As I sit to write on this topic I realise that I know in my own mind what holiness is, yet how to convey this most important truth about the character of God I do not know. As I scrolled through online dictionaries and later through Bible concordances my thought was "This is too big for me." These days there is the temptation to ask AI to write me a summary of "God is Holy" BUT, I never intend to do that. If my own explanation is not enough, then please do further research.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines holy in this way: " exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness".
Because God is so exalted and so perfect in goodness we can never come near to him without an intermediary. Of course, my baseline is the Bible, the Holy Bible, the word of God which has come down to us through his servants over generations.
When God created Adam and Eve and placed them in the Garden of Eden, they were perfect. They had regular interaction with God until..... yes.....they ate the forbidden fruit. For that disobedience a curse came upon them and, separation from God. That was the beginning of trouble for the whole of the human race because from then on every baby born was born carrying the stain of that first sin.
God continued to make himself known to people but they could not look upon God or come near. When God wanted to get Moses' attention in the desert he appeared as a burning bush, but the bush did not burn up. God spoke from that fire and told Moses to take off his shoes as he was on holy ground.
If we follow the story of The Israelites' deliverance out of Egypt we see how God appeared to them as fire. When Moses went up the mountain to receive The Law (10 Commandments), God told him that the people were not to approach the mountain or they would die, and there were times when people did die immediately if they did not consider the holiness of God.
Anyone who wants to come near to God must be made holy. In this use of the word holy, it means to be set apart to God. In the Old Testament this was achieved by obeying The Law, but this was never fully possible because sinful people were incapable of keeping God's standard for holiness. God knew that; so there was a purification process under the Law involving sacrifice of animals. This was a forerunner till the time when he sent His son, Jesus Christ to fulfil the Law. Jesus is the only human person who could keep the Law and not break one commandment. So he took on our sin to reconcile us to a holy God. (Read Colossians 1). This is the good news of the gospel.
Hebrews 12:14 says "Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord." This kind of holiness does not depend on human perfection; but by acknowledging that Jesus Christ has paid for your sin and made you holy, as you worship and obey him with all your heart. Is that you? In closing let me lead you to a picture of the holiness of God from the book of Revelation 4:1-11. Before a holy God one can only bow in worship.
My hope is that through what I have written here you will know, perhaps for the first time, that only through faith in the one who fulfilled God's requirement for holiness, can we come near to God, the God who wants to communicate with you, his creation.
