The Departure
Purification & Holiness Laws
Your Body Is the Temple — So Why Aren't You Keeping It Clean?
Clean and Unclean Food
The church teaches that holiness is something you are given, not something you do. God looks at you through Jesus, so you are already holy. The food laws were for the Jews, and they ended at the cross. Holiness became either a rank — the saints in the stained glass — or a feeling in the heart. Either way, nothing is asked of the plate.
But Yahuah drew the line Himself, and He told the priests to teach it: “that ye may put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean” (Leviticus 10:10). Clean and unclean were taught, not guessed. When the priests stopped teaching it, Yahuah said, “Her priests have violated my law” (Ezekiel 22:26). Holiness in the Torah is something you walk in — and it starts with what you eat.
Two Greek words carried it in. Choose a word.
The root word
Hagios / Hagnos “holy”
The verse
But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.
1 Peter 1:15–16 (KJV)
What you were taught
Be holy means be a good person. Don’t lie, don’t cheat, go to church. You are holy because you are in Christ, and God sees His Son when He looks at you. It has nothing to do with food — Jesus made all foods clean, and Peter saw a sheet full of animals to prove it.
What the Greek brought in
The Greek copy uses hagios (G40), “holy.” Its cousin hagnos (G53) means “pure.” In the Greek temples, these words described a holy place, or a person made ritually clean to come before a god. The goddess Artemis was praised as hagnē, “the pure one.” Holiness was a temple status — something a priest or a ceremony gave you. The church kept that idea. Holiness became a rank given by the church, or a standing given by faith, with nothing to do in daily life.
The Hebrew beneath it
But Peter says plainly, “it is written.” He is quoting Moses, and the verse he picked closes the food laws: “For I am Yahuah your God: ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for I am holy: neither shall ye defile yourselves with any manner of creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth” (Leviticus 11:44).
The Hebrew word is qadosh (H6918). It means set apart — cut out from the rest and kept for one owner. Two verses later Moses tells us what the whole chapter was for: “To make a difference between the unclean and the clean, and between the beast that may be eaten and the beast that may not be eaten” (Leviticus 11:47). In Hebrew, being holy and eating clean are said in the same breath.
Read it again
Now read it again the way Peter meant it: “The One who called you is set apart, so you be set apart in all your living — the way you walk, and what you put on your plate. Moses wrote it: be set apart, for I am set apart.”
Peter puts things in the right order. First, they were bought back “with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot” (1 Peter 1:19). Then they walk “as obedient children” (1 Peter 1:14). And this is the same Peter who said, years after the cross, “I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean” (Acts 10:14). He learned what the sheet meant: “God hath shewed me that I should not call any man common or unclean” (Acts 10:28). It was about men, not menus.
How it grew
- SinaiMoses “Ye shall be holy; for I am holy” closes the food laws (Leviticus 11:44).
- c. 700 BCHomer The goddess Artemis is called hagnē, “the pure one.” Holiness is a temple word.
- c. 34 ADPeter After the cross: “I have never eaten any thing that is common or unclean” (Acts 10:14).
- c. 130 ADThe Epistle of Barnabas Turns the food laws into pictures of bad men, not food to avoid.
- 993 ADRome A pope formally declares a man a saint for the first time. Holiness becomes a rank.
- TodayThe pulpit “You are holy in Christ — now pass the ham.”
What it built
- Saints as a rank — holiness handed out by the church after death, when Moses spoke to “all the congregation” (Leviticus 19:2).
- Holiness as a position — declared over a person, with nothing asked of how he lives.
- Nothing required of the plate — “purging all meats” (Mark 7:19) and Peter’s sheet read as permission to eat anything.
The initiate’s rank
Teleios “perfect”
The verse
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.
Matthew 5:48 (KJV)
What you were taught
Nobody can be perfect. Jesus said this to show us that we can’t keep the Law, so we need grace. Other churches teach the opposite: a second blessing comes after you are saved, and it wipes out the sin inside you in a moment. Then you are “entirely sanctified.” Either way, perfect means sinless.
What the Greek brought in
The Greek copy uses teleios (G5046). It means “finished” or “complete.” But the Greek mystery religions — secret cults with hidden rites — used the same word for their inner circle. A member who had gone through the final secret rite was one of the teleioi, “the perfected.” Perfect became a rank, a level you reach in one step. That is how the church came to hear it: a special experience that lifts you above ordinary believers.
The Hebrew beneath it
Yahushua was drawing on Moses: “Thou shalt be perfect with Yahuah thy God” (Deuteronomy 18:13). Yahuah said the same to Abram long before: “walk before me, and be thou perfect” (Genesis 17:1).
The Hebrew word is tamim (H8549). It means whole, sound, upright — like a lamb with nothing missing. It is the word for the man who walks with Yahuah with his whole heart and does not split it with other gods. In Deuteronomy, Moses had just warned Israel against the fortune-tellers and charmers of the nations (Deuteronomy 18:9–12). Being tamim meant walking with Yahuah alone. The psalm says it best: “Blessed are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of Yahuah” (Psalm 119:1). “Undefiled” is the same word.
Read it again
Now read it again the way Yahushua meant it: “So be whole-hearted — walk with your Father with nothing held back, the way your Father in heaven is whole.”
Look at the verses just before it. Yahushua is talking about loving your enemies, because the Father “maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good” (Matthew 5:45). Perfect is a way of walking, not a rank. Later a rich young man asked how to enter life. Yahushua said, “keep the commandments,” and then, “If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell that thou hast” (Matthew 19:17, 21). Perfect begins with the commandments. It is a whole heart that holds nothing back.
How it grew
- c. 1900 BCAbram “Walk before me, and be thou perfect” (Genesis 17:1).
- Before MessiahThe mystery cults Members who pass the final secret rite are called “the perfected.”
- c. 200 ADClement of Alexandria Borrows the language of the mysteries and calls the mature believer “the perfect” one.
- 1766John Wesley Publishes A Plain Account of Christian Perfection.
- 1867Vineland, New Jersey The Holiness camp meetings begin. Perfection becomes a second blessing received in a moment.
- TodayThe pulpit “Nobody’s perfect” — or, “I was entirely sanctified at the altar.”
What it built
- Entire sanctification — a second blessing that makes a believer sinless in one moment.
- Two classes of believers — the “perfected” few above the ordinary many, just as in the cults.
- A command nobody tries — if perfect means sinless, the command is out of reach, and the walk is dropped.
The Old Path
The old path is plain. Yahuah separated clean from unclean, and He separated His people from the nations so they would be His: “And ye shall be holy unto me: for I Yahuah am holy, and have severed you from other people, that ye should be mine” (Leviticus 20:26). Deliverance comes first, by the blood of the Lamb Yahuah provided. Then comes the walk — the commandments, the plate, the whole heart.
Paul said the same to the believers in Corinth: “for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are” (1 Corinthians 3:17). A temple is kept clean because Someone lives there. Revelation closes the matter at the gate of the city: “And there shall in no wise enter into it any thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie: but they which are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (Revelation 21:27).