2. god attributes holiness

The Attributes
of God
Attribute:
a quality or feature regarded as a
characteristic or inherent part of
someone or something

Tuesday 22 November 2011

The love of God is wonderful news only when we
understand his transcendence - when we
tremble at his holiness, when we are amazed by
his perfection and power. God’s love is perceived
as amazing only when we realise that the one
thing we truly deserve from him is his righteous
wrath and eternal punishment for our
disobedience and disloyalty.
Seeing God as who he is leaves us asking with the
Psalmist, “What is man that you are mindful of
him, and the son of man that you care for him?”
Psalm 8:4
Harris, Dug Down Deep p 46


The Holiness
of God


Reginald Heber
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in Three Persons, blessèd Trinity!
Holy, holy, holy! all the saints adore Thee,
Casting down their golden crowns around the
glassy sea;
Cherubim and seraphim falling down before
Thee,
Which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.


Holy, holy, holy! though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not
see;
Only Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in power, in love, and purity.
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!
All Thy works shall praise Thy Name, in earth,
and sky, and sea;
Holy, holy, holy, merciful and mighty!
God in Three Persons, blessèd Trinity!


“God’s holiness
means he is
separated from sin
and devoted to
seeking his own
honour”
Wayne Grudem


“When the Bible calls
God holy, it means
primarily that God is
transcendentally
separate. He is so far
above and beyond us
that He seems almost
foreign to us.”
RC Sproul


“The Bible says that God is holy, holy,
holy. Not that He is merely holy, or
even holy, holy. He is holy, holy, holy.
The Bible never says that God is love,
love, love, or mercy, mercy, mercy, or
wrath, wrath, wrath, or justice,
justice, justice. It does say that He is
holy, holy, holy, the whole earth is full
of His glory.”
RC Sproul


What will we learn about
God’s holiness?
•Separate
•Morally pure
•Every part of God’s character


Since the sin of Adam we
have found it difﬁcult to tune
into the “God Channel” - like a
poorly focussed picture our
perception is simply not
clear. Part of this continues
even when we get born again
due to the fact God is so
different to mankind.
God’s holiness is one thing
that highlights how different
we are to God.


“God’s holiness is his intrinsic and
transcendent purity, the standard of
righteousness to which the whole
universe must conform”
Tony Evans
God is the standard for creation - all else must
conform to him, not vice versa - bad is bad in
the light of God’s holy standard. We shall look
at 5 aspects of God’s holiness.


1. God’s Central Attribute
Holiness is the
centrepiece of God’s
attributes. Of all he
is, God at the centre
of his being is holy.
Exodus 15 will form
the basis for this
section.


1.a. Majestic in Holiness
Moses uses poetic language to describe the
deliverance of the people - and then sums it
all up in verse 11 - there he says if you want
to understand God’s actions you have to
understand them in concert with his
holiness.
Ex 15:8-11 By the blast of your nostrils the
waters piled up. The surging waters stood up
like a wall; the deep waters congealed in the
heart of the sea. The enemy boasted, ‘I will
pursue, I will overtake them.


I will divide the spoils; I will
gorge myself on them. I will
draw my sword and my
hand will destroy them.’
But you blew with your
breath, and the sea covered
them. They sank like lead in
the mighty waters.
Who among the gods is like
you, LORD? Who is like
you— majestic in holiness,
awesome in glory, working
wonders


1.b. The key to God’s nature
God’s holiness unlocks the
door to understanding and
making sense out of
everything else about him.
This attribute inﬁltrates every
other attribute - his love is
holy love, his omniscience is
holy omniscience, his
omnipresence is holy
omnipresence - every aspect
of his nature is inﬁltrated by
holiness


Often God is called “the Holy One”
Luke 1:49 -the Mighty One has done great
things for me—holy is his name.
Isa 6:3 - “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD
Almighty; the whole earth is full of his
glory.”
(not love, truth, power etc. x3)


Ps 89:35 - Once for all, I have sworn by my
holiness
Why swear by his holiness - because it is the
fullest expression of God’s character
Rom 7:12
Lev 19:2 - 2 “Speak to the entire assembly of
Israel and say to them: ‘Be holy because I,
the LORD your God, am holy.
Holiness is the deﬁning part of how God is -
the centrepiece of who he is.


“It is this holiness of
God, then, without
which the Cross of
Christ is
incomprehensible, that
provides the light that
exposes modernity's
darkness for what it is.”
David F Wells


“Unless the evangelical Church can recover
the knowledge of what it means to live before
a holy God, unless in its worship it can
relearn humility, wonder, love, and praise,
unless it can ﬁnd again a moral purpose in
the world that resonates with the holiness of
God and that is accordingly deep and
unyielding-unless the evangelical Church
can do all of these things, theology will have
no place in its life.
David F Wells


2. God’s Holiness Separates Him
from Creation
Isa 57:15 -For this is what
the high and exalted One
says— he who lives forever,
whose name is holy:
“I live in a high and holy
place, but also with the one
who is contrite and lowly in
spirit, to revive the spirit of
the lowly and to revive the
heart of the contrite.


Holy - Hebrew word
means separate - we get
saint and sanctiﬁed - all
mean to be distinct or
separate.
God is high and exalted,
distinct from all creation


2.a. Perfect in Holiness
Hence Exodus 3:5 - remove
your shoes,
1 John 1:5 -God is light; in
him there is no darkness at all.
James 1:13-14 - When
tempted, no one should say,
“God is tempting me.” For God
cannot be tempted by evil, nor
does he tempt anyone;
There is no sin or darkness in Deveronvale Perfection: world
record price for a sheep
God
£231,000


2.b. No Degrees of Sin
We grade sin in people -
really bad, not too bad, ok,
not perfect but pretty
good...
God has no degrees of sin
but different sins have
differing consequences:
Murder and telling a lie
are both sin but have very
differing results


God is perfect and does not
grade sin.
From God’s holy
perspective all have
sinned, there is none that
is righteous - Rom 3:10, 23
All evil and wickedness
are the same before God
We might look and think
that the sin is different but
it is all sin before a holy
God.


2.c. Encountering a Holy God
When people encounter God
they see his holiness.
Hab 3:16- I heard and my heart
pounded, my lips quivered at
the sound; decay crept into my
bones, and my legs trembled.
Isaiah sees God and says (6:5)
“woe is me!”
God’s holiness requires us to be
humble - to hallow his name.
Do you act with more respect
to people than you do to God?


3. God’s Holiness and Sin
God’s holiness demands that he judges sin: Rev
16:1-5 Then I heard a loud voice from the temple
saying to the seven angels, “Go, pour out the seven
bowls of God’s wrath on the earth.” The ﬁrst angel went
and poured out his bowl on the land, and ugly, festering
sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the
beast and worshiped its image. The second angel
poured out his bowl on the sea, and it turned into blood
like that of a dead person, and every living thing in the
sea died. The third angel poured out his bowl on the
rivers and springs of water, and they became blood. 5
Then I heard the angel in charge of the waters say:
“You are just in these judgments, O Holy One, you who
are and who were;

3.b. Natural and Necessary
God’s holiness means he
cannot ignore sin - sin is
taken seriously and will be
judged. Holiness and health
go together as do
unholiness and decay:
1 Cor 11:30 - That is why
many among you are weak
and sick, and a number of
you have fallen asleep.
James 5:13-16


3.b. Comprehensive
God will judge both men and
angels, including the devil -
Matt 25:41
Note that satan does not rule
hell (though it was made by God
for satan, not for humans), he is
cast there by God.
God’s holiness is awesome;
Heb 12:29 -for our “God is a
consuming ﬁre.”
Look at the effects of one sin -
Adam & Eve, Cain, Moses,
Elijah’s servant, Ananias &
Sapphira...

