Most speeches and sermons have three parts to them. There is
the introduction, the body, and the conclusion. Often they have
three points in the body as well. Then there is another three fold
factor involved. There is the message as written; then the
message as delivered, and third what the speaker wishes he had
said after it is all over.
Winston Churchill was one of histories greatest speakers, and
he had this advice involving still another threeness in speech. If
you have an important point to make, he advised, don't try to be
subtle and be clever about it. He said use the pile driver. Hit the
point once, and then come back and hit it again, and then hit it
the third time a tremendous whack!
We do not know who the author of Psalm 99 was, but many
centuries before Churchill he was already applying this wisdom
in communication. This is called the holy, holy, holy Psalm
because the word holy is used to conclude each of the main
divisions of it. He says of God, he is holy, and then a second time,
he is holy, and then third time he gives it a tremendous whack,
and concludes, "The Lord our God is holy."
The attributes of God are numerous, but the only one that is
given a threefold emphasis is his holiness. The seraphs above
God's throne in Is. 6:3 are saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord
Almighty." In Rev. 4:8 the wondrous four living creatures
around the throne of God are saying ceaselessly, "Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord God Almighty."
Repetition is used in the Bible to convey degree. If you repeat
something you raise the degree of it's importance. Verily verily
or truly truly I say unto you, was the way Jesus called attention to
a very important message. R.C. Sproul tells of the battle of the
kings in the Valley of Siddim in Gen. 14 where some of them fell
into tar pits. The Hebrew says they were pit pits. In other words,
there are pits, and there are pit pits. The pit pits are pittier than
the pits. When you fall into these pits it is not just your typical
pit fall. You are in deep deep trouble. If the bottomless pit was to
be described by the use of repetition, it would be called the pit pit
pit. The three fold repetition is the ultimate beyond which you
cannot go. You can't get any pitter than a pit pit pit, for that
says it all.
So when the Bible goes from holy is the Lord, to holy holy is
the Lord, to holy holy holy is the Lord, it has reached the level of
the ultimate in holiness. There is no other degree of holiness
beyond holy, holy, holy. God is absolutely holy, infinitely holy,
eternally holy. Of course, He is also love, love, love, and mercy,
mercy, mercy, and justice, justice, justice, and we could go on
through all of His attributes. But the fact is God's holiness is the
only one of His attributes which is put into this Trinitarian form.
It is the only one elevated to the third degree in it's verbal
communication. Other beings are called holy, and other things.
Even one place is called holy of holies. It is raised to the second degree,
but no where is there anyone or anything raised to the third degree,
except God. He, and he alone, is holy, holy, holy. Hannah in her
prayer in I Sam. 2:2 says, "There is no one holy like the Lord;...."
The holy can cease to be holy and become unholy. Even holy
angels fell. The holy of holies can be destroyed, as it was several
times, and ceased to be a holy place, but became rather a common
place where God is no more present than anywhere else. But the
holy holy holy can never cease to be holy or in anyway
whatsoever deviate and do what is unholy.
God's holiness, like His love, puts limitations on His power.
The tyrant does not need to worry about whether or not his
actions are right, just, morally pure, and ethically fair. He does
anything he has to do to accomplish His will. If it takes lies,
thievery, and immorally, then so be it. Anything goes for the
cause.
God cannot do that to get His will done. If He could He would
not have sent His son into the world to die. A tyrant does not
sacrifice for you, they sacrifice you for themselves. God sacrificed
for you. If God could do anything to get His will done, would
Jesus have bothered to teach us to pray, "Thy will be done on
earth as it is in heaven." What a strange prayer that is if God can
do His will without limitations. If God was not limited by His love
and holiness, this prayer would be as meaningless as asking the
sun to shine, and the earth to revolve. But God is no vast machine
cranking out His will automatically without any hindrance.
The history of Israel is the history of God's limitations because
of His holiness. If God was not holy He could have said to Adam
and Eve, "We will just overlook your transgression and pretend it
never happened." If God was not holy He could have let Israel
profane His name and desecrate His law, and still have blessed
them, and made them rulers of the world. All of history could
have been different if God was not holy. There would have been
no flood and no judgments; no fall of Jerusalem and destruction
of the temple.
