God\'s Holiness Doctrinal Essential I

God's Holiness Doctrinal Essential

I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphs, . . . And they were calling to one another:

"Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."

"Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord

Almighty. (Isaiah 6:1-6)

God's Holiness

Hagiasmos (Greek) = "to Make Holy" or "to Sanctify"

Qadosh (Hebrew) = "to set apart"

A highway shall be there, and a road,

And it shall be called the Highway of Holiness.

The unclean shall not pass over it,

But it shall be for others. (Isaiah 35:8-10)

Introduction.

One of the chief differences between Christianity and other religions is that the Christian God, the God of the Bible, is "infinitely holy."

Holiness is oftentimes defined as "likeness to God."

In Isaiah's scripture, Isaiah sees the Lord and hears the attendants of God speak of his holiness and he immediately realizes that in comparison to that holiness, he is 'woefully' lacking. In order to make sense of Isaiah's woefulness, we must first understand what it actually means to "be holy" as well as what it means when we say that God is holy.

Holiness, arguably, is God's principal attribute; without holiness, God would not be God. Understanding holiness, as God is holy, is a very difficult task to undertake, even for the most schooled in religion, as understanding holiness would be equivalent to understanding God in his entirety. Yet, to not try to understand God's holiness is to be missing out on the goodness that man can achieve by knowing about his Holiness. Though as humans we may never understand what it is to be as holy as God, we should try to understand the importance of His holiness because doing so can bring us closer to Him.

II. Biblical.

The Hebrew word Holy, qadosh, means "to set apart," although there are approximately 12 different Hebrew and Greek words translated "holy" in the Bible; the chief meaning used, however, is "to be separated from" all that is unclean, "transcendence over all that belongs to this world."

Isaiah 6:3 says, "And they were calling to another: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory." Holiness is the only attribute of God that is mentioned in triplicate.

We heard it the first time in Isaiah; the second time is in Revelations 4:8: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty, who was and who is to come." The Bible uses the triplicate of holy twice; there is no other attribute that God assigns to himself like this in the entire Bible. God never says that he is "love, love, love" or that he is "mercy, mercy, mercy," God only says that he is "holy, holy, holy."

In 1 Peter 1:13-16 -- "Therefore, prepare your minds for action; be self-controlled; set your hope fully on the grace to be given you when Jesus Christ is revealed. As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: 'Be holy, because I am holy'."

In the above passage, Peter is actually quoting from Leviticus 11:44 and Leviticus 19:2.

Leviticus 19:2 says, "Speak to the entire assembly of Israel and say to them: 'Be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy'." God is telling Israel to be holy and to be different from other nations. He is giving them specific standards for which to lead their lives. Israel is, of course, God's chosen nation and God has "set them apart" (i.e., God has made them Holy) from all other people and nations. God, in giving Israel these special regulations for which to live by, is essentially doing so for the reason that other people may see the people of Israel and know that they are God's people. When Peter repeats God's words in 1 Peter 1:16, he is speaking specifically to God's believers, and as believers we have to be "set apart" from the world unto the Lord.

In 1 Samuel 2:2, it says, "There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God." This passage reaffirms that there is nothing else that exists like God. God is pure and he is lacking even a trace of sin; God is therefore perfection. Furthermore, God hates sin and one day he plans to do away with it. This leads us to understand something very important about sin, which is that holiness and sin cannot exist together. Though we can never be as holy as God is, if we want to be more like him, we must also hate sin. Habakkuk 1:13 states, "Your eyes are too pure to approve evil, / and You can not look on wickedness with favor. / Why do You look with favor / on those who deal treacherously? / Why are You silent when wicked swallow up / Those more righteous than they?"

God is so holy that he cannot even look at sin.

In the Bible as well, there are several verses that tell us that God sits "on high" and that he "reigns" in "His holy temple" while "sitting on a throne" -- all of these images lead us to the conclusion that God is something that is completely separate from all of creation, that is, he should not be recognized as the same with any part of his creation, yet he still reigns over it.

Furthermore, the fact that God is holy means that there is nothing that can measure or assessed by any person or thing other than himself; "God is the absolute standard of himself."

In the Old Testament, the holiness of God appears to have two distinct senses. The first is a combination of 'Absoluteness' and 'Majesty'.

It signifies the absoluteness and the majesty of the Creator in his distinction from his creation. This is illustrated in Daniel 4:8,9,18; 5:11. Yahweh's "holy arm" (Isaiah 52:10, Psalms 98:1) is "His Divine arm," and "His holy name" (Leviticus 20:3) is His Divine name.

"When Hannah sings, 'there is none holy as Yahweh' (1 Samuel 2:2), the rest of the verse suggests that she is referring, not to His ethical holiness, but rather, to His Supreme Divinity."

An encounter with the Holy is "accompanied by awe and dread."

In Idea of the Holy, Rudolf Otto states that holiness includes the ethical, but goes beyond all conceiving.

