The
Holiness of God [1]
By Spencer
Gear [2]
Your view of God will affect everything you think, say and do. It
will impact . . .
How you treat one
another in your family;
How you relate to and care
for people in the church, babies in the womb, the elderly who are
incapacitated, and others who are disabled;
How you deal with your
enemies;
How you approach the shop
assistant at your local department store is
determined by your view of God.
How government's function;
The nature of
people's problems and how they are solved, are strongly
influenced by whether or not there is a God, what he is like and what
he has
spoken.
Your view of
healing will be affected if you believe that what you
speak, God is obliged to perform;
If you believe that the
gifts of the Spirit ceased with the death of
the last apostle, your life will be affected.
A few years ago I read a provocative book, The
Coming Evangelical Crisis (Armstrong
1996) that caused me some consternation. Leading evangelical and
charismatic theologians such as Richard Rice and Clark Pinnock said
that "God does not know all the `details' of the future, that `some'
actions are not under God's control" (in Armstrong 1996, p. 142) [3]
This is an attack on the omniscience of God--God's all knowing
character. If this is your view of God, it will affect your
entire life.
The God of the Bible says, "All the days ordained for me were written
in your book before one of them came to be" (Ps.
139:16). God
also says, "I will make known the end from the beginning, from ancient
times, what is still to come" (Isa. 46:10). God's foreknowledge
is exhaustive for individuals and for society.
A movie actress who was still busy in the nightclub circuit after her
supposed Christian conversion is quoted as telling somebody, "You ought
to know my God. You know, God is just a livin' doll!" I
heard of another fellow who said, "God is a good fellow" (in Tozer
1985, p. 74). I cringe when I hear God spoken about in such glib,
flippant terms.
Philosopher, Mortimer Adler, once said: "More consequences for thought
and action follow the affirmation or denial of God than from answering
any other basic question." Or as secular philosopher Spinoza put
it: man builds his kingdoms in accord with his concept of God (in
Colson 1987, p. 75). A.W. Tozer nailed it: "What comes to our minds
when we think about God is the most important thing about us" (Tozer
1961, p. 1).
R.C. Sproul (pronounced Sprole) agrees: "How we understand the person
and character of God the Father affects every aspect of our lives"
(1985, p. 25). How can this be? I Corinthians 10:31 states, "So
whether
you eat
or drink or
whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God." But which
God? What is he like? Some would ask, "What is she like?"
What do people around us do? They invent God with their
"do-it-yourself God Kits" (Fairlie 1991, p. 79). But it seems that they
are gods who
don't demand, don't command, and absolve them of guilt and doubt.
They pat
them on the head and say, "What a good gal you are." But they
would hardly be expected to trouble them with a comprehensive
understanding of the
problem of evil, suffering or
death. In fact, if you invent God, you will be able to create Him
in your own
imagination to overcome your pain through creative visualisation,
centring, and other New Age techniques.
I was at a workshop when the presenter told how she had asked a group
of kids, "Who's the greatest person in the world?" She got
responses such as Mum, Dad, Mickey Mouse, Homer of the Simpsons, and
the like. The presenter said she then passed a shoe box from
child to child and asked each child to take a look inside to discover
who was the greatest person in the world and not to tell the next child
as the box was passed from child to child. On the base of the box
was a mirror that gave the child a terrific view
of the greatest person in the world--ME! Sounds like an
advertisement for a certain insurance company! In this article, I
want us to focus on the greatest person
in the world--God Himself.
William Temple, former Archbishop of Canterbury who died in 1944, said,
"It is much worse to have a false idea of God than no idea at all" [4].
Here I want to deal with an attribute of God that is hated by the world
around us, but also it is often misunderstood and ignored by
Christians. I'm speaking of the holiness of God.
