Scripture Reading: Isaiah 6:1-7
If there is one attribute which could be said to be more central than the others, it would be God’s holiness. "If he were stripped of this, he would be a dead God, more than by the want of any other perfection" (Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God, 2:113). In Amos 4:2, God swears by His holiness and in Amos 6:8 He swears by Himself.
The word 'holy' comes from a verb which means "to cut" or "to separate." Thus we get the idea that something is separated or set apart from the whole or from what is common. The holiness of God has two aspects.
First, God is set apart from His creation, and thus utterly unique. "Who is like you, O LORD, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?" (Exod 15:11).
Second, God is set apart from what is sinful. "Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? . . . You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong" (Hab 1:12,13).
"God's holiness is his inherent and absolute greatness, in which is perfectly distinct above everything outside of himself and is absolutely morally separate from sin" (MacArthur, Biblical Doctrine, 183).
Our response to this attribute of God should be silent, joyful awe and contrite repentance. "But the LORD is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him" (Hab 2:20).
