God Is Holy

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. Above it stood the seraphims. Each one had six wings.

With twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And one cried unto another and said, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of his glory.

And the posts of the door moved at the voice of him that cried, and the house was filled with smoke. Then said I, Woe is me, for I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips. For mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.

Then flew one of the seraphims unto me, having a lithe coal in his hand, which he had taken with the tongues from up the altar. And he laid it upon my mouth and said, Lo, this hath touched thy lips, and thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged. Also I heard the voice of the Lord saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I, send me.

Amen. We come now to our fourth study on the doctrine of God, and I think those of you who have stayed the course so far will recognize the great need that there has been for us to attend to this subject. It would of course be presumptuous of me to boast of covering the whole subject and of bringing to your attention all that the Bible has to say about the doctrine of God.

It would be ridiculous because it says so much, and even when we've completed the ten addresses that in God's will I want to bring to you, even then we could say, as Sheba said of Solomon's wisdom, the half has not yet been told. But if this series is wetting your appetite, if it's causing you to look into the word of God at a deeper level, then I think I shall have been justified to some extent in drawing your attention to this great and important doctrine. Remember what we have looked at so far.

We have considered the battle for belief that rages today in the world. We've examined certain so-called proofs for the existence of God. We've admitted that there is some value to them, but as far as we are concerned we would rather follow the Bible, which tells us that God cannot be proved in the scientific fashion, but rather God reveals Himself to men and women.

You have to walk on the avenue called faith, and when you walk on that avenue you find the Lord. Without faith it is impossible to please God. Once you could prove Him in a scientific fashion, then faith would be of no use, of no value at all.

You wouldn't need faith, but we recognize as Christian people that a valid way of knowing God, indeed the only way of knowing God, is through faith, our faith and our trust in the Lord Jesus. We have been examining and sifting some of the evidence in the Bible which talks to us about the person of God, the person of God. We came to the conclusion last week that God is personal.

We started by thinking about ourselves. What are the features of human personality? A person can will, a person can think, a person can enter into relationships, and this is precisely what Scripture tells us about God. He thinks, He wills, He enters into a relationship, He even enjoys fellowships, fellowship with the like of you and me.

But let's continue along that line a little, for what I have to say this evening logically follows the ground that we covered last week. We were talking about personality, the thought of God as personal. Now come back to yourselves for a moment.

Think of yourselves as individual personalities. You're different from each other, aren't you? You're different from me and I'm different from you, because within personality there are certain characteristics that make us slightly different, although we all have certain things in common. With some they have a meek attitude, a reticent attitude, but other people are more forceful.

There are many features, many characteristics that are all blended together to make the human personality, to make you you and me me. Now if God is personal, one would anticipate that there are certain dominant characteristics within the person of God that we can look at from Scripture, and indeed this is what the Bible teaches us. For convenience I am suggesting to you that the main features of the person of God, the main characteristics of God are His holiness and His love.

You're not to think in terms of the holiness of God and the love of God as being in watertight categories. They're interrelated, for God is an integrated being. His holiness and His love, they flow one into the other.

But as far as we're concerned this evening, I want to direct your attention particularly to what the Bible has to teach about the characteristic of God as a personal God, but more as a holy God. We have to look at the holiness of God, and then next week we should be looking at the love of God, and I shall try to show you next week why it is that I've opted first of all to talk about the holiness of God. You will discover that the holiness of God does not have a great deal of attention paid to it in modern theology, in liberal philosophy, and the net result is that people have a wrong conception of God.

The Bible clearly teaches that God is a holy God, and we are coming to the Word of God this evening to discover more what the Bible means when it says that God is holy. In effect, we're looking for a definition. We're trying to encompass this evening the teaching of the Bible, the definition of the Bible with regard to God as a holy God.

And again, I cannot possibly exhaust all that is contained within the Bible. There's a great deal of study and research that you'll have to do on your own. All that I can indicate I think tonight are stepping stones that you can cross to show you something of the breadth of the definition that there is in the Bible with regard to the holiness of God.

But let's start with the Word itself, and I particularly have in mind some of my younger friends who we're so pleased to have with us this evening. I want you too to understand what we mean by holiness. Where do you first come across the term holiness or the concept of holiness in the Bible? Well, I don't want to be technical, but let me just say this, that it is thought that the word holy, the English translation of the word holy, is, if you take it into the Greek, derived from a verb that means to cut off or to separate, to separate.