Talk to people down the street. They hate the idea of God's
sovereignty--that everything is under God's control. But the very
concept of the holiness of God and God's call for people to be holy,
sounds obnoxious to them. Men and women resent having to humble
themselves under
the sovereignty of
God. At a time when there is so much chaos and misdirection in
our culture (eg September 11, the tsunami, and wars), you would think
that people would gladly want to place
their lives in the hands of the one who has all things under his good
and holy control --
in spite of outwards appearances to the contrary. One would think
it a certain choice that people would want to
worship the Almighty God who is able to take any event or circumstance
and work it out for good eventually.
Not so! We would rather have government of the people for the
people, which is really government by fallible human choices. The
one who is
absolutely Lord over all nations and individuals has little ultimate
appeal in
the institutions and governments of my country -- Australia.
CONSIDER these
biblical passages: Isaiah 6:1-10 and Revelation 4:1-8,
along with . . .
Rev. 15:4.
Those who had been victorious over
the beast sang the song of Moses and the song of the Lamb. Part
of the song was, "For you alone are holy. All nations will come
and worship before you, for your righteous acts have been revealed."
Ex. 15:11.
The song of Moses was: "Who among the
gods is like you, O Lord? Who is like you--majestic in holiness,
awesome in glory, working wonders?"
Isa. 6:3.
Isaiah saw the Lord, "Holy, holy,
holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."
Rev. 4:8.
Each of the four living creatures around
the throne of God, night and day, were saying, "Holy, holy, holy is the
Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come."
Ps. 30:4.
The psalmist urged the people, "Sing to the Lord, you saints of
his, praise his holy name."
Matt. 6:9.
In the Lord's prayer, we are urged to pray, "Our father in
heaven, hallowed be your name. . ."
Too often we think in human terms. We see people on a human
continuum: from a notorious criminal who is low on the scale of good
and holy,
to, say, those who are really good and demonstrate their goodness by
giving away money or doing good things. We think of people
like Mother Teresa as high on the goodness scale. Most
people think
like this when we speak of the holiness of God. We think of
perfect goodness. If we are to understand God's holiness, we must
remove from our thinking God's goodness. Yes, he is the good God,
but that is not what holiness means.
If you could take all the righteousness and goodness of all people
throughout all of
history and pile it into a monstrous mountain, it would not even
begin to approach the holiness of God. God's holiness is in a
totally different category.
So -- what is God's holiness? It is not goodness vs.
badness. We must not even think of
ethics--what is right vs. wrong. Ethics
does become involved, as we shall see, but the fundamental
understanding of holiness as it applies to God is not an ethical
concept. It is that quality which is of the very nature
of God.
It is what distinguishes God
from everything else.
It sets God apart from all of
his creation.
It has to do with his
transcendence. Now,
that's a big word.
"Transcendence" means literally "to climb across--exceeding usual
limits." R.C. Sproul helped me to better understand how this
applies to God:
To transcend is to
rise above something, to go above
and beyond a certain limit. When we speak of the transcendence of
God we are talking about that sense in which God is above and beyond
us. It tries to get at His supreme and absolute greatness.
The word is used to describe God's relationship to the world. He
is higher than the world. He has absolute power over the
world. The world has no power over Him. Transcendence
describes God in His consuming majesty, His exalted loftiness. It
points to the infinite distance that separates Him from every
creature. He is an infinite cut above everything else.
When the Bible calls God holy it
means primarily that God is transcendentally separate. . . To be
holy is to be `other,' to be different in a special way (1985, p. 55).
The fundamental understanding of holiness is related to our English
words
"saint" and "sanctify." [5] But this has been distorted by our
calling people like Mother Teresa and Augustine of Hippo,
saints. A saint is not somebody who has reached a certain
standard
of goodness. A saint is a person who has been "set apart" by
God. He or she is "a called-out one." So, biblically
speaking, all who make up God's true church are saints. You'll
find
this idea, for example, in Exodus 40 when the Bible speaks of
the sanctification of objects. Moses sanctifies the altar and
basin in the middle of the tabernacle. There is no change in the
nature of the stones of the altar and basin. They are not made
righteous. They are set apart for a special use.
