But according to him that hath called you, who is holy, be you also in all manner of conversation holy:
αλλα κατα τον καλεσαντα υμας αγιον και αυτοι αγιοι εν παση αναστροφη γενηθητε
10 Church Fathers comment on this verse
But since it is frivolous to surrender oneself to the will of circumstances, the apostle commands that, whether knowingly or unknowingly they had followed this until now, from this time onward they should conform themselves to Him Who called them. He is truly Holy, and they themselves must become holy.
The chief Apostle Peter writes in his epistle to Christians: "Beloved, as obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts of your ignorance. But as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct. For it is written: Be holy, for I am holy" (1 Pet 1:14-16).
God requires holiness of life from us. This holiness consists first of all in chastity, and then in fulfilling the other commandments of God. When they are transgressed, it consists in sincere and humble repentance.
Chastity is twofold: virginal and marital. Susanna of old was called chaste even in marriage, because she resolved to die rather than fulfill the evil desire of the lawless judges.
From the Gospel parable of the ten virgins, it is clear that not all virgins were wise. Five of them were foolish.
The latter were called foolish or unreasonable because, while preserving bodily virginity, they did not care to preserve purity of soul. They defiled mind and heart with unclean thoughts and desires.
Or they were troubled by thoughts of anger and remembrance of wrongs, or envy and hatred. Or they were blinded by love of money, and through stinginess were without compassion for their neighbors.
Even if some of them seemed to restrain themselves from these passions, yet, overcome by self-conceit and pride, by judging and despising their neighbors, they thereby lost purity of soul. As it is said: "Everyone proud in heart is unclean before God" (Prov 16:5).
What is said about the passions in relation to virgins also applies to widows and to the married. The Lord Himself said to the Apostles: "What I say to you, I say to all" (Mk 13:37).
What is the chief means for leading a holy life? The Lord Himself, through the same Apostle Peter, points to this means, saying: "If you call upon Me as Father, who without partiality judges each according to his work, conduct the time of your life in fear" (1 Pet 1:17).
These words show that the chief means for living piously and holily consists in the fear of God, and in fear of the future judgment and eternal torments.
Only with the aid of this fear, and with God's help, does the keeping of the commandments take place. As it is said in the Psalms: "Blessed is the man who fears the Lord. He will greatly delight in His commandments."
Without fear, even if a man lived in heaven, according to St. Peter of Damascus, he would gain no benefit if he had pride. By it Satan, Adam, and many others fell.
If the word of God commands even all the saints to have the fear of God, saying, "Fear the Lord, all His saints, for there is no want to those who fear Him" (Ps 33:10), how much more must we, sinful and unreformed, have the fear of God.
We must also have the fear of death, of the dread Judgment of God, and of eternal torments in Hades. Yet we must temper this fear with hope of inheriting the Kingdom of Heaven, if we compel ourselves as much as possible to repentance and amendment.
The fear of God and remembrance of the four last things restrain us from falls into sin. As it is said: "Remember your last things, and you will never sin" (Sir 7:39).
May we all obtain this through the ineffable mercy and almighty help of Him who was born of the Holy Virgin, our Lord Jesus Christ. Let us earnestly pray to Him for this. Amen.
The holy Apostle Peter writes: "As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were in your ignorance. But according to the Holy One who called you, you also be holy in all your conduct. For it is written: Be holy, because I am holy" (1 Pet 1:14-16).
This commandment means that a person must preserve chastity and bodily and spiritual purity, not only with respect to the passion of fornication, but also with respect to other passions. Envy, hatred, and remembrance of wrongs also constitute impurity of soul.
Children are born of a father according to the flesh; Christians are born of God according to the Spirit. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit" (Jn 3:6). In children one observes the father's qualities and likeness to him. So in Christians there must be the qualities of the Heavenly Father and likeness to Him. They also must be holy, good, merciful, meek, patient, and so forth. Therefore it is said to them: "According to the Holy One Who called you, be holy yourselves in all your conduct. For it is written: Be holy, for I am holy" (1 Pet 1:15-16). "Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful" (Lk 6:36).
The model of purity to which we must attain is perfect. It is our Lord Jesus Christ. "As He Who called you is holy," says the Apostle, "so you also be holy in all your conduct. For it is written: You shall be holy, for I am holy." Because of the infinite perfection of the model of purity, the arena of repentance and purification is infinite. If someone were to pass through this arena with every possible zeal and diligence, even he could not attain perfection in purification. Even if his life in constant repentance lasted thousands of years, even then he would not attain complete purification. The greatest among the holy monks, at their death, acknowledged that they had not only failed to complete repentance, but had not even begun it.
