The Holiness of God

When Isaiah walked into the temple in the year that King Uzziah died, he saw something that forever changed him. The train of the Lord's robe filled the temple. Seraphim hovered above the throne, calling to one another: "Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory" (Isaiah 6:3). Isaiah's response was not delight or curiosity. It was terror. "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips" (Isaiah 6:5). Something similar happened to the apostle John on the island of Patmos. When he saw the risen Christ, he fell at His feet "as though dead" (Revelation 1:17). And when Peter realized who Jesus truly was after the miraculous catch of fish, he said, "Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord" (Luke 5:8).

These responses reveal a truth that the modern church desperately needs to recover: God is holy, and His holiness changes everything about how we understand Him, ourselves, and the gospel.

What Does "Holy" Actually Mean?

The Hebrew word for holy, qadosh, and its Greek counterpart, hagios, carry the core idea of being set apart, separate, other. To be holy is to be distinct, cut off from the ordinary and devoted wholly to God. But when the Bible says God is holy, it means far more than that He is merely separate from creation. Theologians have long noted that holiness is the one attribute of God raised to the superlative degree in Scripture. The angels never cry "love, love, love" or "just, just, just." They cry "holy, holy, holy." This threefold repetition, found in Isaiah 6:3 and Revelation 4:8, and echoed in the doom pronounced upon apostate Christendom in Revelation 8 signifies the perfection and superabundance of God's holiness. It is, as R.C. Sproul often said, the attribute of attributes.

God's holiness has two dimensions worth distinguishing:

First, there is His transcendent holiness — His "otherness." God is not merely the best being in a category of beings. He is categorically different from everything else that exists. He is the Creator; we are creatures. He is infinite, eternal, and unchangeable; we are finite, temporal, and changing. This is why the psalmist declares that God is "greatly to be feared in the council of the holy ones" and "to be held in awe by all those around him" (Psalm 89:7). Even the seraphim cover their faces and feet in His presence. There is no one and nothing like Him. "Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods?" asked Moses (Exodus 15:11). The answer, always and everywhere, is no one.

Second, there is His moral holiness — His purity. God is absolutely free from sin, evil, and moral defect. He cannot look on wickedness with approval (Habakkuk 1:13). His eyes are "too pure to behold evil." Every act, every motive, every thought in God is perfectly righteous. His holiness is not one trait among many; it permeates and colors all His attributes. His justice is holy justice. His mercy is holy mercy. His love is holy love. When God acts in judgment or in grace, He acts in perfect consistency with His morally flawless character.

Why We Struggle with the Idea of Holiness

Honest self-examination forces us to admit that holiness is not a popular doctrine today and perhaps not in any age. Why is that? Because holiness confronts us. It exposes us. We do not mind a God of vague love, an indulgent grandfather in the sky. We do not mind a God who resembles a cosmic therapist, endlessly affirming and never challenging. But a God who is holy, a God who is utterly pure, utterly other, and utterly serious about sin, well that God makes us uncomfortable. This was the situation Isaiah himself faced in his day, a situation eerily like our own. Isaiah 5 describes a people who called evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness. Then comes Isaiah 6, the vision of the thrice-holy God standing over and against it all. Israel had reduced God to their own size, domesticated Him, made Him in their own image. God's answer to that distortion was to reveal Himself as holy as radically other than the idolatrous people who claimed His name.

We are tempted to do the same today. When we craft God in our own image, shrinking His majesty, dulling His righteousness, dismissing His wrath, we are not making Him more relevant. We are making Him less real. And a God who is less real cannot save us.

The Horror and the Hope of Meeting the Holy God

The Bible does not soften the encounter between sinners and the holy God. When God descended on Mount Sinai in fire and thick darkness, the people trembled and begged that God not speak to them directly (Exodus 20:18–19). When the Philistines captured the ark of the covenant, God judged the idol Dagon and struck terror in every city that housed the ark. Even the Hebrews who handled the ark improperly died (2 Samuel 6). Uzzah, in a moment of apparent devotion, reached out to steady the ark and God struck him dead. Not even good intentions, sincerely offered, survive contact with raw holiness when approached outside of God's appointed way.

This may sound harsh to modern ears. But it teaches a crucial lesson: the holiness of God is not a threat to His love; it is the reason His love is meaningful. A God who merely tolerated sin would not need to send a Savior. A God who could wink at evil would have no reason to demonstrate His love in such a costly way. "God so loved the world" is a sentence that only makes sense because God is holy enough to require the death of His own Son.

The Cross: Where Holiness and Love Embrace

Here is where the doctrine of God's holiness becomes not a burden but a blessing. At the cross, we see the perfect harmony of all God's attributes. Romans 3:25–26 tells us that Christ was set forth as a propitiation "to show God's righteousness... so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus." Consider that carefully. At the cross, God remains just, His holiness is fully satisfied, sin is fully punished. Yet God is also the justifier since sinners are fully forgiven, welcomed into His family. Holiness and love do not compete; they converge. The cross tells us that God takes sin seriously and more seriously than we ever will. It tells us that He does not excuse it, minimize it, or sweep it under the rug. But it also tells us that He has done something about it, at infinite cost to Himself. "He made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:21).

This is why the doctrine of holiness is good news. It protects the gospel from becoming cheap. It reminds us that grace is not indulgence but rescue. It keeps our worship from becoming entertainment and our assurance from becoming presumption.

What This Means for the Church

If God is holy, several things must follow for those who claim His name.

Our worship must be reverent. Hebrews 12:28–29 exhorts us to "offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire." Casual, flippant, man-centered worship is not a mere style preference; it is a theological error with consequences. Nadab and Abihu learned this when they offered "unauthorized fire" before the Lord and were consumed (Leviticus 10:1–3). The regulative principle, worshiping God as He commands, not as we prefer is not a relic of the Reformation; it flows from the character of God Himself.

Our lives must be set apart. "Be holy, for I am holy" (1 Peter 1:16) is not merely an Old Testament command echoed in the New; it is the logic of the entire Christian life. We are called out of the world's patterns, called to be distinct, called to live as a holy people (1 Peter 2:9). Sanctification is not optional for the believer; it is inevitable where the Spirit of the holy God is at work.

Our churches must be marked by awe. We live in an age that wants to shrink God down to manageable, marketable size. The faithful church resists that temptation. We must preach the holy God of Sinai and Calvary, not the manageable God of our own invention. We must recover the fear of the Lord, which Scripture calls the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10).

Our hope must rest in Christ alone. Only in Him do we find a way into the presence of the Holy One. He is our High Priest, our mediator, our robe of righteousness. Through His blood, we who were once far off have been brought near (Ephesians 2:13). The veil that separated sinners from the Holy of Holies was torn from top to bottom by God Himself so that we might enter with confidence (Hebrews 10:19–22).

Conclusion

The holiness of God is not a cold doctrine to be admired from a distance. It is the burning center of all that God is, the standard of all that is good, the reason the gospel is necessary, and the hope of all who trust in Christ. To know the holy God, to be reconciled to Him through Jesus is the highest privilege a creature can enjoy. It is what we were made for, and it is what we will enjoy forever in the new heavens and new earth, where the redeemed will cry with all creation: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!" May we be a people who know Him, fear Him, love Him, and worship Him in the beauty of His holiness.

Want to know more?

Please join us at Malvern Presbyterian Church this Sunday at 10:30am for our church service and to chat with one of our pastors. We’re located at 161-163 Wattletree Road, Malvern (in the inner south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne).