Understanding God's Threefold Holiness in His Justice, Love and Mercy
Revelation 4:8 says, "And the four beasts each of them had six wings about him and they were full of eyes within and they rest not day and night saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty which was and is to come." You don't read justice three times, love three times or mercy three times but all in holiness.
That is where we get the beautiful song that talks about the holiness of God which goes as:
Holy, holy, holy... Lord God AlmightyEarly in the morning our song shall rise to TheeHoly, holy, holy... merciful and mightyGod in three Persons, Blessed Trinity
Holy, holy, holy! All the saints adore thee,Casting down their golden crowns around the glassy sea;Cherubim and seraphim falling down before thee,Which wert, and art, and evermore shalt be.
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.
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty!All thy works shall praise thy name, in earth and sky and sea.Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty,God in three Persons, blessed Trinity.
In fact, the threefold holy is clear. God the Father is HOLY, Jesus Christ who is God the Son is HOLY and the God the Holy Spirit is HOLY. These three are coexistent, co-eternal and there is no way that God the Father would have talked to angels when it was the time of the creation. The Son was involved in creation (John 1:1-10). The Holy Spirit was there during the creation (Genesis 1:2). In fact, God's threefold holy aside from Him being existent as God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit is because of this one fact- it is His HOLINESS that determines His whole character of love, mercy, justice and just every attribute. In fact, Israel was made to remember the holiness of God. In Exodus 28:36 we read, "And thou shalt make a plate of pure gold and grave upon it, like the engravings of a signet, HOLINESS TO THE LORD." With the word LORD instead of LORD, this is obviously the name JEHOVAH in Hebrew. God's holiness is defined as, "exalted or worthy of complete devotion as one perfect in goodness and righteousness" and anything God has declared holy while not worthy of worship is described as "devoted entirely to the deity or the work of God" or "set apart for God". 1 Peter 1:16 declares Christians are set apart for God.
So how do we understand the holiness of God? It is God's holiness that really trembles in the aspect of justice. What happens is that with justice, people especially the self righteous tend to to sing the song "Amazing Justice" (as written by Robert Charles Sproul to show how stupid works righteousness is) as this especially in questioning why God allows suffering:
"Amazing justice cruel and sharp that wounds a saint like me,
I'm so darn good it makes no sense that tower fell on me."
So here's some scenes where God seemed petty and cruel like the deaths of Nadab and Abihu as well as Uzzah for merely touching the Ark of the Covenant. Or for one, the expelling of Adam and Eve from the Garden of Eden. These scenes we say, "Hey that was just one sin?" Just one sin? Are you sure you fully and wholeheartedly understand THE HOLINESS OF GOD?
In Genesis 3, are you aware that only ONE SIN was enough for man to lose Eden and Paradise? Adam didn't need to kill Eve or to commit bestiality, all they did was to eat that fruit from the Tree of Knowledge which God clearly forbade so only He became the source of knowledge of everything holy. What happened was that because of clear disobedience, God in His holiness expelled Adam and Eve from the garden. God for His holiness, allowed NO SIN in His presence. James the half-brother of Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary must have been referencing to the incident in Genesis 3 when he wrote in James 2:10 that for whosoever will keep the whole Law yet stumble at one point is GUILTY OF ALL.
So now we move to Nadab and Abihu. Matthew Henry wrote on this matter for his commentary with this excerpt I'm using on Leviticus 10:1-2 with these words, "Next to Moses and Aaron none were more likely to be honourable in Israel than Nadab and Abihu. There is reason to think that they were puffed with pride and that they were heated with wine. While the people were prostrating before the LORD, adoring His presence and glory, they rushed into the Tabernacle to burn incense though not at the appointed time, both together instead of one alone and with fire NOT TAKEN FROM THE ALTAR. If it had been done through ignorance, they had been allowed to bring a sin-offering. But the soul that doeth presumptuously and contempt of God's majesty and justice that soul shall be cut off..." From the pages 100-101 from the chapter "Holy Justice" of "The Holines of God", R.C. Sproul writes, "The instructions were clear. The altar of incense was declared by God to be most Holy. When Nadab and Abihu offered strange or unauthorized fire on it, they were acting in clear defiance of God. Theirs was an act of blatant rebellion, an inexcusable profaning of the Holy Place. They committed a sin of arrogance, an act of treason against God. They profaned a most holy place." Also we read in page 101, "What else could Aaron do? The debate was over. The evidence was in, and God had rendered His verdict. The sons of Aaron had been explicitly forbidden from offering such fire. The committed an act of disobedience and God had lowered the gavel of His justice on them. So Aaron was silent. He held his peace. He could think of no excuse to offer, no protest to make. Like sinners at the Last Judgment, his mouth was stopped." In page 102 we also read, "Built into our concept of justice is the idea that the punishment must fit the crime. If the punishment is more severe than the crime then an injustice has been committed. The Bible makes it clear that Nadab and Abihu could not plead ignorance as an excuse for their sin. God had made His instructions clear to them. They knew that they were not allowed to offer unauthorized fire on the Altar. That they sinned is easy for us to see. But they never dreamed their sin was so serious that it would prompt God to execute them on the spot. Here we meet an example that screams of harshness from the hand of God, of a punishment that is far too cruel and unusual for the crime. Such a measure of punishment not only puzzles us, it staggers us."