You remember in the New Testament coming across certain individuals called Pharisees. They were a sort of professional religious club. All the best men were Pharisees, or so it seemed.

Now, if you'd have lived, say, a century or two before the New Testament days, you wouldn't have discovered any Pharisees in Palestine. You'd have discovered what were really the predecessors of the Pharisees, and they were known as the Khazadim. And the Khazadim means the cut-off ones, the separated ones.

Now, a man who is a Pharisee is someone who is distinct from the rest of the people. Now, when the Bible talks about God being holy, so it implies the set-apartness, the separateness of God. You remember when we were having our studies on the Lord's Prayer, I directed your attention to the first injunction, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.

If your memory is very good, you'll recall how I defined the word hallowed. I said that you've got to think of it in terms of not earthly, or not earthly. In other words, the name of God is removed from any secular association, any mundane association.

This God is a holy God. He is set apart, so we say, oh God, let thy name be hallowed. We recognize its uniqueness.

Now, I said earlier, or I raised a question, where do you first come across the idea of holiness, of set-apartness in the Bible? Well, you find it early on in the second book, or the second chapter of the book of Genesis. We read that when God had made the world, he did it in six days, and the net result was that the seventh day he regarded as being a special day. Indeed, the Bible tells us this, God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it, because that in it, because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

God sanctified the seventh day, that means he set it apart. There was something distinct about the seventh day. Now, it's that idea of distinction, of uniqueness, that's all encompassed, embraced by the word holy.

So, when we think of God as being holy, we have the idea of one who is set apart, different from you and different from me. All right, let's proceed a moment. Here are the ancient Hebrews, and they have to be informed about the nature of this God.

They have to learn that God is a holy God. How are they going to learn it? They're not given to understanding philosophical terms no more than you or me. So, what is, what does God do? Well, in effect, he engages in a visual aid lesson, and by giving them the ancient Hebrews regulations which govern the construction of the tabernacle and later on the temple, he shows them just how set apart he is, how separate he is, how holy he is.

Some of my younger friends will probably agree with me, agree with what I used to think at any rate when I was a younger Christian, that the early books of the Bible get a little bit dry, particularly when you get to Numbers and Deuteronomy and Leviticus. Could never really understand why all these meticulous regulations were in the first five books of the Bible. I couldn't understand it at one time, but now I've come to some comprehension of it.

You see, God was giving to the Hebrews an idea of his holiness, and so when the temple was, when the tabernacle was constructed, and when modes of worship were defined, God was very precise in his requirements. He said that the priests, for example, had to have certain types of dresses. He said that the utensils that were constructed and used in the tabernacle and later on in the temple had to be made in a special way.

He specifically referred to the tapestry that was used again in the tabernacle and the temple, and so on and so forth. He set down specific laws governing the type of animals that could be offered on the altar to him in sacrifice. What was all this? Well, it was a demonstration of the holiness of God.

Not just anything would do for this God, for he's a holy God. He is a unique God. He is a God who is set apart, and gradually the Hebrews came to some understanding of the holiness of the God who had revealed himself specifically to them.

But God wasn't just content in giving them some idea of what theologians would call ceremonial holiness. He wanted them to apply this to their own ethics, to the way that they lived their lives. He wanted them to realize that as he was holy and required holiness in worship, so he required in their hearts a holy attitude.

So when you get on into the Bible, when you get to the later books, you find particularly the prophets and the minor prophets emphasizing the fact that God requires holiness on the part of those who will offer the sacrifices. The prophet Micah, speaking for God, has an argument with the Hebrew people. What's the argument about? Well, you see, the Hebrews in Micah's day have recognized that God is quite precise with regard to the type of animals that have got to be sacrificed at the temple, but they have not applied themselves to any study of the requirements of God in connection with holiness in their own lives.

In other words, they were saying, I can live just how I like to live, it doesn't matter, I can do what I want to do, provided I bring the animals into the tabernacle, into the temple, provided I bring the religious offerings, God will be with me. Oh, says Micah, is that the case? No, he says it's not, and Micah asks the question, will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my soul, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed thee, O man, what is good, and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with thy God. In other words, you see, the Hebrews should have progressed, they should have realized that God is not just a holy God who requires holiness in ceremony, in ritual acts of worship, but God requires holiness in the lives of his people.

I am holy, be ye holy, that was the word of God even back in the days of Moses. So, the Hebrews came to an understanding, those who were sensitive and those who were discerning in their studies, that the holy God required holiness on the part of their nation. And it's when we get to the experience of such a man as Isaiah that the Bible starts to tell us in some detail about the nature of God's own holiness.

