I learned to delight in God’s holiness when I recognized its goodness.
While the holiness of God is wonderful beyond human understanding, it took me decades to learn to delight in it.
For most of my life, the subject of the holiness of God was not inviting to me. I recall long ago seeing a book titled The Holiness of God (by R. C. Sproul), and my response was a combination of fear and an awareness that this was a subject I did not understand as well as I should. I did not buy the book, and frankly I did not want to read it because for whatever reason the subject was more than I could deal with.
And this was not because I was living an unholy life. I was a pastor serving God with all my heart. I loved God and pursued a life of purity. What’s more, I loved God’s Word and studied and meditated on it continually. It was God’s Word itself that had inculcated in me a sense of respect and fear for God’s holiness mingled with a sense of the mystery and uncertainty of it. When I passed on reading that book, I guess I was afraid of what I would find out.
And that explains my reticence at learning more about the holiness of God for most of my life. I was afraid of what I would discover, for I knew God’s holiness was awe-inspiring, and not a few people died in the Bible because they crossed a line in relation to that holiness that mankind must not transgress. Looking back now, I realize I was afraid I would learn something about God that I did not like, that would hinder enjoying the God who meant everything to me.
So, what changed?
Learning to delight in God’s holiness
First, I finally stopped avoiding the subject. I wanted to know God more, and I realized I could not know him as he is without understanding more about his holiness.
So I read that book I had avoided for years. It is an excellent book—a vitally important especially in our culture today—which confirmed the importance of understanding God’s holiness and of maintaining a proper fear of God. Proper reverence draws us to God rather than drives us away (Isaiah 11:3 says of the Messiah, “His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord”). The book dispelled the fear I would learn something about God I did not want to know. It greatly helped me.
But I needed to know more. Years passed, and helped by that book I deepened in my appreciation of the awesome glory of God. I grew in my love of the power and greatness of God, loving God in the way I love a thunderstorm or some other act of nature that is truly awe-inspiring. I was then and am now thoroughly impressed by God.
Then I began writing this blog on the theme of knowing God. I have maintained a discipline of writing one post each week, and that has profoundly deepened my understanding of our great God. Along the way I decided one theme I wanted to explore more was his holiness. I knew most Christians need to understand it better just as I did, and I wanted to understand it better myself by comprehensively studying what Scripture says about it, something I had never done in 40 years of pastoral ministry.
You can count on it that studying the Bible firsthand, thoroughly and inductively, will open your eyes and transform your heart even when you have already thought much about something. What I expected to be a six- or eight-week series of articles turned into six months, writing as succinctly as possible. The more I wrote and meditated on Scriptures related to God’s holiness the more I saw to write about.
The goodness of God’s holiness
After weeks in that series, I happened upon the most important breakthrough in my understanding of God’s holiness. When we say God is holy, it necessarily means God is good. Psalm 65:4 says, “Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts! We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple!” Notice the synonymous parallelism in the second sentence: “the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple.” Because goodness and holiness cannot be separated, the persons God brings into his courts are blessed and satisfied at the deepest level.
You cannot fully understand or delight in God’s holiness apart from its perfect goodness. To say God is holy is to say he is perfectly good in every aspect of his being and in all his ways with his creation, even in his acts of judgment and self-vindication.
It is critical we understand why this is so. Therefore the articles in this series regularly make the connection between God’s goodness and holiness.
There is nothing off-putting to me about God’s holiness. Everything about him is as it should be, including everything about his holiness, for he is perfect. If we think otherwise, it is because we are deeply flawed and influenced by a fallen culture far more than we realize. Jesus said, “No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18). He alone is good in every way. He is love, and his love is holy. Instead of fearing the thought of meeting God face to face, I look forward with excitement to learning about God’s holiness for all eternity.
Stay with me in the journey.
Jeremiah 9:23–24: “Thus says the LORD: ‘Let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boasts boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth. For in these things I delight, declares the LORD.’” (ESV)