Jesus prays, in John 17:19, "For them I sanctify myself, that they too
may be truly sanctified." Jesus can't make himself better or more
righteous because he already is
totally righteous. He was sinless. It means that Jesus
separated himself for the task that God called him
to--offering salvation for all people through his death and
resurrection.
So, the "holiness of God" is "the characteristic of God that sets him
apart from his creation" (Boice 1986, p. 127). He is
"transcendent, `other', distinct. . ." (Carson 1991, p. 565).
What separates God from his creation has at least
four elements:
1. God's
majesty
[6]
We sing Jack Hayford's God-exalting chorus, "Worship his majesty"
[7]. What is majesty? We are to worship the God who has
dignity, the authority of sovereign power over all nations and
individuals, the God of stateliness and grandeur. As we have
already read, Ex. 15:11 affirms this in the song of Moses, "Who
among the
gods is like you, O Lord? Who is like you--majestic in holiness,
awesome in glory, working wonders?"
According to I Chron. 29: 10-11, "David praised the Lord in the
presence
of the whole assembly, saying 'Yours, O Lord, is the
greatness and the power and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything on earth is yours.'" This is the association I'm
writing about--"majesty and splendor, everything on earth is
yours." God's majesty is associated with his sovereignty.
He controls everything. He is Lord over the whole world.
We should note these verses:
Ps. 29:4, "The voice of the Lord is
powerful; the voice of the Lord is
majestic."
Ps. 93:1, "The Lord reigns, he is robed in majesty; the Lord is robed
in majesty and is armed with strength."
The visions of God in his glory in both Old and New Testaments, has
God's majesty associated with it. Majesty links God's
holiness to his sovereignty. God is totally "other" than his
creation. He is radically different from it. God's grandeur
is seen in his holiness.
The second element of the holiness of God is:
2.
God's ability
to will to do
something--anything He wants
Too often when we think of "holiness" we consider it as an abstract,
impersonal idea
rather than a concrete, personal and active attribute. When God
says that he has the ability to will something as an element of his
holiness, he means that God has the will of somebody who is a
person. God is not some impersonal, abstract idea. He is a
person who makes decisions by a decision of his will. This makes
God's holiness personal and active.
What is his will? It is set on proclaiming God as "wholly
other." His glory will not be downgraded. Yet human beings
in their egos will push human pride, elevating people in rebellion
against God.
What is God's will set on doing? It is determined to proclaim the
Lord as the Holy One. The "Wholly Other" one--spelt
"wholly". God wills to declare Himself as one whose glory cannot
be diminished.
The idea of holiness as God having the will to show himself in all his
glory, in spite of human rebellion against God, comes close to what the
Scriptures mean when they say, "I the Lord your God am a jealous God"
(Ex. 20:5). The idea of jealousy is the core of a true view of
God.
A very human example would be the jealousy in marriage. A married
person should not let a third person enter into the inner
relationship. God rejects every attack on God's sole right to be
the Lord of creation. God is a jealous God.
You ought to be concerned at the way you treat God. God doesn't
go his wilful way not worrying about how people treat him.
Instead, God "wills and acts to see that his glory is
recognized." You WILL recognise God's glory and his
holiness. When we bow before the Lord of the universe, when we
repent of our sin and trust Christ alone as our Lord and Saviour.
OR when you front him as your Judge on Judgment Day (based on Boice
1986, pp. 127-128).
God's holiness means he is:
First, a God of majesty;
Second, a God who wills for his glory to be
protected. He is a jealous God.
The third element of the holiness of God is:
3. His
wrath
God cannot be holy without having wrath. This is a very unpopular
topic, especially in the seeker-sensitive, user-friendly churches of
the evangelical and charismatic churches of today.
Wrath or anger is as essential to the nature of God as love.
