The Holiness of God

(Article for publication week of 2-2-2011 AD)

"And one cried unto another, and said, 'Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of His glory' " (Isaiah 6:3).

The prophet Isaiah was permitted to look into the very throne room of God. And here is what he saw- a whole class of angels whose sole business is to continually worship God, falling down before Him crying, “holy, holy, holy.” God is so holy that He has created this class of angels for that purpose.

It is difficult to prioritize the attributes of God. Where should we begin and in what order should we present the High Being of God to our readers? When we began this series on God’s attributes several months ago, I agonized and prayed about the order that we would follow, and finally settled in my mind that we would first of all set before you the incommunicable attributes of God, that is the attributes of God which are eternally unique to Himself. Thus we set before you His incompressibility, His immutability, His omniscience, His omnipresence, His omnipotence, His sovereignty (which we ended up spending several months on), etc. Now we come to consider His communicable attributes, that is those attributes of God that He by His sovereign grace communicates to His people. Thus we read in I Peter 1:16, “be ye holy, for I am Holy.”

It would not have been out of order for us to have begun with the holiness of God. After all, it is the only attribute of God that is raised to the third degree (our text and Revelation 4:8). God is never said to be “sovereign, sovereign, sovereign”, or “love, love, love”, but He is said to be “Holy, Holy, Holy.” Surely, there is something very significant about this.

The holiness of God is the sum and substance of all His glorious attributes. To say that God is essentially holy (and that raised to the third degree) is to say that he is without any blemish or flaw in His character. He is all good, and can never be anything else. God is so pure that the scriptures tell us that He cannot look upon iniquity (Habakkuk 1:13). “God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all” (I John 1:5). God is always right, and always does right because he is perfectly and essentially holy. I cannot emphasize this too strongly- God is holy, holy, holy.

We have available for free a small booklet by A. W. Pink entitled “The Attributes of God.” Call me this week at 601-927-5070 and I will be happy to provide you with one or more. It is an excellent little book by one of the best teachers that God has ever given His Church.