Evil is so powerful and effective just because it does not have
the limitations of holiness. The power of the Mafia, and the whole
underworld system, is due to the capacity of evil men to ignore all
that is holy. God cannot do that. He cannot lie, steal, cheat, and
treat persons like things. God can only do what is holy without
deviation, for as John says, "God is light and in Him in no
darkness at all." That means God cannot cut any corners, and be
unholy, even now and then, to speed up the process of getting His
will done on earth.
Holiness and love have this in common: They both impose
limitations on the power of God. God can do anything, we say,
but forget that we are, in saying that, only referring to His
potential power. If we refer to God's love and holiness, we can
come up with an enormous list of things God cannot do, for He
cannot do anything that is non-loving, and unholy, and that
covers a multitude of possibilities. He cannot deny His essence,
and be what He is not.
This explains a lot as to why the will of God is often so slow in
being fulfilled. It would be even slower if God's holiness did not
give balance to His love. Love controls God's power so that it is
not the sheer power of the tyrant doing His will whatever the cost
to other wills, and without respect to their freedom. Love is why
God is long suffering, and why the sinner has time to repent. But
if love was the only attribute of God, evil could go on endlessly
abusing the will of God, and there would never be judgment.
Holiness is that attribute of God that gives balance to His love.
Holiness puts a limit on God's love, just as love puts a limit on
God's power. God never ceases to love, for He is love, but He is
holy love, which means, there comes a point where judgment is
the most loving thing that can be done.
God loves the sinner, and forgives, forgives, and forgives. But
God, being holy, can never love sin. By His nature He cannot
love evil of any kind. He must condemn evil and judge sin. God
never forgives sin, only the sinner of his sin. If the sinner does not
at some point remove himself from his sin by means of repentance
and forgiveness, there comes a point where God's holiness
demands judgment.
This is why the holiness of God is not as appealing to man as
the love of God. It is sort of the dark side of God from man's
perspective. It is that side of God that produces His anger and
judgment. It seems so opposite of love that many refuse to accept
God's holiness, for it seems to contradict His love. How can God
love sinners and yet still at some point let His wrath fall on
sinners. It seems so contradictory that many have chosen to go
with love, and reject holiness. Beside being a clear rejection of
God's revelation, this is also a clear rejection of common sense.
The principle of the holy balancing the loving is built right
into reality. Every power you can think of is the same as God's
power. All power illustrates God's power, for all power has the
same capacity to bless or blast. All power is both loving and holy.
That is, it will be loving when you relate to it properly, but it will
be holy, or judgmental, when you refuse to abide by it's laws.
Take electricity for an example. It is one of the greatest
sources of blessings known to man. We don't have to list its
blessings to prove the point. If electricity was personal we could
sincerely say electricity is love. All of our daily lives are enriched
by its power. But we also know it is dangerous power. Many
people are killed and injured every year by this blessed power. If
you violate its love you will see it is a holy power. It will not
tolerate violations of its laws. It is much more legalistic than God
is. He will put up with numerous violations with patient
endurance. Electricity will zap you with one violation. Electricity
is not personal, however, and so, nobody ever questions it or
condemns it for its swift judgment.
When God's holiness operates like electricity, however, it
makes men furious. There has probably never been a reader of
the story of Uzzah in I Chron. 13 who has not gotten angry at
God, or at least puzzled. Uzzah was moving the ark of God when
the oxen stumbled, and he put his hand on the ark to steady it.
God struck him down, and he died, just as if he had touched a live
power line. David became very angry at God, and he was afraid
to move the ark any further, for fear of what God's wrath might
do next. So they left it at the house of one called Obed-Edom.
The Lord blessed his house and all that he had. The ark was a
great blessing to him, but deadly to one of those moving it because
he got on the wrong side of this blessing, and violated its laws.
Here is the scary side of God. God is long suffering and slow
to anger the Bible says. Yet here we have a picture of what looks
like an instant boil. God exploded in fury and Uzzah was gone.
