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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadJames Hastings Dictionary of the Bible: Holiness
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HOLINESS
I. IN OT
The Heb. words connected with the Semitic root qdsh (those connected with the root chrm may be left out of the inquiry: cf. art. Ban), namely, qôdesh ‘holiness,’ qâdôsh ‘holy,’ qiddash, etc. ‘sanctify, the derived noun miqdâsh ‘sanctuary,’ qâdçsh qedçshâh ‘whore,’ ‘harlot’—occur in about 830 passages in OT, about 350 of which are in the Pentateuch. The Aram. [Note: Aramaic.] qaddîsh ‘holy’ is met with 13 times in the Book of Daniel, qâdçsh and qedçshâh have almost exclusively heathen associations, qaddîsh is used in a few passages of the gods, but otherwise the Biblical words from this root refer exclusively to Jehovah, and persons or things connected with Him. The primary meaning seems at present indiscoverable, some making it to be that of ‘separation’ or ‘cutting off,’ others connecting with châdâsh ‘new,’ and the Assyr. [Note: Assyrian.] quddushu ‘pure,’ ‘bright’; but neither brings conclusive evidence. In actual use the word is always a religious term, being, when applied to deity, almost equivalent to ‘divine,’ and meaning, when used of personsorthings, ‘set apart from common use for divine use.’
1. Holiness of God.—For all the Ancient East, Phœnicians and Babylonians as well as Hebrews, a god was a holy being, and anything specially appropriated to one, for example an ear-ring or nose-ring regarded as an amulet, was also holy. The conception of holiness was consequently determined by the current conception of God. If the latter for any people at any time was low, the former was low also, and vice versa. In the heathen world of the Ancient East the Divine holiness had no necessary connexion with character. The ethical element was largely or altogether absent. So a holy man, a man specially intimate with a god, need not he a moral man, as in Palestine at the present day, where holy men are anything but saints in the Western sense of the term (Curtiss, Primitive Semitic Religion To-day, p. 149 f.). In ancient Israel the holiness of Jehovah may in the first instance have been ceremonial rather than ethical, but this cannot be proved. In the so-called Law of Holiness (H [Note: Law of Holiness.] , contained chiefly in Lev_17:1-16; Lev_18:1-30; Lev_19:1-37; Lev_20:1-27; Lev_21:1-24; Lev_22:1-33; Lev_23:1-44; Lev_24:1-23; Lev_25:1-55; Lev_26:1-46)—a document which, though compiled about the time of Ezekiel, probably contains very ancient elements—the ceremonial and the ethical are inextricably blended. The holiness which Jehovah requires, and which is evidently to be thought of as to some extent of the same nature as His own: ‘Ye shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy’ (Lev_19:2), includes not only honesty (Lev_19:11; Lev_19:36), truthfulness (Lev_19:11), respect for parents (Lev_19:3, Lev_20:9), fair dealing with servants (Lev_19:13), kindness to strangers (Lev_19:34), the weak and helpless (Lev_19:14; Lev_19:32), and the poor (Lev_19:9 f.), social purity (Lev_20:11 ff., Lev_20:18 ff.), and love of neighbours (Lev_19:18), but also abstinence from blood as an article of food (Lev_17:10 ff., Lev_19:26), from mixtures of animals, seeds, and stuffs (Lev_19:19), and from the fruit of newly planted trees for the first four years (Lev_19:23 ff.); and, for priests, compliance with special rules about mourning and marriage (Lev_21:1-15). In other words, this holiness was partly ceremonial, partly moral, without any apparent distinction between the two, and this double aspect of holiness is characteristic of P [Note: Priestly Narrative.] (in which H [Note: Law of Holiness.] was incorporated) as a whole, stress being naturally laid by the priestly compiler or compilers on externals. In the prophets, on the other hand, the ethical element greatly preponderates. The vision of the Holy Jehovah in Isaiah, which wrung from the seer the cry ‘Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips’ (Isa_6:5), leaves the ceremonial aspect almost completely out of sight. The holiness of Jehovah there is His absolute separation from moral evil, His perfect moral purity. But there is another element clearly brought out in this vision—the majesty of the Divine holiness: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory’ (Isa_6:3). This aspect also comes out very distinctly in the great psalm of the Divine holiness, perhaps from the early Greek period, where the holy Jehovah is declared to have ‘a great and terrible name’ (Psa_99:3) and to be’ high above all peoples’ (Psa_99:2), and in one of the later portions of the Book of Isaiah, where He is described as ‘the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy’ (Isa_57:15). The holiness of God in OT is characterized by stainless purity and awful majesty.
