Only a Holy God
Cityalight published the song, “Only a Holy God.” It goes like this:
Who else commands all the hosts of heaven?
Who else could make every king bow down?
Who else can whisper and darkness trembles?
Only a Holy God
What other beauty demands such praises?
What other splendour outshines the sun?
What other majesty rules with justice?
Only a Holy God
Come and behold Him
The One and the Only
Cry out, sing holy
Forever a Holy God
Come and worship the Holy God
Our God is a Holy God. All throughout Scripture, God is portrayed as Holy. In Leviticus 20:7 we are told to be holy because God is holy. Peter echoes this in 1 Peter 1:15. Isaiah had a vision of God in the year that King Uzziah died, and it was of the Holy God.
R.C. Sproul writes, “The idea of holiness is so central to biblical teaching that it is said of God, “Holy is His name.” (Luke 1:49). The first petition in the Lord’s prayer is “Hallowed by your name.” In other words, let God be regarded as holy. Sproul continues, “How we understand the person and character of God the Father affects every aspect of our lives.”
1 John 1:5
In 1 John 1: 5, we read, “This is the message we have hear from Him and announce to you, God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.” God is perfectly holy, that there is not even on ounce of sin in him. The response of believers then in verse 7 is, “If we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.”
As God is Holy and ought to be regarded as holy, All throughout Scripture God’s People are set apart to be holy to the Lord also. Stephen Charnock, a 17th century puritan, says of the Holiness of God:
The nature of God cannot rationally be conceived without it….Yet if we conceive him destitute of this excellent perfection, and imagine him possessed with the least contagion of evil, we make him but an infinite monster, and sully all those perfections we ascribed to him before; we rather own him a devil than a God. It is a contradiction to be God and be darkness, or to have one mote of darkness mixed with its light.
Speaking of his holiness, Charnock writes, “God is so holy, that he cannot possibly approve of any evil done by another, but doth perfectly abhor it.” On the contrary he writes, “God is so holy that he cannot but love holiness in others.”
Because of this, God’s holiness is most seen at the cross. Speaking of the cross Charnock writes,
“Justice indeed gave the stroke, bot holiness ordered it…Where did God break out so furiously in his detestation of iniquity? The Father would have the most excellent person, one next in order of himself, and equal to Him in all the glorious perfections of His nature, die on a disgraceful cross, and be exposed to the flames of Divine Wrath, rather than sin should live, and his holiness remain forever disparaged by the violations of his law.”
Our response to God’s Holiness
When Isaiah had a vision of God’s Holiness he bows down and says, “Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I love among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”
Isaiah’s glimpse of God’s holiness led him to despise his sin and become utterly abased and cry out to God. This led to his iniquity being taken away and his sins being forgiven.
If we are going to see the church victorious, if we are going to see the church be the pillar and buttress of truth it is called to be, if we are going to see the manifold wisdom of God displayed through the Church, we must recover a vision of God’s holiness. We must regard God as holy.
So many times we come to God as a cosmic grandpa handing out our hand for whatever he will give us, instead of the Sovereign, Holy King who demands our worship and allegiance.
AW Pink writes,
“The god which the vast majority of professing Christians “love” is looked upon very much like an indulgent old man, who himself has no relish for folly, but leniently winks at the “indiscretions” of youth. But the Word says, ‘Thou hates all workers of iniquity’ (Psalm 5:5) And again, ‘God is angry with the wicked every day’ (Psalm 7:11). But men refuse to believe in this God, and gnash their teeth when His hatred of sin is faithfully pressed upon their attention. No, sinful man was no more likely to devise a holy God than to create the Lake of fire in which he will be tormented for ever and ever.”
So friend, I invite you to turn from the idol you have created in your own mind, and to come and behold the holy God of the Bible. Come and worship him.
Come and behold Him
The One and the Only
Cry out, sing holy
Forever a Holy God
Come and worship the Holy God
