God is holy because he is perfectly good.
When the topic of God’s holiness comes to mind, we typically associate it with his posture toward human sin. Because we are born sinners, that naturally makes us squirm, but it is only part of the picture of God’s holiness. The larger picture of God’s holiness, which few understand, should cause us to delight. The big picture is what we see in the earthly ministry of Jesus, who Scripture says is “the Holy One” (Revelation 3:7).
What Jesus displayed in ways even born sinners can appreciate is the goodness of God’s holiness. He said, “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10). So he healed the sick, cleansed lepers, opened the eyes of the blind and the ears of the deaf, enabled the lame and paralyzed to walk, drove demons from tormented souls, even raised the dead. He taught people how to live in ways that bring happiness and peace. This was the holiness of God in action.
Jesus touched the unclean
The religious leaders of his time based their understanding of God’s holiness solely on the Old Covenant’s stress on separation, a stress that was good and true, but only a partial understanding of holiness and intended by God to be a temporary emphasis. What was holy should not come in contact with what was unclean. Even the high priest, who was supposed to be the holiest man in Israel, would become unclean by touching a corpse or a person with skin disease or chronic hemorrhage.
But Jesus came and mixed with people suffering every form of “uncleanness.” When healing a leper, he made a point of touching him though he could have healed him simply with a command as he often did. When a woman with a chronic flow of blood touched him, Jesus did not become unclean; rather, the woman was healed! When Jesus touched the funeral bier of a dead man and the hand of a dead girl, these corpses did not make Jesus unclean; rather, the dead sat up restored to life. When Jesus ate with sinners, he did not become a sinner.
God’s kindness to everyone
When the pharisees found fault with Jesus for mixing closely and regularly with sinful, “unclean” people, he explained, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). Jesus regarded himself as both a spiritual and physical physician, healing body and soul. He came bringing good to people in need.
And he did good to everyone, not just those who had turned from their sins. He healed and delivered them before they repented, not just after, and then called them to walk in the his ways.
Holiness and blessing
The point in this focus on the good that Jesus did for hurting, needy, sinful people is that he did this because of God’s holiness, not in spite of it.
Jesus said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
Notice how the following psalm links, through the parallel structure of verses 1–2, God’s holy name—that is, his holy identity—with his giving boundless good to people.
Psalm 103:1–5: “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”
This psalm says God gives all these benefits because he is holy.
Goodness and holiness
Jesus said, “No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18 ESV).
His holiness and goodness are one. Goodness is what holiness is. Scripture says God is love (1 John 4:8), and Scripture says God is holy (1 Peter 1:16). This is not a contradiction or dichotomy. His goodness is his holiness. His holiness defines his goodness and vice versa. Everything he does is good, and everything he does is holy.
Psalm 145:9 says, “The LORD is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.”
James 1:17 says, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”
Thus in God’s holy goodness he is infinitely gracious, loving, righteous, just, benevolent, generous, and kind. In his holy goodness, he is the giver of every good thing. In his holy goodness, he sends life-giving rain and sunshine on both the evil and the good. And in his holy goodness, he is light, and in him is no darkness. In his holy goodness, he gives life to everything that lives. In his holy goodness, he gives food and water to every being that eats and drinks. The presence of God and his holy goodness brings blessing, while the absence and loss of God’s presence brings death.
Savior and judge
Jesus said, “I did not come to judge the world but to save the world” (John 12:47).
Judgment and salvation are both expressions of God’s holiness (Isaiah 33:22, James 4:12). However, during his three years of earthly ministry, Jesus said his purpose was to save, not to judge. This was why the holy Father sent him to earth: “God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17)
Perfectly good as Savior in the Old Testament
Contrary to what many think, the holy Father had revealed himself as a loving savior in the Old Testament as well. He graciously saved Israel out of Egypt, even though later events revealed that nearly every person in Israel did not believe in or obey him. Nevertheless he provided a way for them to find forgiveness through the religious rites of the tabernacle, the sacrifices, and the mediating ministry of the priests.
What often catches greater attention about God’s actions in the Old Testament era, however, are his judgments. Though he showed mercy and kindness again and again, we remember his terrible judgments on the persistently wicked, and in these judgments he definitely showed his holiness.
Reading the story of God’s dealings with rebellious Israel after he delivered them out of Egypt and through their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness contrasts greatly with reading the story of Jesus in the four Gospels. Why such a difference? God does not change, nor does his holiness change, but what he chooses to reveal about himself changes. In the Old Covenant with Israel he chose to reveal his judgments far more than he did during the earthly ministry of Jesus, which Scripture calls “a favorable time” and “a day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2), and which Jesus identified as “the year of the Lord’s favor” (Luke 4:19). It was and continues—until Jesus returns again in the clouds—to be a special season.
Perfectly good as judge in the New Testament
What we overlook in the New Testament is that while Jesus came primarily to reveal God’s merciful salvation during his three years of earthly ministry, he does at other times also act as judge (see for example Revelation 2–3, and 19:11–21).
In fact, at the Final Judgment the judge on the throne will be Jesus himself. The apostle Paul proclaimed, “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.” (Acts 17:30–31) That man whom God has appointed judge, whom he raised from the dead, is of course Jesus.
Therefore in his holiness God both saves and judges, both in the Old Testament and in the New. In holiness, he is perfectly good, under both covenants.
Perfectly good
God is holy because he is alone is perfectly good. He is not malevolent. However he certainly is a just judge, and that is because he is a good judge. He gives life and every blessing because he is the Holy One. His holiness resembles the sun and rain that give all life and blessing to the earth, or the loving father and mother who bring life to their children. That is what God’s holiness is. When God sent his Son as the savior of the world, that was his benevolent holiness in action—in fact, his ultimate demonstration of holiness.
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)