In the Old Testament God is the Holy One in Israel. In the New
Testament also we remember Christ's own words in prayer, "Holy Father
keep through Thine own name those whom Thou hast given me, that they
may be one as we are one". God's Holiness is closely connected with
His glory; we must associate with it all passages in Holy Scripture
which attribute to Him majesty and radiance, beauty and light. The
religious value of this truth is very great.
In the vision of the Holiness of God men have found their chief impulse
to worship Him, and have felt the claim on their own lives exercised by
the moral splendour of God's own character. "The righteous Lord loveth
righteousness." Further, in proportion as they have realised God's
holiness and moral claim, men have felt the need in His presence of
acknowledging their own infirmity and sin. This was the experience of
Isaiah and of St. John. It has been the experience of an innumerable
company since. We all have our share in it in the services of the
Church. It finds expression in one of the greatest of our hymns,
"Holy, Holy, Holy, though the darkness hide Thee,
Though the eye of sinful man Thy glory may not see,
Only Thou art Holy, there is none beside Thee,
Perfect in power, in Love and Purity."
This is undoubtedly the first great impression that the Holiness of God
should make upon us. There is, however, another truth within it which
must not be forgotten. There are in both the Bible languages Hebrew
and Greek two words which in English are represented by the one word
"holy". One of them stands for moral righteousness, the other has the
meaning of set apart or consecrated. This latter word when used of God
means that God is set apart from the world He has made. Not in the
sense that He is separated from it, for He is very near; but in the
sense that He is not himself a part of it or identified with it or
confused with it.
This truth was needed in Old Testament times to save God's chosen
people from falling back into dark immoral forms of nature worship
which possessed the kindred people from whom they had been called out.
It is needed no less to-day to save us from falling back into
non-Christian ways of thinking. God is distinct from His world; He is
never separated from it. Is this difficult? An illustration may help
if it is not pressed too far. An eagle is perched on the topmost bough
of a tall dead tree. A motor boat hurries by at some distance across
the water. The great bird takes flight. It is in the air. It
breathes the air and is upheld by it. The air is in the bird, in every
quill, I believe, of every feather. Yet the bird is not the air, and
the air is not the bird. They are distinct; separated they cannot be.
Without the air the bird could not exist. "In God we live and move and
have our being." We cannot for a moment imagine Him away. Without Him
we could not exist. Yet man is not God. We are close akin, He is very
near. But God is not man, nor man a part of God. We hear sometimes
that God is all and all is God. Christian truth cannot be expressed in
this way. Our faith in the Holiness of God declares that He is within
the world but distinct from it, above it, around it, controlling it,
making it the servant of His will, that He is the source of all, the
upholder of all, the Master of all.