We must understand what holiness is. Holiness is absolute and perfect righteousness, excellence, flawlessness, morality, virtue, uprightness, devotion and consecration. Holiness is being without sin, spotless, without wrinkle or blemish, untarnished and undefiled. Holiness is to be perfect in all things. When we say that God is holy, it is exactly what God is. This is His standard. His holiness is not just something to describe Him as or part of His character, it is WHO He is. He is holy. Everything He does, He does in holiness and rightness. In his book, Knowledge of the Holy, A.W. Tozer writes, “Holy is the way God is. To be holy He does not conform to a standard. He is that standard. He is absolutely holy with an infinite, incomprehensible fullness of purity that is incapable of being other than it is. Because He is holy, His attributes are holy; that is, whatever we think of as to belonging to God must be thought of as holy.”
The holiness of God- the human mind and intellect cannot comprehend fully the holy, matchless, incomparable, perfection of Almighty God. Thus, words cannot articulate, communicate and enunciate the depth of God’s utmost holiness. The thing to grasp is that God’s holiness is beyond anything the human mind can fathom. He is above and beyond all that I could try to write on. The human’s definition of God’s holiness is like a grain of sand on a vast, endless beach.
Again, Tozer writes, “He (God) is the absolute quintessence of moral excellence, infinitely perfect in righteousness, purity, rectitude, and incomprehensible holiness. And in all this He is uncreated, self-sufficient and beyond the power of human thought to conceive or human speech to utter.”
In Isaiah 6, the prophet Isaiah sees the holiness of God in the Throne Room of the Lord. He sees the Lord, high and lifted up, sitting on a throne. The train of His robe cascades throughout the temple. Isaiah describes the seraphim, six-winged creatures crying out and proclaiming in adoration: “HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory!” (Isaiah 6:3)
How does man stand in light of the holiness of God? Holiness is the measure for man. All men have fallen short of that glorious standard. (Romans 3:23) God calls us to be holy for He is holy. (Lev. 11:45) We are depraved, wicked sinners before the holiness of God. Because God is holy and man is sinful, they are opposite, opposed and separated. God cannot and will not dwell with that which is sinful, wretched, filthy and unclean. Seeing the holiness of God will show us our sin. It will reveal in us our great need for a Savior. It shows us just how far we have fallen. After Isaiah saw this majestic holiness of the Lord on High, he confessed, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” (Isaiah 6:5) What Isaiah saw was the holy, sacred and majestic God in all of His splendor and glory- He saw the holiness of God. It moved Isaiah to fall on his face and declare his depravity and sin before God. We must see the holiness of God in light of who we are. We must cry, “Woe is me! I am a man of unclean lips!” May we fall on our faces in light of God’s holiness. He is worthy of all praise, adoration, honor and glory!