"Without wrath, God would cease to be God." Did you realise
"there are more references in the Bible to the anger or wrath of God
than there are to the love of God."? (Davies 1991, p. 70) In the
Old
Testament there are 20 Hebrew words used to describe the wrath of God
and these words are used nearly 600 times.
Many people think that the God of the Old Testament is the angry God of
wrath and the New Testament emphasises more of the love of God.
This is not so. The New Testament develops and retains the
emphasis on the wrath of God. This has led J.I. Packer in his
popular book, Knowing God, to
say that "the Bible could be called the
book of God's wrath, for it is full of portrayals of divine
retribution, from the cursing and banishment of Adam and Eve in Genesis
3 to the overthrow of 'Babylon' and the great [pouring out of God's
wrath in the Book] of Revelation" (1973, p. 166).
God's wrath has absolutely nothing to do with anything that looks like
an outburst of human anger. It is not supernatural uncontrolled
anger. "The attribute of wrath describes the controlled and
permanent opposition of God's holy nature to all sin" (Davies 1991, p.
70).
We saw God's wrath demonstrated clearly in the death of the whole
world's population (except one family) in Noah's Flood (Genesis 6-9),
the judgement on Sodom and
Gomorrah (Genesis 19), and in the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira (Acts
5).
When
Israel disobeyed God in the wilderness, or in the period of the Judges,
or prior to the Exile, the nation experienced God's wrath against their
sin. Read the first chapter of the Book of Romans and see how
God's wrath
can be expressed in a different way. See especially Romans
1:24-28.
I believe this is where Australia and the Western World are now.
God withdraws his restraints from sinners in varying degrees, allowing
"uncontrolled indulgence in the most detestable and hideous forms of
sin" (Davies 1991, p. 71). I see it in my counselling office
year-in-year-out. You
see it on the TV News. We see it in the exaltation of the
homosexual lifestyle, the slaughter of unborn children in the womb, the
killing of the aged through euthanasia, and in the general rebellion
amongst children, youth & adults. Surely the breakdown of
marriage, the high divorce rates and increasing defacto relationships
are not a sign of a healthy society. Romans 1 makes it
clear that this is an
example of God's wrath being poured out on a nation.
God's justice and wrath are being worked out by sinners reaping what
they sow. So we have incredible "suffering, violence, strife,
anarchy, wars, immorality, crime and unhappiness" (Davies 1991, p. 72).
These are the manifestations of God's wrath. I believe we are a
nation under wrath. When the "holy God withdraws these
restraints
and in His wrath abandons people to the pursuit of their evil desires"
we have contemporary Australia. Our land today needs to be
understood in the light of this basic attribute of the wrath of
God. It is a manifestation of His holiness.
How will it be stopped? God's wrath will be turned away when
governments, magistrates, God-honouring laws, godly parents, a holy
church and a practical knowledge of the Word of God dominate the
land. We need revival. Our land needs a deluge of a clear
proclamation of the gospel and churches filled with solid teaching of
the Word of God.
I consider that the prophecy of Amos is being fulfilled in my home
country of Australia today: "'The days are coming,' declares the
Sovereign Lord, 'when I will send a famine through the land--not a
famine of food or a thirst for water but a famine of hearing the words
of the Lord'" (Amos 8:11).
The wrath of God is not like any emotion. It is "that necessary
and proper stance of a holy God to all that opposes him. He means
that he takes the matter of being God seriously, so seriously that he
will not allow any thing or personality to aspire to [take] his place"
(Boice 1986, p. 128).
When men and women refuse to bow before the sovereign, holy Lord, they
will be judged. Hell is the experience of the wrath of God on all
who are lost. When we understand the holiness of God, we see sin
in all its putridness. Sin is an offence against the holy God.
We know that all unbelievers are in the greatest danger of being lost
eternally and experiencing God's wrath in hell. Yet what attempts
are we making to reach them with the gospel. Honestly, our
efforts are pathetic and apathetic.