Hmmm only if Uzziah was doing his homework, I doubt it he would have done arrogance to burn incense before the LORD when he knew for a fact, only the priests were allowed (2 Chronicles 16).
Now one of the most puzzling passages may also be the Ark of the Covenant and Uzzah. It seemed very unjust to the eyes of humans who sing the song "Amazing Justice". This is what Robert Sproul says in the same chapter "Holy Justice" saying in page 105, "Surely Uzzah's reaction was instinctive. He did what any pious Jew would do to keep the Ark from falling into the mud. He reached out his hand to steady the Ark, to protect the holy object from falling. It was not a premeditated act of defiance toward God. It was a reflex action. From our vantage point it seems like an act of heroism. We think that Uzzah should have heard the voice of God saying, "Thank you, Uzzah." God didn't do that. Instead He killed Uzzah. He slaughtered him on the spot. Another summary execution." However we must understand that there was already one direct commandment from Numbers 4:15 saying, "And then Aaron and his sons have made an end of covering the sanctuary and all the vessels of the sanctuary, as the camp is to set forward, after that, the sons of Kohath shall come to bear it... BUT THEY SHALL NOT ANY HOLY THING LEST THEY DIE. These things are the burden of the sons of Kohath in the tabernacle of the congregation." Now continuing, in page 107 of the same book in this paragraph, Sproul writes, "We must ask the question, What was the ark doing on the oxcart in the first place? God was so strict about the holy things of the Tabernacle that the Kohathites were not allowed even to gaze at the Ark in the Holy of Holies for an instant, he would die. Not only was Uzzah forbidden to touch the ark, he was forbidden even to look at it. He touched it anyway. He stretched out his hand and placed it squarely on the ark, steadying it in place lest it fall to the ground. An act of holy heroism? No! It was an act of arrogance, a sin of presumption. Uzzah assumed that his hand was less polluted than the earth. But it wasn't the ground or the mud that would desecrate the Ark; it was the touch of man. The earth is an obedient creature. It does what God tells it to do. It brings forth its yield in its season. It obeys the laws of nature that God has established. When the temperature falls to a certain point, the ground freezes. When the wadded is added to the dust, it becomes must just as God designed it. The ground doesn't commit cosmic treason. There is nothing polluted about the ground. God did not want His holy throne touched by that which was contaminated by evil, that which was in rebellion to Him, that which by its ungodly revolt had brought the whole creation to ruin and caused the ground and the sky and the waters of the sea to groan together in travail waiting for the day of redemption. Man. It was man's touch that was forbidden. Uzzah was not an innocent man. He was not punished without warning. He was not punished without violating a law. There was no caprice in this act of divine judgment. There was nothing arbitrary or whimsical about what God did in that moment. But there was something unusual about it. The execution's suddenness and finally take us by surprise and at once shock and offend us" In page 108, it writes of Uzzah, "The story of Uzzah is an example of divine justice. It is not an example of divine mercy. BUT WE CANNOT BEGIN TO UNDERSTAND DIVINE MERCY UNTIL WE FIRST HAVE SOME UNDERSTANDING OF DIVINE JUSTICE."
In fact this is quite true on that same page 108-109 of the "Holiness of God" we really read this inescapable truth:
"When the Bible speaks of God's justice, it usually links it to DIVINE RIGHTEOUSNESS. God's justice is according to righteousness. There is no such thing as justice according to unrighteousness. There is no such thing as evil justice in God. The justice of God is always and ever an expression of His HOLY character. The word justice in the Bible refers to a conformity to a rule or a norm. God plays BY THE RULES. The ultimate norm of justice is His holy character. God's internal righteousness from His external righteousness. What God does is always consistent with who God is. He acts always according to His holy character. God's internal righteousness is the moral excellence of His character. It is rooted in His absolute purity. There is now shadow of turning in Him. As a holy God, He is utterly incapable of an unholy act. Only unholy beings commit unjust and unrighteous acts. There is a consistency in God a "straightness" about Him. Human righteousness is often described in terms of our being not straight. We are crooked. It is not by accident that we often refer to criminals as "crooks". Crooks are so called because they are crooked; they are not straight. God is straight. His straightness is seen in His outward behavior. His external righteousness. In all eternity God has never done a crooked thing. He killed Nadab and Abihu. He killed Uzzah. He did the same thing to Ananias and Saphira in the New Testament. These are righteous acts of judgment."
