Holiness

Holiness is one of God’s moral attributes.

Scriptural Data
Some of the scriptural data concerning God’s holiness can be looked at.

God is The Very Standard of Goodness
This is the implication of Romans 9:14-21. There Paul talks about the call of God upon the lives of Jacob and the rejection of Esau.

''What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” So it depends not upon man’s will or exertion, but upon God’s mercy. For the scripture says to Pharaoh, “I have raised you up for the very purpose of showing my power in you, so that my name may be proclaimed in all the earth.” So then he has mercy upon whomever he wills, and he hardens the heart of whomever he wills. You will say to me then, “Why does he still find fault? For who can resist his will?” But who are you, a man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me thus?” Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for beauty and another for menial use?''

Here Paul says that God’s election is based upon God’s own sovereign decision. He has mercy upon whom he wills; he hardens whom he wills. There is no higher court of appeal beyond God. One cannot bring God before the bar of some higher justice to say that this is unjust on God’s part. Why? Because God is himself the highest court of appeal. God is himself the very standard of goodness and justice and righteousness. Therefore, he cannot be brought before any higher court of appeal or any higher bar of justice. God is not answerable to anyone because he is himself the standard of goodness and justice.

God is Absolutely Holy
Exodus 3:3-5 can be looked at. This is the appearance to Moses on the part of God in the burning bush.

And Moses said, “I will turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.” When the LORD saw that he [Moses] turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, “Moses, Moses!” And he said, “Here am I.” Then he said, “Do not come near; put off your shoes from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.”

The presence of God made that hallowed ground so that Moses is told to take the shoes off of his feet because of the holiness of that place.

Leviticus 19:2: “Say to all the congregation of the people of Israel, ‘You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.’” Here God’s command to the people is that his holiness should be reflected in their lives. They should be holy because God himself is holy.

Finally, in the very last book of the Bible, in Revelation 4:8 it reads:

And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to sing, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”

So God is absolutely holy. That then is the basis for the holiness that should characterize people’s lives.

God’s Holiness Serves To Expose Man’s Sinfulness
Isaiah 6:1-5 is the vision of God that Isaiah had in the temple.

''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. 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!”''

Here the vision of God’s awesome holiness creates in Isaiah a deep sense of his own uncleanness and unrighteousness by comparison with God’s holiness. The awful purity of God serves to expose people’s own wickedness and inadequacy.

God’s Holiness Separates Man From God
Look at the prophet Habakkuk, Habakkuk 1:13a. The prophet says of the Lord, “Thou who art of purer eyes than to behold evil and canst not look on wrong.” God’s eyes are too pure to behold evil. He cannot look upon wrongdoing because of his holiness. As a result, humans (being wrongdoers and being unholy) are spiritually separated from God as a result. They cannot abide in his presence.

Isaiah 59:1-2 express this very well.

“Behold, the LORD’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear; but your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you so that he does not hear.”

Here Isaiah says, The problem is not on God’s part. He is omnipotent. He is omniscient. He can hear people’s prayers. The failing is not with God. It is that human sin and wickedness have created this separation between people and God so that he does not hear their prayers.

So the holiness of God serves to separate sinful man from God’s fellowship and presence. God’s holiness disperses evil just as light disperses darkness. They cannot abide together.

Euthyphro Dilemma
The Euthyphro Dilemma is named after a character in one of Plato’s dialogues named Euthyphro. The dilemma basically goes like this: “Does God will something because it is good or is something good because Gods wills it?” If something is good just because God wills it then that makes good and evil arbitrary. God just makes up what is right and wrong, and he could have declared that hatred is good and love is evil. Then everyone would be morally obligated to hate one another, and to try to do one another harm. That seems crazy that good and evil, right and wrong, are just arbitrary like that. So it cannot be the case that the good is just whatever God wills.

But then if the answer is, no, God wills what is good then the good is independent of God. God lives up to the standard of goodness. What is good and evil is independent of God, and God always wills the right thing. He always wills the good thing. In that case God is not the standard of justice and goodness. There is something beyond him to which God must conform. He has to, in order to be good, command things in line with what is good independently of him.