God gave Ninevah forty days to repent, but Uzzah, who was no
pagan, but a faithful servant, doesn't get forty seconds. It all
seems so unloving and unjust that people get angry at God. But if
you see the whole story in the light of God's clear revelation it all
makes sense, and it illustrates the holiness of God.
Uzzah was a Kohathite, and they were specialist, just like a
modern day electrician. They had clear teaching on what they
could and could not do in dealing with the holy things of God. It
was there job to move the ark, and all the holy things, as Israel
moved. In Numbers 4:15, after describing how they are to carry
everything, it is stated, "But they must not touch the holy things
or they will die." Two more times in the next three verses God
warns them as to what they must do so they may live and not die.
It was a dangerous job and the rules for survival were clear.
Uzzah broke those rules and he died, just as skilled electricians do
when they violate the rules of electricity. You know you cannot
tamper with the blessings of electricity and keep it a blessing. It
will become your enemy if you stick a fork into a socket. You will
see a friend suddenly become a foe, and you could be killed by
this violation. This is true for every power you can think of that
is a blessing. It can also become your judge and executioner.
Fire is the source of so much life, health, and joy. Yet it is one
of the most destructive forces on the planet, and it turns lives and
property and dreams into smoke and ashes. Water is the very
essence of life, and a blessing beyond words to convey. Yet it
drowns, floods, and destroys. It has its loving side, and its holy
side. The sun gets into the top blessings of all time, but it too will
burn, blind, and turn gardens into deserts. The laws of men are a
great power for blessing. They keep order in society, and protect
us. They are the key to civilization. Yet if you get on the wrong
side of these laws they will punish you, imprison you, and make
your life miserable.
We could go on and on illustrating the point, that all beneficial
power is also power that will express judgment if you violate its
laws. There is no such thing as a power that is one hundred per
cent loving regardless of how you relate to it. So when we come to
God, the source of all these other powers, it makes sense that he
will also fit this same pattern, and be both loving and holy. Men
like to think it is a contradiction that God can be both
loving and holy. It is no more a contradiction than it is that
electricity can broil your steak, and also burn your finger.
Heaven and hell are not contradictions. They are simply the
finals in the series that characterizes all of life. When you are on
the right side of a power, you will be helped by it. When you are
on the wrong side of a power, you will be hurt by it. Reject the
proper relationship to fire and you will get burned. Reject the
proper relationship to water and you will be drowned. Reject the
proper relationship to electricity and you will be electrocuted.
Reject the proper relationship to law and you will be
arrested .Reject the proper relationship to God who is love, and
you will get judgment.
This whole principle that is built into all of reality is based on
the fact that God is holy. This means He has standards. He does
not operate on whim and feeling, but on what is good, right, just,
and fair. It is His holiness that demands that all sin and evil be
eventually entirely eliminated. He cannot accept any lesser goal
because He is holy.
Love can live with, and tolerate, sin, temporarily. If God was
not love, but operated as all other powers in an impersonal
legalistic fashion, all men would have long ago been annihilated.
Love is what keeps history going, but holiness is what keeps it
heading for the goal of total elimination of all evil. These two
attributes of God-love and holiness, are often seen in conflict, but
they are not. They are partners. God is love, but for love to be
truly authentic it must by necessity be balanced by hatred for all
that destroys love. That is what holiness is. It is that in God
which hates all that is not loving. Holiness is just the other side of
the coin of love. You cannot have heads without tails, and you
cannot have love without hatred for what is the enemy of love.
If I love good music, it follows that I will hate rotten music.
If I love harmony, I will hate discord.
If I love beauty, I will hate what is ugly.
If I love what is pure, I will hate what is contaminated.
If I love what is clean, I will hate what is dirty.
If I love truth, I will hate falsehood.
On and on we could go, showing that love and holiness are
partners, for holiness is that which backs up love by being an
enemy of all that is unloving. God is love, but because He is also
holy, He is the enemy of all that is non-loving. God cannot love
both justice and injustice, mercy and cruelty, right and wrong,
truth and error, good and evil. God's love is limited by His
holiness so that He cannot love what is a contradiction to love.
