Chapter Two: The Holiness of God

What is infinite? The distance to the known edge of the universe is said to be about thirteen billion light-years away. Stated in miles, that would be about 78,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. To save you counting, that is twenty-one zeros! Seventy-eight billion, trillion miles. That is an exceedingly vast distance, but it is not an infinite distance. Infinite means without limits and immeasurable. Only God is infinite, and He is infinite in all His glorious attributes. But it is only His holiness that is given the threefold ascription “holy, holy, holy.” We never read of God’s being “wise, wise, wise” or “powerful, powerful, powerful,” though He is infinite in all His attributes. It appears that God purposed to magnify His holiness in a unique way. In fact, God’s name is qualified by the adjective holy in the Old Testament more often than all other qualities put together.

Because we cannot fully grasp the concept of infinity, God condescends to use relative terms of vastness or exceedingly great to speak to us of His infiniteness. For example, He says of Himself in Isaiah 40:15,17,

This emphasis on the infiniteness of God’s holiness begs the question “What does the Bible mean when it speaks of the holiness of God?” The Hebrew word translated as holy is qadosh, which basically means “separate.” Old Testament scholar E. J. Young says that qadosh signifies the entirety of the divine perfection that separates God from His creation, including His complete separation from all that is sinful.

Holiness, when used of God, is a comprehensive term to denote all that God is in His transcendent majesty and infinite moral purity. Isaiah’s vision of God, as recorded in Isaiah 6:1-8, is the classic passage of Scripture on the holiness of God, and it will help us gain insight into the holiness of God and the implication of that holiness for us today.

The expression “high and lifted up” speaks of His supreme exaltation — the glorious display of His royalty, splendor, and glory. The train of His robe filling the temple accentuates His royalty and splendor. With present-day bridal gowns, the train is the apex of the dress, indicating to some degree the beauty and expensiveness of the gown. Even more telling is the fact that the coronation robe of a king or queen always includes a train, the length of it intended to display the royalty and splendor of the person being crowned. When Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain was crowned in 1953, her train was thirty-six feet long. It was made of velvet and trimmed in expensive ermine and was so heavy it had to be carried by six maids of honor, walking behind her.

By contrast, the train of God’s robe was so long it filled the temple, an expression intended to convey to us the infinite royalty, splendor, dignity, and majesty of God. The royalty and splendor of the wealthiest and most powerful monarch who has ever lived is no more than a trifle compared to the royalty and splendor of God.

What we see then in Isaiah 6:1 is a picture of the transcendent majesty of God. The word transcendent means all-surpassing, above and beyond anything else. The word majesty includes all of God’s sovereign power and authority, royalty, dignity, and splendor. So transcendent majesty speaks of the infinite power, authority, royalty, dignity, and splendor that is God’s.

One of the earliest recorded references to the holiness of God occurs in the song of Moses after the Israelites had crossed the Red Sea and had seen God drown the Egyptian army in the sea. They sang, “Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?” (Exodus 15:11).

Note the phrase “majestic in holiness.” In the context of the Red Sea episode, this is a reference to God’s sovereign power and authority, specifically the power to deliver the Israelite people from the pursuit of the mighty Egyptian army. Consider what a stupendous act it was that God did in parting the Red Sea so that the Israelites could pass through. He caused the waters to part and stand up like concrete walls and made the sea bottom as dry land for the Israelites to walk on (see Exodus 14:21-29). And then through His same sovereign power, God released the parted waters to resume their normal course so the entire Egyptian army was drowned in the midst of the sea. No wonder the Israelites sang, “Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods?” (15:11).

Transcendent majesty is the first meaning of God’s holiness. Isaiah, writing his book under the direct guidance of the Holy Spirit, used the phrase “Holy One of Israel” thirty times. In each instance, it is the infinite, transcendent majesty, power, and authority of God that is mostly in view. If we fail to grasp this idea and its implications to us, we will not grasp the weightiness of the second meaning of God’s holiness, that of His infinite moral purity.

Obviously when God says, “Be holy, for I am holy,” He is not speaking of His transcendent majesty, which is reserved exclusively for Himself. Rather, He is referring to His infinite moral purity. It is only this aspect of His holiness that we can seek to emulate, even to only a small degree.

