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Ask Pastor John
Delighting in a Holy God
00:14:01
God’s children are set apart as saints, given the privilege of sharing in Christ’s moral beauty. Pastor John explains how God’s holiness draws us to him.
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- [00:04]
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Samuel lives in Nashville, and Samuel has a confession to make today on the podcast before all of us. He he knows that God is holy, entirely pure, sinless, radiantly unstained. And he also knows as a Christian, he's supposed to love God in his unspotted holiness. But he doesn't. God's purity feels distant, cold, off putting today on Ask Pastor John Delighting in a holy God Pastor John, I have a confession to make. Samuel writes. I feel like God's holiness is important, but it also feels very distant from me and totally overwhelming too. It's not something I find myself attracted to study. And oh, how I want this to change in me. In Psalm 99, which we just read a couple days ago, God's holiness is a central theme that underscores his exalted position. The psalmist declares, the Lord reigns, let the peoples tremble. He dwells between the cherubim, let the earth be moved. That's verse one. This imagery of God's supreme authority emphasizes his holiness and the awe it should inspire. Additionally, the psalmist boldly proclaims holy is he in verse nine, a statement that highlights God's utter set apartness from anything impure. Why is God's holiness so essential for us as believers? And why do I not feel drawn to God's holiness like I know I should be? Pastor John, what would you say to
- [01:44]
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Samuel to answer those last two questions about why God's holiness is essential for us and why we might not be drawn to it? We need to go straight to the issue of what it is. We need a faithful description of God's holiness. Pretty much everybody agrees that the very basic meaning of the Word in the Bible was separated from what is common. Which means that originally holiness, this will sound strange, could refer to holy prostitutes because they were separated in pagan temples from common prostitutes. Or it could mean holy in the sense of exceptionally pure, virtuous, separated from all that is sinful. But the basic meaning of the Word began as separated from what is common. So let's start there and see if we can figure out in four or five steps how that relates to God. How can we speak of God as being separated from what is common? How does the term holy come to be so important in describing God? So first, God has no standard of right and wrong, good and bad, pure and impure, beautiful or ugly, holy or unholy, outside himself, right? He doesn't have any book to appeal to. He wrote the book. He was just there. Absolutely what he is. For humans, goodness or holiness is always derivative. We depend on God to define goodness or beauty or holiness for us. Who does God depend on? Nobody. So too God's Godness, his very being, the way he is and was from all eternity, is his own standard of holiness, or another way to say it, since holiness means separated from what is common. God is infinitely separated in being, in being, in a class by Himself, infinitely above, infinitely distinct from all else. He is, he just absolutely is completely distinct, separate, other, and the big fancy word is transcendent. Third, in his infinite otherness or transcendence or separateness, there is no deficiency. He's lacking in no perfection. When the panorama of all of his attributes, all of his perfections, is seen in all of its perfect harmony, it's beautiful and therefore it's of infinite value. Nothing compares to God, nothing has competing value to God. All other values are dependent, derivative. They depend on God's infinite value and beauty. Fourth, which means God has two dimensions of holiness. Not only is he separated from all that is common, infinitely above and unique and other transcendent, but in that separateness, that transcendence, he has no secondly imperfections. Which means we can now speak of his transcendence as morally beautiful, valuable. His holiness means not only that he's way out there, separate, transcendent, but also morally pure, perfectly pure, without any taint of darkness or sin. That was R.C. sproul's favorite shorthand for God's holiness, transcendent purity. That's hard to improve on that two word phrase. And then finally, fifth, to complete this description of God's holiness, we need to describe how it relates to his action, his thoughts, his emotions, and the way they relate to God's holiness is all his emotions, thoughts and actions accord with, agree with, are in sync with, with his transcendent worth and beauty. What God feels, what God thinks, what God does flow from a right valuing, his own right valuing of his