What does it mean to be holy? Why does Peter call Christians a holy nation? Thus far, we have covered the concepts of race, chosen race (or chosen generation), and royal priesthood. I admit I clung mostly to the idea of priesthood yesterday, and didn’t give royal much consideration. But, if you have read any of my other studies, you will see kingdom language present in much of it. We know that Christ himself described the final judgment after which those God has chosen will inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the world (Matthew 25:34). Those who inherit a kingdom must, by definition, be royal. So, while I may have given it little consideration yesterday, the royal aspect of royal priesthood, is sort of “baked in,” if you will. (Or, even if you won’t!) For today, let that suffice. And, now, let us move into the idea of a holy nation.
9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. 10 Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.
1 Peter 2:9-10
The holy in holy nation
The Greek word Peter uses for holy is ἅγιον. It is not pronounced “ayi-ov” (nice try!) but “hagion.” By itself, the word means “holy place” or “sanctuary.” And, it is used as an adjective to describe a sacred location. However, the sense in which it is used in certain grammatical situations (I don’t know Greek, and I don’t want to distract with facts that neither you or I understand, so let’s leave it at that.) it means “set apart for God, to be, as it were, exclusively His.” (See definition 2.)
A holy nation is set apart by God
As with the previous appellations Peter has used to describe Christians, this concept of a holy nation has its origins in the people of Israel. They were the people set apart by God to be his own.
2 For you are a people holy to the Lord your God, and the Lord has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.
Deuteronomy 14:2
The verse above and the verses below contain much of the language we see in Peter. Israel was a people holy to the Lord. They were chosen to be a people for his treasured possession. Peter applies these positional and relational terms to believers. We know why he does so. Peter sees the fulfillment of the covenant with Abraham in Christ. As such, we are the offspring of Abraham by faith. For more on the concept of Christ’s fulfillment of the covenant with Abraham, please see yesterday’s study, Royal Priesthood.
16 “This day the Lord your God commands you to do these statutes and rules. You shall therefore be careful to do them with all your heart and with all your soul. 17 You have declared today that the Lord is your God, and that you will walk in his ways, and keep his statutes and his commandments and his rules, and will obey his voice. 18 And the Lord has declared today that you are a people for his treasured possession, as he has promised you, and that you are to keep all his commandments, 19 and that he will set you in praise and in fame and in honor high above all nations that he has made, and that you shall be a people holy to the Lord your God, as he promised.”
Deuteronomy 26:16-19
Separated from among all the peoples
The author of 1 Kings, possibly Jeremiah, wrote a beautiful passage begging God for forgiveness. In it he appeals to God to remember His past deeds toward the people, and to hear their prayers. In verse 53 below, he points out God’s setting them apart.
50 and forgive your people who have sinned against you, and all their transgressions that they have committed against you, and grant them compassion in the sight of those who carried them captive, that they may have compassion on them 51 (for they are your people, and your heritage, which you brought out of Egypt, from the midst of the iron furnace). 52 Let your eyes be open to the plea of your servant and to the plea of your people Israel, giving ear to them whenever they call to you. 53 For you separated them from among all the peoples of the earth to be your heritage, as you declared through Moses your servant, when you brought our fathers out of Egypt, O Lord God.
1 Kings 8:50-53
A holy nation, God’s heritage
So, we see that God separated the people of Israel from all other nations to be God’s heritage. That is a fascinating statement. We can see the hand of God moving, and the providence of God acting throughout scripture. Time and again, always after His people – his holy nation – has gone astray, God leads them back into a right relationship with Himself. Naturally (and we may double-down on the term naturally because it is evidently and continually in the nature of man) His people fall away. Thankfully, in the fullness of time, Christ came. He lived a life not one other man can or could have lived. In it we have an example of life lived as a chosen man, a royal and holy priest before God. In his death and resurrection, we are invited to become members of God’s chosen, holy nation, God’s heritage.
When a holy nation forsakes God
It seems odd to me, as a reader of the Old Testament in these here modern times and all, how they fall away. I mean the manner in which they continually renege on their commitment to God. If you read the OT, the people of Israel pride themselves on being God’s holy nation – a people set apart for God’s own. But, they are always returning to idol worship. What was the appeal? I read quite a few articles and “lists” of reasons. I know that sex, as ever, is a great temptation. And, there were temple prostitutes associated with the religions of the people surrounding Israel. But, I think probably the most likely reason I have read from a number of writers was that worshiping Baal or Asherah was normal. Now, isn’t that a constant temptation?
