The holiness of God is a general term for the moral excellence of God. It is entire freedom from moral evil, on the one hand, and absolute moral perfection on the other. Simply put, God is without sin. He does not conform to some holy standard -- He is the standard. He never does anything wrong. There are no degrees to His holiness, therefore, there are no degrees of holiness. To be less than holy is to be imperfect and sinful. Only God is essentially holy - "Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy..." (Revelation 15:4). God's angels are holy, and the Bible tells us that God's saints are holy, but not essentially so. The holiness of any creature is a derived holiness, something we have obtained. God created Adam holy and upright, but Adam's holiness was a derived holiness given him by God. Adam was not essentially holy. He was mutable and subject to change. Only God is essentially holy. Due to the fact that we are finite and God is infinitely holy, and due to the fact that we are sinful, there are two main ways in which we come to a saving understanding of God's holiness.

I. GOD'S HOLINESS REVEALED IN HIS HATRED OF SIN - God's law is an expression of His holiness - "Wherefore the law is holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good" (Romans 7:12). It is the standard of what God requires -- perfection in word, thought, deed, and motive. Holiness is the standard for existing in God's presence! "He is of purer eyes than to behold iniquity" (Habakkuk 1:13). God's holiness demands His eternal wrath against all sin. God's justice, wrath, and hatred are the effects of His holiness. Because He is holy, He hates all workers of iniquity (Psalm 5:5), He will by no means clear the guilty (Exodus 34:7), and "the soul that sins must surely die" (Ezekiel 18:4).

God's law is the standard by which we measure sin and righteousness. God's law is summed up in two commandments - love God supremely and love our neighbors as ourselves. This is perfect, holy love, and anything less is unholy and sinful. God requires perfect love. Man and angels were created holy, but man and some of the angels, being mutable, fell by sinning against God. God gave Adam a law, and that law was holy and good. It was Adam's standard of obedience and holiness. God promised Adam continued blessedness conditioned on Adam's obedience and death conditioned on Adam's disobedience. When Adam rebelled against God, he denied God's holiness. God's holy law, the expression of His beauty and sovereignty and goodness, was breached. Now, God's holiness demands His wrath against all sin and unrighteousness.

We conclude from God's Word then that God's holiness demands eternal blessedness wherever righteousness is found and eternal condemnation wherever sin is found. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Genesis 18:25). "But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth ..." (Romans 2:3). This is a very important truth. Adam did not act as a private person but as the representative of the whole human race. So that "as by one man (Adam) sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned" (Romans 5:12). God's holiness demands the sentence of death where the least sin is found in the best of sinners.

This poses a difficult problem. If holiness is the standard for dwelling in God's presence, then how can we who are unholy, sinners, dwell in God's presence? The answer is that we must be made holy. How? It cannot be by our efforts or by any conditions that we might meet or be enabled to meet, because we would still have to keep the law perfectly. And if we sinned, we would have to suffer sinlessly and eternally for our sins. God is an infinite God, and sin against Him deserves infinite punishment.

For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all. [James 2:10]

As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one ... Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin ... For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. [Romans 3:10,19,20,23]

For as many as are of the works of the law are under the curse: for it is written, Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things which are written in the book of the law to do them. [Galatians 3:10]

When we see God's holiness aright, we then see how sinful we are, and how impossible it is for us to be saved based on our character and conduct. We see salvation as impossible if conditioned on the sinner. We see we are in need of a righteousness we cannot produce. God cannot accept less than perfect holiness as to the ground of salvation. He will not accept sincerity, repentance, moral reformation, or even faith as a substitute for holiness. This is why Christ preached that "unless your righteousness exceed the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you shall in no case enter the kingdom of heaven" (Matthew 5:20). The slightest deviation from perfect holiness AS TO THE GROUND OF SALVATION brings God's wrath. We must see that God would be just to damn us based on anything less that holiness

So God is holy, and He can demand no less as to the ground of salvation. It is in this light that the question of all questions is posed. It is the central issue of the Gospel - HOW CAN GOD BE HOLY AND JUST AND STILL SAVE SINNERS? This question is a total mystery to man. The best man can come up with to solve it is to lower God's standard of holiness and make salvation conditioned on the sinner in some way. This destroys God's holiness. This is what universal atonement does because it makes salvation conditioned on faith, repentance, and/or perseverance. Consider this as illustrated in Isaiah 6:1-5.