His love is kept pure by holiness, for all that is non-loving is
excluded from His love.
All judgment is simply love being protected by holiness. If love
had no such protection it would become so weak and watered
down that it would cease to be love. It happens all the time on the
level of human love. Love for, and tolerance of, evil, gets to the
point where love becomes the support of the evil. In the world of
alcoholism, for example, there are what we call enablers. These
are loved ones of the alcoholic, who by their love keep enabling
the alcoholic to go on drinking. They have love, but lack holiness
to balance that love. There is never judgment, but only tolerance,
and the end result is the evil goes on and on until love itself is
destroyed. Love without the balance of holiness is a love that will
self-destruct.
We do not like the holy side of God we think, but in reality,
without it He would not be a God worth worshipping, for His love
would soon become meaningless, for evil tolerated endlessly
would eventually win the battle of light against darkness. Stress
the love of God without the balance of the holiness of God, and
you will lean toward liberalism. Stress the holiness of God
without the balance of His love, and you will lean toward
legalism. Put love and holiness together, and you have a Biblical
theology of balance where there is hope for the sinner, but also
serious danger if the gift of God's love is not accepted.
Holiness is that which makes God beautiful. We are told
repeatedly in Scripture to worship the Lord in the beauty of
holiness. Holiness takes all of the attributes of God and blends
them into a symmetrical whole so that God is seen as glorious.
Holiness balances all of God's attributes so that there is perfect
harmony. John Howe wrote, "It is the transcendental attribute
that runs through the rest and casts a glory upon every one of
them." Jonathan Edwards said, "No other attribute is truly lovely
without this, and no otherwise than it derives its loveliness from
this." Spurgeon said, "Holiness is the harmony of all the
virtues...His power is not His choice virtue nor His sovereignty,
but His holiness." Just as all the colors come together in the light
from the sun, so holiness is that light of God's glory that combines
the beauty of all his attributes.
Startling beauty should always make us think of God. He is the
author of all that is beautiful. His nature is beautiful and He
created what was perfect beauty and flawless harmony. Sin has
messed up his creation, but the fact is there is still enormous
beauty that is everywhere reminding us that the Creator is a God
of beauty.
The goal of God is that His people would be holy as He is holy
and be beautiful people in character. All evil will be eventually
eliminated, and we will be like Him. This means the Christian
goal in this life is not success, or even happiness, but holiness.
God is not impressed by human success, but by our conformity to
His will and by our partaking of His nature. This means we
cannot use power in any way we choose. Our power must, like
God's, be limited by love, and our love be limited by holiness. We
have the highest obligation to be separated from all that is unholy
that we might bring honor and glory to Him who was, who is,
who will ever be holy, holy, holy.
PART 2
There is no subject on which the human mind can focus that
is more significant, more important, and more vital than the
subject of God. In the Great Books Of The Western World
almost every great author that has influenced the Western World
in any realm of knowledge has had something to say about God.
Of the 100 great ideas that have changed the course of history, the
chapter on God is the longest of the 100. The introduction says,
"The reason is obvious. More consequences for thought and
action follow from the affirmation or denial of God than from
answering any other basic question."
God is infinite, however, and so there is no end to what can be
know of God. We can never know all about God, but we can
know what He has revealed about Himself. Among the many
things He has told us, one of the most important of all is that He is
holy. Not only is His holiness exalted to the level of being
repeated 3 times, as no other attribute is, it is also the only
attribute that is so beautiful that it is associated with beauty over
and over again. In I Chron. 16:29 we read, "Worship the Lord in
the beauty of holiness." We read it again in Psa. 29:2 and 96:9.
Holiness is that which makes all that God is glorious and
beautiful. A. W. Tozer in his book The Knowledge Of The Holy writes,
"It is my opinion that the Christian conception of God current in
these middle years of the 20th century is so decadent as to be
utterly beneath the dignity of the most high God and actually to
constitute for professed believers something amounting to a moral
calamity." He writes again, "I believe that there is scarcely an
error in doctrine or a failure in applying Christian ethics that
cannot be traced finally to imperfect and ignoble thoughts about
God."
