God is holy

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts;

the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isaiah 6:3).

When God comes to visit, people don’t break out the good china; they hide behind the sofa.

When God came to speak with Israel at Mount Sinai, this is what happened:

On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning, with a thick cloud over the mountain, and a very loud trumpet blast. Everyone in the camp trembled. Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Mount Sinai was covered with smoke, because the Lord descended on it in fire. The smoke billowed up from it like smoke from a furnace, and the whole mountain trembled violently. (Ex 19:16-18)

How did the people respond?

When the people saw the thunder and lightning and heard the trumpet and saw the mountain in smoke, they trembled with fear. They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die.” (Ex 20:18-19)

That’s basically how everyone reacts to God’s presence. Ezekiel fell facedown. Isaiah cried out in fear. John fainted.

Why is the presence of God so fearsome? Shouldn’t it be wonderful? Shouldn’t we feel as if we’ve been embraced in a warm hug? Shouldn’t we be overcome with love?

If we think that way, it’s because we’ve misunderstood something important about God. If you asked people what the defining characteristic of God is, most would say love. I believe God would say holiness is his defining trait.

“Holy” is a difficult word to explain. Its primary meaning apparently is to be set apart. An object would be “holy” if it were set apart for special use, such as in temple worship. But when referring to people and to God, there is an aspect that speaks to moral purity.

When applied to God, all of this is turned up to the Nth degree. God is so apart as to be transcendent. He is the pre-existent, self-existent one. His nature and perspective, not to mention his intelligence and power, are incalculable orders of magnitude beyond ours. As Sproul says, “He is above and beyond anything in the universe.” He would be incomprehensibly alien to us except that he has deigned to give us manageable glimpses of himself.

Likewise his moral purity is absolute. Sin is ultimately deviation from God’s character, so sin cannot taint him. It’s a metaphysical impossibility.

If I had to boil it down, I would say that holiness is the Godness of God.

Why is this his “defining characteristic” though? To answer that, we have to look at a feature of the Hebrew language. Repetition is the way the Bible writers emphasize things. Where we would use an adjective or italics, they use repetition. A deep pit is called a pit pit. What we call the “most holy” place in the temple was literally called the holy holy place.

God is holy holy holy (Is 6:3, Rev 4:8).

Why is that significant? In The Holiness of God, RC Sproul explains:

“Only once in sacred Scripture is an attribute of God elevated to the third degree. ... The Bible never says that God is love, love, love; or mercy, mercy, mercy; or wrath, wrath, wrath; or justice, justice, justice. It does say that He is holy, holy, holy, that the whole earth is full of His glory.”

When God’s holiness shines forth, he shines like a million suns. The holy angels cover their eyes. When humans get a glimpse of it, they react like Isaiah: “Doom! It’s Doomsday! I’m as good as dead!” (Is 6:5 MSG). His perfect holiness makes us see how imperfect we are.

Jen Wilkins says, “The gods of Egypt and Canaan, of Greece and Rome, among their other limitations, made no claims of possessing utter purity of character. The chronicles of their exploits read more like a reality TV show than a sacred text, compelling the devout to gaze voyeuristically on their lurid antics. But the God of Israel possesses a holiness so blinding that no one can look on him and live.”

So God’s holiness is the foundation for understanding and relating to him. We cannot give that place to any other of his attributes. “God deserves our worship for both his love and his justice. But his love and his justice are imbued with and defined by his holiness—he does not merely love; he loves out of utter purity of character. He does not merely act justly; he acts justly out of utter purity of character. ... When we apprehend his holiness, we are changed by the revelation. The knowledge of God and the knowledge of self always go hand in hand.”¹

When confronted by the holiness of God, we cannot help but see our sin and how far short of God’s glory we fall. This is important because we will never respond appropriately to God until we see just how far we are from him. Only when we see that can we be amazed by his grace.

So how should we respond to the holiness of God? First, humility — before God and toward other people. Recognizing how far God's holiness is beyond you is the first step to having a right relationship with him. And realize that being prideful about your perceived holiness is as silly as a mountain being prideful because it's closest to the moon.

Second, love him for it. Even though the holiness of God can be a little terrifying, it's also wonderful. God's moral purity means that he will always do what is right. Unlike those fictitious Greek and Roman gods, we don't have to worry about a God who's petty, dishonest, or covetous — human foibles aren't just beneath God; they're totally alien to him. We can trust his character because his character alone is utterly unimpeachable.

Third, God tells us to respond to his holiness by imitating it: “Be holy, for I am holy” (1 Pet 1:16).

Followers of Christ will never be holy in this life; we will struggle with our sin nature as long as we live. Even in the next life, though we will be morally pure, we will never achieve God’s level of holiness, so what does he want from us?

He wants us to be “sanctified” or “set apart” for purity. We are to live in this world as citizens of his Kingdom. We are to “hate what is evil; cling to what is good” (Rom 12:9). “For this is the will of God, your sanctification. ... For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness” (1 Thess. 4:3, 7).

As believers, we’re not trying to avoid his wrath but to please him. “The Christian’s primary motive for holy living is ... the impulse to show his love and gratitude to his adopting God by identifying himself with the Father’s will for him.”²

Jen Wilkins says, “Growing in holiness means growing in our hatred of sin. But reflecting the character of God involves more than just casting off the garment of our old ways. It entails putting on the garment of our new inheritance.”¹ And that last is the key. The message of the New Testament is, in Christ, you are holy, so act like it.

Or to put it simply: Be who you are in Christ.

Our response to our holy holy holy God should be to worship him in awe and wonder that someone like him has shown such mercy to us and to strive to live lives that honor the grace we have received.


So many authors have written wonderful material on the holiness of God, but the one “must read” is RC Sproul’s The Holiness of God.

1 Jen Wilkin, In His Image: 10 Way God Calls Us to Reflect His Character
2 JI Packer, Knowing God

Image credits: Volcanic storm, Mike Tungate
Full moon, NASA