Sunday Sermons
God IS... Holy
Holy, Holy, Holy
The word holy is typically defined as meaning separate and when referring to God is used in a moral and spiritual significance that is separated from sin. God is also separate from all others in His character and morality, “Who is like You among the gods, O Lord? Who is like You, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, working wonders?” (Exodus 15:11). “There is no one holy like the Lord” (1 Samuel 2:2). Thus God is holy in the sense that He is unique and separate and different from everything and everyone else that exists and God is also ethically separate. In Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8 the phrase “Holy, Holy, Holy” is found. “In Hebrew idiom repeating something even once gave it special emphasis; a threefold formula ‘expresses an extraordinary superlative of unheard-of-majesty’. As Charnock pointed out long ago, we find no other attribute trebled in this manner. We never read, “Eternal, eternal, eternal’; or ‘Love, love, love’; or even ‘Almighty, almighty, almighty’. In the revelation given to us, holiness alone is emphasized this way” (God The Redeemer, Jack Cottrell pp. 245-246).
Positive
“To say that God is holy means, positively, that He is absolute ethical perfection and purity, that He is unconditionally upright in His essence and in His actions. He is the ultimate standard of rectitude and integrity” (Cottrell p. 250). “Good and upright is the Lord” (Psalm 25:8). “Just as He is pure” (1 John 3:3). God also have a very strong attitude towards His holiness. “His holiness is not just His moral uprightness, but His zeal for moral uprighteous. This leads Him both to demand holiness in His moral creatures and to delight in it. As Charnock says, ‘He values purity in His creatures’” (Cottrell p. 251). “He loves righteousness and justice” (Psalm 33:5). “I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,’ declares the Lord” (Jeremiah 9:24). On a practical level this means that God is passionate about the commands that exist in the Bible. The commands or rules in the Bible are not some cold and formal moral standard; rather they accurately reflect God’s character, passion, and heart. “The holy God is the source of all law (James 4:12). The whole moral code follows from His holiness. Here we see God’s holiness, His perfect moral character, put into verbal form. Thus we may say that the moral law is the mirror or the transcript of divine holiness” (Cottrell p. 263). Therefore, we must never make the mistake of thinking that obedience to Scripture is somehow secondary, less important, or somehow disconnected from some subjective and vague claim of being loving or having a good heart. Various passages in both Testaments teach that only individuals who have separated themselves from sin will be allowed into God’s presence, “Who may ascend into the hill of the Lord? And who may stand in His holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart” (Psalm 24:3-4). “And nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it” (Revelation 21:27).
Negative
“Holiness includes a negative side also, which is God’s perfect freedom from all sin, His absolute opposition to it, His total hatred of it. Considering the root meaning of holiness as separation, Bloesch says simply that ‘holiness connotes separation from all that is unclean’ and ‘this applies to God par excellence’. As far as God is concerned, there is nothing more unclean than sin; thus He is totally separate from it in the sense that there is no hint of it in His nature, will, or actions” (Cottrell p. 251). “Far be it from God to do wickedness” (Job 34:10). “For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; no evil dwells with You” (Psalm 5:4). “Let no one say when he is tempted, ‘I am being tempted by God’; for God cannot be tempted by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone” (James 1:13). “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5). “For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens” (Hebrews 7:26). What this means is that:
· God cannot be bribed or coerced to do something that would not be in your best spiritual interest. At the same time He would never compromise His standards in order to overlook evil in your life. No one can persuade Him to tempt or ruin you and you cannot persuade Him to relax His ethical demands in reference to your life.
· God is always honest and upfront with us. There is no manipulation on His part. In the most important relationship man can have, we can be assured that God deals with us with the utmost truthfulness. God never lies, stretches the truth, or overstates His case.
· God does not play games with us, as people play in their relationships, and neither will He sacrifice us for some selfish whim or personal gain.
· Seeing that a holy God is behind the words in Scripture (2 Timothy 3:16-17), we must conclude that behind every word of Scripture is the holiness and integrity of God. This means that God never exaggerates, He does not stretch the truth, He does not accommodate Himself to the errors or misconceptions of certain time periods, He does not use falsehoods to teach the truth and neither would He ever argue that the end justifies the means.
