God is Holy
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
We have been attempting to look at some of the attributes of God, including sovereignty, justice, and mercy. But today we want to consider the attribute, the characteristic that God is defined as most in the Bible, which is His holiness.
The truth that God is holy is indeed mentioned more than any other attribute in the Bible. Nowhere does the Bible mention that God is mercy, mercy, mercy, as we see here in this text. Nowhere do we read that God is just, just, just, again as we see here in Isaiah 6. But this is one of many instances where we read that God is indeed holy. Consider a few other references.
Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed.”
“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?
The God we serve is many things. He is powerful, all knowing, just, kind, gracious, but most of all, He is holy. He is a holy God. And when we understand the Holiness of God, our lives will be changed.
Much of this material is from a book titled Foundations of the Christian Faith by James Montgomery Boice.
And so, we first of all, will attempt to gain
I. A Proper understanding of God’s Holiness.
I. A Proper understanding of God’s Holiness.
One of the problems we have with God’s holiness is that we think of it in human terms or forms. We think that there can be gradations of holiness, or levels like we have in our society. We have Hitler at the very bottom, the serial murderers, then we move up to the other creeps, and then to us normal people and then Mother Theresa or something like that. That’s how we think, and we somehow think that God is right there just one or two steps above Mother Theresa.
But God’s holiness is not an ethical or some standard that we can look at or attain to. His holiness is his very nature, his very character, and it is what sets him apart from His creation.
Theologians use the term transcendence. That is, The attribute of God that refers to being wholly and distinctly separate from creation (although always actively involved in and with it as well). The declaration that God is transcendent means that God is “above” the world and comes to creation from “beyond.”
Grenz, S., Guretzki, D., & Nordling, C. F. (1999). In Pocket dictionary of theological terms (p. 115). Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press.
Holiness, then, is the characteristic of God that sets him apart from his creation.
R.C. Sproul wrote a book entitled, “The Holiness of God.” In it he says,
The primary meaning of holy is ‘separate.’ It comes from an ancient word that meant, ‘to cut,’ or ‘to separate.’ Perhaps even more accurate would be the phrase ‘a cut above something.’ When we find a garment or another piece of merchandise that is outstanding, that has a superior excellence, we use the expression that it is ‘a cut above the rest.’
This means that the one who is holy is uniquely holy, with no rivals or competition.
“When the Bible calls God holy it means primarily that God is transcendentally separate. He is so far above and beyond us that He seems almost totally foreign to us. To be holy is to be ‘other,’ to be different in a special way. The same basic meaning is used when the word holy is applied to earthly things.”
When you consider God’s holiness, you consider His majesty.
“Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?
This is what isaiah saw in this vision. Look again at verses 1-4
In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke.
I saw the Lord, I saw the majesty of the one who is sitting on high, the one who is above all. It was Ronald Reagan who allegedly did not want to be seen in the Oval office without a suit jacket on. This has been proven not to be entirely true, but the point is that he supposedly had such reverence for the office he was in, that’s how he wanted to convey his respect. And yet, the Oval Office is not unlike our office. It’s a lot more expensive attire, but you are talking about carpet and sheet rock and what have you. Nothing like what Isaiah sees in this scenario.
The Bible commonly uses repetition to make a point, to emphasize a truth. The words pure gold are often gold, gold in the Hebrew for example. We don’t talk like that so translators say pure gold.
Isaiah: An Introduction and Commentary a. The Individual, Atonement and Commission (6:1–13)
But here for the only time in the Hebrew Bible a quality is ‘raised to the power of three’, as if to say that the divine holiness is so far beyond anything the human mind can grasp that a ‘super-superlative’ has to be invented to express it and, furthermore, that this transcendent holiness is the total truth about God. The holiness word-group (√qādaš) may mean ‘brightness’, the unapproachable God (1 Tim. 6:16; Ps. 104:2) or ‘separatedness’, i.e. the quality which marks off the divine nature, setting God apart from all else, making him the Being that he is. His holiness is, therefore, his unapproachable and unique moral majesty before which sinful humankind instinctively quakes (Judg. 6:22; 13:22).
You consider his majesty. You can also consider His personality, His will. Think about these words in
You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me,
How can God be a jealous God? Don’t we equate jealousy with immoral traits or characteristics? Don’t we tell those in our lives not to live in jealousy of another? But the reality is God is not jealous in the way we are. He is not full of vindictive pettiness, angry over the simplest little vices and actions.
