THE GOD OF HOLINESS
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"You only are holy." Rev.15:4
No perfection of "our God," thus far considered, presents Him to our view so like Himself as the perfection of holiness. We can form no proper idea of God apart from this. Even the unrenewed mind is conscious that it has to deal with God who cannot connive at sin. It is true, its conceptions must be obscure, its views defective; for, what proper notion of Divine holiness can a sinful being form? His views must necessarily be just what those of an untutored peasant would be of the sun beheld through a misted and distorted medium. There would be in that peasant's mind the conviction that there was a sun, and that it was light; but the mental conception of the nature and splendor of the orb would, from the necessity of the case, be obscure and defective.
There is in the human conscience the conviction that God is a God of holiness- for conscience, left to its natural bias, is ever in the interests of truth and righteousness, and, as the vice-regent of the soul, faithfully whispers in the ear what is right and what is wrong. But the highest and clearest views of the Divine holiness cherished by the unrenewed mind, in consequence of the sinfulness and darkness of the mind, fall infinitely short of what God is as the God of holiness.
Such is the Divine perfection to which we now bend our devout contemplation. We are profoundly sensible of the awesomeness and solemnity of our theme. The ground upon which we stand is, indeed, most holy, and we have need to put off the shoes from our feet, for "Who can stand before this holy Lord God?" Only as we keep our eye upon atoning blood, can we for a moment gaze upon the unsufferable brightness of the God of holiness. Only can we deal with the Divine purity as we deal with the Divine Savior. The Great Atonement must come between us and the Divine Sun of infinite purity, or the effulgence of its beams would overpower and the holiness of its glory would consume us. Let us, standing beneath the shadow of the cross of Jesus, meditate upon this lofty theme; and thus, with our believing eye reposing upon the blood, which cleanses from all sin, we may pass within the veil, and sinful though we are, hold sweet fellowship with Him who "only is holy."
The passage upon which the present subject is based suggests the first thought we offer– that is, the ESSENTIAL HOLINESS of God. God is essentially holy. This must he the meaning of the remarkable words addressed to Him in the anthem of the glorified saints, "You only are holy," not holy merely as others are holy, but as positively and essentially holy, in comparison of whom none are holy. "You ONLY are holy." "You only are divinely holy, You only are holy, from the necessity of Your nature; You only are infinitely, absolutely holy." Such is the key-note, and such the substance of the triumphant song of Moses and the Lamb.
As there is none good but God, so there is none holy but God. His creatures are derivatively holy; He is holy from Himself– absolutely, independently holy. "No one is holy like the Lord! There is no one besides you; there is no Rock like our God." 1 Samuel 2:2. In comparison of God, none are holy, so essentially pure and spotless is He. The heavens are not clean in His sight, and He charges His angels with folly. These are remarkable words! Just as the stars pale before the sun, creature holiness grows dim and is eclipsed by the divine and essential holiness of God. In comparison of His holiness, the holiest creatures and things are not clean in His sight.
It is said of God that, "He only has immortality." All created beings are immortal, but God is absolutely so. He only has immortality as an essential perfection of His nature. All others derive their immortality from Him; He from Himself. What a great and glorious being, then, is God! He is "glorious in holiness." He could possess no glory were He destitute of perfect holiness. Divine in His nature, endowed with infinite perfections, and possessing resources vast and boundless as His infinity, imagine what a being He would be- how powerful for evil, how potent for destruction- were not every perfection of His nature imbued with, and under the control of, infinite and perfect holiness!
We measure the extent of a fallen creature's capacity for good or for evil by the amount of his intellectual and moral resources. In proportion to his ability to control the minds, shape the opinions and influence the actions of others, we regard the extent of evil or of good he is capable of accomplishing. Imagine, then, measured by this rule, what a being God would be were He destitute of perfect holiness while yet armed with infinite power! It is the fallen intellect of Satan that gives him the almost omnipotent power and unlimited range which He possesses. All the perfections of God would arm Him with tremendous forces for evil, bounded and restrained only by the universe He had formed and the creatures He had made, were He not a being infinite in holiness, spotless in purity. Compared with His, the intellect of Satan would be a dwarf's, his wisdom idiotic, his strength an infant's. But we need not attempt to imagine what God would be destitute of infinite purity; rather let us think what a being He is "glorious in holiness."
