Our God is Holy (Part 1)

Revelation chapter four. Verse number six, the Bible says this, this is a scene in heaven, And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal, and in the midst of the throne and round about the throne were four beasts full of eyes before and behind. And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.

And the four beasts each had each of them six wings about him, and they were full of eyes within, and they rest not day and night, saying, holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was and is and is to come. I I don’t know that we can nail it down exactly because Revelation does not call these these beasts by the same name, but what we read in Isaiah says that they have six wings, Revelation says they have six wings.

They’re crying out the same thing in the same scene in heaven before God, And so we are assuming that these, even though they’re not actually named here, we’re assuming that these are the same creatures that Ezekiel saw, or Isaiah saw rather in chapter six, the Seraphim that are giving god praise but notice how they’re praising god. They’re saying, holy, holy, holy, lord god almighty. And so, what we’re going to do is we’re going to spend some time studying the holiness of God. Our God, this is the next attribute of God in our study.

Our God is holy. Let’s pray together. Our Father, we come to you now and Lord, your name is holy and lord, we want, we desire to know more about your holiness and as we look into your word, we begin to look into it. Lord, so many places in scripture that describe your holiness and holy things. And obviously, it is a significant truth in your mind and in your heart and a significant part of your character. And we do not want to take it lightly, but we want to understand and to grow in our knowledge of God and also in our own holiness as we come to understand the way you are, may it rub off on us and may we become holy because you are holy.

And so guide us to today in our study but not just today but also as we go through this section of our study. Lord, open our eyes. Cause us to see and understand the scripture. Be our teacher as we study these truths. Help us, Lord, cause us to stand in awe of who you are. And we pray and ask in Jesus’ name. Amen.

Now, the holiness of God is mentioned or holy as an adjective, is mentioned five forty four times in the Bible. Five forty four times. And if you take the book of Exodus, the book of Leviticus, and the book of Psalms, those three books carry the majority of the instances in scripture of of the word holy. You also have the word holiness as a noun is, some 43 times. I say some 43 times because it sometimes the the usage is a little, it varies a little bit, but generally, 43 times in the Bible, the word holiness is mentioned, bringing us to a total of 587 mentions of holy of holiness in the Bible.

500 mentions of holiness in the five five almost 600. So that means for every book of the Bible, if you average it out for every book of the Bible, you’re looking at around approximately 10 mentions of holiness and it doesn’t it averages out like that, but that’s not the actual layout of it. But obviously, it is a very significant part of the scripture. Now here’s the thing, it is a significant part of the scripture, but the vast majority of the mentions of the holiness of holier holiness are found in the Old Testament, not the New.

The New mentions it, but not nearly as frequently as the Old Testament. In fact, when you go to the New Testament, the vast majority of the time the word holy is mentioned is not referring to just holy, you know, something being holy, but it’s in reference to the Holy Spirit or the Holy Ghost. And and outside of that, it’s relatively few instances in the New Testament where you see the holy holiness is mentioned outside of the Holy Spirit. Now if you compare that to the Old Testament, the Holy Spirit is only mentioned a handful of times in the Old Testament.

Now here’s the thing. I think what one of the thing one of the things it shows us is number one, that the Holy Spirit, his existence, although it it is found in the Old Testament without a question, but his his ministry is not fully revealed to us until we get to the New Testament. We see him in various places. I’ve been reading in first Samuel where Saul was the holy the the spirit of the Lord came upon him. It doesn’t say holy spirit, but it says the spirit of the Lord came upon him and he prophesied.

But it’s not really until the New Testament that we get a full view of what the Holy Spirit’s role and job and ministry is. And so that’s I think one of the reasons why we see the Holy Spirit so often in the New Testament. But it also shows us that the New Testament is built upon the old. Here’s why, in other words, the New Testament does not, the Lord doesn’t spend hardly any time reiterating the fact of the holiness of God. It does mention it, but it mentions it in passing as if it is a known fact. It is an established truth. You know, there are many things in the New Testament that are like that, that aren’t rehashed and reargued and relitigated and retaught, but are assumed, and then the Lord takes that the the truth of scripture and moves it forward.