Jesus wept over Jerusalem. How often do you weep in prayer for
the droves of people in Bundaberg (my home city) who are rushing
towards God's
wrath--hell? Jesus could save them if we only cared and
proclaimed his glorious gospel. God is on a rescue mission to
save people from His wrath, but God depends on our proclamation.
Do you care? If you do, weep for the lost, and warn them as you
proclaim the gospel to them.
"Do not expect the ignorant [the lost] to come to you; . . . they are
blind to their own condition" (Gurnall 1986, p. 177). We must go
to them. And we are not doing it in here in my home city of
Bundaberg. One of the great, but not so well-known,
Puritans, William Gurnall, wrote back in the 17th century: "Begin at
once, Christian, to redeem your
time. What you mean to do for God, do quickly" (1986, p. 150).
How can we apply this to our situation? Hudson Taylor, the early
missionary to China and founder of the China
Inland Mission (now known as the Overseas
Missionary Fellowship) was on
his first furlough in Great Britain. He was speaking to a large
missionary conference in Scotland. He told the story of a Chinese
man who fell into a dangerous river in
China. There were a number of people on the river bank who were
indifferent onlookers. They let him drown. The conference
members were disgusted to hear of such callous indifference to a
drowning man.
Hudson Taylor applied his illustration: "You are very upset by their
refusal to rescue a drowning man from physical death, but what about
your indifference to the spiritual death and hopelessness of thousands
and thousands who die each year in China without every hearing of the
Lord Jesus?" (in Davies 1991, p. 154). Are you pleading with God
for more of His compassion? Will we
repent of our indifference? Are our hearts and lives right before
Him as far as warning the lost of Bundaberg and beyond about the threat
of the wrath of God on them?
"More
than 100 million people are born each every year, and about 30 million
die each year." This means that for every second your watch
ticks over, a
person dies and goes to either heaven or hell? Most of them to
hell. Do you cry to God for the conversion of people? Are
we doing our utmost to reach people with the gospel?
No matter how young you are, soon your time on earth will be
over. It is time to assess your priorities and to give yourselves
wholeheartedly to the Lord and His gospel for the salvation of the lost
before time ends for us--or before the Lord comes again (the above was
suggested by Davies 1991, pp. 154-155).
God's holiness involves his majesty, his will, his wrath, and fourth,
4.
God's
righteousness
This is not the main category by which God's holiness is known.
But when we say that God "wills" to do something, He wills to do what
is righteous in the right vs. wrong sense. The ethical sense.
When we ask what is right? What is moral? We often want to
think it's what I think or what you think. I was at a sexuality
workshop recently and it began with this statement: "There is no such
thing as right or wrong; just your opinion and mine. There are no
absolutes." An absolute is something that is always that
way. The 10
commandments are absolutes. Lying is always wrong. Stealing
is always wrong. Murder, adultery and covetousness are
always wrong. These are absolutes. If there is no right or
wrong, just your opinion vs. mine, no wonder our country is in such a
mess.
Jesus' Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7) has lots of absolutes about
how we must live to please God. If we are to know right from
wrong, God's righteous standard must be the
fixed moral standard by which we judge behaviour. What is right
is what God is, and what God says is right. It's right here in
the
Bible. Crystal clear!
Values are on the skids in Australia because we have thrown out the
essential foundation of an orderly society--God's righteous standard.
As a result, one of the most dangerous places for a child in
Australia is inside its mother's womb. About 75,000 Medicare
claims for abortion are made every year in Australia. These
unborn
children are slaughtered in their mothers' wombs. Why?
Pragmatic reasons are often given; a small number of abortions are to
save the life of the mother. I suggest that when we abandon
God's
righteous standard that killing of all human life from conception is
wrong, we settle for your choice vs. mine. How much longer
will God allow this to continue before we receive a deluge of his wrath
of judgment on Australia?
When God is not acknowledged as sovereign Lord, when his holy standard
does not reign in a country, we are on the moral skids. That's
where Western civilisation is today. I consider that Australia is
there right now. We have perverted
God's standards of sexuality. We curse God's view of life and
death--kill babies in the womb, and now we want to send the elderly to
premature deaths through euthanasia.