2. Holy persons and things.—In ancient Israel all connected with God was holy, either permanently or during the time of connexion. He dwelt in a holy heaven (Psa_20:6), sat on a holy throne (Psa_47:8), and was surrounded by holy attendants (Psa_89:7). His Spirit was holy (Psa_51:11, Isa_63:10 f.), His name was holy (Lev_20:3 etc.), His arm was holy (Psa_98:1), and His way was holy (Isa_35:8). His chosen people Israel was holy (Lev_19:2, Deu_7:6 etc.), their land was holy (Zec_2:12), the Temple was holy (Psa_11:4 etc.), and the city of the Temple (Isa_52:1, Neh_11:1). Every part of the Temple (or Tabernacle) was holy, and all its utensils and appurtenances (1Ki_8:4); the altars of incense and burnt-offering (Exo_30:27 f.), the flesh of a sacrifice (Hag_2:12), the incense (Exo_30:36), the table (Exo_30:27), the shew-bread (1Sa_21:6), the candlestick (Exo_30:27), the ark (Exo_30:26, 2Ch_35:3), and the anointing oil (Exo_30:25). Those attached more closely to the service of Jehovah—priests (Lev_21:6, H [Note: Law of Holiness.] ), Levites (Num_8:17 f.), and perhaps to some extent prophets (2Ki_4:9),—were holy (with ceremonial holiness) in a higher degree than others. The combination of merely external and ethical holiness as the requirement of Jehovah lasted until the advent of Christianity, the proportion of the elements varying with the varying conception of God.
II. IN NT
The word ‘holiness’ in EV [Note: English Version.] stands for hosiotçs (Luk_1:75, Eph_4:24), hagiotçs (2Co_1:12 RV [Note: Revised Version.] , ‘AV [Note: Authorized Version.] having another reading; Heb_12:10), hagiôsynç (Rom_1:4, 2Co_7:1, 1Th_3:13), hagiasmos (in AV [Note: Authorized Version.] , Rom_6:19; Rom_6:22, 1Th_4:7, 1Ti_2:15, Heb_12:14, but in the other 5 passages in which the word occurs we find ‘sanctification ‘; RV [Note: Revised Version.] has ‘sanctification’ throughout), and for part of hieroprepçs (Tit_2:3), ‘as becometh holiness,’ RV [Note: Revised Version.] ‘reverent in demeanour.’ The idea of holiness, however, is conveyed mainly by the adjective hagios ‘holy’ (about 230 times) and the verb hagiazô (27 times, in 24 of which it is rendered in EV [Note: English Version.] ‘sanctify’), also by hosios (Act_2:27; Act_13:34 f., 1Ti_2:8, Tit_1:8, Heb_7:26, Rev_15:4; Rev_16:5, not in the text of AV [Note: Authorized Version.] ) and hieros (1Co_9:13, 2Ti_3:15; RV [Note: Revised Version.] has in both passages ‘sacred’). Of these words by far the most important is the group which has hagios for its centre, and which is the real equivalent of qôdesh, qâdôsh, etc., hieros referring rather to external holiness and hosios to reverence, piety, hagios, which is freely used in LXX [Note: Septuagint.] , but is very rare in classical Greek and not frequent in common Greek, never occurring (outside of Christian texts) in the seven volumes of papyri issued by the Egypt Exploration Society, is scarcely ever used in NT in the ceremonial sense (cf. 1Co_7:14, 2Pe_1:18) except in quotations from OT or references to Jewish ritual (Heb_9:2-3; Heb_9:8; Heb_9:24; Heb_10:19 etc.), and in current Jewish expressions, e.g. ‘the holy city,’ Mat_4:5 etc. Otherwise it is purely ethical and spiritual.
Three uses demand special notice. 1. The term ‘holy is seldom applied directly to God (Luk_1:49, Joh_17:11, 1Pe_1:15 f., Rev_4:8), but it is very often used of the Spirit of God (‘the Holy Spirit’ 94 times, 56 of which are in the writings of Luke: cf. art. Holy Spirit). 2. The epithet is used in 10 passages of Christ (‘the Holy One of God,’ Mar_1:24, Luk_4:34, Joh_6:69; also Luk_1:35, Act_3:14; Act_4:27; Act_4:30, Heb_7:26, 1Jn_2:20, Rev_3:7). 3. It is very often used of Christians. They are called ‘saints’ or ‘holy ones’ (hagioi) 60 times, 39 in the Pauline Epistles. The expression is no doubt of OT origin, and means ‘consecrated to God,’ with the thought that this consecration involves effort after moral purity (cf. Lightfoot on Php_1:1). In this use the ethical element is always in the foreground. So we find hagios associated with amômos ‘without hlemish,’ RV [Note: Revised Version.] Eph_1:4; Eph_5:27, Col_1:22; and with dikaios ‘righteous,’ RV [Note: Revised Version.] Mar_6:20, Act_3:14. The three words hagiotçs, hagiôsynç, and hagiasmos designate respectively the quality of holiness, the state of holiness, and the process or result. For the sphere and source of holiness, cf. Sanctification.
W. Taylor Smith.