3.c. God Loves the Sinner
In spite of hating sin, God
does not wipe us all out - he
still passionately loves the
sinner. He wants to destroy
sin whilst keeping the
sinner - like killing cancer
but keeping the patient.
However look at Exodus
19:18-21 and see the effect
of God’s holiness


Mount Sinai was covered with
smoke, because the LORD
descended on it in ﬁre. The
smoke billowed up from it like
smoke from a furnace, and the
whole mountain trembled
violently...The LORD descended
to the top of Mount Sinai and
called Moses to the top of the
mountain. So Moses went up
and the LORD said to him, “Go
down and warn the people so
they do not force their way
through to see the LORD and
many of them perish.

4. God’s Holiness and His Terms
Holiness means we approach God as he says -
this is what Hebrews is all about. Old and
New Covenants are contrasted, we see only
shedding of blood makes restitution possible.
Heb 9:22 -the law requires that nearly
everything be cleansed with blood, and
without the shedding of blood there is no
forgiveness.
When Adam & Eve sinned God killed an
animal to make covering for them -
physically and redemptively.


Exodus 20:4-5 - “You
shall not make for
yourself an image in
the form of anything in
heaven above or on the
earth beneath or in the
waters below. You shall
not bow down to them
or worship them; for I,
the LORD your God, am
a jealous God,”


“God is happy because he delights in
himself. God would be unjust if he valued
anything more that what is supremely
valuable. And he is supremely valuable. If
he did not take inﬁnite delight in his own
glory, he would be unrighteous, because it is
right to take delight in a person in
proportion to the excellence of their glory.


“The Scriptures are saturated with texts
showing how God unwaveringly acts out
of a love for his own glory. "For my own
sake, for my own sake I do it, for how
should my name be profaned? My glory
I will not give to another" (Isaiah
48:11).”


“In order for a sinner to pursue joy in
God, he must be conﬁdent that God will
not shut him out when he comes seeking
forgiveness and fellowship...Consider
this encouragement from Jeremiah 9:24,
"'I am the Lord who performs mercy and
justice and righteousness in the earth,
because in these things I delight' says the
Lord.”


“God shows mercy because he delights in it.
God is not constrained to save by some
formal principle or rule. He is so full of life
and joy in his own glory that the climax of
his pleasure is to overﬂow in mercy to
us...He delights above all things in his
divine excellence, and his happiness is so
full that it expresses itself in the pleasure
he has in sharing it with others.”
John Piper


4.a. Israel’s and Our Tabernacle
Entry was restricted to
the OT tabernacle - three
curtains, entry was by
the shedding of blood -
you did not just enter,
God’s holiness meant you
had to be allowed to go in.
For us Jesus has made
the entry possible - Heb
9:24-28 - Because of
Jesus we are allowed
entry into God’s holy
presence - Eph 2:18

5. God’s Holiness and our Lifestyle
God has expectations of
us:
1 Peter 1:14-16
As obedient children, do
not conform to the evil
desires you had when
you lived in ignorance.
But just as he who called
you is holy, so be holy in
all you do; for it is
written: “Be holy,
because I am holy.”

5.a. Pleasing our God
2 Tim 2:19 -19 - “Everyone
who confesses the name of the
Lord must turn away from
wickedness.”
Heb 12:10 -God disciplines us
for our good, in order that we
may share in his holiness.
Remember if (when) you fail -
1John 1:8-9
If you feel more sinful each
year it might be you are now
seeing more of God and his
holiness.


5.b. Pursuing Holiness and Getting
Clean
Make sure you are building
well on the foundation of
Jesus Christ - live a life in
keeping with the royal
position you have been
called into - live in
repentance as the Holy
Spirit reveals things to you.
Acknowledge God’s holiness
like Isaiah and pray as
David did, “create in me a
clean heart”

Responding to the Holiness of God
1. Are you living God’s
holiness each day - listen to
the conversations you are
involved in, consider what
your eyes look at, and what
you think about.
2. Let God deal with the
people around you - you
don’t know what he is doing
in their lives.
3. Pray that 1 Peter 1:15-16
will be a daily reality in
your life.

“Because God is
holy, he is free from
the moral
imperfections and
frailties common to
man and can be
counted on to be
faithful to his
promises.”
The Theological Word
Book of the OT


2. god attributes holiness

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