Isaiah saw his own sinfulness in the light of God's holiness. He saw his own inability to produce what God's holiness demands. He saw that he was void of a righteousness that God's holiness demands, and he said, "Woe is me, for I am ruined." He saw that all his efforts aimed at the ground of salvation were nothing self-righteous, dead works. And he saw that this was the case of every man by nature. Paul expresses this conviction in light of God's holiness in Romans 7:7-13. These truths are not revealed to frighten sinners into a religious reformation trying to establish a righteousness. It is not revealed to promote doubts as to whether God will save us or damn us. Where do you suppose we find the greatest display of God's holiness?

II. GOD'S HOLINESS REVEALED IN REDEMPTION BY CHRIST - There is no greater display of God's holiness and hatred of sin than in the salvation of guilty sinners based on the imputed righteousness of Christ. God the Holy Spirit reveals that Isaiah's vision here was a preincarnate appearance of Christ (John 12:41). The Bible teaches that God chose a people before the foundation of the world. Who were they? Guilty, hell-deserving sinners. The problem was that God could not save them apart from His holiness, His law and justice, being satisfied. Therefore, God's holiness is revealed in the fact that He conditioned all of salvation, not upon sinners, but upon a suitable, sinless Substitute, who is holy, harmless, and undefiled. God's demand of perfect satisfaction to His law and justice was displayed when Christ went to the cross and died for the sins of God's elect. God's holy justice was not diminished one iota in this great act.

Read Isaiah 6:6-7. The altar represents the ceremonial law of the Old Covenant. God had revealed His holiness in the moral law and with it the impossibility of salvation based on our obedience. He instituted the priesthood and the sacrifices on the altar to show that death is the result of sin, that without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin, and that He is so holy that He cannot justify sinners without a substitutionary sacrifice for sin (Hebrews 9:22). The priesthood, the sacrifices, the altar all pointed to Christ and salvation conditioned on Him alone. It is in His atoning death that we see the greatest manifestation of God's holiness. Here is where God's holiness and love come together, for God's love provided in Christ what His holiness demands. Here is where we see mercy and truth working together in redemption based on the righteousness of Christ (Psalms 85:9-11). Here is where God can be both a holy, just God and a Savior (Isaiah 45:21-22).

So THE SUPREME REVELATION OF GOD'S HOLINESS IS THE CROSS OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST (Romans 3:24-26) - Jesus Christ, the Son of God, having the sins of His sheep charged to Him, suffering the horrible wrath of God, without mercy, shows us that God is holy. He will not allow even His Son to go unpunished when sin is imputed Him. He is so holy that he would sacrifice His Son to save sinners before He will sacrifice His own character. Imputed sin demanded the death of Christ based on God's holiness.

Just as sure as imputed sin demanded the death of Christ according to God's holiness, imputed righteousness demands the justification and life of every sinner for whom Christ died, according to God's holiness. God must save all for whom Christ died. His holiness demands it! God cannot take a guilty sinner to heaven, and He cannot send a righteous man to hell. All men by nature are deserving of God's wrath, but God sent His Son to save sinners by satisfying the demands of His holiness. All for whom Christ died must be set free, because Christ fulfilled all the conditions of God's holiness. He took their sin, He removed their guilt, and God would be unjust to send even one of them to hell. Sin demands death, but righteousness demands life!

We see how that any who believe sinners for whom Christ died could go to hell scorn God's holiness and render Christ's death on the cross of no eternal value. To say that anyone whom God has promised to save and sent His Son to save could perish is to attribute imperfection to God. It is to say God is not holy. A saving view of God's holiness shows that all whom God promised to save SHALL BE SAVED! God's holiness demands it. Why?

Many people claim to believe that all whom God purposed to save shall be saved, but they are still not submitted to His righteousness. God's holiness demands the salvation of all whom He promised to save because Christ's righteousness, the only ground of salvation, answers all the demands of God's holiness. It does us no good to stand firm and dogmatic for the truth of particular redemption as long as we still believe that salvation is conditioned on faith. Even though we might say God enables us to meet the condition, this still does not honor God's holiness. Saving faith believes that Christ met all the conditions, that His righteousness is the only condition for salvation.

