God’s Personality "Flaws" Part 3: God’s Holiness.

Man, this article has been a long time coming! This three part series about the less “popular” aspects of God was one of the original reasons that I started this blog in the first place. Way back in the day I looked at God’s Wrath and God’s Judgment. So today we finally finish off this series by looking at God’s Holiness.

This post is going to be a little different than the other two. In the other two articles the idea was that we don’t like the fact that God is wrathful and judgmental. But once we delved into those a litter further, hopefully, we found that those attributes are actually good. Not quite the same with God’s holiness.

If you were like me, then you basically understood that holiness, especially God’s holiness, as something that is good and to be revered. But what you didn’t understand was why? That is what I hope to answer for you today. Holiness is God’s primary attribute and “holy” is something that you and I can be. Let’s start by unpacking what God’s holiness is and why it is important.

What is Holiness?

When something is “holy” it simply means that it is set apart and not for common use. That is a good place to start thinking about God’s holiness. God is set apart from creation. That doesn’t mean he is aloof from or unable to interact with creation. What it means is that he is above and outside creation because of his holiness. We see God’s holiness in the famous story where Moses is receiving the Law on Mount Sanai (Exodus 33:17-23). Moses has to hide behind a rock to even get peep at God’s holiness. Being in full view of God’s holiness would have destroyed Moses because of his body’s inability to comprehend the greatness of God. Later, when Moses comes down from the mountain his face is glowing from having been near God’s glory (Exodus 34: 29-35). The reason this happens, simply speaking, is that God cannot be comprehended by man. He exists in a way the humanity cannot fully grasp. Let’s next dig into why this is important to us.

Holiness is God’s Primary Attribute?

God remains set apart from creation and this allows him to judge it perfectly. It also allows him to redeem it perfectly. There are many references that point to God’s holiness but one of the best is Isaiah 6:3-5. When an angel of the Lord is announcing God he proclaims “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts.” Notice it’s not “just, just, just” or “loving, loving, loving.” It’s God’s holiness that is called to attention. This complete set-apartness and perfection allows God work all things for His own glory. God is not tainted by creation. He is perfection and the standard by which all things are judged. Being above creation also allows God to be perfectly compassionate as well. It was God’s holiness that allowed him to strike Jesus dead on the cross (Luke 23:46). Jesus for a moment took sin upon himself. God, being perfectly holy, could not tolerate the presence of sin. But, in his perfect wisdom, he knew that he could resurrect Jesus. So the greatest act of love in the universe was accomplished, in part, because of God’s holiness.

How does this help me now?

Holiness is something that you and I can have. The bible tells us that we should be holy like God is holy (Matthew 5:48). Can we be perfect like God? No. But we can be set apart. Yes. 

We must endeavor to be set apart to do to the will of God. We must be “in the world and not of the world” (Romans 12:2). Through the power of God’s Holy Spirit we can be set apart. We can look to Jesus, God’s perfect example to humanity, for an example of how we should act and think. We can be better than this fallen world because we have the holy example of God and he son Jesus.

Conclusion

For this series I chose the three aspects of God Evangelical Protestants tend to talk about the least and “redeem” them. All of these posts have essentially had the following form,

• God has attribute X
• Let’s unpack attribute X so that we understand God better
• This new understanding should lead us to love God more

Whether I’ve been successful is, in a large measure, up to you, the reader. But the above form holds true with all of God’s attributes. We can never understand God too much.

Hopefully I didn’t get too much wrong J Let me know what you think by leaving a comment.