Holy, Just, Merciful (#KnowMore Part 2.1)

Welcome back, dear reader. I am hoping your week has thus far been good and full of God’s goodness. I have been doing great, in between researching for this post and contemplating on an aspect only people wearing glasses can relate to.

All that aside, it’s great to have you here, and I am deeply humbled that you are along this journey of knowledge with me. Taking it one step at a time is important in having to understand and grow in the knowledge of these truths.

On Monday, we had a small glimpse at who God is. You can read it here if you haven’t yet. We established, from Scripture, that He is unchangeable, the creator of everything we see, and is not like us; He is infinitely higher and greater than we can ever be (this attribute is called transcendence).

There are other truths we didn’t expound on, but are critical in knowing and understanding who He is; eternal (He was from the beginning, and will be after the end), spirit (He doesn’t have a physical body like ours, thus He cannot be represented by an image, seen in Deuteronomy 4:15-19), and infinite (He cannot be contained by anything, stopped by anything, or made unknown of anything, Jeremiah 23:24).

Today, we will look at holiness. It being rather broad and of great importance, I shall split this part into two (particulate theory of matter). The following post will cover His justice and mercy. Let’s get this rolling, shall we?

Holiness

What comes to mind when you hear the word holy? I bet it’s this; a man or woman dressed in long flowing robes with hands constantly folded in prayer. Or that guy who doesn’t drink or smoke, or that girl who dresses modestly. Oh, and all three are always found in a church setting.

Sadly, that isn’t what holiness is. Secondly, we ought to remember that it’s God we are talking about, and He is not like us, so using human examples will, in one way or another, ultimately fall short. The only way we can define how God is holy is through His word.

Holiness is used as a term to mean two things; set apart and free from sin or blemish. When we say
God is holy, it means He is absolutely free from any trace of stain or of sin.

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 ESV

In addition, He is holy in that He is set apart and distinct from all His creation and any other thing. The word used for holy in the Old Testament is ‘qodesh’ and that in the New Testament is ‘hagios’. Both carry the connotation of something that is separate, set apart, and purity of the highest degree.

In Isaiah 6 and Revelation 4, we see a term used only twice in the Bible to describe our God.

And one called to another and said: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

Isaiah 6:3 ESV

The seraphim (angels of light ministering before Him) fly back and forth, singing this anthem aloud and with unanimity. The same song is sung by the four living creatures in Revelation 4.

In the Hebrew language, repetition is used as an emphatic (I hope my English there is correct).

For example, in many of Jesus’ teachings, He says ‘truly, truly I say to you,’ to emphasise on the truth of the matter. The Preacher in Ecclesiastes says ‘vanity of vanities, all is vanity’ to lend emphasis to how the pursuit of happiness in earthly things is a worthless pursuit.

However, the term holy here has been used not twice, but three times.

If you’re like me, the first ‘holy’ will have you like, ‘yeah, that’s true’.

The second one, ‘ok, not just an ordinary kind of holy, but a greater one’.

The third, ‘hold up. Are you talking about a holiness that is greater than even the greater one I can think of?’ Drops mic. Booom!

The fact that it is used thrice indicates how absolute and infinite His holiness is. Nowhere else do we see another attribute given such emphasis as holiness is.

In addition, His works, titles and all things associated with Him are designated as holy. His name is holy.

For thus says the One who is high and lifted up, who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:

Isaiah 57:15a ESV

David called His temple holy (Psalm 5:7) because it was where He dwelt, whether in heaven or on earth.

This can lead to one conclusion. If the angels are in awe of God’s mercy, they would cry out ‘merciful, merciful, merciful is the Lord’. We don’t see it, however. Neither is love, or wrath, or kindness. All things associated with Him are designated as holy.

If holiness is given such emphasis, it means it must be His primary attribute, and rightly so. If His power were not a holy power, it would be a terror to us. Were His love not tempered by holiness, it would be permissive even to what is evidently sinful. Indeed, our God is a holy God.

This must have an implication to us having a relationship with Him. How can we have fellowship with a holy God?

We have seen that one meaning of holiness is ‘free from any trace of stain or sin; pure’. Is our condition pure? In our natural state, are we free from sin and darkness?

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,

Romans 3:23 ESV

We all have no purity, in fact, we are polluted through and through.

In the earlier passage of Isaiah we mentioned, after beholding the glory of God and hearing the angels declare Him thrice holy, Isaiah cried out,

“Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!”

Isaiah 6:5 ESV

Hearing the angels declare God as holy, holy, holy, when they themselves were considered such pure and holy creatures by Isaiah must have broken him down as such. He recognised his own state before God, having spoken evil from an unclean heart that had stained his lips, dwelling among a people who lived and breathed wickedness.

We cannot, in our polluted state, have a relationship with the God of utmost purity and blamelessness. What makes the matter grave is that God cannot tolerate sin, and cannot even look upon it.

You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong,

Habakkuk 1:13a. ESV

He being of utmost power, thus, has to deal with it, and remove it from before Him. Where does that
place us?

In tomorrow’s post, which will wrap up these three attributes of God by looking at His justice (tied to His righteousness) and His mercy.

We will see why He is the highest moral authority, and how he deals with sinfulness and wrong. I pray that as we go along, we will keep growing in knowledge of Him and His plan for us.