Sermon Tone Analysis

God Is Holy

THE LIVING GOD

THE HOLINESS OF GOD

from A. W. Pink -The Attributes of God

Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? for Thou only art holy” ( Rev 15:4 ).

He only is independently, infinitely, immutably holy.

In Scripture He is frequently styled “The Holy One”: He is so because the sum of all moral excellency is found in Him.

He is absolute Purity, unsullied even by the shadow of sin.

“God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all”

(1 John 1:5).

Holiness is the very excellency of the Divine nature: the great God is “glorious in holiness” (Ex.

15:11).

Therefore do we read, “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity” (Hab.

1:13).

As God’s power is the opposite of the native weakness of the creature, as His wisdom is in complete contrast from the least defect of understanding or folly, so His holiness is the very antithesis of all moral blemish or defilement.

Of old God appointed singers in Israel “that they should praise the beauty of holiness” (2 Chron.

20:21).

“Power is God’s hand or arm, omniscience His eye, mercy His bowels, eternity His duration, but holiness is His beauty” (Stephen Charnock).

It is this, supremely, which renders Him lovely to those who are delivered from sin’s dominion.

“A chief emphasis is placed upon this perfection of God:

God is oftener styled Holy than Almighty, and set forth by this part of His dignity more than by any other.

This is more fixed on as an epithet to His name than any other.

You never find it expressed “His mighty name” or “His wise name,” but His great name, and most of all, His holy name.

This is the greatest title of honour; in this latter doth the majesty and venerableness of His name appear (Stephen Charnock).

This perfection, as none other, is solemnly celebrated before the Throne of Heaven, the seraphim crying, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of

hosts ’ (Isa.

6:3).

God Himself singles out this perfection, “Once have I sworn by My holiness” (Ps.

89:35).

God swears by His “holiness” because that is a fuller expression of Himself than anything else.

Therefore are we exhorted, “Sing unto the Lord, O ye saints of His, and give thanks at the remembrance of His holiness”

(Ps.

30:4).

“This may be said to be a transcendental attribute, that, as it were, runs through the rest, and casts lustre upon them.

It is an attribute of attributes” (John Howe, 1670).

Thus we read of “the beauty of the Lord”

(Ps.

27:4) , which is none other than “the

beauty of holiness” (Ps.

110:3).

As it seems to challenge an excellency above

all His other perfections, so it is the glory of all the rest:

as it is the glory of the Godhead, so it is the glory of every perfection in the Godhead; as His power is the strength of them,

so His holiness is the beauty of them; as all would be weak without almightiness to back them, so all would be uncomely without holiness to adorn them.

Should this be sullied, all the rest would lose their honour; as at the same instant the sun should lose its light, it would lose its heat, its strength, its generative and quickening virtue.

As sincerity is the lustre of every grace in a Christian, so is purity the splendour of every attribute in the Godhead.

His justice is a holy justice, His wisdom a holy wisdom, His arm of power a “holy arm” (Ps.

98:1), His truth or promise a “holy promise” (Ps.

105:42).

His name, which signifies all His attributes in conjunction, “is holy,” Ps. 103:1(Stephen Charnock).

God’s holiness is manifested in His works.

“The

Lord is righteous in all His ways, and holy in all His works” (Ps.

145:17).

Nothing but that which is excellent can proceed from Him.

Holiness is the rule of all His actions.

At the beginning He pronounced all that He made “very good” (Gen.

1:31), which He could not have done had there been anything imperfect or unholy in them.

Man was made “upright” (Eccl.

7:29), in the image and likeness of his Creator.

The angels that fell were created holy, for we are told that they “kept not their first habitation” (Jude 6).

Of Satan it is written, “Thou west perfect in thy ways from the day that thou west created, till iniquity was found in thee” (Ezek.

28:15).

God’s holiness is manifested in His law.

That law forbids sin in all of its modifications: in its

most refined as well as its grossest forms, the intent of the mind as well as the pollution of the body, the secret desire as well as the overt act.

Therefore do we read, “The law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good” (Rom.

7:12).

Yes, “the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.

The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever: the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether” (Ps.

19:8, 9).

God’s holiness is manifested at the Cross.

Wondrously and yet most solemnly does the Atonement display God’s infinite holiness and abhorrence of sin.

How hateful must sin be to God for Him to punish it to its utmost deserts when it was imputed to His Son!

Not all the vials of judgment that have or

shall be poured out upon the wicked world, nor the flaming furnace of a sinner’s conscience, nor the irreversible sentence pronounced against the rebellious demons, nor the groans of the damned creatures, give such a demonstration of God’s hatred of sin, as the wrath of God let loose upon His Son.

Never did Divine holiness appear more beautiful and lovely than at the time our Saviour’s countenance was most marred in the midst of His dying groans.

This He Himself acknowledges in Ps. 22:1.

When God had turned His smiling face from Him, and thrust His sharp knife into His heart, which forced that terrible cry from Him, “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”

He adores this perfection—”Thou art holy,” v. 3(Stephen Charnock).

Because God is holy He hates all sin.

He loves everything which is in conformity to His law, and loathes everything which is contrary to it.

His Word plainly declares, “The froward is an abomination to the Lord” (Prov.

3:32).

And again, “The thoughts of the wicked are an abomination to the Lord” (Prov.

15:26).

It follows, therefore, that He must necessarily punish sin.

Sin can no more exist without demanding His punishment than without requiring His hatred of it.

God has often forgiven sinners, but He never forgives sin; and the sinner is only forgiven on the ground of Another having borne his punishment; for “without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb.

9:22).

Therefore we are told, “The Lord will take vengeance on His adversaries, and He reserveth wrath for His enemies” (Nahum 1:2).

For one sin God banished our first parents from Eden.

For one sin all the posterity of Canaan, a son of Ham, fell under a curse which remains over them to this day (Gen.

9:21).

For one sin Moses was excluded from Canaan, Elisha’s servant smitten with leprosy, Ananias and Sapphira cut off out of the land of the living.

Unregenerate sinners cannot conceive of God’s

holiness, much less begin to believe in it.

Many, then, presume that God’s character is one-sided, that His merciful disposition will override everything else, and thus there is no cause for much alarm.

“Thou thoughtest that I was altogether as thyself” (Ps.

50:21) is God’s charge against them.

They think only of a “god” patterned after their own evil hearts.

Hence their continuance in a course of mad folly.

Such is the holiness ascribed to the Divine nature and character in the Scriptures that it clearly demonstrates their superhuman origin.

The character attributed to the “gods” of the ancients and of modern non-Christians is the very reverse of that immaculate purity which pertains to the true God.

An ineffably holy God, who has the utmost abhorrence of all sin, was never invented by any of Adam’s fallen descendants!

The fact is that nothing makes more manifest the terrible depravity of man’s heart and his enmity against the living God than to have set before him One who is infinitely and immutably holy.

His own idea of sin is practically limited to what the world calls “crime.”

Anything short of that man palliates as “defects,” “mistakes,” “infirmities,” etc.

And even where sin is owned at all, excuses and justifications are made for it.

The “god” which the vast majority of professing

Christians “love” is looked upon very much like

an indulgent old man, who himself has no relish for folly, but leniently winks at the

“indiscretions” of youth.

But the Word says, “Thou hatest all workers of iniquity” (Ps.

5:5).

And again, “God is angry with the wicked every day” (Ps.

7:11).

But men refuse to believe in this God, and gnash their teeth when His hatred of sin is faithfully pressed upon their attention.