'Ethical Holiness' as applied to God in the Old Testament is the second notion of holiness in the Old Testament.'

The holiness of character in the ethical sense is given to God. The command, "Be ye holy; for I am holy," stated in Leviticus 11:44 and 19:2, seems to be merely an ethical notion because man cannot be holy like God in an absolute or majestic sense. The only way that man can be like God or His "likeness" would be solely along the lines of moral qualities of righteousness and love.

"In the Psalmists and Prophets the Divine holiness becomes, above all, an ethical reality convicting men of sin (Isaiah 6:3,1) and demanding of those who would stand in His presence clean hands and a pure heart (Psalms 24:3)."

The New Testament differs in its idea of holiness in that the external element of it has nearly vanished; the ethical meaning has become absolute.

The ceremonial idea still exists in contemporary Judaism and is typically represented by the Pharisees… but Jesus proclaimed a new view of religion and morality according to which men are cleansed or defiled, not by anything outward, but by the thoughts of their hearts, and God is to be worshipped neither in Samaria nor Jerusalem, but wherever men seek Him in spirit and in truth.

In the New Testament, the word "holy" is infrequently applied to God, except in certain quotations from the Old Testament. However, the term "holy" is often used when referring to the Spirit of God, who now, in distinction from the Old Testament, becomes specifically the Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost.

III. Historical Background.

"Holy," in Hebrew, meaning "separate" or "to be set apart from" refers to the fact that Holiness is separate from all other things and is held higher than anything else. Only God is intrinsically holy. God can impart holiness to, he can sanctify, persons and places and things when they're brought into a certain kind of relationship with him. What is holy, however, is only in the realm of God, something that is separated to him.

In Recalling the Hope of Glory, Ross states,

To say that God is holy is to ascribe a uniqueness to him that is almost incomprehensible. It indicates that he is set apart form all that is creaturely and corrupt, that he is distinct from this physical and fallen world. It affirms that God is not like humans, angels, false gods, animals -- or anything in existence. In short, we may say that there is no one like God, even though that statement has the obvious limitations of a negative sentence -- it does not by itself say what he is. But when we describe the holiness of God, we must think of his uniqueness.

Holiness has bee around as long as the Bible and parts of the Bible have been around for nearly 4,000 years.

The doctrine was taught in the moral law at Sinai to the Israelites. When Abraham was ninety-years-old God appeared to him and said, "I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect." This proves that this doctrine was impressed upon Abraham four hundred years before the giving of the law.

This doctrine has always been a part of the church with either more or less clarity.

God is holy and it is only through Him that people can become like him. 'Profane' is a word that is the opposite of holy; another word could be 'common.' Profane tends to have a negative connotation in English, but "profane is simply the natural default state of things."

The natural state of a chair is profane and this simply means that it is something that is to use everyday. A chair is not something that is given any special kind of treatment; it is not holy. Thus, for a profane or common object to become holy, it would take a special act of dedication to God or an act of sanctification to shift it to God or His realm.

In order for something to be holy, it necessitates separation of an object to that which sanctifies it (i.e., God); it also involves a separation from, or protection from, anything that would threaten to take away its sanctity.

Holy things are therefore holy simply because they are taken out of the realm of the profane and they are given protection so that they are marked as different. The protection of this holy status relies upon the protection. The rules that are also applied for protection then protect the holy object from profanation, so that it will never be common again.

This schematic representation shows that holiness can increase as one moves further into the sanctuary; this means that holiness increases as something gets closer to God.

So in the Biblical view, the area or the land outside the Israelite camp is just common, profane land. The Israelite camp bears a certain degree of holiness. Then as you move in, the outer courtyard, the outer enclosure of the sanctuary, bears a slightly higher degree of holiness: it's accessible only to the priests, who are said to be the holy ones within Israel. And then the inner shrine is the holiest area: it's accessible only to the holiest member of the nation, the high priest.

IV. Current Situation.

The classical terms of holiness -- otherwise called "Christian Perfection," "Entire Sanctification," "The Second Blessing," and "Baptism of the Holy Spirit" -- no longer take root in the imaginations of people these days.

Some people today believe that Holiness has become an extra dimension to the Christian faith. Holiness now has to be explained by pastors and theologians to Christians in a more accessible language.

Overall, Holiness is not taken as serious as it used to be, even though it needs to be of chief importance.

The term "holy" is oftentimes today misunderstood when it comes to God because of contemporary usage of the word, but we know that holy means to be 'separate.' Therefore, this means that the one that is holy is uniquely holy; there are no competitors or rivals for this position.

Rather, when we say that God is holy, it should not be an attribute that we stick at the end of a long line of attributes -- that is, after 'merciful,' 'just,' 'loving,' etc. To be holy is a general thing; that it, holy needs to be seen as synonym to deity. We must think that his mercy is holy, his justness is holy, his love is holy, etc.

