God is Holy Part 1

The God who created the universe is indeed holy, but how holy is His holiness?

The Triune God

The God that true Christians worship is much more than a god. Our God has revealed Himself to us as three different persons and yet still one single all-powerful God. The three parts of Him are The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit.

The Father

He is the everything, the One who cannot have evil in His midst. We are all commanded to fear Him with our whole hearts and we are also to love Him with all our hearts. In our “un-glorified” bodies we can’t even look at God. When Moses asked to see God, He would only let Moses see His back (Exodus 33:17-23). Then Moses’ face glowed like the sun with the glory of the Father.

The Son

The Son of the Trinity is our Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who dwelt among us while still being fully a supreme being (God) and fully a human being. In the Old Testament (OT) little was known to us about this mysterious God-part. As it says in 1 Corinthians, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.” Even though Paul in his letter is writing of understanding God, the illustration still fits the point I’m trying to make. In the OT we knew very little about this perplexing deity (a mirror dimly) but then in the New Testament (NT) we see Jesus face to face.

The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is sometimes overlooked but it should not be! The Holy Spirit plays a key part in our conscience and how we understand the Bible. It is a gift that was first given to stay after Jesus ascended back to heaven. Wait, but isn’t the Holy Spirit in the OT? Yes, it very well is but the Spirit would not always be with a person indefinitely. Think of Saul, it was written in the Bible that the “Spirit left him” and then he stopped being obedient to God. Now the Spirit has been given to us Christians to stay “until we acquire possession of it…” (Ephesians 1:13-14).

Holy

In the Bible, the two main words for holy have two different meanings but are still very similar. The OT Hebrew word for holy is qāḏôš which most accurately translates as to cut or separate. It is the separation of a person or thing that is common from a most divine thing. In the NT Greek, the word hagios can refer to either the holiness of God’s people or the holiness of God Himself. The word used for God’s people is semos, hieros, or hagios; and strictly for God, the words are horios or hagios.

In the whole Bible, it is made clear that when the word holy is used it most commonly means a separation. This separation is made clear in the Bible with or without the word holy. As you probably know there are many things set aside for the Lord in the Bible (i.g. holy ground, holy sabbath, Holy Place) and all of these are holy because they were separated by God.

The Unspeakable Name

When we think of a great authority or power (maybe it is in fiction) we can probably think of a name off of the top of our heads. Such as Sauron for instance from The Lord of the Rings, though he is very evil he does possess a vast amount of power. If we could speak to him (assuming he was in custody and was not about to kill you) we would have no trouble asking him a question. “Hey, Sauron why are you so evil?” I don’t know what he would answer but that question was not hard at all. Now try asking God, “Why are you so holy?” but use His most holy and descriptive name YHWH. You can’t do it. We humans cannot speak this word, ordinarily, we say it and write as Yahweh. As you can hopefully see God is so holy that we can’t see Him face to face, let alone speak His name.

We are such a broken and imperfect creature that we can not even know or understand what true holiness is or looks like. Asking God, “Why are you so holy?” is impossible because of who we are, not because God lacks anything.

Shad VanDyken

Thanks for reading! I know a lot has happened this week but I thought writing on the holiness of God was an excellent use of my time. I hope to have part 2 up next week. Please feel free to comment if you see any theological errors or if you just want to comment! Don’t forget to subscribe if you have not already done so, and please tell your friends about this blog too! Have a great day!