infinite worth and beauty. That's what makes things right or wrong for God. Do they accord with his infinite worth, worth? Now, why is this so utterly essential for us as Christians? Two massive answers. I'm just going to pass over two of them because I think the third might be more helpful for Samuel, who's asking this question, I'm passing over the fact that the infinite costliness of the death of Jesus would make no sense apart from the infinite standard of God's holiness. And second, I'm passing over the existence of hell, a hell of eternal torment would be a total overreaction on God's part, apart from the infinite outrage of Sins scorning the infinite holiness of God. So neither the cross nor hell make any sense apart from the holiness of God. But here's a third reason why God's holiness is so crucial. And this might help Samuel be drawn in to want to study this, love this, be happy about this, want to meditate on this, and make it part of his very life. The apostle Paul never calls Christians Christians, never uses the word Christian, 13 letters. Never uses the word. He never uses the word that we use most often. Striking. What does he call us? What is his favorite term for Christians? And the answer is crystal clear. His favorite term is saints. He uses saints to refer to Christians 39 times saints means holy ones. So 39 times he calls Christians holy. Holy ones. Amazing. Why would Paul love calling Christians holy ones? Well, to answer that, we should probably answer the question, in view of what holiness means for God, what does it mean for us to be holy? Because the Bible says several times, you shall be holy, for I am holy. 1 Peter 1:16, for example, when we try to connect our holiness to God's holiness, what it looks like is we share God's holiness when we feel and think and act in accord with the infinite worth of God. Because that's what God's holiness is. Acting in accord with his infinite worth. That's what God's holiness is. Is. And that's what our holiness is. He measures all of his actions by whether they accord with his worth. We measure all of our actions by whether they accord with God's worth. That's his holiness. That's our holiness. The difference, of course, is that we're sinners. We are sinners, and we don't deserve to share his holiness, nor are we able to share his holiness. Which is why Jesus Christ is absolutely essential. Christ is essential. He makes it possible for God to be holy in passing over sins, our sins. And he makes it possible for us to be holy by forgiving us and cleansing us from all unrighteousness. Ephesians 1 says that he chose us to be holy. Ephesians 5 says he died to make us holy. All of God's holiness is absolutely intrinsic to Himself. He doesn't borrow it. He doesn't depend on anybody, for didn't have to be purchased. He is holy. He defines holy. But for us, holiness is a gift. A gift to be set apart for God. A gift to be set apart like God, act like God, we get to share in the moral beauty of Christ. Is not the answer, Samuel, to your last question, that you should be drawn to the holiness of God, not only because that's who God is, but also because sharing his holiness is what he chose for you. It's what Christ died for for you. And wonder of wonders, we're drawn to God's holiness because we will find that being made holy as he is holy will mean everlasting joy. Is it not wonderful that the fruit of the Holy, Holy Holy Spirit is is love, joy and peace? Let that sink in. The fruit of the Holy Holy Holy Spirit is joy. And it's no coincidence, therefore, that Isaiah would say in Isaiah 12:6 shout and sing for joy, O inhabitant of Zion, for great in your midst is the Holy One of Israel.
- [12:27]
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Yeah, God is not only distant from us because of his holiness, he draws near to us in holiness. It's a precious, precious promise. This reminds Me of Psalm 96:9 Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness. His splendor, his attractive beauty. A holiness not only to behold, but but to share. And we share God's holiness when we feel and think and act in accord with the infinite worth of God. Because that's what God's holiness is. A lot to think about here. Thank you, Pastor John. And speaking of Paul's favorite term for believers, for saints, it's worth noting that the word saints is always a collective term of many Christians. It's never used of individual Christians, never a particular saint. And for more on that, see episode 2049 from a couple of years back for more on that point. Thank you for joining us today. If you have a question to ask Pastor John, you can find a link to email us. You can find our complete episode archive as well in APJ 2049, all at the same place. Ask pastorjohn.com when obedience is Evil Interesting topic. Next time, When Obedience is Evil I'm Tony Reinke. We'll see you back here on Monday for that.