So the Euthyphro Dilemma has the implication that God cannot be the source of moral goodness. Either the good is independent of God and God just does what is good, or else good and evil are purely arbitrary and made up by God.

Criticism
Christian philosophers, however, have exposed the Euthyphro Dilemma as a false dilemma. The two alternatives, despite first appearances perhaps, are not exhaustive. It is not as though it has to be chosen between A or not-A. This is like choosing between A and B, and there can be a third alternative C. In fact, in this case neither of the two alternatives is correct, but they are not exhaustive. The correct alternative is to say, “God wills something because he is good.” That is to say, God is the standard of goodness. God is what Plato called The Good. He is, by his very nature, fair, loving, kind, compassionate, truth-telling, loyal, and so forth. He has all of these virtues as part of his essence, and therefore these goods are anchored in the being of God. They are goods because they are God’s properties – God’s virtues. God is The Good and he determines the standard of goodness. The Good is not something that is independent of God to which God conforms, nor is The Good based in God’s will – in his arbitrary decision. Rather, God himself is The Good and he is that way by his very nature.

Divine Command Morality
When God gives moral commands to people, these are expressions of his perfectly good nature. These become people’s moral duties so right and wrong (moral obligation and prohibition) are based in the commands of a just and loving God. Good and evil is determined by God’s nature; right and wrong (people’s moral duties) are anchored in God’s will which is an expression of that nature and therefore not simply arbitrarily chosen.

What that would suggest then is God is not beneath the law (That would be the view that God somehow conforms to an independent moral law that exists apart from him). Rather, here the philosopher Immanuel Kant made a very helpful distinction between acting from duty or acting according to duty. God issues moral commands to people that constitute their moral duties or obligations. They act from duty. Duty, or obligation, is imposed upon them. When they do these things they do their duty. They act from duty. But when God does them it is not as though he is acting from duty because presumably he does not issue commands to himself, right? So he does not have any moral duties in a literal sense, but because of his perfectly good nature he acts in accordance with what would be moral duty. Humans act from duty, but God out of his very nature simply acts in accord with moral duty. But he does not literally have moral duties because he does not issue commands to himself, and commands are the source of people’s moral obligations. Obligations arise as a result of moral imperatives: “Thou shalt do this,” “Thou shalt not do that.” These moral imperatives come from a qualified authority; namely, God who is goodness itself.

This view of the relationship between God and The Good is sometimes called “divine command morality.” That is to say, human moral duties are based in the commandments of God to humans – they constitute people’s duties – but those commands are not arbitrary. That would be a sort of voluntaristic divine command theory which some Christian thinkers have held, but the majority would say, no, these commandments that God gives are expressions of his own essence. So it is impossible that God could have commanded, say, that hatred be good and love be evil because that would be to contradict his very essence. He is by nature loving and so to issue such a command would contradict his nature which is logically impossible.

Practical Application
What application does the attribute of God’s holiness have to human lives? This is evidently of profound importance for Christian living.

People Should Strive For Personal Holiness in Their Lives
The holiness of God is a reminder of how much God hates sin. The book of Revelation, for example, on the wrath of God Can be read. That is such a sobering reminder of God’s hatred for sin and evil. For example, Revelation 14:18-20 gives this terrifying image of the wine press of the wrath of God.

Then another angel came out from the altar, the angel who has power over fire, and he called with a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, “Put in your sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for its grapes are ripe.” So the angel swung his sickle on the earth and gathered the vintage of the earth, and threw it into the great wine press of the wrath of God; and the wine press was trodden outside the city, and blood flowed from the wine press, as high as a horse’s bridle, for one thousand six hundred stadia.