You remember how Isaiah finds himself in the temple one day, a rather historic occasion because the king had just died. But as far as Isaiah was concerned, it was memorable not because a monarch had died, but because on that particular day he had a vision of God. And here is Isaiah trying to express in the human vernacular, in the human language, what is almost impossible, what is almost inexpressible.

He speaks about the glory of God and Isaiah says, you know what I saw? I saw the hosts of heaven around the throne of God. I saw the seraphim and they were singing a chant, an antiphonal chant. They were speaking out the praise of God.

They were referring to the character of God. They said, holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. And Isaiah comes to an understanding that perhaps he had more than any other man who had lived previously of the holiness of the purity of God.

So much so that when Isaiah speaks his message out to the people, he often uses the little formula, thus saith the Lord, thus saith the Holy One, the Holy One of Israel. For example, let me give you an allusion to this. In the 30th chapter and the 15th verse, Isaiah in his ministry commences like this, thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, in returning and rest shall ye be saved, and so on and so forth.

On another occasion he says, for thus saith the High and Lofty One who dwelleth in, who inhabiteth eternity, I dwell in the high and holy place. Again you see the point. Isaiah has an indelible impression made upon his mind of the holiness of God.

And the character of God as holy is carried through into the New Testament. And there we find each person of the Trinity referred to, qualified in terms of being holy. For example, when the Lord Jesus is walking away from the place where they kept the Passover feast, the scene of the Last Supper, down to the Garden of Gethsemane, he engages in a prayer to the Lord his Father.

And how does he refer to God? Well, in the 17th chapter we find the Lord Jesus Christ saying, Holy Father. See, he recognizes that God is holy. But more than this, when you go into the, can continue reading into the Acts of the Apostles, come to the fourth chapter, and there the disciples are speaking about the Lord Jesus Christ.

And what do they have to say of him? Well, they refer to him in these terms. The name of thy holy child, Jesus. God the Father, holy.

God the Son, holy. And what about the Spirit? Well, how do we refer to the Spirit of God? The Holy Spirit. And often in the Bible, my time is limited this evening, I can't turn to the references.

But often in the New Testament, you find the word Spirit referring to the third person of the Trinity, qualified by the term holy. You see the point. The holiness of God is revealed in the Old Testament.

It's carried through to the New Testament. And in the New Testament particularly, the doctrine of the Triune God stands out in relief. God Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

The New Testament writers, showing surely the inspiration that prompted them to write, refer to the Father, Son, and the Spirit in terms of holy. Holy Father, holy Son, holy Spirit. Well, we've covered that ground so far, and it was necessary for me to do so.

But having engaged in this aspect of our study, we come up against a problem. And it must be obvious to you by now. If this God is so holy, if he is so set apart, so separate, how do people like ourselves come into contact with him? Now this is a great problem.

A problem that the Old Testament Hebrews recognized as existing. Look at Isaiah again. He's back in the temple, the scene of his great vision.

He has witnessed something of the glory and the holiness of heaven. And what's his net reaction? What does he do? He cries out. What about his defilement? His sinfulness? Woe am I, O Lord.

Woe is me, for I am undone. For I am a man of unclean lips, and I mix amongst a people with unclean lips. For mine eyes have seen the Lord of hosts.

You see, Isaiah is filled with a sense of his sinfulness. You get exactly the same experience recorded with regard to Job. Here is Job, who's had an encounter with God.

He says in the last chapter of the book that bears his name, I have heard of thee, that is the Lord, by the hearing of the ear. But now mine eyes seeth thee, wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes. Why? Why does Job react like this? Because he recognizes his sinfulness.

God is all that he is not. God is holy, and Job is sinful. So Job shrinks in the presence of God.

He feels defiled. Look, was not this basically the problem of Habakkuk? Do you remember, I think that was the first series of studies we engaged in, at least, no it wasn't, it was the second series of studies we engaged in at the tabernacle when notes were produced. And we referred to Habakkuk as the perplexed prophet.

Do you remember a couple of years ago, the perplexed prophet? Why? Why was he perplexed? Well you see, he recognized that God was holy. Thou art of purer eyes than to behold iniquity. That were the, those were the words of Habakkuk.

Well what was the problem? He couldn't understand why a holy God would use the Chaldean nation, who were pagans, barbarians, to punish the Jews. He recognized that the Jews deserved punishing. That wasn't the problem.

