God Is Holy

SCRIPTURE MEDITATION
And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints. Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest.
—REVELATION 15:3–4

PRAYER
Gracious Triune God, there is none like Thee. Thou alone art high and lifted up and worthy of my worship. Indeed, Thou art holy, holy, holy. As Thy child, please tune my heart toward Thine, and shape my mind by the power of Thy Word. Be pleased with the meditation of my soul, for Christ’s sake. Amen.

BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE
Can you think of a time when you have been the stranger? Or maybe you might be able to think of a time when you have felt completely different from other people? Similarly, God is altogether different from us. He is in complete control; we are not. He is perfect and righteous; we are not. He is God; we are not.

The holiness of God points to two specific elements of God’s character. First, it points to the fact that God is fully set apart and different from anything and anyone else. Second, it points to the fact that He is morally righteous in His manifold perfections. In Genesis 2:3, God set apart the seventh day as “holy,” which means it was to be different from all the other days. In Exodus 3:5, God tells Moses that the ground on which he stood was “holy” ground, which means that it was set apart and different. Paul tells Timothy that whoever is cleansed from sin is “sanctified” (2 Tim. 2:21). Being holy, in the first place, then, means that God is altogether different and set apart in glory, power, wisdom, righteousness, authority, goodness, love, truth, grace, and knowledge.

But holiness also refers to God’s perfect, righteous character. A. W. Pink explains, “The sum of all moral excellency is found in him.”¹A. W. Pink, The Attributes of God (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1975), 41. No other purity comes close to the purity of God. He holds the full measure of all that is good and right. Every act, thought, and intent of God is completely righteous and perfect. He does not err or fail, nor does He act unjustly toward His creation. God’s commandments, too, are holy. They are perfect, right, and true. They are different from the law of man, for they are derived from a holy and righteous God.

In Isaiah 6, the prophet records the seraphim calling out, “Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isa. 6:3). Likewise, the apostle John writes of the heavenly courts of praise: “Holy, holy, holy, LORD God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come” (Rev. 4:8). The repetition expresses the superlative—as in high, higher, highest. That the biblical writers attest to the thrice-holy God is an explicit reference that there exists no one like God. He is altogether different and set apart, while manifesting the full sum of moral perfection.

Not only is God holy, but He calls us to holiness—perfect moral obedience (Lev. 11:44; 1 Peter 1:15). Many people today think that God simply wants us to try our hardest. But that is not a biblical concept of the Christian life. God’s standard for us is absolute perfection. Jesus explained, “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matt. 5:48). God doesn’t grade on a curve; He calls us to His standard of perfection and holiness. “But there’s no way anyone can be saved!” you might be thinking. Ah, but there is a way—the Way, the Truth, and the Life (John 14:6). What’s impossible for man is possible with God.

While we are called to perfect holiness, we have fallen short of this glory of God (Rom. 3:23), and the wages of our sin is death (Rom. 6:23). Because God is holy, He must punish sin. Sin cannot stand for one second before a holy and righteous God. In fact, one of the most fundamental questions of life is: “How can an unholy sinner stand in the presence of a holy God?”

But God, who is rich in mercy, sent His only Son into this world to become our substitute (Eph. 2:4). All of our filthiness, sin, blemishes, and unholiness was placed on Christ and He nailed it to the cross, thereby canceling the record of debt that stood against us (Col. 2:14). In return, the perfect record of Jesus’s double obedience—His passive obedience to pay for our sin completely and His active obedience to obey the law perfectly on our behalf—was credited to our account. By faith, we are so unified with Him that when God looks upon us, He sees the righteousness and the holy record of His own Son, Jesus Christ.

Excerpt from
NONE ELSE: 31 Meditations on God’s Character and Attributes
By Joel R. Beeke and Brian Cosby