God's holiness

We often talk of God's holiness, but I was struck yesterday that I haven't spent enough time studying and meditating on what it means for God to be holy. So here are a few brief thoughts...

The first occurrence of the root word for holy (qadash) is at the end of the account of creation:

God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation (Gen 2.3)

It seems that God is setting apart a day as special, separate, different from the other days of creation. And so, many of the subsequent Old Testament occurrences of the word holy are referring to a holy Sabbath day.

Then, just before giving the 10 commandments to His people, God says to them:

you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation (Ex 19.6)

So Israel will be set apart from all the other nations of the Earth as God's special people, shining the light of God to all other nations. In the New Testament, This is picked up by the Apostle Peter who applies it to God's New Testament people, the Church:

you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvellous light (1Pet 2.9)

But surely if we are to know what true holiness is, to know in what way we are to be separate and set apart, we need to look to God himself. So God says to his people:

You shall be holy, for I am holy. (1Pet 1.16, quoting Lev 11.44)

We get some hints of what it means for God to be holy when he is giving Moses instructions for building the tabernacle, the place where God himself will come to dwell with his people:

You shall make a veil... And you shall hang the veil from the clasps, and bring the ark of the testimony in there within the veil. And the veil shall separate for you the Holy Place from the Most Holy. You shall put the mercy seat on the ark of the testimony in the Most Holy Place. (Ex 26.31-34)

The Most Holy Place would be the place of God's particular presence on earth with his people. In that place were the Ark of the Covenant (containing the 10 commandments, God's treaty with his people) and the mercy seat, above it. Clearly, an aspect of God's holiness is that he relates to his people and has mercy upon them.

Perhaps the clearest picture of God's holiness in the Old Testament is in the vision of Isaiah. God is called "the Holy One of Israel" 31 times in the Bible. Twenty-five of these occurrences are in Isaiah. When God first calls Isaiah to be a prophet, the first words he hears are these:

"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!" (Isa 6.3)

Isaiah's immediate response is to be filled with fear:

"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!" (Isa 6.5)

Yet again, God shows mercy and draws near to his servant, as Isaiah records:

[The Seraph] touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.” (Isa 6.7)

So we've seen that God is separate, set apart, transcendent above his Creation. And yet, amazingly, he draws near to his people. He has a clear, saving, purpose for them. He chooses them, sets them apart, and has mercy upon them.
In one of my favourite passages in the Bible, Isaiah 45-46, God declares again and again that:

"I am God, and there is no other"

He contrasts the saving love with which he carries his people against the way in which idols of other "gods" have to be carried around on donkeys and weigh them down. God has a plan to save his people. Nothing can stop him from accomplishing it, and his glory will be seen.

Ultimately God accomplishes his plan in Jesus who most clearly reveals the holiness and character of God in all his fullness and who most clearly shows us what it means for us to live holy lives. But that needs to be the subject of another post!