Proverbs 30:2 says, "Surely I am more stupid than any man...and I neither learned with them, nor have I any knowledge of the HOLY ONE." Paul was stating that he was stupid because he did not know of God's holy character, and what a 'stupid' place for a person to be. People these days are taught how to pray, taught how to give, and taught about God as an authority, but there isn't much that is taught in the churches about what it is to be holy.

In the book Relational Holiness: Responding to the Call of Love, Oord and Lodahl argue that the lack of interest in the doctrine of holiness has partly to do with the interplay between theological assumptions and contemporary worldviews. Worldview shifts recently have necessitated a fresh proposal for how holiness might best be understood for our time. It is futile to merely recycle holiness sermons and literature from long ago in hopes that the old-style holiness movement might be resuscitated.

Oord and Lodahl suggest expressing the Christian life, especially in regards to holiness and sanctification, within the framework of relationship with God and other people. They purport that contemporary Christians will find this "relational worldview" quite helpful when it comes to speaking about holiness. Many people, and Christians, completely agree with the idea that people become who they are because of the choices they make in response to their environments. "Believers argue, however, that the environment includes a Presence not acknowledged by unbelievers. For in God, say Christians, we live, and move, and have our being (Acts 17:28)."

Why can't people understand the idea of holiness? Perhaps it is because there are many difference ideas of what holiness actually is. The Bible doesn't necessarily do anything to change that fact. The Bible itself has many different concepts of holiness and sanctification. There is a lot in the Bible about Christ making people holy, believers making themselves holy, and altars making offerings holy.

This is one of the main problems for many when it comes to understanding holiness.

The only way to keep holiness as it should be is to understand that holiness is only attributed to God. However, if we are to understand that to be holy is to be set apart, Christians can try to 'make themselves holy' in the sense that they have the ability to set themselves apart from everyone else and they can choose to set themselves apart from sin (which God detests); they can choose to live a unique life; they do not have to be ordinary, but should strive to be extraordinary in the eyes of God. However, for one to set him or herself apart in a way that stays true to God, one has to first understand the meaning of God's holiness.

V. Ramifications.

If we don't communicate God's message of Holiness correctly, people will be missing one of the most vital pieces of the Christian faith. If we work hard to understand God's Holiness, we ourselves will become Holy and closer with God and Christ. We must stop "watering down" God's message of Holiness and really start truly learning about it. The first place to start then is to understand that the holiness that man must concern themselves with is the ethical or moral aspect of holiness. There is a specifically ethical aspect in the Scriptures, as noted, and though the ethical idea of God's holiness can't be taken away from God's majestic-holiness, we can understand that the ethical came from the majestic or absolute and it is the only way that we can make ourselves more like him.

Because God is Holy, he cannot have any association with sin (nor can he look at it); he is pure. If we look at God's ethical pureness, a man might feel awe or insignificance, just like if he is to look at God's ethical nature, a man might feel utterly impure.

God's holiness, however, is planted in man's very being, in his heart, and it can speak through his conscious. "It stood out prominently in the law given to Israel. That law in all its aspects was calculated to impress upon Israel the idea of the holiness of God, and to urge upon the people the necessity of leading a holy life."

This is how God's holiness must be communicated. There can be no "watering down" of his message if people are to understand his holiness and how man can find his likeness in themselves.

Otto states, "Mere awe, mere need of shelter from the 'tremendum', has here been elevated to the feeling that man in his 'profaneness' is not worthy to stand in the presence of the Holy One, and that his entire personal unworthiness might defile even holiness itself."

The nature of God's holiness must be taught so that man can understand the "perfection of God, in virtue of which he eternally wills and maintains His own moral excellence, abhors sin, and demands purity in his moral creatures."

VI. Recommendations.

"Holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord."

-- Heb. xiii. 14.

Holiness matters for humans. Holiness should, in fact, be of chief importance to Christians, more so than anything else. The problem for many Christians, however, is that holiness is viewed as an "it" rather than it being God, as holiness is what God is. In order to make holiness a part of our lives, we have to stop thinking about Holiness as something that is other than God. It is not an "it" but a Him, what makes God.

God wanted man to be holy as well, but without knowing that holiness only comes through God, we can never achieve holiness. Being holy in the eyes of God is about understanding that He is infinitely holy and thus becoming more like him in his likeness. This requires a deep understanding of what it is that God's holiness entails, which is, daunting for most Christians.

Man should also begin to think about holiness as the relationship that we can have with God by striving to be more moral in our everyday lives. Holiness can help people right their attitudes and fix their relationships with others. To think in a holier way would improve all aspects of our life and world.

Blackaby notes,

It is the people of God who can truly shape a nation. Many look to great leaders or powerful governments to shape a nation. But most likely, leaders and governments will not restore a nation once it is on the downward slide. While the leaders and governments can influence a nation, there is no group of people who can determine the coming years of a nation like God's people.