The difficulty was, why does God, who is holy, use something that is unholy to punish the Jewish people? Well it's not for me to repeat our studies on Habakkuk. You can read them yourself if you, if you want in your, in your own good time. The point is that I'm trying to underline Job, Isaiah, Habakkuk.

They all recognize the problem that was caused by the holiness of God when contrasted with the sinfulness of men and women. Indeed, as I go on to say in the notes that we've published for this week, the fact of God's holiness really involves us in considering what we must call his unapproachability. How can you approach God? This is in effect the problem of the Old Testament writers and indeed the problem of the New Testament writers.

Isaiah, referring to God, says, he is high and lifted up, and here I am low and sinful, degraded. The problem, I think, is gathered together in the first verse of the hymn that we were singing, immortal, invisible, God only wise, in light, inaccessible, hid from our eyes. Do you ever think about what you're singing, about the words that you're expressing, what they mean? What did you mean when you, when you engaged in, in rehearsing that verse, in singing that verse, in light, inaccessible, hid from our eyes? Look at the Hebrews again.

Here they are in Sinai or passing through the wilderness where Sinai is, Mount Sinai, and Moses has gone up to the summit of the mountain and he's engaged in, in receiving the law which has been given to him by God. The Hebrews are not to come near the mountain. Why not? Well, it's a holy mountain, so holy that Moses has taken the precaution of erecting stakes at the foot of the mountain and making a crude fence to keep the Hebrews away.

Why? Well, you see, Moses is concerned that the sinful Hebrews will be overcome by the holiness of God. They haven't been commanded to ascend the mountain, only Moses. Again, you see the problem.

Let me give it to you by way of a New Testament illustration. Here is Peter, the fisherman, and the Savior has encountered him. He's given him certain instructions with regard to the art of fishing, and Peter comes back and he meets the Savior again on the seashores of Galilee, and what does Peter do? He recognizes that something miraculous has happened.

There's a suspicion that forms in Peter's mind that this man, this Jesus from Nazareth, is more than a mere man. He is God, and Peter falls down and he says, depart from me, depart from me, O God, for I am a sinful man. John, in the book of Revelation, when he describes the encounter he had with Jesus Christ in the celestial realm, says, I fell at his feet as one dead.

You see, when a mortal man, when a sinful man is brought into contact with a holy God, he feels his own creatureliness. He recognizes his own insignificance. This in revival terms is what we mean by conviction, that element that is so missing today in modern evangelicalism.

A man who realizes the pollution that is in his own heart brought face to face with God, he does not look forward to the encounter. He recognizes that God is all that he is not, and he feels as though he must hide himself from the presence of the Lord. There is an unapproachability, I say, about God, and then coupled with this is the thought that because God is holy, holiness involves his retribution.

You know, there's a lot of difficulty today, it would seem, in the ecclesiastical world with regard to the teaching of the wrath of God, the anger of God, and the concept of hell and damnation, and liberal theologians just will not accept such terms. Even here in Worthing, you're getting men who do not accept the idea of eternal damnation. Why is this? Well, you see, it's repugnant to the modern mind, but I'm not concerned with dealing with that at the moment.

Why is it that men have got a wrong idea of the thought that God could possibly reject someone, that God could consign someone to eternal damnation? Well, you see, it's a wrong approach to the holiness of God, and this is why we're studying God's holiness first. It says in the Bible that our God is a consuming fire. What does it mean? Well, it refers to his holiness.

His holiness is so active that it repulses sin. It is the character, the holy character of God, when directed towards sin, causes it to be repelled from him. He can have nothing to do with sin.

Sin is a violation of God's own nature. It is opposite to God. What is hell? It's an impossibility of being able to penetrate where God is because of your sinfulness.

This is what hell is all about. And the idea of the judgment of God, the doctrine of the wrath of God should never, I repeat, should never be studied unless you relate it to the doctrine of the holiness of God, or else you'll never understand it. But when you realize that the wrath of God is in effect his active holiness, his repulsion against sin, then you begin to understand something of the teaching of the Bible in connection with the wrath, the judgment of the Lord.

Look, the classic example is that of the Lord Jesus Christ. The classic illustration to to demonstrate what I mean with regard to the wrath of God and the holiness of God. Here is the Savior, the garden of Gethsemane.

He's in a mental turmoil. He's in agony. That's indicated by the perspiration dropping from his brow.