In other words, tells us new things based upon what we already know in the Old Testament. So in the Old Testament alone, we we come to the understanding that the God of creation, the true and the living God is a holy God, is a holy God. Now if I were to ask you if I were to ask you what how you would define the word holy. If I were to ask you, I’m not I’m not gonna do that, but if I were gonna if I were to ask you that, most people in most church would probably define the word holy as something to the effect of righteous or morally pure or maybe pure is the way we might define it, right? If someone is holy, they’re not infected with sin, they’re not unclean in that way.

Now this might shock you a little bit, but that is not really what holiness is. That’s not really what the word holy means. That’s how we’ve come to kind of use it and if I can put it like this, understanding holiness as moral purity or not being you know, not not having sin or something like that is a subset of the word. But the word itself is far broader than just moral purity. And this is why you see the word in scripture, you see the word holy beside the word righteous.

Because the word righteous does mean, if you take the definition of righteous and of course, we we know the Lord is righteous. Righteous means conforming to a standard of right and justice. Right? That’s what righteous means. God is righteous. God never does evil. God always does that which conforms to his own standard of righteousness which is always righteous. Right? And that so we’re talking about conduct, we’re talking about avoiding sin and doing the things that are are good and upright in his sight. That’s what we mean when we say righteous. But that is not what we mean when we say holy, although they are related.

Although they are related. That might come as a little bit of a surprise to you. Let me show you the first example of that to demonstrate this truth. Now here’s why I say this.

As I’ve studied this subject, what I’ve come to realize is that my own understanding of holiness has been off. And having a biblical view of holiness, I found a great deal more satisfying as a believer than my common view. A lot of people when you bring up Christian, I say Christian types, probably no one here, but a lot of Christian types have been trained and conditioned to react negatively to the idea of holiness.

Because they associate holiness with God says you should be holy, that means you need to not do this and that and the other thing, and you need to do this and that and the other thing. So they associate holiness with doing God’s commandments, avoiding sin and sometimes that goes into things like they don’t wanna be told they shouldn’t do this or that or the other, but that’s not really what we’re talking about when we talk about holiness, although there is a relationship there. So some people when they hear holiness, the holiness of God, they kinda roll their eyes like oh no, here’s He gonna tell us we can’t go here, can’t do there, how we dress and where we go, what we drink and what we eat, but that’s not what we’re talking about primarily when we’re talking about holiness and you’ll see what I mean in just a minute. Let’s go to Exodus chapter three.

Exodus chapter three. This is the first mention surprisingly a little bit. This is the first mention of the holiness of God and of the word holy. Exodus chapter three.

Now it might surprise you that we’re already if the holiness of God is something that the Seraphim in heaven are announcing on a continual basis day and night, right? Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. If that’s something that is always happening, we assume has been happening for very long time, then why is it not mentioned until we get to Exodus? I don’t know that we can answer that directly. We do find God’s omnipotence mentioned in Genesis often. In fact, that’s how he revealed himself. He said to Abraham, I am the Lord God Almighty.

Right? Not holy, Almighty. Why do you think he mentions his omnipotence in Genesis? Well, let’s start there. Why do you why give me an idea. Why do you think God would talk about or refer to himself in terms of his omnipotence in Genesis to start?

Because we don’t see his holiness until we get to Exodus yet. To establish a standard that everything’s gonna be based from thereon. Right. And that the standard that the omnipotence of God sets up is the standard of God’s creation. And that’s how he’s revealing himself to to Adam and to Eve and to and to all, you know, Noah and then later to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. He reveals himself as the creator, the one who is almighty and that’s all connected to his omnipotence.

Now, we get to Exodus and especially Exodus chapter three, which is the burning bush. God is revealing Himself in a new way, a way that He has not revealed Himself in Scripture up to this point. And He does it in the same way that He is revealing Himself to Israel. In other words, this is a significant revelation of God’s nature. It’s a significant revelation of God’s nature. Now this is not, again, this is not a minor fact.

The Lord is revealing himself anew to Moses in chapter three. Look at what it says. Verse number verse number one. Now Moses kept the flock of Jethro, his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the backside of the desert and came to the mountain of God even to Horeb. Now what is the mountain of God? What is Horeb? Some people get these terms mixed up. What are we talking about when say the mountain of God Horeb?

Sinai. We’re talking about Sinai. It’s called Horeb sometimes, it’s called Sinai, it’s called the Mountain Of God. But here here’s so so Moses is down in Midian, he’s keeping his flock, and he’s in the vicinity of what will be in the future Mount Sinai. It’s not that yet because of course, this is just beginning of the story. But and children of Israel still in Egypt at this point. But it’s interesting that Moses finds himself in this spot.

