The Price of Holiness

While we no longer live under the strict rule of the Levitical code, let’s never forget that God still requires a high price for our holiness. It is a price we couldn’t pay, so Jesus did. When we trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord, we are cleared of the charges to our account. But still, our salvation was anything but free. Someone had to pay; Someone did.

The Journey// Focus: Leviticus 21:5-6

The Lord also said to Moses, “Give the following instructions to the entire community of Israel. You must be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy. …You must be careful to keep all of my decrees and regulations by putting them into practice. I am the Lord.

Leviticus was so named because it had to do with the rules that God required his people to follow in order to walk before him in holiness—rules that were to be administered by the priests and Levites. Leviticus is a Latin phrase that means, “the book of the Levites.” However, if I were to give the book its name, I would simply call it, “the book of Holiness.”

Throughout Leviticus, in chapter after chapter, often in verse following verse, again and again God gave Moses clear and exacting instructions on what the Israelites were required to do now that they had been set apart as a holy nation unto a holy God. Holiness—that is the big deal in Leviticus. God is holy, and his people must be made holy and kept holy—even in the minutiae of their lives.

That included, especially, the priest. As you read this chapter, to be a high priest or a regular priest, there was an exceedingly high price to pay for a lifestyle of continual holiness unto the Lord. They couldn’t eat some things—ever; couldn’t touch certain things—ever; and couldn’t marry “those” women—ever. Even if things happened to them, due to no fault of they own—a birth defect, a chipped tooth, a debilitating injury or disease—they were disqualified. They had to be without defect. Their holiness demanded an impossibly high price.

So does yours and mine. The Bible says that without holiness, no one will see God. (Hebrews 12:1) The problem is, the price for holiness is too high for us. And even though we don’t live under the rules and regulations of holiness that were required of the Israelites, the price of holiness has not changed—the costs still have to be paid.

Have you ever owed something to someone you couldn’t pay, and they couldn’t or wouldn’t pay it for you, so someone else stepped in to foot the bill? Max Lucado tells a story that illustrates this:

He did for us what I did for one of my daughters in the shop at New York’s La Guardia Airport. The sign above the ceramic pieces read Do Not Touch. But the wanting was stronger than the warning, and she touched. And it fell. By the time I looked up, ten-year-old Sara was holding the two pieces of a New York City skyline. Next to her was an unhappy store manager. Over them both was the written rule. Between them hung a nervous silence. My daughter had no money. He had no mercy. So I did what dads do. I stepped in. “How much do we owe you?” I asked. How was it that I owed anything? Simple. She was my daughter. And since she could not pay, I did. Since you and I cannot pay, Christ did. We’ve broken so much more than souvenirs. We’ve broken commandments, promises, and, worst of all, we’ve broken God’s heart. But Christ sees our plight. With the law on the wall and shattered commandments on the floor, He steps near (like a neighbor) and offers a gift (like a Savior). What do we owe? We owe God a perfect life. Perfect obedience to every command. Not just the command of baptism, but the commands of humility, honesty, integrity. We can’t deliver. Might as well charge us for the property of Manhattan. But Christ can and he did. His plunge into the Jordan is a picture of His plunge into our sin. His baptism announces, “Let me pay.” (From Next Door Savior by Max Lucado)

Let’s never forget that God still requires a high price for our holiness. We couldn’t pay it, so Jesus did. And we are clear of the charges to our account when we trust in Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord.

But still, our salvation was anything but free. Someone had to pay; Someone did. And if you and I will never forget that, we will live out true holiness unto the Lord in the most beautiful, God-honoring way of all: through a life of organic gratitude to God for our gift of salvation through Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross.

Through Jesus, we meet the impossibly high cost of holiness unto the Lord!