Not ordinary perspiration, but perspiration mingled with his blood. A state of acute tension and anxiety. Why is he like this? Is he afraid of the cross? Is he afraid of pain? There's no indication in his life that he's ever been afraid of pain.

Is he afraid of cynicism and of being thought to be foolish in the eyes of the people, in the eyes of the Romans, in the eyes of the Jews? Is this why he's afraid? No. Why is he afraid? Well, come to the day, that awful day when Jesus Christ was crucified. Here he is on the cross, dying in the shame of crucifixion, and from his parched lips comes that terrible cry, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? What had happened? Something terrible.

Jesus Christ, who had ever existed in a relationship of love and holiness to the Father, suddenly becomes something that he never was before, repugnant in the eyes of God. Our God, who is a consuming fire, looked towards his Son, and sees his Son not as holy, but as sinful. And the flesh of God's holiness, as much as the flesh of God's wrath, was directed towards the cross.

He who knew no sin became sin for you and for me. What do you see at the foot of the cross when you look there in your imagination? Some soldiers gambling for the garments of Jesus Christ. Do you know what I see? I see a bundle, a bundle of holiness, a legacy that has been left by the Savior for men and women who will confess him and accept his forgiveness for their sins.

I'll be dealing with that more fully in a moment. Let me try to bring our study so far to a point, to a peak, and let's see where we'll go from that. How are we to face this problem? We've admitted that the problem exists, a problem caused by God's holiness.

How are we to face it? After all, Hebrews 12 verse 14 ties the whole matter up in this one verse. Follow peace with all men and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord. Only holiness, says Hebrews, qualifies a man to enter into the presence of God.

But man falls short of this qualification. The Old Testament says that all his attempts, all his pretense at being holy is just like a bundle of filthy rags. Well, how does this man enter into the presence of a holy God? Well, the Bible tells us quite clearly how it happens, and I've intimated it a moment or so ago.

Jesus Christ was the only one who ever lived who retained complete and perfect holiness, and only at the last moments of his life did he become sinful. By a voluntary act he assumed the sins of men and women. He who knew no sin, you remember the quotation I gave you a moment ago, he who knew no sin became sin.

And because the Lord Jesus Christ has died on the cross of Calvary, he has left what I called a moment or so ago the legacy of his holiness for you and for me. Now listen, because this is important. When we, when theologians talk about imparted or imputed holiness, why we must use this technical language I don't know, but you'll read it in any systematic theology, when they talk about imparted or imputed holiness, all that they mean is this.

The possibility exists of a sinful man coming to the cross and taking off, as it were, the garments of his sin, the clothing of his sin, and taking up the clothing of the holiness of Jesus Christ, which he took off himself when he was hung on a cross for you and for me. Again, Hebrews ties the whole thing up. In the 12th chapter of Hebrews and the 10th verse, the author is making reference to the, first of all, to the chastisement that a normal father sometimes exercises towards his son.

And from that idea, the writer goes on to think in terms of the chastisement that God sometimes meets out to men and women, to bring them to a knowledge of salvation. Now why does God do this? Well, says the author of the Hebrews, he does this for our profit. Hebrews 12, 10.

He does this for our profit that we might be partakers of his holiness. You get the point? Earlier on, Hebrew, the writer of Hebrews has said, without holiness shall no man see the Lord. How can I as a sinful man see the Lord? Well, says the author of this remarkable book, you will see the Lord by being a partaker of the holiness of Jesus Christ.

Thus it is possible for men and women to enter into the presence of a holy God. God, who is personal and holy, has made this possible. And this has been prompted by his love, the second of the major characteristics that stand out in the Bible in connection with the doctrine of God.

His love has prompted, has provoked him to bring into being a plan of salvation whereby unholy men might be made holy and come to an acknowledgement of Jesus Christ as Savior and thus enter into the presence of God. Do you know, when you read the New Testament and references made to Christians, do you know what the word that Paul uses to describe Christians, he calls them saints. You never find that word saint in the singular in the New Testament.

It's always in the plural and it's always referring to a company of Christian people. But do you know what saints means in the Greek? The holy ones. If Paul was writing to the worthy tabernacle, he would be writing to the saints who meet at worthy tabernacle and he would be meaning, by using that language, he would be meaning that you and I have been made holy through an act of the love of God and by being made holy we can enter into the presence of this great and glorious God.

Well next week we look at the second characteristic, God as love. But at the moment let us turn to the...