Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, suffered outside the gate. Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp, bearing his reproach. For we have no continuing city here, but we seek one to come.
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Every person who belongs to God is holy. In the Old Testament, to "belong to God" meant to be an Israelite. Everyone in Israel was considered holy, for Israel was God's chosen people. They were in covenant with God. In "the fulness of time", Jesus offered himself to God for the sins of the world, and the manner of covenant with God was changed. Now, the "Israel of God" is not the nation of the Jews, the people who physically descended from Abraham, but it is those who have the same kind of faith in God that Abraham had. Paul taught that "they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham" (Gal. 3:7). In this New Testament, then, to belong to God (and therefore, be holy) means that a person has received the holy Ghost, for only those with the holy Ghost belong to God (Rom. 8:9).
The holy Spirit of God makes a person holy, and that is the only way for anyone to partake of God's holiness. A person's physical birth no longer has anything whatsoever to do with being holy, but a person's new birth of spirit has everything to do with it. That is why Jesus told Nicodemus, "Ye must be born again" (Jn. 3:7). So, to make it clear, all who have the holy Ghost have been made holy.
Along with God's holiness, there is an anointing that comes with the new birth; it is an anointing that empowers the soul to understanding the will of God and to live without sin. But unlike holiness, there are other anointings beyond that first one. The different anointings in Christ are designed to enable certain saints to perform particular functions in the Spirit. The anointing to prophesy is a different anointing from the anointing to interpret tongues, the anointing to heal the sick, to be a shepherd, an evangelist, or a teacher. Moreover, within each particular anointing there may be differing depths, so that, for example, there may be healers with more power to heal than others. There are also different degrees of authority among the saints, so that there are rulers among the saints with authority over other rulers. For one example, Paul ordained shepherds over the congregations he established in the cities where he preached. Those men had authority in the congregations, but Paul was in authority over the shepherds whom he ordained.
From information provided in the Bible, we may conclude that even in heaven there are degrees of authority, for we see in there that there are angels anointed with powers not given to others angels. One angel, for example, was especially anointed with power over fire (Rev. 14:18). We would think that all angels had power over fire, and that is no doubt true to some extent, but there was an anointing on this particular angel to have special power over fire. There are also creatures called "archangels" in heaven. The word from which "arch" comes means "ruling". These archangels, then, must be rulers over other angels, with superior power and authority from God.
Clearly, God has chosen to delegate power to others, for He has created positions of increasing authority in heaven and on earth. In all of God's kingdom, whether on earth or in heaven, there is order and organization. Furthermore, God chooses who will occupy which office in heaven, among the saints on earth, and in the kingdoms of men, and it is sin to disrespect those chosen men and women. As Paul said, "The powers that be are ordained by God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God, and they that resist shall receive damnation to themselves" (Rom. 13:1-2).
During Israel's forty years of wandering in the wilderness, Moses' first cousin, Korah, led a rebellion against Moses that would have succeeded in replacing Moses as Israel's leader if God had not intervened. Korah and his fellow rebels angrily confronted Moses, telling the humble man of God that all the people were holy, not just Moses and Aaron (Num. 16:3). Moses already knew that. He loved God's people dearly and wanted nothing but good for them. But what Moses also knew was that he had been anointed to lead Israel to the Promised Land and that Korah had not. Korah might have known that all of God's people were anointed with God's holiness, but his fatal error was that he failed to acknowledge the higher anointing of God on Moses and Aaron. He didn't know the difference between being holy and being anointed. It was a fatal mistake.
Korah falsely accused Moses of elevating himself above the other Israelites, but Moses has elevated himself nowhere. He hadn't even wanted the job that God sent him to do. The stress of judging Israel weighed heavily on Moses' shoulders, and at least once he even prayed for death because of the burden of his work. On one occasion, he cried out in great desperation to God, "I am not able to bear all this people alone, because it is too heavy for me . . . kill me, I pray thee, out of thy hand" (Num. 11:14-15).
Korah and the other rebels were indeed holy, as they claimed, for they belonged to God. They were a part of God's chosen, holy people. However, neither he nor the other rebels were anointed by God for the office of the priesthood, and in truth, it was Korah's envy of Aaron's position as Israel's high priest, not Korah's supposed love for the people, that lay at the root of his revolt (Num 16:8-11). Anyone who rebels against the authority that God places in His kingdom does so for some evil motive. Righteousness impels no one to rebel against God; it rejoices in God's government.
So, even though it is true that all of God's children are made holy and are given an anointing when they enter into God's covenant, all the evidence given to us shows that (1) there are degrees of and different kinds of anointings in the kingdom of God and that (2) there are not different kinds of holiness. In the Bible, God blessed His people who submitted to the greater anointing, but He condemned His people who acted as though they had an anointing that they did not have. He described them as "a rebellious people that walk in a way that is not good, after their own thoughts, a people that provoke me to anger continually to my face . . . which say, 'Stand by thyself; come not near to me, for I am holier than thou'"(Isa. 65:2-5).
The only evidence that indicates there are levels of holiness is the fact that in the Old Testament temple, there was both a "holy place" and a "most holy place". It should be noted, however, that those holy and most holy places had to do with God's personal property, not with His people. It may be that some in God's kingdom are holier than others, but if that is the case, we are not told about it in the Bible.
This is what we need to know: First, all of God's people are holy, and because of that, all of them are worthy of respect. And second, we need to know that God chooses and anoints certain holy men and women in his kingdom to serve His children in different capacities. To fail to acknowledge these two basic truths is to endanger one's own life, as some of the saints have by sorrowful experience learned (1Cor. 11:29-30).