That is about two hundred miles! What a horrifying image this is of the wine press of the wrath of God flowing with the blood of its victims as high as a horse’s bridle for two hundred miles. This is an image that should be a reminder of how much God hates sin and is opposed to it. One sin kept Moses out of the Promised Land. One sin destroyed Ananias and Sapphira. The problem that people have is that they blink at sin because they do not really think it is that bad. They think that God is like them, and he will simply wink at sin and overlook it.

Psalm 50:21 is an interesting verse in this connection. God is speaking here and he says, “These things you have done and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you and lay the charge before you.” What was the problem the Jews had here? They thought that God was like them. They had small thoughts of God. They did not understand his terrible and awesome holiness. So he had been silent and they thought it was all right. But now he says he rebukes them and lays the charge in front of them.

Having said that it is an important reminder that Goes does not hate sinners; he hates their sin. God loves sinners. He loves them so much that he sent his Son to die for them. But he hates the sin that pollutes their life. Far from being something negative, the wrath of God which is an expression of his holiness is absolutely vital to a correct concept of God and to Christian living. Stephen Davis is a prominent Christian philosopher. This paragraph in his book Risen Indeed says,

''I think we ignore the concept of the wrath of God at our own cost. Indeed, I would argue for the radical proposition that our only hope as human beings is the wrath of God. (It is also true, of course, that our only hope is the grace of God, but that is another matter). The wrath of God shows that we do not live, as so many today suppose that we do, in a random and morally neutral universe. God’s wrath shows us that right and wrong are objectively real, they are to be discovered, not created. The wrath of God is our only hope because it teaches us the moral significance of our deeds and shows us how life is to be lived.''

So affirming the wrath of God upon sin should not be feared. This is an indication of his holiness and, as Davis says, the objectivity of right and wrong which is the only hope in the world.

As those who are called to a righteous and holy life, Christians need to strive for lives without blemish. 1 Peter 1:14-16: “As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.’” People are to strive for holiness in their lives which reflects the holiness of God. To live lives that are without blemish.

Here is the paradoxical thing that is discovered that is such an incredible irony or paradox of God’s economy. That is that holiness is the secret to happiness. So many people want to be happy. They will compromise morally or do things that the Bible says you should not do because, as they put it, I just want to be happy. But the truth of the matter is that happiness is like a will-o’-the-wisp. If sought directly – happiness is attempted – it will always elude people’s grasp and they will not find it. But if holiness is strived for, then in seeking to be holy, people will suddenly discover that happiness has crept up on them and is sitting there on their shoulders because they are doing the will of God. In Matthew 6:33 Jesus says, “Seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be yours as well.” Seeking for God’s holiness in life needs to be made the focus of life. As that is done people will find that they are living lives that are deeply and profoundly happy.

In Christ God’s Holiness Becomes People’s Justification
For those outside of Christ, God’s holiness is an awful terror. It is the source of the justice and the wrath of God which comes upon people who are separated from him and apart from Christ. But, ironically, for those who are in Christ, God’s holiness becomes the source of their salvation. This was Martin Luther’s great insight into Romans 1:16-17. Romans 1:16-17 can be read:

''For I am not ashamed of the Gospel: it is the power of God for salvation to every one who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed though faith for faith; as it is written, “He who through faith is righteous shall live.”''

Luther, as a Catholic monk, was obsessed with the holiness and the wrath of God which filled him with terror. He strove to live a holy and righteous life full of spiritual disciplines. But he could never rid himself of the terrible guilt that he felt he carried before a holy God. He realized he could never measure up. Despite his every effort, Luther was filled with terror before this holy God, until he saw that through faith in Christ the righteousness of God becomes people’s righteousness. As a person is in Christ, Christ’s righteousness is imputed to them, and God sees them clothed in the righteousness of Christ himself. So that very holiness that once condemned humans now becomes the source of their salvation.

Romans 3:21-26, are some of the most profound verses in the New Testament – the heart of the Gospel.

''But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from law, although the law and the prophets bear witness to it, the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction; since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, they are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as an expiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins; it was to prove at the present time that he himself is righteous and that he justifies [or makes righteous] him who has faith in Jesus.''