God's Holy People

Book excerpt: God calls his people to be holy. What does this mean? Holiness means belonging to God and being stamped with his character. This belonging is expressed for ancient Israel in the story of the foundational events on Mount Sinai. The idea is then developed, refined and transformed through the establishment of the priesthood, the gift of the Law, the challenge of the prophets and, in the New Testament, through the life of Christ. This book sets out these perspectives alongside each other, and considers their interplay within the canon of scripture as a whole. The result is both a biblical theology of holiness and a promising model for reinterpreting one text in the light on another.