God wants to be near to us, but we must always set apart God in our hearts as the Lord we must obey, as the God we must worship and reverence, and as the beloved whom we adore above all. God deserves this, and it is part of the meaning of his holiness.

In part one of this post, we saw last week that one meaning of God’s holiness is he is set apart from fallen humans.

God resembles a king set apart from his subjects on his throne. Although God is not utterly separate, humans must treat his holy presence with great reverence. In thoughts and actions, we must set God apart for highest respect.

But this does not mean God wants to be distant. The story line of the Bible begins with intimacy in the Garden between the holy God and humanity, which is ruptured by the disobedience of Adam and Eve and their rejection from the Garden of Eden. As a result, God was not only set apart but separated. Those are not necessarily the same thing. God’s holiness means he must always be set apart, but it does not mean he must be separated.

Under the Old Covenant with Israel, the stress was on God’s holy separation from fallen humans. God drew near to his people in the temple, but he almost always had to be separate.

But with the coming of Jesus the story shifts dramatically. Last week we saw that when God’s Son became a man, the holy God came nearer still to fallen humans. Second, when Jesus died on the cross and atoned for our sins, the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Torn with it was the separation it symbolized.

The third revolutionary event

The third revolutionary event in the story of God’s holy separation in relation to fallen humans was Pentecost, which occurred 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus.

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like a mighty rushing wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance. (Acts 2:1–4)

This signified not simply a temporary experience but rather that the Holy Spirit was coming into his church collectively and his people individually to make them a temple for God’s abode. God would not be separated far away, or nearby but curtained away; rather, he would be in his people. They themselves would be his temple. They would be one with God.

1 Corinthians 3:16 says, “Do you not know that you [referring to the whole church collectively] are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”

1 Corinthians 6:19 says, “Or do you not know that your body [referring to each individual Christian’s body] is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God?”

It was not as though the Holy Spirit had never come upon fallen humans before. During the Old Covenant he came upon priests, leaders, and prophets for special purposes. But he did not come on everyone.

Under the New Covenant, God’s visible glory is separate in heaven, but he is one with us and present within and among us by his Holy Spirit.

What God’s holiness must require

Notice that the very name of the third person of the Trinity includes the word Holy. That is so even though he is as near and intimate with us as he could be! What that means is that God’s holiness does not fundamentally mean separation but rather being set apart. God is set apart in three crucial ways that never become obsolete.

1. God is set apart as Lord.

1 Peter 3:15 says, “In your hearts set apart Christ as Lord” (ESV). The NIV translation of that verse says it this way: “In your hearts regard Christ the Lord as holy.”

God is sovereign, controlling all, ruling over all. He is a king on a royal throne who must be obeyed above all. We set him apart to obey him as we obey no one else.

2. God is set apart for worship and ultimate reverence.

Although we honor others, we worship only God. Although we reverence others, we give ultimate and wholehearted reverence only to God.

Quoting the Old Testament, Jesus said, “You shall worship the lord your God, and serve him only” (Matthew 4:10).

3. God is set apart for ultimate love and devotion.

God has a place in our hearts that no one else can have. Jesus said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30).

Jesus also said, “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 10:37–39).

These three attitudes of the heart are fundamental to what it means for God to be set apart as holy.

Next week we will continue with part 3 on the subject of God being set apart in holiness, looking at what we learn from the New Creation.