"According to the example," or better translated, "according to the image," of Him Who called you, and so forth. Strive for conformity (cf. Rom 8:29) with God Who called you. Since He is holy, you also must strive for holiness in all your conduct. Calling closely coincides with election (1 Pet 1:1); the first is the realization of the second (Rom 8:29-30). Calling is accomplished by God according to His foreknowledge. Its goal is the blessedness of those called. This also depends on the called themselves, and for this they must strive to be holy in all conduct. The last expression points not only to outward behavior, but in general to the whole manner of thought and activity, which is also expressed in outward actions. See verse 16.
In the apostle's further instructions toward a holy and God-pleasing life, the following dogmatic truths are heard, on which he wishes to establish his exhortations. First is the adoption of Christians by God (1 Pet 1:13-17). "As obedient children, do not be conformed," the apostle says to Christians, "to the former desires that were in your conduct. For if you call Him Father Who judges each one impartially according to his works, then conduct the time of your sojourning in fear," in this corruptible and fleeting life.
Cf. Lev 19:2. Stirring Christians to devotion to the will of God, the Apostle gives a new series of motives for Christians to estrange themselves from sinful, fleshly life and to act in holiness in everything. The first of these motives was indicated already in the Old Testament. It consists in the holiness of God, Who called Christians into His portion and made them His children. Above all, they must be strengthened by complete following of Him and full obedience to His holy will (cf. Lev 19:2). The second motive is that God is not only our heavenly Father, but also the impartial and true Judge. He will not spare us because of our election or our adoption, as happens in this world. He will judge according to works, since works express a person's inner disposition (cf. Jas 2:26).
Further, we must firmly remember why the Blood of Christ, the spotless Lamb, was poured out for us (cf. Jn 1:29-36; 19:34-36). It was so that we might not live according to the flesh, according to sinful customs inherited from our fathers and infectious evil examples, but blamelessly and in holiness. Christ was foreordained for this from the beginning (see Jn 17:24; Eph 1:4). He appeared after ages of preparing mankind to meet Him worthily. He lived with men, suffered, and rose again. Thereby He made it possible for our faith and hope to be firm, undoubted, constant, and altogether perfect. Before the Resurrection of Jesus Christ, the Apostles were weak. After the Resurrection they were strengthened in hope in the Risen One, so that they undertook great labors and endured death. The Apostle stirs all Christians to the same thing. He especially encourages them by hope that our Redeemer has ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of the Father (cf. Acts 2:32). Therefore He can give eternal glory to us also (cf. Rom 8:11; 1 Cor 6:14).
"As He Who called you is holy, so be holy yourselves in all your manner of life. For it is written: You shall be holy, for I am holy."
In human kingdoms the people address those close to the king with special reverence. Partly this comes from reverence for the king, who has clothed them with his confidence, authority, and honorable ranks.
Partly it comes from the hope of their beneficent intercession and protection before him, according to the authority given them.
So also in the Kingdom of God, which is the Church of Christ, the people of believers turn with reverence to God's holy men, as you do now. They honor the grace of God dwelling in them.
By faith they hope for their prayerful intercession before God and for benefactions according to the grace given them.
But in a human kingdom the people, while giving honor to nobles, remain the people. By the very nature of civil order they cannot attain the privileges before which they bow.
In the Kingdom of God it is not so. Here each one of the people of believers, while honoring God's saints, can himself attain the dignity that he honors in others.
Not only can he do so, but he is also called and exhorted to be holy. "As He Who called you is holy, so be holy yourselves in all your manner of life. For it is written: You shall be holy, for I am holy."
Brethren, you who honor holiness as the privilege of the elect, let us consider holiness as the duty of all and of each one.
If a citizen or villager were told, "Do this and that, and be close to the king, who gives you the right to this privilege and calls you to it," with what willingness and zeal he would take up the required labors.
He would do so even if the struggle were not easy and the labor not short.
But behold, the herald of the will of the Heavenly King says to us, who are unworthy even of the lowest degree of citizenship in this Kingdom: "Be holy."
Be morally holy, and then be blessedly holy. Live piously and virtuously, and be close to the Heavenly King. He permits you not only to draw near to Him, but also to abide in Him.
He Himself wills not only to draw near to you, but also to live in you.