We can carry on in the church in a dull way making God look like
puddle glum and we can go berserk making God look like a circus
performer. Remember: "How we understand the person and character
of God the Father affects every aspect of our lives" (Sproul 1985, p.
25).
Consider the Word of God:
"I am the Lord
your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I
am holy" (Lev. 11:44; cf. 19:2; 20:7).
"He is a holy God" (Josh.
24:19);
"There is no one holy like
the Lord" (I Sam. 2:2);
In the Book of Job, God is
called "the Holy One" (Job 6:10);
"Let them praise your great
and awesome name--he is holy" (Ps.99:3).
God's holiness sets him
totally apart from his creation. He is
"Wholly Other." This means:
He is majestic in
holiness; the grandeur of his
sovereign power over the nations;
He is the Lord
who wills things to happen.
He is a jealous God. He rejects all attempts to seize His role.
His holiness
means he is a God of wrath. His
holy nature has a permanent opposition to all sin and all that opposes
him;
God's
righteousness is the standard of right and
wrong for individuals and nations. We disobey God's standards to
our own peril.
When you fall before this God, where does that leave you? How can
your response be any less than that of Isaiah?
"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his
glory" (6:3). When Isaiah was confronted with God's
holiness--holy, holy, holy (three times) was for
emphasis--Isaiah said, "Woe is me, for I am ruined [lost, ESV,
NRSV]! Because I am a man of
unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes
have seen the King, the Lord of
hosts" (6:5 NASB).
When you understand God's holiness and bow before this almighty God,
you understand yourself.
With Isaiah you conclude:
1.
"Woe is me."
"Woe" is an old-fashioned word. Some modern translators want to
get away from it but it is a crucial word that has a special
meaning. "Woe is an announcement of doom. In the Bible,
cities are doomed, nations are doomed, individuals are doomed--all by
uttering the oracle of woe. Isaiah's use of woe was extraordinary. When
he saw the Lord, he
pronounced the judgment of God upon himself. `Woe is me!' he
cried, calling down the curse of God, the utter anathema of judgment
and doom upon his own head" (Sproul 1985, p. 43).
2. "I
am undone"
Immediately following this curse of doom on himself, Isaiah cried this
about himself: "I am ruined" (NIV, NASB). The KJV and NKJV are
better, "I am undone." "To be undone means to come apart at the
seams, to be unraveled!" (Sproul 1985, p. 43)
To catch this sudden glimpse of a Holy God should cause people to see
themselves for who they are -- not with high self esteem, but with
a true picture of who I am: "I am undone." If you compare
yourself to other human beings, you might have a high opinion of your
own importance and character. But, the instant we measure
ourselves by the ultimate standard--God--we are destroyed--morally and
spiritually annihilated. We are undone. "I am a man of
unclean lips" (Sproul 1985, pp. 43-44).
| God's
challenge to all of us |
I Peter 1:15
challenges us: "But
just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all
you do; for it is written, `Be holy, because I am holy." I want
to know of the holiness of God because I am not holy. God calls
all believers to be set apart for his service, just as he is set apart.
The application for us comes in Jesus' prayer in John 17:17,
"Sanctify them [his
disciples] by the truth; your word is truth."
If you are holy, a saint, sanctified, you are set apart for God and his
service. You should only do what God wants you to do. You
will hate what God hates. That is what is means to be holy, as
God is holy (Lev. 11:44-45; I Peter 1:16) [suggested by Carson 1991, p.
565].
What does God want you to do? What about family living?
Men, do you treat your wife and children with the fruit of the
Spirit? "Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things
there is no law" (Gal. 5:22-23). Women, how do you treat your
husband and children? To those who are unmarried: how do you
treat your parents, brothers and sisters, and fellow workers?