Recall again that the threefold repetition, “Holy, holy, holy,” indicates the highest possible degree, or the infiniteness of God’s holiness. So God is infinite not only in His majesty but also in His moral purity. This twofold aspect of God’s holiness has profound implications for us, as we will see in the next chapter. But for now we can see that God’s transcendent majesty adds weight to His moral purity, and His moral purity adds beauty to His majesty. We have a saying that “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” This may be true in a general sense of human rulers or politicians, but it is certainly not true of God. Rather, He is absolute in His power and infinite in His moral purity.

It is difficult for us to conceive of God’s perfect moral purity because we always measure moral purity by a standard outside ourselves. But God is the standard, and when measured against the standard of God’s infinite holiness, our own holiness on our very best day is no more than a drop in a bucket compared to His. In fact, Isaiah, toward the end of his book, went further and described all our righteous deeds as “like a polluted garment” (64:6).

Yet God has called us to be holy as He is holy. He has in effect called us to an impossible task. That is why Martin Luther, in the days before his understanding of the gospel, was so angry with God. In fact, once when asked if he loved God, he is said to have replied, “Love God? I hate God!” He realized that God was calling him to an impossible standard and then would damn him eternally for his failure to achieve it.

Impossible though it is for us to fulfill this standard, God has nevertheless called us to be holy as He is holy, and in order that we might understand what it means to be holy as He is holy, He has given to us His law (and here I am using law as a shorthand expression for all the moral will of God found throughout Scripture). God’s law is both an expression of His moral will for us and also a reflection of His character. Remember, though, who it is that has said, “Be holy for I am holy.” It is the infinite sovereign ruler of all creation, who has both the power to rule and the sovereign authority to require obedience to His law. We should always keep in mind this twofold aspect of God’s holiness: His transcendent majesty and His infinite moral purity.

Habakkuk, in 1:13, said of God, “You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong.” That is, God cannot look at evil with complacency or indifference. Rather, as Proverbs 6:16 says, “There are six things the LORD hates, seven that are an abomination to him.” Note the words hate and abomination. Those are strong words, indicating God’s infinite detestation of all sin, whether a major sin, such as adultery, or a more “acceptable sin,” such as unkind words about someone else. Obviously there are degrees of sin, but our sins of pride, selfishness, jealousy, gossip, and the like are still sin. They are an abomination to Him.

The apostle Paul wrote in Romans 1:18, “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness.” This is just one of several places in the New Testament that speaks of the wrath of God (see also John 3:36; Romans 2:5; Ephesians 2:3; Revelation 6:15-17). Of course, God’s wrath is not a display of sinful emotions such as we usually associate with human wrath; rather it reflects His holy hatred of all sin and His determination to punish it. We might say that God’s wrath is His infinite justice in action — a justice that cannot allow any sin, be it ever so small in our eyes, to go unpunished.

Our next chapter is on the subject of our sin, and we can see sin rightly only when we see it as against an infinitely holy God. Nineteenth-century writer William Plumer said, “All sin is against God in this sense; that it is His law that is broken, His authority that is despised, His government that is set at naught.” We may harm someone physically or damage his reputation through gossip, but what matters most of all is that it is God’s law that we have violated.

Another nineteenth-century theologian wrote,

This is the way we should view the enormity of our sin. God’s holiness cannot be compared to even the thirty-thousand-dollar rug. It is infinite. It is immeasurable. Furthermore, we do not accidently “spill” our sin on God’s holiness. For the most part, we rather pour out our sin; that is, we choose to act out our pride and selfishness, our judgmental attitudes, and our unkind words about others. And when we do that, we deliberately pour out our sin on the holiness of God. That is why our sin, be it ever so small in our eyes, is always an abomination to God.

We need to be clear in our minds that the pursuit of holiness — that is, seeking to be holy as God is holy — is no light, incidental matter. It is central to the Christian life. The psalmist wrote, “You have commanded your precepts to be kept diligently” (Psalm 119:4). Diligently! That is the way we are to respond to God’s command “Be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:16).

Yet in spite of God’s holiness — that is, His sovereign authority and moral purity — few Christians give serious attention to the pursuit of holiness. In fact, most of us seem to be quite satisfied with our character and conduct if we live generally decent lives and avoid the scandalous sins of society around us. For this reason, we need to closely examine the seriousness of our sin or, as one of the Puritan writers so quaintly put it, the “sinfulness of our sin.” And this we will do in the next chapter.