Riverside Community Church
Connect with us on facebook. 
The shocking reality of our faith is that a Holy God, Holy in everyway, would serve His Holy justice upon Himself (on the cross) for the sins of his people, and thereby be able to show them His Holy mercy in the forgiveness of their sins.
God is Holy and justice will be served against every sinful act, every sinful word and every sinful deed. No sin will go unpunished, there is no scot-free when it comes to sin because God is completely Holy. Either God’s Holy Justice for sins committed will be borne on ourselves or on Jesus. We choose. We choose by Faith in Jesus and receive God’s Holy mercy.
DEFINITION: The holiness of God refers to the absolute moral purity of God and the absolute moral distance between God and his human creatures.
2 men of Scripture saw this Holy God and were overwhelmed by it:
Isaiah 6:5 Isaiah
Then said I, Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.(the Holy One)
Isaiah sees absolute moral purity and then sees himself in all his uncleanness. Isaiah looks up to God & then looks down to himself-oh no I am undone
Revelation 11: 6,7 Apostle John
His face was like the sun shining in its strength.(ever looked at the sun) 7 When I saw Him (Jesus the Holy One), I fell at His feet like a dead man. And He placed His right hand on me, saying, “Do not be afraid; I am the first and the last, 18 and the living One; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore, and I have the keys of death and of Hades.
Hebrews records 10:31 “it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of a living (and Holy) God.
What will you do when you meet this loving but holy God?
MercyMe wrote and recorded a song asking this same question -what would you do meeting a loving but holy God? I can only imagine.
"I can only imagine what my eyes will see, when Your face is before me, I can only imagine. Surrounded by Your glory, what will my heart feel, will I dance for you Jesus, or in awe of You be still, will I stand in Your presence or to my knees will I fall. Will I sing hallelujah, will I be able to speak at all, I can only imagine I can only imagine."
The word holy is recorded in scriptures 592 X, Leviticus alone 56 x by comparison prayer/pray is 521 x.
Faith is recorded 458 X, salvation 214 x, and money 113 x. One word recorded more times than holy is love at 686 x.
However, 1 word, which is an antonym or a contrary word to Holy, is recorded most (outside of the & and etc.) is SIN. A whopping 1328 x -almost double that of love. SIN.
Sin -that which is not holy, God is not sinful but holy in every way, God’s holiness is like the polar opposite of sin or sinful. And God records these two, holy and sin, in the Bible as a central theme. This is the epic battle, holiness vs sinfulness. God repeats and repeats and repeats over and over again in the Scripture. Thematic throughout the Bible in 4parts
1 I AM HOLY
2 I HATE SIN BECAUSE I AM HOLY
3 JUSTICE WILL BE SERVED ON SIN BECAUSE I AM HOLY
4 I AM ALWAYS HOLY
SIN can not be whitewashed
-covered over as if by paint (like the old picket fences coated in lime *whitewash)
Sin can be covered over in red, covered in blood. Know this assuredly that someone bears the consequences of sin and it’s either us bearing our own sins or through God’s Holy Mercy Jesus bears the consequence of our sin.
SIN can not be ignored by God -remember God is Holy
HEB. 4;13 And not a creature exists that is concealed from His sight, but all things are open and exposed, and revealed to the eyes of Him (this Holy God) with whom we have to give account.
Ecclesiastes 12:14
For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.
Sin can not be hidden from God
Luke 12:2 Luke had been with Jesus and quotes Jesus here
But there is nothing covered up that will not be revealed, and hidden that will not be known.
In the simplest of terms Holy means in scripture ‘set apart’ but we also know that to be holy carries with it the concept of being dedicated, consecrated, hallowed, sanctified, venerated, revered, exalted, worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness.
There are 2 main Hebrew words for holy ‘qadosh’ and ‘qodosh’ with one referencing to people or God (qadosh) and ‘qodosh’ referring to objects such as a grain offering being set apart for God -holy-qodosh
-The core idea of divine holiness is absolute moral purity. God’s holiness is an enduring thematic thread throughout the Scripture.
Isaiah saw the Holy One and fell down as the Seraphim cried qadosh, qadosh, qadosh, HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is YAHWEH, THE GREAT I AM.
Isaiah also writes in 57:15
The high and lofty one whose name is qadosh HOLY
David writes in Ps. 22 you are qadosh HOLY
Prov 30:3 God is the qadosh One HOLY ONE
The theme of holiness develops in unexpected ways with the advent of Jesus and the Pentecost experience of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament. Divine holiness closely attaches in mysterious ways to both divine Holy justice (no sin unseen or unpunished) and divine mercy (God’s Love for us and God’s provision of another way to administer His justice through Christ) This is the clearest explanation of the death of Jesus on the cross.
God’s holiness is a matter of enormous spiritual significance. It also serves as a warning that we humans are not holy. Holiness is a central marker of the fundamental divide between God and the sinful human creature – most especially in their fallen condition but also in the redeemed state entirely dependent upon God for any holiness that might reside in them.
God’s absolute moral purity often carries the connotation of danger as well. It was a great fear within Israel to get too close to God lest they be overwhelmed by his holiness. God’s presence was a great comfort to Israel while at the same time being a great threat to their own unholy lives. One did not lightly or superficially come before God. Most often, one would need a mediator to go before God on their behalf lest they suffer the consequences of being in the presence of absolute holiness while themselves not being holy. Look at the High Priest who had to bath, put on special garments, make a sacrifice for his own personal sin and then he could act as this mediator and enter the Holies or Holies -the very presence of a Holy God, a God of Holy Justice and Holy Mercy.