The spot’s gonna become big a big thing in Moses life, is it not? And God’s gonna reveal himself anew to Moses here on Mount Sinai, but before it’s Sinai. Verse two, and the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush, and he looked and behold, the bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed. And Moses said, I will now turn aside and see this great sight, why the bush is not burnt.

And when the Lord saw that he turned aside to see, God called unto him out of the midst of the bush and said, Moses, Moses. And he said, here am I. And he said, now this is so important for us to get. Remember, this is the first mention of the word holy in the Bible. The principle of first mention dictates that generally speaking, that which is revealed in the first mention of a thing in the bible often projects the nature of that thing later on in scripture.

God will add to it but it will not generally change and the holiness of god is no exception and in this example, the first mention of of holy in scripture, you see the definition. It’s not directly stated but you see it and it might surprise you a little bit. Notice what he says. In verse number five, he said, and he said, draw not nigh hither. Now that’s the first hint, that’s the first clue.

Now he’s about to call himself, he’s about to mention the word holy, but the first thing he says is, don’t come close, stay away. Now we have this idea of God, right? That God is the big teddy bear who wants to give us a big hug.

God does not wanna give Moses a big hug because if God gave Moses a big hug, Moses would immediately perish. He doesn’t wanna give Moses a hug. He tells Moses, keep your distance. Does that surprise you?

Now, as we go through our study, because of course God doesn’t change, right? The same God who says to Moses keep your distance says to us come close. So something changes, God doesn’t change, something’s changes and that is an amazing truth but we can’t get into it now. But here in Exodus, the first revelation of the word holy God says, stay away, keep your distance. So, the first thing about the word holiness is its association with distance from God.

See that? Can’t come close. God’s over there and I’m over here. See it? Now keep reading verse number, put off thy shoes from off thy feet. Okay, so Moses has been has been tracking through, trekking through if you will, through the desert, through the wilderness of Sinai, it would be called later. He’s been walking and and you know, leading his herds around and looking for water, looking for vegetation and various things and he’s had his shoes on the entire time. He’s been walking on the ground this whole time.

Why is it that this ground he has to remove his shoes? What’s different about this ground versus all of the other ground he’s been on? Well, there’s a token, there’s an indication of the difference because God tells him to take his shoes off. So something is different. Alright, keep reading. He says this, For the place whereon thou standest is holy ground. Now here’s what I want you to see.

This is the reason Moses has to take his shoes off because all of the ground he’s been on has been common ground. No pun intended. Now he’s on holy ground and requires, God requires Moses remove his shoes because of the nature of that ground that he’s on. Now remember, this mountain is not Mount Sinai yet as far as it relates to God, it’s just another mountain. God hasn’t come down upon it like He does later in Exodus.

So this is just a regular ground, but now it’s called holy ground. And the scripture doesn’t say directly, but let’s assume, let’s read into it a little bit, think is a safe assumption. Alright, well I’ll just poll you, okay? Why do you think this ground is holy now?

Okay, okay, everybody’s on the same page, right? Safe assumption. The ground is holy now because God is there, which reflects upon God’s own holiness, right? Okay. But notice, now that the ground is holy, it cannot be treated as every other ground. Even though five minutes ago it was. Now that God is God who is holy and interestingly, the first mention of the word holy is not referring to God.

Not directly anyway, it’s referring to ground. But it becomes holy because of the presence of God there. And he says, I am the God, in the next verse, he said, I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. And Moses hid his face for he was afraid to look upon God. Okay, so God’s revealing himself. God is there. God is speaking to him from the burning bush.

God is present. So the ground is holy. God’s holiness has rubbed off, if you will, on the ground. So now the ground is holy. Now, this is where we get into what I asked you at the beginning which is how do you and I usually understand the word holy? And the answer I provided you was we understand the word holy in the sense of moral purity, Right?

Or we understand it essentially equivalent to righteousness, but it’s not equivalent. How do you know? Well think about this ground. Is the ground somehow unrighteous? Can ground have moral value? Right? This ground before the Lord showed up in the burning bush, was this ground somehow unrighteous? Was it somehow unclean? Had it sinned in some way? Was it morally defiled? No, it was just ground. But now it’s called holy. Well, did it do righteousness to become holy? Well, no.