Holiness and Hatred
“But now it must be added here, just as with positive holiness, that God’s negative holiness is not just the absence of sin from His nature, but His strong attitude against it, an attitude of abhorrence and hatred. Just as He has a zeal for the right, He is zealous in His opposition to all sin. Trench rightly observes that God ‘would not love good, unless He hated evil’. The hatred of God speaks of His total opposition and aversion to sin” (Cottrell p. 252). “You have loved righteousness and hated lawlessness” (Hebrews 1:9). “Yet this you do have, that you hate the deeds of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate” (Revelation 2:6). In the Old Testament, the Canaanites were removed from the land of Palestine because they had been practicing things that were an abomination to God (Deuteronomy 12:31). The Bible also makes it clear that God equally hates sin when practiced by His own people (Proverbs 6:16-19). Sin is often labeled as an “abomination” and the basic idea is to abhor or loathe, what is morally repulsive, or what makes a person sick. Too often even Christians view sin as nothing more than breaking some impersonal rule and the denominational world has not helped by interjecting the idea that somehow God has warm and fuzzy feelings towards us even when we are in sin. God’s holiness reminds us that “He cannot look on sin without loathing it, He cannot look on sin but His heart riseth against it. It must needs odious to Him, as which is against the glory of His nature. The vilest terms imaginable are used to signify it. Do you understand the loathsomeness of a miry swine, or the nauseousness of the vomit of a dog? These are emblems of sin (2 Peter 2:22). Is the smell of the stinking sweat or excrements of a body delightful? The word filthiness in James 1:21 signifies as much. Or is the sight of a body overgrown with scabs and leprosy grateful to you? See Isaiah 1:5-6” (Charnock p. 455).
· At times someone complains, “You mean that I am going to hell because I did not keep some rule in the Bible?” The truth of the matter is that people are excluded from heaven because their rebellion is disgusting to God! “Outside are the dogs” (Revelation 22:15). This is very strong language, yet this is how God sees the unfaithful. Like animals, they fulfill their lusts without any moral restraint (Deuteronomy 23:17-18). The term was used in the Old and New Testaments to describe those who reject God’s ways (Psalm 22:16,20; Philippians 3:2; 2 Peter 2:22). “In our part of the world a ‘dog’ speaks of a lot of nice things. We think of a boy and his dog; a man and his dog; a shepherd and his dog. Dogs in the east, however, mostly ran in packs and were scurvy, mangy, and altogether unpleasant” (McGuiggan p. 339). Thus God views sinners as being unmanageable and unclean. So if you are in sin, do not have a casual attitude towards it, because God views what you are doing (no matter who you are) with absolute disgust! Maybe what people, at times, need to hear when they make excuses as to why they cannot overcome a sinful habit, is that God presently views you as repulsive and will not let you into heaven in your present condition—that’s how disgusting and unacceptable your present rebellion is.
Holiness and Our Repentance
“True repentance can raise in our hearts only when we have perceived God as the ‘Holy, Holy, Holy’ one. Then we will fling ourselves down before Him and mourn with Isaiah, “Woe is me, for I am ruined!’ (Isaiah 6:3-5). True repentance will remain in our hearts only when we maintain our awareness of a divine holiness that is a ‘consuming fire’ against sin (Hebrews 12:29)”(Cottrell p. 260). Compare with Luke 5:8; 2 Corinthians 7:1.
Holiness and Reverence
“Infinite purity, even more than infinite knowledge or infinite power, is the object of reverence” (Systematic Theology, Hodge p. 1:413). See Hebrews 12:28-29. Let us remember this when we come together and approach God for worship. In times past men were told when they came near God that they were standing on holy ground (Exodus 3:5). When the priests served God whey were expected to treat him with the utmost respect (Leviticus 10:3). We should use God’s holiness to conquer in ourselves the tendency to be self-righteous, arrogant, apathetic, or careless, concerning spiritual realities (Luke 18:13-14; Matthew 6:9). “Are we showing proper reverence in our speech, in our dress, in our thoughts, and in our actions? Or do we have our minds on everything but God? Worship is not place to carry on a courtship, write notes, clip our nails, figure our taxes, or whisper plans for the afternoon. God is on the throne. God’s presence makes for holy ground (Revelation 15:4 “Who shall not far Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? For Thou art holy: for all the nations shall come and worship before Thee”) (1998 Power Lectures, p. 208). When Abraham came before God, he simply said, “I am dust and ashes” (Genesis 18:27).
Be Ye Holy
We need to be impressed that a veritable chasm exists between God and the sinner (Isaiah 59:1-2). There is only one way across this eternal divide, we can only approach such a holy and pure God through Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:18; Hebrews 10:19ff). Yes, holiness is possible and demanded of former sinners (1 Peter 1:14), but it is only possible through forgiveness and being dedicated to cleansing ourselves of all defilement (Isaiah 6:5-7; 2 Corinthians 7:1). People tend to get sidetracked when they argue, “Will God condemn me for one sin?” The real issue is that no one will be allowed into heaven who is not holy(Hebrews 12:14; 1 Thess. 3:13; Ephesians 5:27). According to God it should not be difficult to clearly see where the world ends and the church begins.