Holiness in the Old Testament
Throughout the Old Testament this was symbolically significant in various ways. The theophanies of the Mosaic period (burning bush, ten plagues, the exodus, lightning and thunder at Sinai) all carried a fearful and awe-inspiring experience when God “showed up.”
The annual rite of The Day of Atonement (Lev 16, 23; Heb 9) was a time when the High Priest in Israel would enter into the Holy of Holies with the blood of a sacrificed lamb without blemish and sprinkle the blood on the altar as the means to symbolize the death of a substitute for Israel. The only proper response in the face of divine holiness connected to all of these diverse ways in which God’s holiness became manifest was prostration and worship. Like Solomom and Israel falling down in awe and worship when God filled the temple and the shekinah glory fell.
Holiness in the New Testament
In the New Testament, divine holiness is mostly clearly attached to the Spirit of the God – referred to as the Holy Spirit some eighty-nine times in the New Testament. The holiness of God, which served as the primary obstacle that separated God from unholy people, was now lodged in the person of the Trinity that was poured out on his unholy people and by which God’s holiness took up residence in human hearts. The Holy Spirit brought holiness where there was none, and he was/is the means by which believers participated in the holiness of God personally.
-an aside -Jesus used the word HOLY often. He called Jerusalem THE HOLY CITY, Christ called the Heavenly Father -Holy Father. And he called angels (set apart one) Holy Angels. And Jesus Himself is called by demons THE HOLY ONE.
God’s Holy Purpose
God’s driving passion from the beginning of Genesis to the end of Revelation is to make the universe a holy dwelling place for himself. The end result of that motive is a new heaven and a new earth (Rev 21-22), This hearkens back to the original garden of Eden (Gen 2-3) when God created a place of fruitful goodness. That which was lost in the garden and which was redeemed most fully in Jesus resulted in a people for God’s own possession that would be “at home” in his presence and holiness.
Holiness and its Relationship to Justice and Mercy
There are several closely related ethical themes in Scripture to divine holiness, most notably justice/righteousness and mercy. Divine justice is one outworking of divine holiness, marking out the ethical consequences of actions – dividing righteous actions from evil actions. The just consequences of evil actions are a punishment proportionate to the action. The Old Testament standard of “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth” may seem distasteful to modern ears, but it simply is an ancient way of saying the punishment should fit the crime. Actions have consequences. Standards of justice determine how consequences should be fitted ethically to the prior actions. Divine justice is the standard by which all human actions will finally be judged.
The unexpected irony of Scripture is that God shows mercy to the unjust. The promise even in the garden with Adam and Eve that the seed of the woman would crush the head of the serpent (Genesis 3), was a promise that God would defeat evil justly while also showing mercy to those who were undeserving (Gen 3:15 and Gal 3:16).
The covenant established with Abraham (Gen 12-15) was grounded in God’s mercy, the only appropriate response of Abraham and his descendants was to trust in God’s mercy. There was no allowance that Abraham nor his descendants could earn God’s favor. Yet, the question remained – how would their sins be dealt with? Would God merely and arbitrarily forget their sins? Would God put aside his justice in order to show his love? Would one half of God’s character (righteousness/justice) be sacrificed for the other half of God’s character (mercy/love)?
The answer to all of these questions rested in an adequate understanding of God’s holiness – which did not sacrifice his justice nor undermine his mercy.
All of the manifest representations of God’s holiness across the Old Testament foreshadowed the substitutionary atonement of Jesus. The shocking reality was that God himself would take the punishment himself (on the cross) for the sins of his people, and thereby show them mercy in the forgiveness of their sins.
This mercy was undeserved, which mercy must always be, but was also entirely just since the entire punishment and penalty was paid (by Jesus). Divine justice was not obliterated by divine mercy, but neither was his mercy impeded by his justice. The great mystery of the cross is the reality that it is the full satisfaction of divine justice and the full display of divine mercy (Rom 3 and 4).
Conclusion
God’s holiness is the underpinning to the entire narrative arc of Scripture. His holiness means that all of the created order functions within a fixed moral order wherein good and evil are never simply relative terms contingent upon a culture’s moral taste buds. Human flourishing is always a function of delighting in that which God delights and desiring that which God desires. God’s holiness gives us the clearest view of human corruption. God’s holiness also marks out the remarkable appearances of God into human history in ways that are mysterious, stupendous and scary.
The greatest hope of an Israelite was to see God and their greatest fear was to see God – because absolute holiness is always both attractive and terrifying. The holiness of God runs right through the entirety of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.
The first appropriate reaction to God’s holiness is always worship and gratitude. Then God sends his holiness into our lives and communities by his (Holy) Spirit, the Good News of Jesus’ death and resurrection on our behalf spreads even to the nations. When God brings a final defeat to evil, there will no longer be a need for a temple with a “holy of holies” for the Holy God will dwell in the midst of his people forever and ever.
Application
Know, love and fear that our God is HOLY.
Is 5:6 But the Lord of hosts will be exalted in justice, And God, the Holy One, will show Himself holy in righteousness
We (believers) are called the Holy People
Is. 62:12 And they will call them “The Holy People, The Redeemed of the Lord”
We are called to be holy in everyway, thought, word and deed
1 Peter 1:15 15 But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; 16 for it is written: “Be holy, because I am holy.”