What then? How is this calling received? Will all, or at least many, follow it with readiness, ardent zeal, unfailing fervor, and full activity?
Is it not more customary for us to think and say, "How can we be holy? We are sinful people. It is enough if we are somehow saved by repentance."
"How can we be holy?" But have we considered what we shall be, and what will become of us, if we do not struggle to become holy?
There are higher degrees of holiness, in which especially chosen and grace-filled souls shine. Yet holiness in general is not only a particular distinction among Christians, praiseworthy for some and easily dispensable for others.
According to apostolic teaching, everyone called by the holy God to the Kingdom of God, that is, every Christian, must find in this calling itself and in the thought of the God Who called him a law, duty, and impulse.
He must unfailingly be holy or become holy. "As He Who called you is holy, so be holy yourselves in all your manner of life."
This rule is all the more binding for the sons of God's New Covenant, because it had already been given by God Himself to the sons of the Old and less perfect Covenant: "For it is written: You shall be holy, for I am holy."
If you live without effort and without hope of being holy, then you do not live according to the Holy One Who called you. You do not correspond to the dignity of those called by God and of the sons of God's covenant.
You are Christians in name, but not in reality. Where such a life leads may be seen from another apostolic saying: "Pursue peace and holiness with all, without which no one will see the Lord" (Heb 12:14).
More plainly: have peace with all, have holiness, and without peace and holiness no one will see the Lord. That is, no one will attain eternal blessedness.
Therefore, if we carelessly and heedlessly think that we are not to be holy, we write our own sentence: not to see the Lord, and to be strangers to eternal blessedness.
"We are sinful people." This seems an indisputable truth. For, on the contrary, "if we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us" (1 Jn 1:8).
Yet it happens that the abuse of truth is no better than manifest error.
If we acknowledge ourselves as sinners through deep self-knowledge, and thereby enter into the feeling of our unworthiness and wretchedness, we break our heart and humble the inborn pride of the old man.
We move ourselves to seek gracious help and to struggle against sin. Such an acknowledgment of sinfulness not only does not deprive us of hope in attaining holiness, but opens the way to it.
But if we call ourselves sinners with superficial thought, without contrition of heart and without aversion from sin, with shamelessness and with the deceitful implication that everyone else must confess the same thing, the case is different.
Then we imply that we need not be ashamed to confess it, and that it is not dangerous after confession to remain as we were before confession. Such an acknowledgment of sinfulness will certainly not lead to holiness.
In this case, even while saying the truth that we have sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. That means it is not in our heart and life, though the sound of truth is on our lips.
"The saying is faithful and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners" (1 Tim 1:15).
But we deceive ourselves if we think that we shall be saved while remaining sinners. Christ saves sinners by giving them the means to become holy.
"We shall somehow be saved by repentance." Yes, repentance belongs among the means of salvation that Christ imparts to sinners when He preaches: "Repent and believe in the Gospel" (Mk 1:15).
But if we think to repent somehow and to be saved somehow, we judge too lightly concerning a matter of supreme importance.
Will a servant please his master if he does his work somehow, and not as well as possible? Certainly he will not please him.
How much less will a man please God if he does God's work only somehow, when the work in question is our salvation.
If even a small task is not done well or successfully when it is done somehow, inattentively, and carelessly, how much more the great work of salvation.
This is the work of all our powers and capacities, the chief work of our whole life.
The thought of being saved by repentance is a saving thought. But what must we think when we see in the word of God the unhappy example of a man who found no place for repentance, though he sought it with tears (Heb 12:17)?
It is evident that repentance also does not allow itself to be found somehow. It requires the sinner to seek it diligently, rationally, sincerely, with a firm intention of amendment, and without allowing himself to harden in sin.
Moreover, the perfect teacher of repentance, John the Baptist, says that true repentance requires something more after itself. "Bear," he says, "fruit worthy of repentance" (Mt 3:8).
Repentance clears the soil of the heart from thorns. It tills and softens it. Faith sows heavenly seed into it.
The growth of this new plant is the keeping of the commandments and the doing of good. Its flower is spiritual inward illumination, and its ripe and perfect fruit is holiness.
The wheat must reach maturity before it can be gathered into the granary. A man must attain holiness before he can be brought into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Where, brethren, will the reflections now set before us lead us? Will they lead us to greater zeal and care for the work of salvation, which requires not only repentance as its beginning, but holiness as its completion?
Or perhaps will they lead us to greater hopelessness of attaining salvation through holiness, which we see so high above us?