A holy nation should define normal
Chosen or not, royal priest or not, holy nation or not, the desire to just be normal is strong. This is an ever-present weight put on Christians and non-Christians alike by society. Just be normal. This pressure can be a good thing, even if it does not lead to salvation. Think about it. Under a moral system influenced by Christianity, social pressure to be normal keeps the vast majority of individuals from indulging in depravity. It is a sort of social regulative principle. In a truly holy nation, normal would be defined as holy.
A holy nation in defiance of the new normal
But, when societies forsake all morality, what is normal? Today there is no normal because the belief of vast swaths of human society is that truth and goodness are relative. Similarly, since all definitions are malleable and standards are rejected as oppressive, normalcy is no longer an accepted condition. Rather, normalization of all depravity is the goal. Now, society’s regulative principal pressures everyone to accept any and all behavior as normal. As for normal itself, the word has lost definition.
I am not sure how we got here. But, the point is societal pressure to be normal, or even societal pressure to accept as normal anything anyone proposes to do, is a powerful thing. And, at least from the vantage point of America in 2023, this seems the most likely explanation for the people of Israel continually abandoning their faith. Why? Because I am pretty sure it accounts for the majority of Christians doing likewise. The pressure to be like everyone else (even if that has lost all definition) is probably the strongest social pressure. If we neglect the study of scripture and the fellowship of the saints, and instead focus our eyes on society around us, we are likely to shrug off the notion of being members of a holy nation. After all, holy means set apart, and that is the precise fear this sort of societal pressure heaps upon us.
This reminds me of something C.S. Lewis wrote in Screwtape Letters. Lewis called it the desire of “being like folks.”
Under the influence of this incantation those who are in any or every way inferior can labour more wholeheartedly and successfully than ever before to pull down everyone else to their own level. But that is not all. Under the same influence, those who come, or could come, nearer to a full humanity, actually draw back from it for fear of being undemocratic. I am credibly informed that young humans now sometimes suppress an incipient taste for classical music or good literature because it might prevent their Being like Folks; that people who would really wish to be—and are offered the Grace which would enable them to be—honest, chaste, or temperate, refuse it. To accept might make them Different, might offend again the Way of Life, take them out of Togetherness, impair their Integration with the Group. They might (horror of horrors!) become individuals.
C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters
Remember, Christians are a holy nation
Well, today’s study went in a much different direction than I intended. I pray that if you read this and are a Christian you will be emboldened to eschew our society’s pressures. I pray that you will remember you are a member of a holy nation, set apart. Hopefully, this study will, if nothing else, remind us all that God sets people aside to be His heritage regardless of their merit. This should, if nothing else, fill us with a humble gratitude.
John Brown on a holy nation and society’s normal
Let’s close with another excerpt from John Brown. It touches on the inherent evil of the social order around us. Brown reminds us that when that social order opposes the law of God, we must obey our God. We are not at home in this world. We are a holy nation.
The whole race of men, with the exception of true Christians, are the subjects of “the god of this world,” the Prince of darkness. They “lie under the” dominion of that “wicked one;” they “serve divers lusts and pleasures;” they “yield themselves the servants of sin; and they yield their members,” the various faculties and capacities of their nature, “to sin, as the instruments of unrighteousness.” Christians have been “turned” from the service of the god of this world “to the service of the living and true God,” “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” To his sovereignty, as administered by his Son, to whom he has given “all power in heaven and in earth,” they have submitted their minds, their hearts, their consciences, their conduct. “Jehovah is their Judge ; Jehovah is their Lawgiver ; Jehovah is their King.” “They serve the Lord Christ;” subject to his authority, they are regulated by his law. Other men regulate themselves by various principles, to which they give the authority of law: the law of interest; the law of custom; the law of honour; the law of public opinion; the law of caprice. Christians regulate themselves by the law of God. The Bible is their statute book. They are cheerfully subject to all lawful ordinances of man; but it is “for the Lord’s sake,” because the Lord commands them to be so. But when the law of man is opposed to the law of God, the principle upon which they act is, “We must obey God rather than man.” They are persuaded of the principle, and act on it, “No man can serve two masters ; ye cannot serve God and mammon.” The description which Haman gave of the Jews, slightly altered, is very applicable to “the true circumcision:” They are “a people scattered abroad, and dispersed among the nations, and their laws are diverse from all people; neither keep they the laws” of man, when these are opposed to the law of their Sovereign in heaven.
John Brown, Expository Discourses on the First Epistle of Peter Volume 1, 298-299, William Oliphant and Co. 1866
