The Holiness of God

When I think of the holiness of God it seems I can’t quite grasp the meaning of just how holy God is. The holiness of God means God’s attributes. God is deity. He is omnipresence, his spiritual nature and his absolute truthfulness is present everywhere. God is omnipotent which means He has unlimited and universal power and authority over all. He is never changing and is the same yesterday, today, and the days to come.


When the Bible calls God holy it means that God is transcendentally separate. He is so far above and beyond us that He seems almost totally foreign to us. When Isaiah saw his sinfulness he confessed he was a man of unclean lips and lived with people of unclean lips. Isaiah like many of the prophets of the Old Testament when confronted with the Lord was convicted of their sin and how insignificant they were in the presence of a holy God.

Jesus’ ministry of performing miracles pointed to His holiness as did the events surrounding His death. All who were present at His death saw His supernatural signs and some came to believe that he was indeed the Messiah. One of the criminals crucified beside Jesus asked that Jesus would remember him when He entered His kingdom. One of the soldiers at the foot of the cross also gave testimony to the uniqueness of Jesus’ holiness.

Jesus was proclaimed to be the holy one of God whom God would not allow His body to decay but would raise Him on the third day. The resurrection is the seal of approval of the holiness of Jesus Christ. All too often we find ourselves thinking of Jesus now as He once was when He walked on this earth during His three-year public ministry. In truth, His resurrection from the dead changed Him so that He no longer possesses a merely earthly body but now is glorified by His transformed body. His glory and holiness are no longer veiled, so that the description of Jesus in the Book of Revelation is the description of Him as He now is and forever will be.

The appropriate response to the holiness of God is fear (reverence), and the outworking of fear is obedience. The fear of the Lord is the result of grasping His holiness. So too it is the source of much that is good. Fear is the beginning of knowledge. It causes us to hate and to avoid evil. It is also the basis for strong confidence. It is a fountain of life. The holiness of God is the root of many wonderful fruits, springing forth from a heart which has come to reverence God as the holy one. The holiness of God is the basis and the compelling necessity for our sanctification. And our sanctification is an ongoing process. Once we are saved, we go through the process of sanctification which helps us to grow and live as Jesus did. The holiness of God is the reason we too are commanded to live holy lives.

Jesus said, “as obedient children, do not be conformed to the former lusts which were yours in your ignorance, but like the holy one who called you, be holy yourselves also in all your behavior; because it is written, “you shall be holy as I am holy.” And if you address as Father the one who impartially judges according to each man’s work, conduct yourselves in fear during the time of your stay upon earth knowing that you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold from your futile way of life inherited from your forefathers but with precious blood, as of a lamb unblemished and spotless, the blood of Christ” 1 Peter 1:14-19.

As I think of the holiness of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ not to exclude the Holy Spirit, I am all the more awe-struck by the cross of Calvary. I have often thought of the agony of our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane. Usually, I think of His agony in terms of His horror at the thought of enduring the wrath of the Father, the wrath we deserve. But in my study of the holiness of God has impressed me with the revulsion which a holy God has toward sin—toward our sin. And yet, despising sin as a holy God must, the Lord Jesus took all the sins of the world upon Himself as He went to Calvary. Jesus was not only agonizing over the wrath of the Father, He was agonizing over the sin He would bear on our behalf. What a wonderful Savior!

From my understanding of church history, revivals have been closely associated with a renewed and enhanced awareness of the holiness of God, accompanied with a heightened conviction of personal sin. If the holiness of God accomplishes in our lives what it did in the lives of those men like Isaiah whom we read of in the Bible, we will become increasingly aware of the depth of our own sin and our desperate need for forgiveness. Without holiness, we cannot enter into God’s heaven. In His holiness, God made a provision for our sins. By His sacrificial death on the cross of Calvary, Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sins, and thereby made it possible for us to partake of His holiness. When we acknowledge our sin, our unrighteousness, and trust in Christ’s death on our behalf, we are born again. Our sins are forgiven. Our ungodliness is cleansed. We become a child of God holy and without blemish.

If you would like to read some articles of God’s holiness, please visit my website at http://www.truelifelivingbooks.com and there is a website there called John McArthur’s sermons. He writes about the holiness of God and explains why we as God’s people should be holy like He is.

Thank you and God Bless…