Understanding the Holiness of God

by Pastor Mitch Horton | September 2000

To say that the holiness of God is misunderstood these days is an understatement! We live in a generation that, generally speaking, doesn't have a clue about God's personality and character.

Although most Americans claim to believe in God, the God they believe in is basically a product of their own thoughts. To many, He is a great big sugar daddy who loves them and winks at their illicit behavior. The concept of holiness is a foreign subject to Christians today. We sing songs about how God is "Holy, Holy, Holy," but we don't really understand the term. If we did, we wouldn't be so apt to sin.

God revealed Himself to Moses and to the Israelites as a Holy God. The gods of the surrounding nations were permissive and promiscuous. Gross forms of perversion were carried out as "worship" to these false deities. God desired that His people know how immeasurably different He was from that generation's concept of Him.

When God appeared to Moses in the burning bush, He told him to remove his shoes because he was on Holy ground. The fire that did not consume the bush depicted God's holiness. (Exodus 3:1-5).

In Leviticus 11:44-45, we read. "For I am the LORD your God. You shall therefore consecrate yourselves, and you shall be holy; for I am holy. Neither shall you defile yourselves with any creeping thing that creeps on the earth. For I am the LORD who brings you up out of the land of Egypt, to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy."

God revealed His holiness to His people again in Leviticus 19:2, "Speak to all the congregation of the children of Israel, and say to them: "You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy.'" Holiness was to be the distinguishing factor that separated His people from the rest of the world. Leviticus 20:26 reads,"And you shall be holy to Me, For I the LORD am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be Mine."

In the Old Testament, the verb holy in the Hebrew is "quodesh", meaning "to consecrate, to sanctify, to prepare, to dedicate, to be separate." The noun holiness means "apartness, sacredness, separateness."

In the New Testament, the words holy, holiness, sanctify, and sanctification all come from the same Greek word "hagious," which means "sacred, (physically) pure, morally blameless, consecrated, innocent, modest, perfect, chaste, clean, pure."

The core concept of God's holiness is that He is completely set apart from all created things! He has no imperfections whatsoever.

God's holiness is often manifested as fire. Hebrews 12:28-29 encourages Christians to serve God with reverence and godly fear because "our God is a consuming fire!"

Fire is a purifying agent. So when we as finite human beings approach the holiness of God, His presence, like fire, begins to burn away the dross of our old soulish nature. Therefore, if we have been walking with the Lord for a good while, but our past behavior (the old man) remains unchanged, it's apparent that we haven't spent much time in the holy presence of God!

God's holiness is so inconceivably powerful that any impurity is instantly vanquished! In the Old Testament, when sin came into contact with God's presence, the certain outcome was judgment. That's the reason, for instance, that God commanded the children of Israel not to touch the mountain while He and Moses were at the top.

Exodus 19 records this account of God meeting with Moses on Mount Sinai to give Him the law. The manifestation of God's presence was so holy that it terrified the Israelites. The crashing thunder and thick smoke, the trumpet blasts, lightning and earthquakes were all overwhelming to them.

If the yet unregenerate people were unclean in any way, according to God's standards, then His holiness would produce instant death. So God simply commanded them to stay away from the mountain. Yes, our heavenly Father IS LOVE, but He is also LIGHT, PURITY, and HOLINESS. Whatever is less than pure is consumed by His perfection!

When Isaiah experienced the presence of God in a vision is Isaiah 6, he immediately recognized and confessed his sinfulness, crying out, "Woe is me, for I am undone! Because 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." (Isaiah 6:5). Likewise, we also experience the loving Spirit of God challenging the unholiness in our lives when His presence manifests to us today.

When Ezekiel saw the Lord in Ezekiel 1:26-28, he described God as a fire, "from the loins up" and "from the loins down." In Ezekiel's eyes, God's being is engulfed in fire. When John saw Jesus on the Island of Patmos, he described Jesus' eyes as "flames of fire." (Revelation 1:13-17) Jo