We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded solely by your direct support. Please consider supporting this project.

The Holy Alternative
God is holy because he’s utterly “other” and distinct from anything in the created world. Certain objects are called holy because they’re set apart from common objects, having been consecrated to God for a special purpose. And God’s people are called to be holy by virtue of the radically different kind of life we live. The church is to be first fruits, which means that we stand in contrast with fruit that has not yet ripened. As such, God’s people are God’s holy alternative to the world that at this point remains under the oppression of evil.
Another way of making this same point is to say that we’re called to be like Jesus. We are to be holy, like he is holy. The way Jesus lived was unique, to say the least, for everything about his life put on display God’s loving character. He was the quintessential “first fruit” of the coming creation and the prototype we are to passionately imitate.
This is why the New Testament emphasizes the necessity of following Jesus’ example in all that we do. “Whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did,” John says (1 John 2:6). Our profession of faith in Jesus lacks content except insofar as our lives look like his.
So too, Paul teaches us to “[f]ollow God’s example” (Eph 5:1). The Greek word translated “example” (mimetai) literally means to mimic. We’re to do exactly what we see God doing, which was manifest in Jesus. This is why Paul immediately goes on to flesh out what he means by commanding us to “walk in the way of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us” (Eph 5:2, emphasis added).
This is what it looks to mimic God. We’re to sacrificially love others the way Christ sacrificially loved us when he gave his life for us.
Peter makes the same point when he tells his congregation that they’re to respond to persecution not with anger and violence, but by graciously enduring it. “To this you were called,” Peter says, “ because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Pet 2:20-21).
Jesus himself drove home the necessity of following his example a number of times. For example, after washing the feet of his disciples (whom he knew would in a short while abandon him and betray him), he said, “I have set you an example that you should do as I have done for you” (Jn 13:15). The goal of Christian discipleship is to mimic our master.
Several years ago, it was common to talk about “Red Letter Christians” to refer to Christians who believe they’re supposed to obey Jesus’ teaching and live like he lived. How sad that it would occur to anyone that there’s a special class of Christians who think obeying Jesus’ teachings and living as he lived is important! Aspiring to be Christ-like is simply what the term “Christian” means.
We’ve been saved from the evil powers and freed to participate in the life of God as revealed in Christ, and when we surrender ourselves wholly to this salvation, we reflect God’s character in contrast with the world, just as Jesus did. We are God’s holy people set apart to display a radical alternative way of living in this world.
Photo credit: ignis: via VisualHunt.com / CC BY-NC-SA
Category: General
Tags: Christian Life, Holiness, Jesus
Topics: Following Jesus
Related Reading

Should churches have armed security guards?
Question: Recently (December, 2007) a security guard at New Life Church in Colorado Springs shot and apparently killed a man who was shooting people in the church parking lot. The pastor (Brady Boyd) hailed her as a “real hero.” Do you think churches should have armed security guards and do you think the pastor was…

Why Racial Reconciliation Matters
In Psalm 72, the author prays for a day when “all kings” would “bow down” to God’s anointed and when “all nations” would “serve him” (vs. 11). At this time, the Psalmist continues, God’s king will deliver “the needy who cry out” and save “the afflicted who have no one to help.” He will “take…

Why Did Jesus Curse The Poor Fig Tree?
Why Did Jesus Curse The Fig Tree? One of the strangest episodes recorded in the Gospels is Jesus cursing a fig tree because he was hungry and it didn’t have any figs (Mk 11:12-14; Mt 21:18-19). It’s the only destructive miracle found in the New Testament. What’s particularly puzzling is that Mark tells us the…

Is homosexual love without homoerotic behavior okay for a Christian?
Question: You may find this to be an odd question, but is it possible for two Christians of the same gender to remain a couple if they do not engage in sex? My partner and I love each other but our study of Scripture convinces us that having sex is wrong. Now, sex was never…

Crucifying Transcendence
The classical view of God’s transcendence in theology is in large borrowed from a major strand within Hellenistic philosophy. In sharp contrast to ancient Israelites, whose conception of God was entirely based on their experience of God acting dynamically and in self-revelatory ways in history, the concept of God at work in ancient Greek philosophy…

What To Do With the Violent God of the Old Testament
For eight years Greg has been researching for and writing the book entitled The Crucifixion of the Warrior God. In it he confronts the commonly held idea that the Old Testament depictions of God behaving violently should be held alongside of and equal to the God revealed through Jesus dying on the cross. But if the Old Testament…