God is Holy,God is

Righteous

The Attributes of God

Two moments in your life

Class participation

Texas boy in the snow and introducing Adelaide

Beauty1 Chronicles 16:29-30: “Worship the Lord in the

splendor [beauty] of His holiness; tremble before Him, all the earth.”

Beauty Words fail – “God resorts to association and

suggestion” – Tozer

Awful: two effects of studying God’s Holiness: Increasing comprehension of my sinfulness

Increasing comprehension of His Holiness

God is Holy, Absolutely Holy

Isaiah 6:3 — "And one called to another: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; His glory fills the whole earth."

Joshua 24:19 — "But Joshua told the people, “You will not be able to worship Yahweh, because He is a holy God. He is a jealous God; He will not remove your transgressions and sins."

Psalm 22:3 — "But You are holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel."

Psalm 99:5, 9 — "Exalt the Lord our God; bow in worship at His footstool. He is holy. Exalt the Lord our God; bow in worship at His holy mountain, for the Lord our God is holy."

Isaiah 5:16 — -"But the Lord of Hosts is exalted by His justice, and the holy God is distinguished by righteousness."

1 Peter 1:15-16 — "But as the One who called you is holy, you also are to be holy in all your conduct; for it is written, Be holy, because I am holy."

God is Holy – The Word Holy and God

Holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Spirit

Isaiah 57:15 — "For the High and Exalted One who lives forever, whose name is Holy says this: “I live in a high and holy place, and with the oppressed and lowly of spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly and revive the heart of the oppressed. [The name stands for the character and being.]

Leviticus 11:43-45 & Deuteronomy 23:14

What Does Holy Mean? Holy means free from all defilement, pure.

Defile: sully, mar, or spoil, desecrate or profane

"God is holy" means "God is absolutely pure."

We don’t have examples for this

1 John 1:5 — "Now this is the message we have heard from Him and declare to you: God is light, and there is absolutely no darkness in Him."

Associations and Suggestions of God’s Holiness:

The entire Mosaic system of washings;

divisions of the tabernacle;divisions of the people into ordinary Israelites, Levites, Priests and High Priests, who were permitted different degrees of approach to God under strictly defined conditions;

the insisting upon sacrifice as a necessary medium of approach to God;

God's directions to Moses in Exodus 3:5;

to Joshua in Joshua 5:15,

the punishment of Uzziah in 2 Chronicles 26:16-26;

the strict orders to Israel in regard to approaching Sinai when Jehovah came down upon it;

the doom of Korah, Dathan and Abiram in Numbers 16:1-33; and the destruction of Nadab and Abihu in Leviticus 10:1-3:

What Does Holy Mean? These are the suggestions and associations

God has used

Not just holy, but unapproachably holy.

“The truth that God is holy is the fundamental truth of the Bible, of the Old Testament and the New Testament, of the Jewish religion, and of the Christian religion. “ Torrey

God Is Righteous. Ezra 9:15 — "Lord God of Israel, You are

righteous…"

Psalm 116: 5 — "The Lord is gracious and righteous; our God is compassionate.

Psalm 145:17 — "The Lord is righteous in all His ways and gracious in all His acts.”

Jeremiah 12:1 — "You will be righteous, Lord, even if I bring a case against You.

John 17:25 — "Righteous Father! The world has not known You. However, I have known You, and these have known that You sent Me."

What Is It To Be Righteous, Or Just?

Ezekiel 18:5 — “Now suppose a man is righteous and does what is just and right:”

Zephaniah 3:5 — "The righteous Lord is in her; He does no wrong. He applies His justice morning by morning; He does not fail at dawn, yet the one who does wrong knows no shame."

To be just, or righteous, is to possess enough character to always do what is right.

What Is It To Be Righteous, Or Just?

The Hebrew word for just, according to its etymology, means "right" or "straight."

The etymology of the English word "righteous" is the same.

The etymology of the Greek word is "custom" or "usage" — that which conforms to custom.

What Is It To Be Righteous, Or Just?

The righteousness or justice of God is that attribute that leads Him always to do right.

It is not to be limited, as it so often is in modern theological usage, to His punitive justice.

Holiness compared with Righteousness

Looking to the Word for Examples

How do we see God’s Holiness expressed?

How do we see God’s Righteousness expressed?

Holiness Contrasted with Sin

Habakkuk 1:13 — "Your eyes are too pure to look on evil, and You cannot tolerate wrongdoing. So why do You tolerate those who are treacherous? Why are You silent while one who is wicked swallows up one who is more righteous than himself?"

Genesis 6:5-6 — "When the Lord saw that man’s wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every scheme his mind thought of was nothing but evil all the time, the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart."

