God is Holy

Holiness is the attribute of God that is most forgotten in the Church today, however it is one that we can not afford to forget. Even a slight understanding of the holiness of God reinstates the true Gospel. Holiness is a foundational attribute of God, one that must be understood, otherwise the redemptive work on the cross means absolutely nothing. By understanding His holiness, even in a small way we are able to a glimpse of ourselves and our total depravity. Through His holiness the love of God in the redemptive work of the cross and the resurrection is most magnified, but it all starts with holiness. 

  So what does the word “holy” mean? It comes from the Hebrew word “qadosh” which means “separated”, “marked off”, “placed apart”, “withdrawn from common use.” There are two important meanings when referring to the holiness of God. 

1.) God is "transcendent" above His creation (Transcendence “to go beyond”, “rise above”, or “exceed.” God is not merely “quantitative” (the same but greater), but “qualitative”, (God is a completely different being.)  

  God not only transcends His creation but He also is transcendent when it comes to His creation’s corruption. He is pure and spotless, and the foundation of His throne is righteousness the Bible says. The transcendence of God, perhaps can better be understood with this somewhat trite illustration. If one were to ask ‘Is God more like an angel or an earth worm?’ The correct answer is neither, you can’t compare Him to anyone or anything. In doing so I would submit to you, that is blasphemy, when trying to describe God outside of what the Bible already says about Him. 

Exodus 15:11 "Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?" There is no one like our God! (Also see 1st Samuel 2:2, Jo 15:15, and Isaiah 40:25)

  2.) The second important word when it comes to understanding His holiness is “preeminent” which essentially means that it is impossible to understand the character of God apart from His holiness. Above all things God is holy. We see this very clearly demonstrated in Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8. In these verses we see something called a Hebrew parallelism (Chiasmus) When we want to put emphasis on a word or phrase we will put in bold letters or underline it, but in the Hebrew language when they wanted to emphasize something they would repeat it. You can see this though out the Old Testament. For example in Psalm 119:105 “You word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path” The same thing is being said twice (lamp to my feet, light to my path).

   Again in Isaiah 6:3 we see the same thing when the seraphim are flying around the Throne of God crying "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is filled with His glory!" Do you see the parallelism? In Revelation 4:8 this is used once again to emphasis the holiness of God. Never once in a scripture do we see any other attribute emphasized the way that the Holiness of God is. We don’t, God is love, love, love, or merciful, merciful, merciful. No! We see Holy, Holy, Holy! Do you think the Bible is trying to get at something? Yes, God is Love, God is Merciful and God is Just but we must understand that God, above all is holy, in order to understand the rest of His character and nature. 

  Holiness is the foundation of all that God is and does. I have heard people ask questions wondering if there is anything that God can not do. For example “Can God sin? I’ve heard some really weird answers about this, such as, “well, God can do whatever He wants.” Or “well, if He does it’s for a good reason” or “oh, it wouldn’t be sinning for Him.” Anyone who is actually thinking such things that God can commit a sin: 1. Needs to read their Bible more, and 2. Is completely not understanding the holiness of God. The Bible is very clear that there are things that God can not do. 

  Many verses back up this point: Psalm 5:4 “For you are not a God who delights in wickedness: evil may not dwell with you.” Job 34:10 "Therefore, hear me, you men of understanding: far be it from God that he should do wickedness, and from the Almighty that he should do wrong." 

1 John 1:5 "This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all."

 

  Through these verses we can very clearly see that God can not sin. He can’t even look at sin or dwell with wickedness. James 1:13 (and I am paraphrasing) God can not tempt or be tempted. If God can not even tempt, than He most certainly can not sin. He can’t go against His own nature and His very nature is the very opposite of everything that is evil. God’s character and nature does not change. Holiness is the foundation of all that God is and does. In my next blog I will talk about more practical holiness, and what the Bible was talking about in Hebrews 12:14 “Strive for peace with everyone, and of the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.”

