“The question that one should ask themselves is: would God be love if He wasn’t holy?”
In this talk, Jackie Hill Perry teaches on the holiness of God, its significance as God’s defining characteristic, and why we should appreciate and understand it as believers.
This sermon is part of the “Winter Wisdom” July collection, which is now available for KCC One+ subscribers. Access this talk and much more from only $4.99 / month (on an annual KCC One+ subscription). Subscribe today.
Transcript:
One quote that has always stuck with me is a quote by A.W. Tozer that says, “What comes into your mind when you think about God is the most important thing about you.” And I don’t think we think like that all that much, when we should. Because in all the craziness of the world and in all the craziness that’s within ourselves, I really do believe that it is symptomatic of what we believe about God.
The world has a lot of definitions for God. To some He is the universe. For others, He is only the Father. and not also the Son and Spirit. That’s a big deal because if we choose to believe how the world finds God, then we won’t leave any room for God to define Himself. We will let our circumstances and our friends and our passions and Tik-Tok tell us what to believe. And if their assessments aren’t true, then their definitions are demonic. So, we’ll be out here convinced that we have discovered truths, convinced that we have found some new intellectual way of embracing the unknown, when really all you’ve done is believe the devil.
So, my plan tonight is to cut through all the noise, to cut through all the deception, and allow God to speak for Himself as explained in His Word, as revealed in His Son, and as illuminated by the Holy Spirit. The Bible truly does have a whole lot to tell us about God. He is Creator. He is king. He is sovereign. He is Lord and God. But if there’s one thing that we need to know, it’s that God is holy. If that doesn’t come into your mind when you think about God, then it should.
Turn in your Bibles to Isaiah chapter 6. I’ll wait for you digitally. Starting at verse 1 it says:
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of His robe filled the temple. Above Him stood the Seraphim. Each had 6 wings, with 2 they covered their faces, with 2 they covered their feet, and with 2 they flew. One called to another and said, ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts. The whole earth is full of His glory.’ The foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. I said, ‘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, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.’ Then one of the Seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar, and he touched my mouth and said, ‘Behold, this has touched your lips. Your guilt is taken away and your sin atones for.'”
The prophet Isaiah saw the Lord on the throne, and he heard the Seraphim singing something doctrinal about the nature of God to one another. They praise God by saying what is true about Him to one another. They said, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.” If the Seraphim were somehow replaced by people within our current cultural context, I think the lyrics to their song might be different. I have a feeling that if we gave somebody the supernatural ability to leave earth for heaven to stand at the throne, and we told them, “Hey, sing an attribute about God,” that they’d open up their mouths and out of it would come, “Love, love, love is the Lord of hosts. The whole Earth is full of His glory.” And if they did that, they wouldn’t be lying.
Surely God is love, for He said so himself. But the question that one should ask themselves is: would God be love if He wasn’t holy? I mean, without an unalterable righteousness that keeps God from anything arrogant, anything abusive, anything self-centred, anything self-protecting and self-serving – if there was no moral purity in God, would He be able to love at all? It is actually because God is holy that He is also kind, also humble, also honest, also faithful, a.k.a: loving. You can see then, why when the Seraphim have the chance to say something about God, it’s that He’s holy.
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