We are exhorted in Scripture to be holy because God is holy (1 Peter 1:16, Leviticus 11:44; 20:26). To be holy means to be morally perfect, pure and set apart from sin. He tells us this because a holy God cannot look upon sin, it offends Him.
You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look on wickedness. ~ Habakkuk 1:13
In other words He cannot excuse it and it separates us from Him. Sin cuts us off from relationship with God and that is a place people do not want to be. Because He is ultimately just God cannot ignore it either. It must be judged and accounted for. That accounting took place for us once and for all through Jesus Christ and His sacrifice for sin. We in our limited minds fail to understand holiness like God’s holiness. We can understand in a limited way what holiness is but I believe that no man in this life can fully grab onto it before our glorification. Holiness is really the antithesis of evil or should I say evil is the antithesis of holiness? They are like opposite ends of a magnet. They can never touch. If true holiness touched evil my guess is that evil would be annihilated. Holy is a special state of being. When it enters our realm it is honored with special acknowledgement and reverence. The Holy of Holies (Most Holy Place) was a place the High Priest could go only once a year on the Day of Atonement with bowed head, no sandals on his feet, and bells. If the high priest wasn’t pure, he was as good as dead. It was the place God's presence would reside in the temple/tabernacle on the mercy seat of the Ark of the Covenant.
“But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance.” ~Hebrews 9:7
There was a reason the Holy of Holies was so separate and isolated and it was to identify that man and God are so separate in respect to holiness. The veil covering the Holy of Holies was to shield man from a radiant and Holy God. The veil was also a barrier to remind man that God was not to be trifled with and so man would not carelessly enter God’s presence. This of course changed with Jesus Christ’s sacrificial offering on our behalf. His sacrificial offering made us co-heirs in Him (Christ).
The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. ~ Romans 8:16-17
Upon Christ’s death the temple veil was torn in two and was a indicator to the world that through Christ we have direct access to the Holy One of Israel. Jesus has entered it on our behalf.
We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. ~ Hebrews 6:19-20
Then Jesus ascended to be seated at the right hand of God in heaven. The Holy of Holies was a representation of God’s dwelling place in heaven. It was an example of His place there in Heaven, down here on Earth.
For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. ~Hebrews 9:24-26
Man is unholy and a sinner and God is holy and it is only God that can help man become holy or sanctified. It took God’s Son dying on the cross to even give us a path back to His holiness. Sadly, I believe this might be lost on many people, even professing Christians. Poor unchristian actions or failure to manifest the the fruits of the Spirit often scream at a high volume. People that truly understand this sacrifice would not continually act the way they do.
There are others that do understand and it is apparent and observable. It is my firm belief that anyone that has a true encounter with the living God cannot walk away unchanged.
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