The question we must ask ourselves is -- Have we seen God's holiness savingly? How can we know? Well, are we trying to establish a righteousness of our own, or have we seen the impossibility of any sinner being saved based on anything other than the imputed righteousness of Christ. If we have seen God's holiness savingly, then we know that all whom God has purposed to save, all for whom Christ died, shall be saved! We know also that they shall be saved based on the righteousness of Christ. If we have, we believe God's promise of eternal salvation and final glory conditioned on Christ alone, and we have repented of ever thinking that anything else could recommend us unto God. We have seen that all works and efforts before saving faith were acts of open idolatry and fruit unto death. We have been convinced of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment.

Now, Isaiah would not speak peace to himself based on anything else. He said, "Woe is me, for I am ruined; because I am a man of unclean lips," which means, "In the light of God's holiness, I am condemned sinner whose deeds are evil. I need God's grace. I need a righteousness I cannot produce." But Isaiah also would not speak peace to his neighbors. He went on to say, "I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts." If we have truly seen God's holiness savingly, we have also seen that God will justify no sinner based on anything but Christ's righteousness alone. This causes us not to speak peace to any sinner based on any other ground. We become subject to God's law, God's standard, and God's way of judgment. We know that the only hope for any of our neighbors is to see their need of Christ.

III. TWO DEADLY EXTREMES - There are two deadly extremes that a saving view of God's holiness will prevent. Remember the statement - "Holiness is the standard for existing in God's presence"?

A. The first extreme is despair over our sinfulness. This may come when we realize that based on our personal character and conduct, we have no right to be in God's presence due to our sins. The remedy for this is a fresh realization that God's holiness demands our salvation, and that we are fit for God's presence based on the righteousness of Christ. Read Hebrews 10:10,19-22.

We have every right to stand confidently in the presence of God our holy Father based on the blood of Christ. This is the way every justified sinner should view God's holiness. It shows no honor to God nor to His holiness for us to act as if we were condemned in the presence of His holiness. In fact, if we plead the blood and righteousness of Christ as our only ground of salvation, it dishonors God and His holiness for us to act as if we were condemned, or even to be hesitant or unsure about God's willingness to receive us and accept us. Now if we plead anything else, we should despair. But a saving view of God's holiness causes us to understand the magnitude of our sinfulness and the consequences of it. Until we see this, salvation is a meaningless concept to us. But a saving view of God's holiness does not leave us in despair. A person may be convinced in light of God's holiness that God would be just and right to damn him based on his sin. But until that person sees that in light of God's holiness God is just to save him based on the righteousness of Christ, there is no salvation. We must be convinced that as we are sinners, God is just and faithful to forgive us our sins based on the righteousness of Christ. We have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous (1 John 1:9; 2:1).

B. The second extreme is thinking that our personal holiness contributes to our fitness for heaven and forms some part of the ground of our assurance. Some believe that Christ's righteousness alone is the ground of our salvation, but our works and efforts, our fruits, and our personal holiness is the ground of our assurance. But this is not so. The ground of our salvation is Christ's righteousness, and the ground of our assurance is Christ's righteousness. "God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ" (Galatians 6:14). When it comes to our fitness for heaven, our assurance, "our righteousnesses are as filthy rags" (Isaiah 64:6). Job said it this way - "Behold, He [God] putteth no trust in his saints; yea, the heavens are not clean in his sight" (Job 15:15). In accordance with God's holiness, we are COMPLETE IN CHRIST (Colossians 2:10).

But what about 1 Peter 1:15? "But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation." Holiness in our character and conduct is to be our constant goal. This is the goal of the Christian life, because God who has called us is holy. We are to seek to imitate our Father and to be conformed to the image of Christ. None of our striving to be holy is to be motivated legally, thinking that this somehow recommends us unto God, or that it makes us any more holy or fit for heaven. All our striving to be holy is to be motivated by grace. We are already holy, fit, and complete in Christ by virtue of His righteousness imputed. Therefore, we are to strive to be holy in character and conduct as we are motivated by grace and gratitude to God for His great mercy and love towards us. Our God is holy, and there is nothing we can do or be enabled to do to meet that standard. We are totally dependent upon His grace in Christ Jesus our Lord. THANK GOD FOR THIS!