The word rendered “holiness” in this verse is used some ten times in the epistles and is often given as “sanctification.” It indicates, as another has said, the “practical effect produced: not the quality, but the character in activity,” or “sanctification . . . the sum and measure of it, the thing as an effect, as a whole, characteristically, not the quality.” The same word is used in 1 Corinthians 1:30: “Of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us . . . sanctification.” We are exhorted to “follow . . . holiness [sanctification]; without which no man shall see the Lord.”
What, therefore, in the unspeakable grace of our God, Christ is made unto us, we, being in Him, are to follow after. The holiness in Hebrews will then signify correspondence with, or conformity to, Christ as glorified. It may further aid if another scripture is compared: “For their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth” (John 17:1919And for their sakes I sanctify myself, that they also might be sanctified through the truth. (John 17:19)). From this we gather that Christ has set Himself apart, in His new condition as glorified, as the pattern and object for His people, and that they will be brought into conformity to Him through the application to their souls of the truth of what He is as the glorified Man, the leader of a new race, the Second Man out of heaven.
It may be asked, Will not all saints be like Christ when they see Him (1 John 3:22The same came to Jesus by night, and said unto him, Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God: for no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him. (John 3:2))? Why then should we be exhorted to follow or “pursue” after holiness? Because God would have us in communion with His own mind and our hearts set upon His own end and object. He presents Christ glorified to us as His eternal thought for man, and He would have us pursue diligently after its realization. The practical effect of this truth is seen in Philippians 3, where the Apostle says, “I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus.” Holiness, according to God’s thought, is seen in Christ glorified, and we are to follow after it as thus expressed. We are urged forward in its diligent attainment by the reminder that without it no one will ever see the Lord. Only when we see Him will God’s eternal purposes for His people — that they should be holy and without blame before Him in love — be accomplished and realized.
Christian Friend, 1897