Russel Metcalf Jr. in his book on worship tells of two colonial
churches in his state. One has a steeple so large for the size of the
church that it looks like an architectural case of the tail wagging
the dog. The other has a steeple so small it looks like a birdhouse
perched on the Parthenon, a blemish instead of a crown. He
points out that beauty is the blend of all component parts into a
graceful whole so that the parts do not call attention to
themselves, but to the over all impression of beauty. Holiness
takes all the attributes of God and blends them into one
symmetrical whole so that God is seen as glorious, and so
perfectly balanced that He is beautiful. If God is not beautiful,
you see some aspect of His being without the balance of holiness.
Get that into the picture and you will see, not a God, which makes
you angry or bitter, but one who makes you worship.
This fits the case of the believer as well. A Christian ceases to
be beautiful when holiness is not the key element that holds the
pieces together. If a Christian gets lopsided and does not have a
beautiful life it is due to the lack of holiness. Holiness balances all
virtues in proper proportion so that one is Christ-like. Jesus was
the perfect man, or the most beautiful and attractive man
whoever lived, and it was because He was holy. Holiness is what
made Jesus exclusive. He was tempted in all points like as we are,
yet without sin. He was in the world, but not of it. He could be in
the presence of sin and not be contaminated by it because He was
holy.
It is holiness that enables love to be inclusive. He loved
everyone. This is dangerous without holiness, for love of the
sinner can easily lead to becoming like the sinner in his sin. Jesus
had no such problem because of His holiness. Holiness has no
interest in sin, and so it keeps love from loving the sin as well as
the sinner. It enabled Jesus to live the paradox of being inclusive
in loving all, and yet exclusive in being unlike anyone he loved.
Nothing is really and fully good, true, and beautiful unless it is
balanced by holiness. This paradox of love and holiness is basic
to the Christian walk. Love calls us to inter the world, but
holiness calls us to withdraw from the world. The tension is
always there to both love and hate the world. When that tension
ceases something is wrong. The Christian will either so love the
world that he becomes a part of it, or so hates the world that he
parts from it and loses his saltiness. Both are mistakes. The goal
is balance so that one is in the world loving it, and yet keeping
unspotted by the world. Only love and holiness together can
make this balanced walk possible. We need to see the holiness of
God better in order to have some measure of His holiness.
GOD'S HOLINESS IS AWESOME.
The more we grasp the holiness of God, the more we feel a
profound awe and smallness. The key idea of holiness is
set-apartness. God is so far above the dimension of reality that
we inhabit that His presence is a shock to our system. Because
the Lord reigns and is seated between the cherubim, and is
exalted over all the nations, the response to those who become
conscious of it is that of trembling, shaking, and praise of His
awesome name. He is holy means that He is above all and apart
from all. God is not contaminated by any aspect of fallen man, or
fallen creation. He is transcendent. This is the theological term
used to describe the fact that God is wholly other. It makes God
hard to grasp, for there is no one to compare Him with. He is one
of a kind, and so unique that He is in a class by Himself. Man
cannot even invent ideas of God that can rise to His level and be
in any way in the same category with Him.
In Ex. 15:11 Moses asks, "Who among the gods is like you, O
Lord? Who is like you-majestic in holiness,.." In I Sam. 2:2
Hanna sang, "There is none holy like the Lord, there is none
beside Thee." God asks the question Himself in Isa. 40:25, "To
whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal? Says the Holy
One." God is praised with holy, holy, holy because in him you
have reached the ultimate of holy, beyond which there is no going.
The holy of holies was where the high priest could meet with God
on the Day of Atonement. Any other entering would die in the
presence of such holiness.
