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The Holiness of God

Isaiah 6:3

God alone is essentially holy. The angels of God are holy angels; and his saints are holy, but not essentially holy. Their holiness and ours is derived holiness. God’s is not. God would not be God were he not holy. Holiness is essential to his Being. God is “The Holy One” (Isaiah 40:25; Hosea 11:9; 1 Samuel 2:2; Revelation 15:4). “Holy and reverend is his name” (Psalm 111:9). Holiness is the luster, glory, and harmony of God’s nature and attributes. It is “the beauty of the Lord” (Psalm 27:4). The Lord our God is “glorious in holiness.” Holiness is the glory of his Being and the beauty of his nature.

God’s Holy Being

All that God is is holy. This is one evidence of the divine origin of Holy Scripture. We know that the Bible is God’s inspired Word because it reveals a perfectly holy God. Such a God as this is not the invention of man’s depraved mind (Psalm 50:21). The god who is acknowledged by the vast majority of religious people is little more than an indulgent old man who has no personal sin, but is tolerant of sin in others, and so full of mercy that he is willing to compromise truth and righteousness to rescue men and women from the consequences of their sins, even if he cannot rescue them from sin itself. The God of the Bible is not an indulgent old man. He is omnipotent; and he is holy. He will by no means clear the guilty. This God will either remove your guilt, or he will remove you.

God’s Holy Work

All that God does is holy. Every work of God’s hand has the stamp of holiness upon it, reflecting in some way the character of God himself (Psalm 145:17). In creation he stamped upon the consciences of all men a sense of moral righteousness (his law), so that all men by nature know good from evil and are condemned by their evil deeds (Romans 2:14-15). In providence God often displays his anger with man’s sin in acts of judgment. Every epidemic is as manifestly an act of providential judgment upon fallen man as the fire and brimstone rained upon Sodom in Lot’s day. Our redemption by the blood of Christ, above all else, shows forth the holiness and justice of God’s character (Romans 3:24-26). God is so perfectly holy that he would not and could not forgive the sins of his elect apart from the satisfaction of his justice by the blood of his own dear Son. God is holy in creation, in providence, in redemption, and in the exercise of his grace. And he is holy in all his acts of judgment. When he sits upon the great white throne of judgment in the last day, when all men are gathered before him, he will grant eternal life to his elect in Christ and sentence the wicked to eternal death in hell upon the grounds of strict holiness, justice, and truth. Unless we stand before him washed in the blood of Christ and robed with his imputed righteousness, we will be damned forever. Justice demands it. But if we are washed in Christ’s blood and robed in his righteousness, we shall enter into everlasting glory. Justice demands it (Revelation 20:12; 22:11).

Don Fortner

Pastor Fortner’s