September 28/29, 2002

WHO IS GOD?-He is the Holy One

Genesis 3:8-10

"Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, 'Where are you?'
He answered, 'I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.'" [NIV]

Every time in the scriptures God shows up, people quake in fear. If God is so good, why are people so afraid of Him? Why do they fall face down on the ground when they meet Him? What is so terrifying about God?

The answer is stranger than the question. The reason God is so terrifying is because He is holy. The holiness of God means that He is absolutely perfect in all of His being. He is perfect in love, perfect in beauty, perfect in power, perfect in His goodness, perfect in knowledge, and perfect in peace. God is perfect in all of His being. And the only things that can exist in God's perfect presence are things that are equally as perfect as is God. Everything imperfect is obliterated when it encounters God's perfection.

That creates quite a problem for us. We are the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. Our parents were sinners and we are sinners also. We are flawed creatures, less than perfect. We are evil in our very nature. There is nothing good in us, says the scriptures (Psalm 14:1). Our hearts are filled with evil continuously [Genesis 6:5].

This is why God is so terrifying to us. God is so absolutely holy and we are so completely evil that even a glimpse of God means instant death to us.

Against the chummy, friendly, hail-fellow-well-met image of God popular today, the Bible sets a picture of God as the Holy Other. The holiness of God means that-

1. The holiness of God means that God is terrifying.

The movie "Raiders of the Lost Ark" is set in the time of the Nazi domination of Germany. It depicts a fanciful story of a frantic search by the Nazi's and by an American professor of archeology for the lost Ark of the Covenant of the Jews. The movie states that the Ark contained enormous power that could be controlled by the one who possessed it.

It is an action movie in the best tradition of Hollywood. Harrison Ford plays the part of the American archeologist who tries single handedly to thwart the evil Nazi's in their attempt to get the Ark. Ford struggles with super heroic determination to stop the Nazis, but, despite his best efforts, he fails. The Nazi's get the Ark and in an elaborate ceremony they remove the lid. Fortunately for Ford and for his beautiful leading lady who has, very predictably, had most of her cloths torn off, they are tied to posts facing away from the ark. The evil Nazi's gazing at the open Ark watch as a power comes out of the Ark and melts them as they try to flee.

The movie is pure Hollywood. It is all about box office bucks and nothing about theology. But the movie did try to play off the idea that God is not One with whom we should trifle. God is dangerous. People mess with God to their peril.

This theme is true to the scriptures. The prophet Ezekiel described how he was called to be a prophet [Ezekiel 1]. It happened to him when he saw what looked like a storm cloud coming out of the north. Something peculiar about the cloud captured Ezekiel's attention. He continued to watch as lightening flashed in the cloud, making it light up like glowing metal. Light surrounded the cloud. Ezekiel watched as the cloud drew closer and closer. Then he realized that the churning and boiling on the underbelly of the cloud was giant wheels bearing the cloud along. The wheels had eyes all over them. The center of the cloud glowed with fire. In the fire were four living creatures with the faces of a man, a lion, an ox and an eagle. Each of the living creatures had six wings. Above the creatures was an expanse that sparkled like ice. And above the expanse was a throne of sapphire. Ezekiel saw high above the throne a human-like figure that appeared to glow as if on fire. A brilliant light surrounded the figure and a rainbow of colors glowed in the light. The realization dawned upon Ezekiel that he was looking at "the likeness of the glory of the Lord." He wrote, "When I saw it, I fell facedown, . . . ." [1:28].

Terror, fear and paralysis greets everyone who encounters God in His glory. God is holy and his utter, absolute perfection is beautiful beyond words and terrifying beyond description.

The holiness of God also means that-

2. The holiness of God means that God is good.

In some religions, god is not good. The worshippers' task is to placate an angry and vengeful god.

Sadly, some Christian ministers preach God as angry and vengeful. What you usually find in those situations is that it is the minister who is angry and vengeful and he reads his anger and vengeance into the gospel.

A friend of mine through college and seminary days went out to serve as pastor of a church. The work proved much harder than he or his wife could have imagined. The endless hours of work demanded of him and the survival wages he received for his labors and the constant criticism he endured combined to place him and his marriage under great stress.

Unaware of what was happening in either his ministry or his marriage, my wife and I stopped by to visit them one weekend on our way back from vacation. We arrived on Saturday afternoon and enjoyed a tour of their church field. We dined and stayed up late talking preacher talk. Both my wife and I were disturbed as we listened at the harsh language they used to describe their church family. The next morning we went to church where my friend preached the morning message. He spent his thirty minutes in the pulpit castigating the congregation. He told them how worthless and no-good they were and how they deserved the wrath of God. My wife and I slid as low into our pew as we could get. We were horrified by what we were hearing.

Here was not an angry God lashing out at a miscreant people, but an angry minister tongue whipping a congregation. A short time later our friend and his wife divorced and he resigned from the congregation and from the ministry.

The holiness of God is not about the wrath of God, but about the goodness of God. "'God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world,'" said Jesus, "'but to save the world . . . .'" [John 3:17].

The holiness of God is terrifying, but it is also good. The holiness of God also means that-

3. The holiness of God means that God must provide our salvation.

Adam and Eve sinned and because they were no longer perfect, they lost their right to stay in God's Garden. They found themselves in a world where people earn their living by the sweat of their brow, where women give birth in pain, where competition rather than cooperation marks human relationships and where there is a constant struggle with evil. It is our world and it is our story.

If this were the end of the story, what a tragedy life would be. But it is not the end of the story. God's holiness means that God is perfect in His love and perfect in His wisdom and perfect in His power. God still loves us, even though we are sinners, and God has provided a way for us back into the Father's house.

In some divine metaphysics that we will never understand this side of eternity, the Son of God came into our world of sin and suffering and death and took upon Himself our sin and died for our sin upon the cross. He was the Lamb of God slain for the sin of the world [Revelation 5:9]. He opened the door to the Garden where we could once again go in and have fellowship with the Heavenly Father [Matthew 7:7].

"'For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life'" [John 3:16].

INVITATION:

The holiness of God explains why you and I cannot be good enough to get into heaven on our own merits. However good we may be compared to the people around us, we are nowhere near to being perfect. The only hope we have is for a perfect God to make a perfect atonement for our sin and to restore us to a perfect relationship with Him. This is what God did in Christ and it is our only hope of salvation. But the good news is that "to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God-" [John 1:12].