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AUGUST: Knowing and Serving God

August 15

THE HOLINESS OF GOD

Be ye holy; for I am holy.
1 Peter 1:16

God's moral attributes are, in a sense, communicable. Something corresponding to them is to be found in men and women. What are these? Well, first we must mention the holiness of God. What is holiness? I think we almost inevitably tend to deal with it in negative terms, and we define it as meaning that God is entirely separate from and apart from sin. Holiness primarily means separation--separation from evil.

But, of course, holiness is also something positive. It is absolute purity. The Bible teaches us everywhere that God is holy, and a part of the manifestation of this holiness is His hatred of sin and His separation from sin, from the sinner and from all that is evil.

Let me give you certain outstanding examples and illustrations of the Bible's teaching on this. God has revealed His holiness by granting visions of Himself to certain people. There is the great case of Moses, in Exodus 33 and in other places, where God appeared, as it were, to Moses, and Moses was overwhelmed by the sense of His holiness. The same thing happened to Job, to Isaiah, and to Ezekiel. Anyone who has ever come anywhere near to God has always been impressed by His absolute holiness.

The Bible teaches this in certain terms that it uses; it refers to God as "the Holy One" (Isaiah 40:25), and we have God's injunction, "Be ye holy; for I am holy" (1 Peter 1:16), which is a specific, explicit statement of God's holiness.

I suppose if you were to be asked to say where the Bible teaches the holiness of God most powerfully of all, you have to go to Calvary. God is so holy, so utterly holy, that nothing but that awful death could make it possible for Him to forgive us. The cross is the supreme and the sublimest declaration and revelation of the holiness of God.

A Thought to Ponder
The cross is the supreme and the sublimest declaration and revelation of the holiness of God.

From God the Father, God the Son, pp. 69-71.




Today’s devo is taken from Walking with God Day by Day © 2003 by Good News Publishers. All rights reserved. Used by permission of Crossway Books, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.

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