But 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.
I should like to tarry with this great theme, but I cannot; we must move on. Let us just remind ourselves that surely the purpose of the biblical revelation of God’s holiness is to teach us how to approach Him. It is not mere theoretical knowledge that we are asked to try to grasp with our understandings. Its purpose is very practical. In the words of the author of the epistle to the Hebrews, we are to approach God ‘with reverence and godly fear’ (Heb. 12:28). He is always to be approached in that way, wherever you are; when you are alone in a room, or when you are meeting as a family to pray, or when you are in a public service, God is always God and He is always to be approached ‘with reverence and godly fear’. No such expression as ‘Dear God’, for example, is to be found in the Scriptures.
There are many illustrations of this. Think again of Moses at the burning bush (Exod. 3); then there is the terrible case of that man Uzzah who put out his hand to steady the Ark as it was being carried on a cart (2 Sam. 6). That is a terrible declaration about how we are to approach God and worship Him. Read the account of how the law was given; how the mount was burning with fire, and nothing was allowed to approach it (Exod. 19:16–25): the holiness of God.
This doctrine also teaches us, of course, the terrible nature of sin. You will never have a knowledge of sin unless you have a true conception of the holiness of God. And that is perhaps why the modern conception of sin is so inadequate. We do not spend sufficient time with the doctrine of God, and with the holiness of God. That is the way to see sin—not primarily by self-examination but by going into the presence of God. People sometimes say, ‘But you don’t expect all of us to feel that we are miserable sinners, do you? You don’t want all of us to say with Charles Wesley, “Vile and full of sin I am”? That may be all right for drunkards and people like that, but it’s not true of us!’
Some people are troubled by this. They say, ‘I have never really felt I am a sinner. How can I, when I have been brought up in a Christian home, and have always gone to a place of worship? Surely I’m not expected to have that awful sense of sin?’ But the answer to all that is this: If you really came into the presence of God and had some conception of His holiness, you would soon know yourself as a vile, terrible sinner. You would say with Paul that there is no good thing in you (Rom. 7:18). The way to appreciate your own sinfulness is not to look at your actions, nor your life, but to come into the presence of God.
And finally, of course, God’s holiness shows us the absolute necessity of the atonement. That is the reverse of what I was saying just now about the cross as the manifestation of the holiness of God. Yes, but as it manifests that, it also shows us that without shedding of blood there is no remission of sin, that God’s holiness insists upon it, demands an atonement for sin.*
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it— the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God’s righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus (Ro 3:21–26).
Soli Deo Gloria!
For His Glory,
Fernando
*Lloyd-Jones, D. M. (1996). God the Father, God the Son (71–72). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.
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