And that is what makes His personality different than ours. That’s what makes God entirely holy, set apart, unlike us in any way.
we know that God is Holy, but then we ask,
II. How God’s Holiness affects us.
II. How God’s Holiness affects us.
We know that God is a holy God but what impact does that have on us? Is it merely a singing of a worship set that uses the word holy in them? Is it a manner of living a certain way, of embracing an Amish life style in order to prove our holiness before God? Actually we look again to the text to see how we live in light of God’s holiness.
Isaiah sees the Lord, the Holy One, and what is his response?
And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!”
The true response to the holiness of God is to realize our own sinfulness. To realize how unholy we are. This is what Isaiah finds himself doing. I see the Lord, I see the high and holy one, and I realize I am a sinful person, far away from God. I am undone. I am unclean.
Isaiah 1–39 (2) The Prophet’s Purification (6:5–7)
Isaiah is not silent in the following verses; he openly confesses his sin and recognizes that the consequences of his sinfulness will be his own destruction. Although “uncleanness” (ṭĕmēʾ) is often used of ritual unworthiness to come into the presence of God, the later atonement of Isaiah (6:7) removes his guilt and sin, not just his ritual uncleanness. Thus the lips seem to represent the expressions of a sinful heart that is not pure. Psalm 15 provides a detailed list of prerequisites before a person can enter God’s presence to worship. Among those requirements is that one must “speak the truth from his heart” (Ps 15:2).
This is what is wrong with the heaven tourism books that became so popular 6 or seven years ago. When you have people talking about visiting heaven and they simply run around and hang out with God, there is something wrong with their vision. The truth is, God’s holiness, God’s separateness will bring about a sense of fear and dread, realizing how unworthy we are of him. He is pure and perfect, He is the unblemished one of Heaven, and his holiness causes us to recognize our sinful life.
But it’s not just that God is holy. He is, and His holiness is what causes us to see our sinfulness. God realizes that truth, that fact and instead of leaving us in our sinfulness, instead of leaving us to perish as a result of our sin, God provides the remedy for our sinfulness. Look at what happens to Isaiah.
Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”
Isaiah sees his wickedness, he recognizes his sinfulness in light of God’s holiness and yet, God does not leave him undone. The seraphim takes the coal of fire and touches the lips of Isaiah and says, now you are holy. Now you are cleansed, now your guilt and sin is taken away and removed. You are made clean.
Now, if you are new to the church, rest assured, we don’t have a fire pit of coal ready to touch your lips. But what we do have is the good news of the Gospel. You see, when we were not able to approach the holiness of God because of our sin, God came to us in the person of Jesus Christ.
This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.
This better covenant was when Jesus came to us and died on the cross for our sins. Do you remember what happened when Jesus died on the cross.
And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice and yielded up his spirit. And behold, the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And the earth shook, and the rocks were split.
The reason the veil was torn was because our sins were paid and now we can approach the throne of God. We can have his holiness upon our lives because of the fact that our sins have been paid, been paid in full. And when we accept the gift of eternal life, we become, we take on the holiness of God. We become holy in his sight.
And so we see the holiness of God, we see how it affects us, now let’s consider.
III. How we should live considering God’s Holiness.
III. How we should live considering God’s Holiness.
A. We must understand that we can never become holy on our own.
A. We must understand that we can never become holy on our own.
This is what you and I need to realize. WE can not live good enough, we can not live perfect enough to achieve holiness in our lives. We can’t. And unfortunately many of us have been raised in a context where we are told do this, or don’t do that, live this way or don’t live that way, thinking that if we do good enough we can become holy. And we never will.
We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.
Paul talks about this in Romans 7.
For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.
We can never become holy on our own, and yet,
B. We must pursue a holy life.
B. We must pursue a holy life.
since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile,
Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.
How does this happen? It happens through the Holy Spirit coming into our hearts and changing and transforming our lives. As He lives in us, we will find our lives being changed into his image and likeness. And one day we will stand before him complete, holy, even as he is holy.
Let us rejoice and exult and give him the glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and his Bride has made herself ready; it was granted her to clothe herself with fine linen, bright and pure”— for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints.