Deuteronomy 25:16 — "For everyone who does such things and acts unfairly is detestable to the Lord your God."

The holiness of God manifests itself in a hatred for sin.

By What He Delights in Proverbs 15:9 — "but He loves the one who pursues

righteousness."

Leviticus 19:2 — "Speak to the entire Israelite community and tell them: Be holy because I, Yahweh your God, am holy"

Leviticus 20:26 — "You are to be holy to Me because I, Yahweh, am holy, and I have set you apart from the nations to be Mine."

The holiness of God manifests itself in a delight in righteousness and holiness.

By What He Delights in Psalm 11:4-7 — "The Lord is in His holy

temple; the Lord’s throne is in heaven. His eyes watch; He examines everyone. The Lord examines the righteous and the wicked. He hates the lover of violence. He will rain burning coals and sulfur on the wicked; a scorching wind will be their portion. For the Lord is righteous; He loves righteous deeds. The upright will see His face."

The righteousness of God is manifested in His loving what is righteous and hating iniquity.

God is Righteous Because of His Dealings

Exodus 9:23-27 — "So Moses stretched out his staff toward heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail. Lightning struck the earth, and the Lord rained hail on the land of Egypt. The hail, with lightning flashing through it, was so severe that nothing like it had occurred in the land of Egypt since it had become a nation. Throughout the land of Egypt, the hail struck down everything in the field, both man and beast. The hail beat down every plant of the field and shattered every tree in the field. The only place it didn’t hail was in the land of Goshen where the Israelites were.

Pharaoh sent for Moses and Aaron. “I have sinned this time,” he said to them. “Yahweh is the Righteous One, and I and my people are the guilty ones.

God is Righteous Because of His Dealings

Revelation 16:5-6 — "I heard the angel of the waters say: You are righteous, who is and who was, the Holy One, for You have decided these things. Because they poured out the blood of the saints and the prophets, You also gave them blood to drink; they deserve it!"

The righteousness of God is manifested in his assigning to sinners the punishment due their sins.

2 Chronicles 12:5-6 and Daniel 9:12, 14

Rewarding Righteousness

2 Timothy 4:8 — "There is reserved for me in the future the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will give me on that day, and not only to me, but to all those who have loved His appearing.”

1 Kings 8:32 — "may You hear in heaven and act. May You judge Your servants, condemning the wicked man by bringing what he has done on his own head and providing justice for the righteous by rewarding him according to his righteousness.”

The righteousness of God is manifested in His granting the righteous the reward for their faithfulness.

Righteousness Shown by Protection and Deliverance

Psalm 98:1-3 — "Sing a new song to the Lord, for He has performed wonders; His right hand and holy arm have won Him victory. The Lord has made His victory known; He has revealed His righteousness in the sight of the nations. He has remembered His love and faithfulness to the house of Israel; all the ends of the earth have seen our God’s victory."

2 Thessalonians 1:6-7 — "since it is righteous for God to repay with affliction those who afflict you and to reward with rest you who are afflicted, along with us. This will take place at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with His powerful angels,"

The righteousness of God is manifested in His protecting and delivering His people from all their adversaries.

Psalm 103:6 & Psalm 129:1-4

Protection Versus Punishment

God is Righteous has a negative connotation today

Jeremiah 9:24 "But the one who boasts should boast in this, that he understands and knows Me—that I am Yahweh, showing faithful love, justice, and righteousness on the earth, for I delight in these things. This is the Lord’s declaration."

Psalm 116:5-6 — "The Lord is gracious and righteous; our God is compassionate. The Lord guards the inexperienced; I was helpless, and He saved me."

Psalm 145:5, 15-19, Psalm 96:11-13; Revelation 15:3

Protection Versus Punishment

Seeing punishment of sinner in connection with deliverance of people

Revelation 16:4-6 — "The third poured out his bowl into the rivers and the springs of water, and they became blood. I heard the angel of the waters say: You are righteous, who is and who was, the Holy One, for You have decided these things. Because they poured out the blood of the saints and the prophets, You also gave them blood to drink; they deserve it!" (See also 2 Thessalonians 1:6-7, Revelation 19:1-2)

Prominent thought: Vindication and avenging of His people vs. suffering of the wicked

Review of His Righteousness

By what He delights in

By His dealings: Punishment of sinners Rewards righteousness Protection and deliverance

What Righteousness Means to Humanity

First: God keeps His promises because He is

righteous

Nehemiah 9:7-8 — "You are Yahweh, the God who chose Abram and brought him out of Ur of the Chaldeans, and changed his name to Abraham. You found his heart faithful in Your sight, and made a covenant with him to give the land of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Jebusites, and Girgashites—to give it to his descendants. You have kept Your promise, for You are righteous."