Imagine what a household it would be if husband and wife treated each
other like that? What about children doing the same to
parents? This would be heaven on earth. But that's how the
family and the body of Christ was meant to function.
Idealistic? Never! That is Bible! If you are
controlled by the Spirit of God, that is how you will want to treat all
people. Tragically, I have not always lived that way.
Neither have you. If we are truly Spirit-dominated people,
that's how we will live. Thank God for forgiveness.
What does God hate that you need to hate?
Prov. 6:16-19 reads: "There are six things the Lord hates, seven
that are
detestable to him [9]:
Here's a sample of 7 of them:
haughty eyes, [a proud
look or arrogant ambition--God will not
tolerate those who think so highly of themselves.]
a lying tongue, ["a tongue of
deception." God hates liars and so will
you.]
hands that shed innocent blood,
[you can't be a lover of God and
believe in abortion on demand or euthanasia. Innocent blood is
being shed all around us in Australia and God hates it. About
75,000 unborn children are killed every year. We cannot continue
to
do this as a nation without experiencing God's wrath.]
a heart that devises wicked
schemes, [The heart most often represents
the human will. Here it schemes to do wicked things.]
feet that are quick to rush into
evil, ["enthusiastic and
complete involvement in activities that bring pain to all concerned"
(Ross, 1991, p. 935). What pain is caused today by fathers who abuse
their sacred trust and sexually abuse children, even fathers in the
evangelical church. Children who rebel and abuse parents are
causing
incredible pain to the family.]
God hates a false witness who pours
out lies, [that's self
explanatory]
and a man who stirs up dissension
among brothers." [God hates
those who are contentious, quarrelling people who have a short
fuse. How many churches have been split asunder by divisive,
bickering people?]
If God hates these things, he must love and desire the opposite:
humility, truthful speech, those who preserve life, pure thoughts,
eagerness to do good things, honest witnesses, and peaceful harmony
(Ross 1991, p. 936). Imagine what Australia would be like if all
Christians lived like that?
Prov. 8:13:
"To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and
arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech."
Mal. 2:16:
"`I hate divorce,' says the Lord God of Israel, `and I hate
a man's covering himself with violence as well as with his garment,'
says the Lord Almighty."
John 12:25:
"The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who
hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life."
I John 2:9,
"Anyone who claims to be in the light but hates his brother
is still in the darkness."
Rev. 2:6,
To the church in Ephesus: "But you have this in your favor:
You hate the practices of the Nicolaitans, which I also hate."
The Nicolaitans were an "heretical sect in the early church about which
we know nothing apart from the references in the Revelation" (Ladd
1972, p. 40). They could have been "a heretical sect who
retained pagan practices like idolatry and immorality contrary to the
thought and the conduct required in Christian churches" (D. M. Beck, in
Mounce 1977, p. 89).
God hates such abominations and impurity. So should we.
Back when Gerald
Ford was president of the USA, a leading golfer on the
professional circuit was invited to play in a foursome with Gerald
Ford, Jack Nicklaus and Billy Graham. He was in awe of playing
with Gerald Ford and Billy Graham. He had played many times with
Jack Nicklaus. After the round of golf was over, another golf pro asked
this pro,
"Hey, what was it like playing with the President and Billy Graham?"
From his mouth came a "torrent of cursing" and he disgustedly
said, "I
don't need Billy Graham stuffing religion down my throat." He
turned on his heels and stormed off, heading for the practice tee.
This friend followed the pro to the practice area. The pro took
out his driver and started to beat the balls in a terrible anger.
The friend just sat and watched. After the practice was over the
friend asked quietly, "Was Billy a little tough on you out there?"
The pro heaved an embarrassed sigh and said, "No, he didn't even
mention religion. I just had a bad round."
Billy Graham had said not a word about God, Jesus or religion, "yet the
pro had stormed away from the game accusing Billy of trying to ram
religion down his throat. How can we explain this?. . .
Billy Graham didn't have to say a word. . . Billy Graham is so
identified with religion, so associated with the things of God, that
his very presence is enough to smother the wicked man who flees when no
man pursues."
