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The next duty he exhorts them to, is to answer the engagements which their adoption laid them under; they were now the children of God, and as such must,
1. Be obedient to their heavenly Father, walking in the path of his commandments, and no longer according to the former lusts, which they were captivated by, and enslaved unto in the time of their ignorance, when they knew not God.
And, 2. They must, imitate their heavenly Father in the love and practice of universal holiness: As he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy.
Observe, 1. Christians must make God the pattern of their holiness, and be holy as God is holy, though not as holy as God is; the command obliges to a conformity, not to an equality; as God is really holy, positively holy, strictly and exactly holy, universally holy, unchangeably holy, so must we labour to be holy both towards God and man, which is to be holy in all manner of conversation.
Observe, 2. Christians are here required not only to make God the pattern of their holiness, but the motive of their holiness; Be ye holy, for I am holy. Seeing our God is a holy God, therefore we that are his people must be holy also.
Our apostle here represents the holiness of God both as a rule and as a motive of that holiness which should be acted by us.
And whereas the apostle says, It is written, Be ye holy; it plainly intimates, that God has in all former ages obliged all persons, who pretended any relation to him as his children, to be holy as he is holy; though not as to equality, yet as to imitation; though not in measure and degree, yet in quality and kind. God is the original of all holiness, and the first man he created was after his own likeness; and every one that is renewed, is said to be created after God in righteousness and true holiness. What is godliness, but god- likeness? and what is holiness, but the conformity of our nature to the holy nature of God, and the conformity of our lives to the will of God?