You see what I’m saying? Here’s what I want you to see. In the first mention of the word holiness, there is no idea of moral purity or righteousness at all. You see that? There’s no idea of it related at all. And that tells us that brings us back to then what is the idea? What is the idea of holiness? If it has nothing to do like you you might we might safely assume if god said, I am righteous, I am holy, and that was the first mention, but it’s not.

It’s something inanimate that can’t have more value in that way. God calls it holy. And it’s holy because He is holy. Now let me ask you a question. How many places as far as we know on earth was God’s presence manifested on the planet at this moment? Now we know, I mean, don’t get theological with me like we know God is everywhere all at once. But he was in the burning bush, would you agree in a special way? Right. Alright. How how as far as we know, how many places was he present? Exactly one spot.

And that tells us something about this word holy. The reason it’s hold, the ground is holy because God is there. And the reason the ground is holy is because God is there and only there.

Now, so building upon that foundation, we can start to understand that holiness refers more than to than only God’s moral purity or righteousness. And there are actually many many times in scripture that God uses the word holy to refer to objects that have no moral value at all. So you you couldn’t say righteous. It would be silly to say this is righteous ground or this is a right this is a righteous pew, that makes no sense because inanimate things can’t have more value like that.

But the scripture describes many things that that are referred to as holy that are inanimate. So, that tells us that this word is much broader than simple simple moral purity. Listen to some of these verses. Leviticus 20 verse 26, and you shall be holy unto me, for I, the lord, am holy, and have severed you from other people that you should be mine. All the days, speaking of the Nazarite, you know, when he shaved his head and he performed the sacrifices of his vow, the Nazarite vow, here’s what it says. It says, all the days of his separation, he is holy unto the Lord.

And then in Deuteronomy 14 verse two, the Bible says this, for thou art an holy people unto the lord thy god and the lord hath chosen thee to be a peculiar people unto himself above all the nations that are upon the earth. And then also, you can see the idea of holiness as it’s described in its opposite. But before we get there, before we look at the opposite, we need to understand the positive side, which is this.

Holiness then, you know, it’s mentioned in relation to separation, remember, stay away. Here’s the idea of holiness. Just if I’ll give you a few a few synonyms to kinda get us get working in our mind. And the reason I wanna give you these is because later, as we start looking at other references to holiness, what I’m what I’m trying to do to be honest with you is I’m trying to extract from your mind this idea that holiness is the same as righteousness and to give us all a biblical understanding of the definition so that when we see it later, we don’t automatically equate it to righteousness, but we have a biblical understanding of it. Yes, sir?

Right. Right. That’s actually a very good example. Was Samson righteous? No. But he was holy as a result of his Nazarite vow. And there are absolutely, there’s other instances of that where you see unrighteousness but yet holy. Let me give you one, give you a kind of a foretaste of where we’re going. Think of the word saint, The word saint. It’s a very common word both in the Old and New Testament to refer to God’s people.

Alright, the word means, the word saint, it’s derived from the word holy, it means holy one. That’s what it means. Was Lot a saint? Yes. Lot was a saint. He was a righteous man. Now not practically, was righteous because of his faith, right? But he wasn’t righteous, very righteous practically. Lot was a man who vexed his righteous soul. So he had a righteous soul but he definitely wasn’t practically very righteous, right? But he was a saint.

Had there been times that you have been a saint but have not been doing righteousness? But you’re still a saint. Because holiness is not just righteousness. Now every saint should be righteous, right? But to be a saint we might say is a category. It’s a category question, not a practice question, an application question. And the word saint is derived from the word holy, it means holy one. Alright.

So here, I’m putting forth a definition to you. Here’s what holy means. Holiness means hallowed. Our Father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Think about it. Even God’s name, it wouldn’t make sense to say Lord may your name be righteous. No, no, no. But hallowed means different. I say the word hallowed that kinda rings the bell of what holiness means and it kind of differentiates in our mind from the word righteous.

To be hallowed is different than to be righteous. We might say that holiness and you see it, holiness you could say is sacredness. Holiness is some someone so one person I was reading after, they they said you can define holiness sort of like otherness, apartness, separateness. Okay. What what do I mean by that? It means that Moses, you stay over there and I stay over here. Don’t get near me.

