Holy in Christ / Thoughts on the Calling of God's Children to be Holy as He is Holy

BY REV. ANDREW MURRAY, AUTHOR OF ‘ABIDE IN CHRIST,’ ‘LIKE CHRIST,’ ETC.
‘I am holy: ye shall be holy.’
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY, CHICAGO, NEW YORK, TORONTO,
There is not in Scripture a word more distinctly Divine in its origin and meaning than the word holy. There is not a word that leads us higher into the mystery of Deity, nor deeper into the privilege and the blessedness of God’s children. And yet it is a word that many a Christian has never studied or understood.
There are not a few who can praise God that during the past twenty years the watchword Be Holy has been taken up in many a church and Christian circle with greater earnestness than before. In books and magazines, in conventions and conferences, in the testimonies and the lives of believers, we have abundant tokens that what is called the Holiness-movement is a reality.
In writing this little book, my object has been to discover in what sense God uses the word, that so it may mean to us what it means to Him. I have sought to trace the word through some of the most important passages of Holy Scripture where it occurs, there to learn what God’s holiness is, what ours is to be, and what the way by which we attain it. I have been specially anxious to point out how many and various the elements are that go to make up true holiness as the Divine expression of the Christian life in all its fulness and perfection. I have at the same time striven continually to keep in mind the wonderful unity and simplicity there is in it, as centred in the person of Jesus. As I proceeded in my work, I felt ever more deeply how high the task was I had undertaken in offering to guide others even into the outer courts of the Holy Place of the Most High. And yet the very difficulty of the task convinced me of how needful it was.
A. M.
Wellington, 16 th November 1887.
‘Like as He which called you is holy , be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living; because it is written, Ye shall be holy , for I am holy .’—1 Pet. i. 15, 16.