Bible Commentaries

Leviticus 20:26

I. The holiness of saints depends upon no outward condition, requires no special gift of nature or of Providence, of understanding or wisdom, nay, I may say, of grace. It need not be shown in any one form; it does not require the largeness of any one grace; still less does it consist in austere sadness, or stern constraint, or rigid severity as to ourselves or others, except as to our sins. The blessed company of the redeemed saints have and have not found one road to heaven. One road they found, in that they were saved through one Redeemer, looking on to Him and believing in Him before He came or looking to Him when He had come. But all eke in their outward let was different. They were "redeemed to God out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation."

II. Holiness was made for all. It is the end for which we were made, for which we were redeemed, for which God the Holy Ghost is sent down and shed abroad in the hearts that will receive Him. God did not will to create us as perfect. He willed that we, through His grace, should become perfect. But what He willed that we should be, that, if our will fail not, we must become. His almighty will vouchsafes to depend on ours. What God commands; what God wills; what God so willed that He made us for this alone, that we should be holy, and being holy, should share His holiness and bliss—that must be within our reach if we will.

III. The mistake of mistakes is to think that holiness consists in great or extraordinary things, beyond the reach of ordinary men. It has been well said, "Holiness does not consist in doing uncommon things, but in doing common things uncommonly well." Few can ever do great things, and the few who can do them can each do but few. But every one can study the will of God, and can give great diligence to know it and to do what he knows. Your daily round of duty is your daily path to come nearer unto God.

E. B. Pusey, Parochial and Cathedral Sermons, p. 161.

References: Leviticus 20:26.—Parker, vol. iii.,p. 136. Leviticus 22:20.—J. Vaughan, Sermons, 9th series, p. 117. Leviticus 22:21.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxxii., No. 1879. Leviticus 22:32.—Parker, vol. iii., p. 137. Leviticus 23:5, Leviticus 23:9-11, Leviticus 23:15-16, Leviticus 23:34, Leviticus 23:36.—J. Fleming, The Gospel in Leviticus, pp. 55, 65, 82, 134. Leviticus 23:33-44.—Preacher's Monthly, vol. ii., p. 376.