God urged His people to leave Assyria and touch no unclean thing, to depart from there and be pure. (Is 52:11) The call for holiness will always involve a separation from things that are impure and unclean because God is pure and clean. Much of the Old Testament law had to do with working out cleanliness and purity in everyday living.

Paul quotes Is 52:11 in 2 Cor 6, explaining it by saying, ‘Do not be yoked together with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? Or what does a believer have in common with an unbeliever?’ (2 Cor 6:14-15) Paul is not saying we should have nothing at all to do with non-Christians – we live in the world with them and are called to live out our faith in such a way that they will see our good deeds and praise God because of them –  but he is saying that we should not choose to link our lives irrevocably to them – in marriage, in business, in ways that will involve us walking together in step, the way that oxen have to walk together in unity when they are yoked together.

The call to holiness has immense practical implications for us. It means choosing wisely our friends, partners and business colleagues. It means thinking seriously about God in every area of our living, refusing to separate ‘secular’ and ‘sacred’, but allowing God into every area of our lives. It also means living with a long-term perspective. We have promises and hopes that will not only last for a lifetime of seventy or eighty years; we have blessings that are promised us to the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and throughout eternity!

Ultimately, we can have confidence in God to complete the work He has begun in us. ‘May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it.’ (1 Thess 5:23-24)