous and important phrase:

“Be holy as I, the LORD, am holy”.

In between this repeated phrase are laws
which unpack the Ten Commandments.

The laws show
Israel how to be holy.

If Israel was unholy, God’s
holiness would blot them out.

That is why sins like murder, bestiality,
and child sacrifice are punishable by death.

By carrying out these
punishments, Israel would represent

God’s judgement and preserve
their communion with God.

When God says be holy as I am holy,
he is not just telling them how to behave -

he is telling them what
he is like.

When God says that we must care for
the poor, we learn that God helps the needy.

When God says that we must not lie, we
learn that God always keeps his promises.

When God says that we must
love our neighbor as ourselves,

we learn that God
loves with perfect love.

There are, then, two elements here:
what God commands and who God is.

These two elements come
together perfectly in Jesus.

He showed us who God is by
perfectly keeping God’s commands.

He was perfectly
holy as God is holy.

That’s why Paul could write of Jesus,
“He is the image of the invisible God”.

What should astound us is
that this perfectly holy one died.

He was the only one
who would be allowed

in God’s presence just
on the basis of who he is.

Yet, he was cast outside the city
gates where Israel was commanded

to take those who
broke the law and kill them.

But because he who perfectly kept the law,
also perfectly took its punishments on our behalf,

we don’t have to be
cast out of God’s holiness.

Most remarkably, Jesus actually
makes us holy as God is holy.

Now we have the right, through Jesus,
to have close communion with God.

Holiness isn’t just a state or
title declared over Christians.

It is also a lived condition.
We have been made holy.

That means, when Jesus
transforms us into God’s holiness

we actually start to keep the
law that we could not keep before.

We start to love people as we
could never love them before.

We start to reflect God’s character
like Jesus did when he was alive.

Jesus makes us holy, so we can
show God’s character to the world.

I pray that the Holy Spirit
would give you eyes to see

the God who is
perfectly holy and good.

And that you would see Jesus as
the only perfect one who, nevertheless,

died the death of the guilty to make
us holy people in an unholy world.