Holiness is an attribute of the triune God. The full scope of divine holiness is complex, which is why there have been multiple ways of describing God’s holiness, including that it refers to separateness, otherness, purity, moral perfection, or the radiance of God’s perfections. God is infinitely, eternally, and unchangeably holy; nevertheless, holiness is also an attribute that God communicates to believers by the Holy Spirit in a manner that allows them to reflect the character of their holy Creator. At creation, God made man in a condition of holiness and entered into a covenant of works with him. In the Old Testament, God manifested His holiness in His judgments, in His covenants, and in the cultic practices that He gave to old covenant Israel. In the New Testament, God reveals His holiness fully in the person and work of Christ. Because of the saving work of Christ, God grants positional holiness to those who have been united to Christ by faith, and He works in them a practical holiness whereby the Spirit transforms them into the likeness of Jesus. In the consummation, God will reign supreme in a perfect display of His holiness for all eternity with the whole host of redeemed men and unfallen angels.
Scripture reveals that the holiness of God is a defining divine characteristic. His holiness is ultimately inseparable from His other attributes such that God’s love is holy love, His justice is holy justice, His wisdom is holy wisdom, His power is holy power, and so on. Holiness is so important to God’s character that when the Lord gave the prophet Isaiah and the Apostle John visions of the heavenly throne room, they saw and heard angelic beings recurrently praising God for His holiness (Isa. 6:3; Rev. 4:8). Since God is holy, everything and everyone must be measured by and held accountable to His holy being.
The holiness of God is also operative in His relationships with the created order. When God created mankind in the garden, He created them male and female in true holiness (Eccl. 7:29; Eph. 4:24). As the Westminster Confession of Faith 4.2 states, “After God had made all other creatures, he created man, male and female, with reasonable and immortal souls, endued with knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness, after his own image; having the law of God written in their hearts, and power to fulfill it: and yet under a possibility of transgressing.”
God created the world to reflect His holy perfection. He required mankind to mirror His holy character and fill the earth with His holy image bearers (Gen 1:26–28). If Adam had remained in a state of holiness in the garden—not having disobeyed God by eating of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil—he would have secured immutable holiness for himself and his descendants for all eternity. The covenant of works was founded on God’s holiness and His demand that His image bearers continue in a state of holiness.
After the fall, God revealed His holiness in His judgments, covenants, and law. Since sinful man cannot live in the presence of the holy God, the Lord banished our first parents from the garden of Eden, which was also God’s sanctuary. Sin is the antithesis of holiness; therefore, the infinitely holy God must punish sinful human beings (Rom. 6:23). God’s judgments are terrifying on account of His holy justice. In the Old Testament, God’s holy judgments were displayed in the flood (Gen. 6–9), the scattering of the nations at Babel (Gen. 11), the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (Gen. 19), the plagues on Egypt (Ex. 7–12), the Assyrian captivity (2 Kings 17:1–23), and the Babylonian captivity (2 Chron. 36:1–21).
In the Old Testament history of redemption, God sets various physical things apart for His people to demonstrate His holy reign over the personal, social, and religious aspects of their lives. Scripture speaks of “holy ground,” the “holy assembly,” “a holy sabbath,” a “holy people,” “holy vessels,” “holy bread,” and a “holy city.”
When God established numerous covenantal administrations with man in the covenant of grace, He reminded His people of His holiness. For instance, God manifested His holiness in making His covenant with Abram (later, Abraham) in Genesis 15. When God told Abram to cut certain animals in half for a covenant-making ceremony, the Lord represented both parties to the covenant—Himself and Abram—as He passed through the cut animals. The holy God was saying to Abram, “The same and more so be done to Me if you do not keep your covenant obligation to be holy.” Since no man keeps the covenantal obligations of holy perfection, Christ Himself was cut off in judgment when He was crucified for the covenant breaking of His people (Isa. 53:8).
In the New Testament, God fully displays His holiness in the person and work of Christ. Jesus is perfectly holy. Scripture reveals Him to be the “Holy One of God” (Luke 4:34). Christ is the Great High Priest of His church; as such, He had to be “holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners” (Heb. 7:26). The eternally holy Son of God came into the world to redeem unholy sinners (Rom. 4:5). The Holy One, who knew no sin, was made sin for the salvation of His people when He hung on the cross under the holy judgment of God (2 Cor. 5:21; Gal. 3:13; 1 Peter 3:18). Jesus died to propitiate God’s holy wrath for the salvation of the elect.
Because of Christ’s atoning death, God makes His people holy. Scripture addresses believers as “holy.” There are two main senses in which the word “holy” is used in the New Testament revelation. First, God has set believers apart for Himself, so the Bible teaches that believers are holy in God’s sight by virtue of their union with Christ. Second, God is conforming believers to His holiness by the ministry of the Holy Spirit working through His appointed means of grace, chiefly the Word of God, sacraments, and prayer.
In the consummation to come at the return of Christ, God will display His holiness in His judgment of the wicked and show His grace toward those whom He has redeemed in Christ. In the resurrection, God will secure the redeemed in perfect holiness forever. The new heaven and new earth will be exclusively inhabited by those who are made partakers of Christ’s holiness (2 Peter 1:4; 3:13; Rev. 21:27).
“The idea of holiness is so central to the biblical teaching that it is said of God, ‘Holy is His name’ (Luke 1:49). His name is holy because He is holy. He is not always treated with holy reverence. His name is tramped through the dirt of this world. It functions as a curse word, a platform for the obscene. That the world has little respect for God is vividly seen by the way the world regards His name. No honor. No reverence. No awe before Him. . . . We should be praying that God’s name be hallowed, that God be regarded as holy.”
R.C. Sproul
“What is it about God, even God as He comes to us in Christ, that is so overwhelming, so defeating, so terrifying? It’s the dawning awareness that God is God and we are not. It is the realization that He is Other. This is what the Bible means when it describes God as holy. It’s not first a moral category so much as it is a summary of all the other attributes of God. It is a way to insist that God isn’t like us. The word holy in Scripture simply means ‘separate,’ and this is true of God in His moral purity and in every other way in which He has made Himself known to us. The sudden, overwhelming sense of creatureliness and sinfulness is the consistent experience of those who are brought into the divine presence.”
David Strain
Ligonier.org