Love

"To be constrained by the love of Christ creates a life heroic, exalted, illustrious: no, I must come down from such lofty words—it is such a life as every Christian ought to live; it is such a life as every Christian must live if he is really constrained by the love of Christ, for the text does not say the love of Christ ought to constrain us, it declares that it does constrain us."     - Charles H. Spurgeon 

The question that has been plaguing me and the question I would like to pose to you is... How do you view God/Jesus, as your pal or boyfriend who is just so lonely and longs to hang out with you and He just wants to fill that emptiness inside your heart with this "hold me and cuddle me" kind of love. Or do you view God and His love as the Bible describes? For He is The God, Almighty Maker of heaven and earth. He raises up kingdoms and pulls them down. He holds the universe in the palm of His hand. He is The Holy God who judges the world in righteousness. He is our provider of every breath and every day that by His grace He allows us to live. He is our Savior who suffered and died under the full wrath of God, taking the punishment for our total depravity. He created the universe and everything in it in six twenty-four hour days. He created you in His image and likeness and you are fearfully and wonderfully made. He loves us so perfectly that if we repent and trust the Savior, He gives us the right to be called sons and daughters of God. He is Immanuel "God with us".

Now all that being said, I do want to make one thing very clear, I am not saying that we should keep God at a distance, and not view Him as our Heavenly Father, for He does care very deeply for His children. We are still to seek for a deep personal relationship with Jesus Christ and a love for Him, but this love we are have for Him must be properly defined using scripture. Any time we see the word "love" in scripture pertaining to God's love for us is a self-sacrificial love, a love that is perfect in all that it is, for God is Love. And if we look at 1 John 4:8-10 "The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins." We see love in its greatest demonstration, the cross. This kind of love is so much better and more beautiful than the trite seemingly romantic love sung about in modern Christian music and preached from many music stands each Sunday. Nowhere in scripture when talking about the love of God or Jesus, does it use a romantic or trite language, and no the Song of Solomon doesn't count. It is an ancient Hebrew poem written to describe the eros love (sexual, emotional love) between a man and a woman in the confines of marriage. God's love for us is also the love of a father, who cares very deeply for His children, so deeply that He sent His only begotten Son into the world to die on the cross for wretched, depraved sinners. That is the love of God, the love of Jesus. Yes, we can cast all our cares upon Him, come to Him with our needs, and pour out our hearts to Him and He has compassion and mercy on those who love and fear Him, but He is still Almighty God, the Just Judge of the universe, He is still holy, and it is that holiness that wholly demands our reverence, respect, honor and worship. 

That is the love the Father has for us. But how are we to view Him and love Him, are we to see Him as our pal who we would chat about sports with and tell jokes with on the golf course, or is He our husband, our boyfriend, our bridegroom. Again nowhere in scripture does it instruct us to love God or Jesus in these ways. When Jesus tells us what the greatest commandment of scripture is ("You shall love the Lord you God with all you heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.") the word "love" in the Greek is translated agapao which simply means to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly. This is the word used all over the new testament when referring to Jesus' love for us or our love for Him. You may be thinking right now, well Jesus says He is the bridegroom and He calls me His bride. Well you are right and wrong, Jesus indeed does call Himself the bridegroom, you are right. But He never calls you or I the bride, He calls the collective body of believers, known as the church, His bride, not the individual. This way of thinking is very dangerous, I have heard of church in Africa which glorifies sex as a form of worship and teaches there members it's okay to fantasize about having sex with Jesus, and about a woman who was having dreaming about having sex with Jesus. And people get these disgusting ideas by allegorizing the Song of Solomon, that is just a very pour and dangerous way to read and interpret the Bible. And we see this a lot in our modern Christian music, romantic language. We are singing love songs to Jesus or He is sing them to us. Without severely twisting scripture we cannot find this kind of language us when God is talking about His love for us or how we are to love Him. Infact many time especially in 1 John it is said if you love me, you will keep my commandments or those who love me keep my commandments, or my favorite 1 John 5:3 "For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome."

In closing I just want to talk a little more about this bridegroom theology and what it really means and how it should be interpreted. 

So God, at the end of time, has prepared a church, the bride, a collective body of called out ones, for His Son, to say "here You go Son, this is My gift to You so that You can be glorified, and Jesus, showing that there is nothing degrading about taking a submissive role says, "Father, its for Your glory, here its Yours." The bride "the church" and Jesus the "bridegroom" is all about bringing glorying to God the Father.