Holiness is one of the characteristics of God which is difficult to define. When we think of love, grace or kindness we can immediately think of actions that relate to those characteristics. When we think of God being omnipresent, omnipotent or omniscience we have terms to show us what those characteristics mean... present everywhere, all powerful and all knowing. Justice and righteous are getting a little more difficult to define, anger and wrath are two characteristics that we don't like to think about and well, what about holiness?
Hebrew poetry is full of parallelism. we read often such phrases as fear and knowledge, wisdom and understanding and Lord and Holy One are two others which are often together, and when focused on, they help us understand the full meaning behind a thought about God.
So when we see God being called the Holy One, what does it mean? Most agree that the word comes from the verb meaning "to cut".
Say you begin preparing dinner and in the process, whilst using a knife, you cut of a slice of your finger. It becomes separate to you. It is now apart from you and the rest of your body. The idea behind holy "cut" or "set apart" is that it is different, set apart or distinctly different.
God set the seventh day apart and called it "holy". It was specifically set apart for his purposes and plans. The ground Moses stood on when he saw God in the burning bush was called "holy ground" it was ground that was set apart.
When God calls Himself holy, or introduces Himself as the HOLY ONE, He is saying that He is totally different or we would say in a league of His own. God Himself declares in Isaiah 40:25 to whom will you compare me, or who is my equal?".
On one occasion two of Aaron's sons, Nadab and Abihu, took matters into their own hands and acted in ways that were against God's commands. They immediately suffered the consequences of their actions. Moses said
"this is what the Lord spoke of when He said, "among those who approach me I will show myself holy: in the sight of all the people. I will be honoured."Leviticus 10:3
The Lord then went on to explain that those who were to approach His Holiness, "must distinguish between the holy and the common, between the clean and the unclean." There were many ritualistic clensings which the jews had to be observed (as exists in Islam), if they were going to have dealings with Him. To be clensed meant to be clensed and therefore set apart and to be set apart meant to be considered holy.
God is set apart, He is different from us in every possible way. His holiness is in sharp contrast to our human nature. His cleaness to our uncleaness and even you as a muslim must agree with this, as you have many rituals of your own to go through in order to be clean enough ritually to approach God in prayer.
Everything we do is stained by our pride, selfishness and warped understanding. He on the other hand acts totally out of his characteristics which are totally untouced by sin. It is His holiness which shines when he deals with man and in all His actions. The Lord our God is Holy is the cry of all the Psalms. God can act in anyway He wants, but His ways are considered Holy.. and in fact in Revelation 15:3-4 it declares
Great and marvellous are your deeds, Lord God Almighty. Just and true are your ways. King of the ages, who will not fear you, Oh Lord and bring glory to your Name? For YOU ALONE ARE HOLY.
Now turn your eyes to Isaiah and to Isaiah's vision of the Holiness of God Moses was denied the right to see God's glory and was only allowed to glimpse it. Men in the mortal state cannot see God and live.
Isaiah however saw God high and lifted up ... he saw a throne and God Himself exalted on it. As He lifted his eyes, Isaiah says only " I saw the Lord."
Isaiah describes the seraphim around the throne exalting God... but notice what it is that he declares they cry out... holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty, the whole earth is full of His glory.'
Isaiah saw Jehovah Sabaoth.. The Lord God Almighty in all His glory and holiness.
Isaiah saw and was so overwhelmed by His vision of the holiness of God he cried out. God's holiness is no trivial matter.. GOD IS HOLY, He does not just act Holy.
To close one's eyes to evil and simply sing God's praises does not address the issue at hand. God is also called Adonai and it is this point we answer Lady Fatimas question of how sin affects God
Isaiahs great book starts out with the Holy one of Israel objecting to the desperate behaviour of His people. He makes no apology for his complaint. He alone determines whether an action is correct or not and evalutates it accordingly
Hear oh Heavens, Listen o earth.
For the Lord has spoken.
I reared children and brought them up
But they rebelled against me.
The ox knows His master,
the donkey his owners manger,
But Israel does not know, My people do not understand.
Isaiah 1:2-3)
He goes on to declare in Isaiah 1:16-17
Take your evil deeds out of My sight. Stop doing wrong, learn to do right.
Adonais authority is such that HE determines what is right or wrong. he is the source of absolute standards, and things are not relative as our society would like us to believe. This same authority determines the consequences of actions. His ordained principle is "you reap what you sow." Our society would like to think of a no-fault principle to our actions.. but heaven does not allow this. The bible states, ... the soul that sins will die.
Isaiah is full of woes against the Jews for their unbelief and their actions against God. Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and clever in their own sight. (Isaiah 5:21).
Isaiah personally knew himself under judgement and felt himself ruined and a man of unclean lips. In Isaiah 5:20 he declares
woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.
Whatever it was that caused Isaiah to see himself in all his uncleaness, he had no hestitation of confessing it in the ears of the HOly One.
God's holiness is not just a characteristic, it is God Himself. God cannot be less than Holy and still be God. God's holiness cannot be changed and is the yardstick by which He alone measures our goodness. Our goodness is far far below the Holiness of God. He is a standard to Himself, and He we are answerable to Him alone and our goodness, even our greatest attempts at goodness are far below His standard of holiness.
Does our sin hurt God.. only in that He loves us so much He wants to be in relationship with us. To be in relationship with him, we must be holy as he is holy. That can only happen when a profound change takes place in our nature. No amount of ritual clensing or trying to do good will affect that change. Only one way is possible to produce in us the holy nature which makes us acceptable to God.. and that is a nature He imparts into us. .. but that is the subject for the next post as this one is way tooo long sorry.
peace to all.