Or in the case of the ground, this ground is different than all the other ground. This is another ground. This is distinct. And so when God says that he is holy, or when the angels say he, the the Seraphim say, holy, holy, holy, what they’re actually stating is not God’s moral righteousness, although that’s definitely there. They’re actually saying, God, there is nothing like you.

You are all alone. There’s no one that approaches you, there is no one similar to you, there’s no one like you and we see this in Isaiah as well, there’s no one related to you, you are in a class all by yourself, you are holy. That’s what we’re talking about.

And that definition then extends to all these other things, objects and people and all these other things but the idea is it’s set apart distinct from the common. And in the case of God, everything outside of God is unholy. The only things that are holy are things that God’s own holiness kind of rubs off on.

That’s why God can never be put into a category with other gods, He refuses. Absolutely refuses. He is not to be lumped together because He is separate from them. He is distinct. He is not the same. Now, going back, we have to wrap it up here, but going back to the idea I mentioned a minute ago, which is this idea that we can understand holiness by we can use otherness, apartness, we can use sacredness, something that is devoted, if you will. We can understand it all in that way, but think of the opposite of that. You think of something that is hallowed, the opposite of that is common, for common use.

Like for instance, I, just as a simple example, say we’re using these special Psalm books we have and I wanted, I have 50 of them here sitting on the pew, they’re for common use, they’re to distribute to everyone. But say I took one and I said, I’m gonna set this one aside and I’m gonna set it up here for the song leader, this is his songbook. You know what I’ve done? I’ve hallowed that one. Know I didn’t use it in the kind of spiritual sense, but in the practical sense that is exactly what we’re talking about with holy.

It’s taking that thing apart from common so it’s not to be used commonly and to use it for a special purpose. And for God, God is there, to what thing might we categorize God with that he would be part of a common? He’s not. Like everything about God is holy, is sacred, is distinct and separate from everything else.

This is what we mean. This is what we mean when the model prayer says, the Lord says, our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Lord, your name is alone.

No one can claim your name. It is yours alone and no one is like you. This is why God says, keep your distance. He’s visualizing to now we know Moses is gonna get very close to God, right, in Mount Sinai and all that. So we know that we don’t wanna take that too far but yet kind of visually, he says stay away. I am God and I am holy and you’re over there because you are not what I am.

There must be distance, right? Because you are not what I am. I am unique and stand alone. In scripture you have, first Samuel 25 it says this, when David went to, Ahimelech the priest, it says, of a truth women have been kept from us about these three days since I came out, and the vessels of the young men are holy. Notice, holy, and the bread is in a manner common, yea, though it were sanctified this day in the vessel.

So, he’s referring to the men because they haven’t been with with women, he calls them holy. They’re separated. Ezekiel 4four 23 says this, and they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and the profane and cause them to discern between the clean and the unclean, the unclean and the clean. First Timothy one nine says this, knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly, and for sinners, for unholy and profane.

Now, last verse I wanna share with you is Leviticus 12, look if you would there. Leviticus chapter 12. Verse one says this, and the Lord spake unto Moses saying, speak unto the children of Israel saying, if a if a woman have conceived seed and born a man child, then she shall be unclean seven days according to the days of the separation for an infirmity shall she be clean and in the eighth day, the flesh of his foreskin shall be circumcised and she shall then continue in the blood of her purifying three and thirty days. Now notice what it says, she shall touch no hallowed thing.

That word hallowed is the same as the word holy, just another way of putting it. In other words, that was one of the laws is this woman who had just had a baby, the things that were considered holy or separated or sacred or put aside for God, she wasn’t allowed to touch those, right? That was what the law said. So it shows us again this idea of being separate.

These are the things associated with God. They’re not for common use. They’re not for common use. So that gives us a little bit of an introduction about about the the word holy, the idea of holy. Anybody wanna anybody have a thought you wanna add to that before we close?

I think that’s built upon the understanding that holiness is the same as righteousness rather than the strict, yeah. I think unconfirmed righteousness, I don’t know. I think, I mean I think they, that’s a tough question. Why the devil’s allowed in the presence of God is kind of a little bit of a deep theological question to begin with. But to kinda dodge it a little bit, to stick with the idea of holiness, I think what we’re talking about there is righteousness.

Because we know they were not conformed to a standard of justice and righteousness. Yeah. Right. There’d be a lot of Yeah, that’s true. I mean that’s a fact. So that’s a good point. All right, well let’s pray and we’ll close and we’ll start our service in about ten minutes.