Who that has seen anything of the beauty, and has felt anything of the power, and has tasted anything of the happiness of holiness, would for a moment cherish the wish that God were less holy than He is? Rather, is it not the intense desire and fervent prayer and ardent struggle of the renewed soul to be holy as God is holy? Sinful though we are, conscious of innumerable infirmities, failures, and backslidings, is not our highest bliss to commune with, and to be in some degree assimilated to, the spotless purity of God? When are we so happy as when breathing after divine purity, overcoming sin, "yielding our members servants to righteousness," "perfecting holiness in the fear of God"? Not for thousands of worlds would we that He were less holy.
The deeper our views of His holiness grow, the deeper grows our love. We love the truth, because it is on the side of holiness; we love the saints, because they are the reflection of holiness; we love the discipline of our heavenly Father, because it makes us partakers of His holiness; how much more intense, then, our affection for God, as the holiness of His being, the purity of His character, unveils to our admiring eye!
A question, often asked, may possibly here arise in the mind of the reader. If God is essentially holy, and could have prevented sin, why, then, did He permit it? The entrance of sin into the world is one of those mysterious problems in its marvelous history, the solution of which awaits us in the world to come. The brief space at present at our command, will only allow us to meet this question by a single and simple reply. Sin entered into the world, not by God's approving, but by His permissive will. He was under no obligation either to prevent its origin or to hinder its advent. Where an obligation exists, ceasing to act when that action would prevent a crime were unquestionably to sin. An individual receiving from another the confession that he was about to commit a deadly crime, and yet, under the professed seal of secrecy, takes no steps to prevent its commission, is but one remove from the actual guilt of the crime itself; the concealer of the murder is well-near as criminal as the perpetrator of the deed. He is under a moral obligation to disclose the intended crime and denounce the criminal. He is bound by the tie of a common humanity, equally by the law of a common charity, to avert the deed and save the victim.
But God stands in a totally different relation to His creatures. He was under no such obligation to prevent the entrance of sin into the world. If He was, to whom? and what was the nature of the obligation? Let the speculatist reply. To him we must leave the solution of the problem of sin's introduction, satisfied with the only rational conclusion at which the Bible warrants our arrival, that God permitted it, and permitted it for His own glory. Let not your mind, my reader, be perplexed with what must be regarded- without insinuating anything of a skeptical character to those who raise these questions- but as speculative discussions. "There are secret things that belong to the Lord our God, but the revealed things belong to us and our descendants forever, so that we may obey these words of the law."
Let us be satisfied with, and be profoundly grateful for, the clearness with which God has revealed to us the way by which, as sinners, we may be saved. That Jesus Christ died for the ungodly, and by the love He has displayed, and the mission He has undertaken, and the work He has finished, and the invitation He has issued, is pledged to cast out none who believe in Him, saving to the uttermost, and without a work of their own, all who come unto God by Him.
Let this, too, be a matter of joy and thanksgiving to us, that the most appalling event which the history of this universe records- the fall of man- has, through infinite wisdom, goodness, and power, resulted in such a manifestation of God's glory, and in such a great and endless blessing to man, as could not possibly have been the case even had sin never entered into the world. Assured of this, let us refer all that is obscure and mysterious and speculative in the history of the world, and in the revelation and government of God, to that day when we shall know even as we are known, when the mystery of God shall be finished, and God be all in all.
God is also DECLARATIVELY HOLY- His word is a revelation of His holiness. He is styled– "the Holy One;" "The Holy One of Israel, whose name is Holy;" "You are of purer eyes than to behold evil, and cannot look upon iniquity;" "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;" "The four living creatures rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty." God selects this perfection of His nature to swear by– "Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David;" "The Lord will swear by His holiness." The saints are called to praise His holiness– "Sing unto the Lord, O you saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness."
Need we multiply these Scripture declarations of God's holiness? We might increase the proofs, but could scarcely strengthen the revealed fact that God is holy. And yet, in these days of low views of Inspiration, of lax principles Concerning the truth of the Bible, we should be jealous of every word of that sacred volume, especially as it bears upon what is the crown of Jehovah– His essential and perfect holiness.
Beware, my reader, of indulging in doubts concerning the divine veracity or the correct rendering of any part of God's word. The most profound human judgment is after all, but fallible, and human learning often contradictory. The safest path is to accept the Bible as it is, and not to allow your confidence in its Divine integrity to be disturbed by this rendering or by that, by one manuscript or by another; but to hold fast the memorable and precious declaration of the Savior- a declaration which may be fearlessly asserted in the face of every doubt cast upon the Divine Inspiration of the Scriptures- "Your Word is Truth."
