The Absolute Holiness of God

 

I could never understand why people should suffer so much when they sinned.

I could never comprehend why people who died in their sins would be lost forever.

I could never figure out why people who disobeyed God could be punished so severely for such a long time.

 

I never could make sense of the amazing, startling ideas written in the bible.

People say, if God is like that He can’t be God or I don not want a God like that.

In Genesis 1:26 God created man in His image. Now modern man is creating God in his image. Then one day it occurred to me. It’s so simple, it’s so profound. There is one reality that explains all of it and that is God is Holy.

 

We talk about God as love and He is love.

We talk about God as kind and He is kind.

We talk about God as compassionate and He is compassionate.

Yet God is Holy- that’s His nature, his nature consists of Holiness. Now what does that mean?

 

He is not just separate from the world.

He is not just separate from sin.

He is not just separate from the created universe.

He is not just sort of Holy- He is Holier than you and me. No, it is Holiness in an entirely other dimension. Holiness at an entirely different level. Holiness of a kind we can not comprehend let alone appreciate. His Holiness is the purity of purities, the spotlessness of spotless, the infinite personification of absolute purity in the most profound sense.

 

Thus it is God that can’t allow sin in His presence, in His Holy place called Heaven. It’s a contradiction, it’s an impossibility, God can’t allow it. Thus it is that the unholy are eternally separated from God- It’s just the way things are. Thus it is that Christ’s coming, praying to the prince for man’s sinfulness is of absolute importance. We’ve heard this so many time and often it has little influence or effect or meaning to many. But the fact remains, the reality is, God is Holy, God is absolute by entirely, incomprehensibly and completely Holy. To me this Holiness explains everything.

 

It explains why there is a hell.

It explains why there is a heaven.

It explains why there is suffering.

It explains why Christ suffered the way he did on the cross. His suffering was absolutely mind boggling, absolutely horrific- why so? The Holiness of God was the prime reason. And it also explains and puts in perspective all the other great revelations there are about our incomprehensible and all loving God.