What Righteousness Means to Humanity

Secondly: The righteousness of God is manifested in the

forgiveness of the sins of the believer when they are confessed.

1 John 1:9 — "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."

What Righteousness Means to Humanity

Third and lastly Righteousness of God shown through:

His providing a propitiation (attonement, regaining of favor, pacification, securing a peace treaty) when sin was forgiven, and

in His justifying him that has faith in the substitute (the substitute for our sins is Jesus on the Cross)

Romans 3:25 — "God presented Him as a propitiation through faith in His blood, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His restraint God passed over the sins previously committed."

Forgotten Holiness

Book of Acts

Biblical associations with God’s Holiness

Beauty beyond sight; to the point of blindness

His Holiness

Never does Wickedness

Job 34:10 — "Therefore listen to me, you men of understanding. It is impossible for God to do wrong, and for the Almighty to act unjustly."

The holiness of God manifests itself in His never doing wickedness or iniquity.

Apart from Sin

Isaiah 59:1-2 — "Indeed, the Lord’s hand is not too short to save, and His ear is not too deaf to hear. But your iniquities have built barriers between you and your God, and your sins have made Him hide His face from you so that He does not listen."

See Holiness of God in the separation of the sinner from God.

Need of atonement Ephesians 2:13 — "But now in Christ Jesus, you who

were far away have been brought near by the blood of the Messiah."

John 14:6 — "Jesus told him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me."

Atonement for the Sinner

The atonement has its deepest demand in the holiness of God.

The first and fundamental reason why "without shedding of blood there is no remission" is that God is holy and sin must be covered before there can be fellowship between God and the sinner.

Holiness in the punishment of the

sinner Exodus 34:6-7 — "Then the Lord passed in

front of him and proclaimed:

Yahweh—Yahweh is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in faithful love and truth, maintaining faithful love to a thousand generations, forgiving wrongdoing, rebellion, and sin. But He will not leave the guilty unpunished, bringing the consequences of the fathers’ wrongdoing on the children and grandchildren to the third and fourth generation."

Holiness in the punishment of the

sinner Genesis 6:5-7 — "When the Lord saw that

man’s wickedness was widespread on the earth and that every scheme his mind thought of was nothing but evil all the time, the Lord regretted that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. Then the Lord said, “I will wipe off from the face of the earth mankind, whom I created, together with the animals, creatures that crawl, and birds of the sky—for I regret that I made them.”

The holiness of God manifests itself in the punishment of the sinner.

Holiness in the punishment of the

sinner Reasons for punishment

God does not punish the sinner merely because the sinner's good makes it necessary. God is holy. God hates sin.

Isaiah 53:6 — -"All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all."

Hitting the brakes with Holiness

Isaiah 6:5-6 — "Then I said: Woe is me for I am ruined because I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips, and because my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.

Then one of the seraphim flew to me, and in his hand was a glowing coal that he had taken from the altar with tongs."

The pure light of God's holiness reveals the blackness of our sin.

Job 42:5-6 — "I had heard rumors about You, but now my eyes have seen You. Therefore I take back my words and repent in dust and ashes."

If any man think well of himself, he has never met God.

Hitting the brakes with Holiness

Infinite Hate

“God is love, it is true, but his love is not the sentimental sort that sends costly bouquets and tender missives to moral monsters, as some of our Universalist theologians would have us think. “ R.A. Torrey

Hebrews 12:29 - "Our God is a consuming fire"

Where that leaves us

Correctly viewing His Love in light of His Holiness

God's love to sinners will never be appreciated until seen in the light of His blazing wrath at sin.

John 3:16 — “For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.

1 Peter 3:18 — "For Christ also suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, that He might bring you to God, after being put to death in the fleshly realm but made alive in the spiritual realm."

Where that leaves us

Infinite Sacrifice Needed

The holiness of God manifests itself in His making an infinite sacrifice to save others from sin unto holiness.

Not only love – but holiness

The death of Christ is not merely a manifestation of the love of God but of HIS holiness as well.

Starting a lifetime of thinking

Romans 5:8 — "But God proves His own love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us!"

“There is no forgiveness without atonement. Sin must be covered from the Holy gaze of God, and nothing will cover it but blood….” R.A. Torrey

Hebrews 9:22 — "According to the law almost everything is purified with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness."

Starting a lifetime of thinking

“The wonderfulness of God's love! That the God whose name is Holy, the Infinitely Holy God, could love beings so utterly sinful as we are, that is the wonder of the eternities. There are many deep mysteries in the Bible, but none other as profound as this. “ R.A. Torrey