God is JUDICIALLY HOLY. His judgments are manifestations of His holiness- His holiness in dreadful exercise. "The Lord is known by the judgments which He executes. What was the flood which destroyed the Antediluvians- the fire which consumed Sodom and Gomorrah- the armies which besieged Jerusalem, and leveled her to the ground, but the dreadful exhibitions of the holiness of God, solemn demonstrations of His hatred and punishment of sin? In this light we must ever read and interpret the Divine judgments that befall an ungodly world, whether in its natural, social, or individual character. And yet, blinded by sin and ignorance, the men of this world see not this solemn fact.
Never rising above the second causes of the judiciary dealings of God- the pestilence and the famine, the earthquake, the whirlwind and the fire, the commercial panic, and the blighted harvest- they recognize not the fact that, far above the immediate and proximate causes leading to these natural and social convulsions, there is One of purer eyes than to look upon iniquity, whether it be in an individual, a family, or a nation, and who, when His patience has long waited, but in vain, and will wait no longer, unseals the vials of His wrath, and writes His name holy in letters of tremendous and impressive significance.
It is in this light we read the expressive declaration of the prophet, "When your judgments come upon the earth, the people of the world learn righteousness." Isaiah 26:9. That is, God's judgments are such unmistakable and tremendous demonstrations of His holiness, that the ungodly world shall recognize the fact, and from these terrible visitations of His providence learn to loathe themselves in His sight, to repent of their sins, and renounce their iniquities, and turn to the Lord.
My reader! is the Lord dealing with you individually in the way of judgment? Has He "Uncovered his bow, and called for many arrows?" Do His arrows fall thick and piercing? Is there the loss of health, or the destruction of property, or the visitation of bereavement? Is your song of judgment as well as of mercy? Oh! interpret these dispensations of God in the light of a holy and righteous, yet loving discipline, designed to correct an evil, to arrest a declension, and to bestow upon you the highest honor God could confer- the making you a partaker of His holiness. "This," says the prophet, "is all the fruit, to take away sin."
God is also MEDIATORIALLY HOLY. This illustration of our subject presents a more solemn and impressive view of the Divine holiness than any we have yet considered- the view exhibited in the cross of Jesus. Not hell itself, awful and eternal as is its suffering- the undying worm, the unquenchable fire, the smoke of the torment that goes up forever and ever- affords such a solemn and impressive spectacle of the holiness and justice of God in the punishment of sin, as is presented in the death of God's beloved Son.
An eminent Puritan writer thus strikingly puts it- "Not all the vials of judgment that have or shall be poured out upon this wicked world, nor the flaming furnace of a sinner's conscience, nor the irrevocable sentence pronounced against the rebellious devils, nor the groans of the damned creatures, give such a demonstration of God's hatred of sin, as the wrath of God let loose upon His Son!"
Never did Divine holiness appear more beautiful and lovely than at the time our Savior's countenance was most marred in the midst of His dying groans. This Himself acknowledges in that penitential psalm (Ps. xxii. 12), when God turned His smiling face from Him, and thrust His sharp knife into His heart, which forced that terrible cry from Him, "My God, my God, why have You forsaken Me? But, You are holy." Such an impressive view of God's holiness the angels in heaven never before beheld, not even when they saw the non-elect spirits hurled from the heights of glory down to the bottomless pit, to be reserved in chains of darkness and woe forever.
But it will be asked, Wherein did lay the great proof that God was holy in the soul-sorrow, bodily suffering, and ignominious death of Jesus? We answer– It is found in the fact that He was the innocent One dying for the guilty, the holy One dying for the sinful. Divine justice, in its mission of judgment, as it swept by the cross, found the Son of God impaled upon its wood, beneath the sins and the curse of His people. Upon Him its judgment fell, on His soul the wrath was poured, in His heart the flaming sword was plunged; and thus, from Him, justice exacted the full penalty of man's transgression- the last farthing of the great debt.
Go to the cross, then, my reader, and learn the holiness of God.
Contemplate the dignity of Christ's person, the preciousness of the Son of God to His Father's heart, the sinlessness of His nature; and then behold the sorrow of His soul, the torture of His body, the tragedy of His death, the abasement, the ignominy, the humiliation, into the fathomless depths of which the whole transaction plunged our incarnate God; and let me ask, standing, as you are, before this unparalleled spectacle, Can you cherish low views of God's holiness, or light views of your own sinfulness?
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