Christ God, our hope, do not permit us to faint in our hopelessness, but strengthen us by Your hope.
Once even Your Apostles were in hopelessness, but You resolved it by Your almighty word. Grant us also to feel in faith the power of that same word: "What is impossible with men is possible with God" (Lk 18:27).
Truly, brethren, if we had to attain holiness only by natural human powers, then it would be right to answer that this is beyond our ability.
But since for this we have the grace of God, which goes before us, enlightens, strengthens, cooperates, and preserves, no one must lose hope of attaining that to which God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ has called us.
He "chose us in Him before the foundation of the world," that "we should be holy and blameless before Him in love" (Eph 1:3-4).
Therefore, both by the feeling of duty and by hope of good success through God's help, let us awaken ourselves from negligence and carelessness. Let us move ourselves to zeal in the work of our salvation.
According to the exhortation of the Apostle Paul, "let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God" (2 Cor 7:1).
According to the exhortation of the Apostle Peter, "set your hope fully on the grace that is being brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ."
"As obedient children, do not be conformed to the former desires of your ignorance. But as He Who called you is holy, so be holy yourselves in all your manner of life" (1 Pet 1:13-16).
If in these exhortations you meet sufficiently great demands, namely, to perfect holiness and to be holy, then together with this you also meet sufficiently simple means to satisfy the great demands.
These means are to reject desires and to strive to cleanse yourselves from defilement of flesh and spirit.
To the measure that a man, for his part, actively and faithfully struggles to cleanse himself from unclean deeds, unclean desires and passions, and unclean thoughts, God's sanctification descends upon him through the Church and her Mysteries.
May the all-working grace of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit make all of us partakers of this sanctification. Amen.
Continuing his discourse on the conditions necessary so that hope in future blessedness may not be vain, the Apostle exhorts Christians to conduct their life in holiness. A life opposed to holiness is characteristic of the Gentiles. Christians also lived such a life before their conversion to faith in Christ. They surrendered themselves to passions, that is, they were carried away by sinful sensual desires. These were desires for fleshly sensual pleasures, opposed to continence, sobriety, and chastity. They placed the good of life in the satisfaction of these desires. They lived such a life in ignorance, because they had not been enlightened by the light of truth. In their very gods they found an example of gross sensuality.
For those converted to Christ from paganism, the time of this ignorance has passed. Formerly slaves of sin and servants of the devil, they became children of the heavenly Father by the grace of regeneration. Since it is proper for children to obey their father, they became children of obedience. They bound themselves to fulfill the will of the heavenly Father in everything. What then does His will require of them? It requires that they "not be conformed to the former passions in ignorance," and not return to their former way of life. Rather, "according to the example of the Holy One Who called them, they themselves must be holy." The Lord is near to the world and fills it with His omnipresence. Yet He is not defiled by anything impure in the world, just as the rays of the sun are not defiled when passing through unclean places. The Lord is not only Himself alien to moral impurity and sin. He also hates sin in others, and even "an unrighteous thought is an abomination to Him" (Prov 15:26). In like manner, those who believe in Christ must be holy not only in outward conduct, but also in their inward spiritual disposition. The Church of Christ is a kingdom not of this world. Therefore those who belong to her, though they live in the world, must keep themselves pure from every worldly defilement. They must conduct themselves so that it is evident they have nothing in common with darkness, Belial, or lawlessness. "You shall be holy, for I am holy." The Lord repeated this commandment more than once through Moses to the chosen people (Lev 11:44; Lev 19:2; Lev 20:7, 26). If the Apostle recognizes the same commandment as binding upon Christians, this means that Christians are the same chosen people as all the Old Testament faithful. As the chosen people, they too were honored by the Lord with the name of a holy people, that is, a sacred people (Ex 19:6; Deut 7:6), consecrated to His service. According to the Apostle's word, this same dignity belongs to New Testament believers (1 Pet 2:9). Therefore the Church of Christ is called holy, that is, a society of people sanctified by grace for the service of the Lord. The life of those who belong to Christ's Church must correspond to this dignity. To live according to the Church means to live in holiness, without being carried away by worldly customs opposed to holiness.
When God, Who through the Gospel called us to salvation, is holy, those who obey the call must become holy for Him in every action and also in discernment. This is especially so when He Who calls to this also offers and grants holiness.
Passages read together with this verse.
Greek text, 13 words with lemma, transliteration and Strong’s number. Tap to expand.
THEOSIS