If God was only holy, we would not know He even existed, for
He could have no contact whatever to that which is not holy. But
God is love, and so He not only made what is not Himself, but He
relates to it, and He relates to us even as fallen creatures. But
when He does His holiness is awesome, and man is made fearful in
His presence. Some of you may be old enough to remember the
scary radio program called The Inner Sanctum. When that
creaking door began to open there was silence in our home. I did
not know then that Inner Sanctum meant within the holy. But I
enjoyed the eeriness of dealing with the mysterious. I don't thing
I ever connected that scary feeling with the awe that should be a
part of the worship of God. We have not stressed the holiness of
God enough to produce that kind of awe.
We want to experience the presence of God in worship, but here
is a side of God's presence that is not always pleasant. Isaiah in
chapter 6 describes his scene the Lord high and lifted
up. He heard the Seraphs singing holy, holy, holy is the Lord
Almighty. He does not say that he clapped his hands and shouted
for joy in the presence of God's holiness. Instead he says in verse
5, "Woe is me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and
I live among the people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the
King, the Lord Almighty." He was frightened by the awesome
scene and felt very unholy. I have read of the shock that people
have had to endure when their prayer for revival was answered
and they felt God's presence. The Holy Spirit was present in such
power that people who thought they had it all together were
convicted of their deep sinfulness. They wanted revival for the
rest of the unholy world, but in the presence of God's holiness
they saw how unholy they were.
They were worse off than before, for before they felt sanctified
and worthy of God's presence, but in His presence they felt
unclean. The more you sense the presence of God, the more you
will realize how sinful you are. This is not a pleasant revelation,
and so we do not really go all out to see the holiness of God.
Martin Luther froze at the altar the first time he led the mass.
His father sat in the congregation and felt a wave of parental
embarrassment sweep over him as he saw his son fail. Luther's
lips began to quiver as he tried to speak, but nothing would come
out. Later Luther explained what had happened to paralyze him.
He wrote, "I was utterly stupefied and terror-stricken. I
thought to myself, 'With what tongue shall I address such
majesty, seeing that all men ought to tremble in the presence of
even an earthly prince? Who am I, that I should lift up mine eyes
or raise my hands to the divine Majesty? The angels surround
him, at His nod the earth trembles. And shall I, a miserable little
pigmy, say 'I want this, I ask for that'? For I am dust and ashes
and full of sin and I am speaking to the living, eternal and the
true God."
The holy is a mystery. It is so far removed from what is
normal to us, and so we are mystified by the very thought of it.
People love ghost stories even if they do not believe in ghosts
because the very thought of such a thing produces a sense of awe.
People go crazy to see and experience what makes them scream,
and what makes their skin crawl. They go to horror movies and
take rides on fear producing machines. All of this craving for
thrills so natural to man is a hunger for the supernatural. People
want to relate to the world that is beyond, and which is fearful
and awesome because it is so different. They do not choose the
way of spirituality, and so they go the way of secular experiences
to get a taste of the mysterious and the holy. Man wants to rise
above the ordinary and taste the extraordinary. He gets bored
with the commonplace and needs the feeling that there is more.
He does not seek the awesomeness of God to get this experience
because it is not fearful in a fun way, but in a scary way. Without
a relationship to God, man feels threatened by the holiness of
God.
The miracles of Jesus met with great joy among the people, but
the Pharisees were offended because they felt the presence of
what they thought was evil and not good. They said he was doing
them by the power of Beelzebub. Some felt God and they felt the
devil in the same setting. Two people eat the same food and one
feels great and the other gets sick. The problem then is not the
food but the state of the body it goes into. One is ready for it and
the body is compatible. It is a blessing to this one, but to the body
not ready to receive it, there is the curse instead of the blessing.
One receives riches and becomes a great blessing to mankind by
his generosity. Another receives riches and becomes a greedy evil
power that is a curse to mankind. The point is, we must be in the
right state of mind and soul to benefit from the holiness of God. If
we are out of fellowship with God his holiness is like grabbing a
live wire, and we will be electrocuted like Ananias and Sapphira
in Acts 5 who were struck dead because of trying to deceive the
Holy Spirit. But if we are in the right state of mind and soul as
were the believers at Pentecost, we will be filled with power and
joy. May God give us the joy of being in that state where we can
appreciate the awesomeness and beauty of His holiness.
