Source: Gary Chaffins (www.garychaffins.com)
Absolute Perfection
In this second blog post on the Holiness of God, I think it’s important for us to understand that since this is very nature and essence of God, that God is Holy, that we understand that the outworking of His Holiness means that God would have to cease to be God to do something unholy or to allow any unholy or imperfect person or thing into His presence. That is to say, that if anyone or anything attempts to be in the presence of God they must come as one that is “Holy” in and of themselves, which the Bible has emphatically stated that there is none of this type but God alone.
“We cannot grasp the true meaning of the divine holiness by thinking of someone or something very pure and then raising the concept to the highest degree we are capable of. God’s holiness is not simply the best we know infinitely bettered. We know nothing like the divine holiness. It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible and unattainable. The natural man is blind to it. He may fear God’s power and admire God’s wisdom, but His holiness he cannot even imagine.”
-A.W Tozer
No Sin In Him
In virtue of His Holiness, God can have no communion with sin! As previously stated God cannot sin, cannot take pleasure in sin, and cannot have fellowship with sin. Job tells us that “far be it from God that he should do wickedness, and from the Almighty that he should do wrong.” (Job 34:10). In another frightening passage we read “For you are not a God who delights in wickedness; evil may not dwell with you. The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers. You destroy those who speak lies; the LORD abhors the bloodthirsty and deceitful man.” (Psalm 5:4-6). We also see this same concept throughout the New Testament, most clearly stated by John “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5).
The understanding of this aspect of Gods Holiness may best be defined in the word’s of Systematic Theologian Louis Berkhoff when he said “that perfection of God, in virtue of which He eternally wills and maintains His own moral excellence, abhors sin, and demands purity in His moral creatures”
The truth about God
If we were to poll one hundred strangers from the streets and ask them to describe “God” to us, I am confident that the majority of responses would be along these lines “God is love” and the outworking of this theology typically leads to statements such as this: “because God is love, He would never send anyone to Hell”. Although the love God is a very important and biblical attribute of God and in it we find much truth about who He is, we must understand that God’s love cannot be separated from His holiness. That is to say that we will never truly understand the love of God, properly, without understanding the biblical portrait of His holiness. The Holiness of God must be the root of our understanding of all other attributes.
To inflate the love of God at the expense of His Holiness is to distort the truth and ultimately paints a “god” that is very unlike the God of scripture. As previously stated, the nature of God is that He has no sin, nor can He even have sin in His presence. That is to say that God is not only sinless Himself but His Holiness naturally causes Him to hate sin and furthermore those who practice it. More precisely stated “For everyone who does these things, everyone who acts unjustly is an abomination to the LORD your God.” (Deuteronomy 25:16). This confronts the culturally acceptable ideology of the nature of God. In light of our understanding of God’s Holiness we must realize that for God’s love to be Holy that it must hate! The commonly used phrase “God hates the sin, loves the sinner” needs to be re-evaluated based on passages such as “The boastful shall not stand before your eyes; you hate all evildoers.” (Psa 5:5) The truth is that because God is Holy, He not only hates the sin, but His hatred is naturally manifested against those who practice it!
“Wrath, unlike love, is not one of the intrinsic perfections of God. Rather, it is a function of God’s holiness against sin. Where there is no sin, there is no wrath-but there will always be love in God. Where God in His holiness confronts His image-bearers in their rebellion, there must be wrath, or God is not the jealous God He claims to be, and His holiness is impugned. The price of diluting God’s wrath is diminishing God’s holiness.”
-D.A. Carson
