Holier Than Thou: A 5-Day Plan on God's HolinessSýnishorn

DAY 1: Holy, Holy, Holy 

To say that God is holy is to say that God is God. All of God’s ways, such as His moral purity and how it sets Him apart from all that is perverse, untrue, lawless, and unrighteous comes out of His being. No one told or taught God how to be good, that is simply who He is, and He can be no other way. As Stephen Charnock put it, “God is good as He is God; and therefore good by Himself and from himself, not by participation from another.” It is His very nature to be righteous, as in right, as in conforming to a set standard of morality, the standard being Himself. We are only good insofar as we are like God, so then, any attempt to be holy is an attempt to be like God. Simply put, the two are inseparable, holiness and God’s being that is.

There are times when our conversations around the holiness of God make it seem as if holiness is a part or piece of God. That God moves in between attributes when deciding how to be. That one day, He chooses to be loving. Another day, He chooses to be vengeful. That if God were a sweet potato pie, holiness is one slice of it that’s set aside from the others. On one plate is holiness, on another plate is love. However, holiness is not an aspect of God; holy is who He is through and through. His attributes are never at odds with one another, nor do they switch places depending on God’s mood, they are Him. “God is his attributes. That means, all that is in God simply is God.” When God loves, it is a holy love. When God reveals Himself as judge, pouring out His cup on the deserving, He has not ceased to be loving, or holy either. In all that He is and all that He does, He is always Himself.

Even now, I hope you’re beginning to see the glory of God. I don’t mean that hypothetically either. Since holiness is essential to God, shining through all that He is and whatever He does, it means that there has never been or will ever be a time when God is not God. To say it another way, there will never come a day when God ceases to be holy; if that were possible, it would be the day He ceased to be God . Knowing that as an absolute and unmovable truth colors everything we understand about God’s ways and works.