This pro felt the presence of the hound of heaven, Jesus Christ, when
he was in the presence of a man who truly understood what the Bible
says, "Be holy, because I am holy" (I Peter 1:16) [Sproul 1985, pp.
91-92].
This is similar to the reaction of Peter to Jesus, "Depart from me, for
I am a sinful man, O Lord" (Luke 5:8, NASB).
Or as Paul said to the Corinthians: "For we are to God the aroma of
Christ among those who are being saved and those who are
perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other,
the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task?" (2 Cor.
2:15-16).
1. Much help
for this article came from James Montgomery Boice
(1986, p. 125ff.), chapter 12, "Holy, Holy, Holy."
2. I am an Australian family relationships' counselling manager,
doctoral student in biblical studies, an active Christian apologist, and
may be
contacted
at: P. O. Box 3107, Hervey Bay 4655, Australia.
3. Rice writes, "All that God does not know is the content of
future free decisions and this is because decisions are not there
to know until they occur... General freedom in particular requires only
that the future be open to some extent" (in Armstrong 1996, pp.
142-43). Timothy George speaks of "the vague hope that somehow
good will triumph over evil... But the `open God' cannot guarantee that
it will" (in Armstrong 1996, p. 144).
4. From Context,
September 15, 1989; quoted in Christianity
Today, 19 February, 1990, p. 24
5. "Holy comes from Germanic languages. Saint comes from the
Romance languages. But the root meaning is identical" (Boice
1986, p. 126).
6. These points are based on Boice 1986, pp. 127-28.
7. Words of "Majesty" are in the The Cyber Hymnal, available
from: http://www.cyberhymnal.org/htm/m/a/majesty.htm
[16 June 2005].
8. Gurnall was born in 1616 and published the three volumes on the
Christian's armour between 1655 and 1662 (1986, pp. 17, 19).
9. To the Hebrews, this is a poetic way of saying that this list is not
exhaustive. There are many more things that the Lord hates. The
comments on the seven hated things comes from Ross 1991, pp. 935-936.
Armstrong, J. H.
1996 gen. ed., The
Coming Evangelical Crisis, Moody
Press, Chicago.
Boice, J. M. 1986, Foundations of
the Christian Faith, InterVarsity
Press, Downers Grove, Illinois.
Carson, D. A. 1991, The Gospel
According to John, Inter-Varsity Press,
Leicester, England.
Colson C. 1987, Kingdoms in Conflict,
Hodder & Stoughton, London.
Davies, E. 1991, An Angry God?
Evangelical Press of Wales, Bryntirion,
Bridgend, Wales.
Fairlie H. 1991, in Leadership,
Summer 1991.
Gurnall, W. 1986, The Christian in
Complete Armour, Vol. 1, modernised
abridgment, Banner of Truth Trust, Edinburgh.
Ladd, G. E. 1972, A Commentary on
the Revelation of John, William B.
Eerdmans Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Mounce, R. H. 1997, The Book of
Revelation, William B. Eerdmans
Publishing Company, Grand Rapids, Michigan.
Packer, J. I. 1973, Knowing God,
Hodder & Stoughton, London.
Ross, A. P. 1991, 'Proverbs', in Frank E. Gaebelein gen. ed., The
Expositor's Bible Commentary, vol. 5, Michigan: Zondervan
Publishing
House, Grand
Rapids, Michigan, pp. 881-1134.
Sproul, R. C. 1985, The Holiness of
God, Tyndale House Publishers,
Inc., Wheaton, Illinois.
Tozer, A. W. 1961, Knowledge of the
Holy, Harper & Row Publishers,
San Francisco.
Tozer, A. W. 1985, Whatever Happened
to Worship? Christian
Publications, Camp Hill, Pennsylvania.
The God Challenge
The Truth Challenge
(homepage)
Copyright (c) 2007 Spencer D. Gear. This document is
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