The other aspect of God aside from justice that springs from His holiness are mercy and love. Remember mercy is not justice but it is not an injustice. Injustice violates righteousness while mercy manifests kindness and grace and does no violence to righteousness. As said, God's mercy is not justice but it is not an injustice. Please do get a dictionary and try to differentiate the two. In fact in Deuteronomy 9:4-6 we read that God didn't give the land to the Jewish people of that time because they were far better than the Canaanites because they were a stiffnecked people. The entire truth was that the land of Canaan was going to be sanctified for the territory of the descendants of Israel to become the land for future salvation. In fact, understanding God's justice will lead to the understanding for the NEED OF MERCY. Looking at it, all men have fallen down as Romans 3:10-19 declares the fall of man summarized as nobody is righteous, all are sinners and that the whole world is GUILTY before God. In Luke 13:1-5 we also read that Jesus said that everyone is a bad sinner no different than Pilate or to those who were killed when the Tower of Siloam fell- with the message EXCEPT YE REPENT ye shall all likewise perish. Also every man who sees God's holiness is bound to be humbled like Peter and Isaiah seeing their own dirt, and only in seeing their own filthy total depravity do they fully understand the threefold holiness of God. In fact God in John 3:16-18 shows His mercy promising whosoever believes in the Lord Jesus Christ will not perish but have eternal life. It was also in God's love that His Son the Lord Jesus Christ spoke of the seriousness of sin and the need for repentance. T
That is why God gave His Law and nobody has the right to even take one part of it. Galatians 3:24-25 says that the Law is the schoolmaster that brings us unto Christ. The Reformers preached that the Law is a mirror that puts to the test the righteousness of man vs. the righteousness of God, a hammer that breaks pride into pieces and a whip that drives us to the cross. Romans 10:3 has the Apostle Paul declaring that people try to establish their own righteousness ignorant of the righteousness of God. It is only in understanding the threefold holy of God's justice, man realizes their need for mercy, forgiveness and holiness. God in His forgiving sinners does not negate justice. Instead, He promotes justice with what He does. He does not merely forgive the sinner and clear all charges as far as eternity is concerned, He also sanctifies them. Ephesians 2:10 says that Christians are created unto good works unto Christ Jesus, Titus 2:11-15 says that the grace of God creates a life of good works, Hebrews 11 shows the results of salvation and James 2 the theme of the chapter is true faith, not a dead one which results to works. In His mercy, God changes the sinner to a servant, from a slave of the Devil to a willing slave for Christ who serves God.
Sadly so many people are driven away by their pride because they feel so uncomfortable before the very holiness of God. For a sinner to be near an angry God, it is a frightful thing. Jonathan Edwards a Baptist preacher held true to the core when he preached, "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God." Sinners are so vile, God is so holy, God is angry with sin. Sproul described the sermon in Chapter 9 of Holiness to be pretty much showing man's fallen nature and the horrors of Hell. In fact, Edwards understood the holiness of God. He also preached "Men Naturally God's Enemies" again to show man is totally fallen short of God's holiness. Sproul then wrote the ninth chapter as "God in the Hands of Angry Sinners". He also pointed out that man is so in war against God because they do not want to conform to God. In fact, the New Testament is centered with the theme of reconciliation- dirty sinners to be reconciled with a holy, righteous God. But can man reconcile in his own efforts? No... no... no. Just no. Man is so fallen, he needs mercy yet in that dirty pride and fear of God's holiness they refuse to receive God's mercy for them.
I once asked an atheist to why he hated God. After saying many times he believed he hated God, he said, "Well I don't know why this God puts such a huge demand on man on holiness and righteous living!" Simple- while he kept saying there is no God, he would definitely refuse to understand God is good and that God is justified in His punishment of sinful man. How awful was it for him to say that sin is just a fantasy word, principle is all that matters when God says otherwise. God reveals man's inherent goodness is but a filthy rag which crushed his self-righteousness or that he wanted his own standards like allowing homosexuality as normal even when it is really also a huge cause for a spread of AIDS or while being against death penalty saying it is murder endorsed abortion. Rather than plead to God for mercy, he continued to shake his fist against God. It should be amazing while Richard Dawkins wanted to disprove God with the book "The God Delusion" he describes God as cruel and unjust. Atheist blogger going only by the name of Human Ape who had attacked me several times as a delusional nut that should be locked up can be seen writing many times that God is a cruel and indifferent person. If these persons believed that God wasn't real, why do I KEEP READING how much they hate God? They are whining how much God is so "unfair" to them. Unfair? No. God already showed man's righteousness does not reach up to His. Atheist dictators like Stalin, Mao Zedong and Kim Jung Il were known to REALLY hate God. Mao Zedong hated God with a passion evidenced by him frequently destroying the Bibles. Stalin died shaking his fist at God. I've even heard of an atheist after being witnessed to by the staff at Living Waters saying, "I hate Ray Comfort but I hate more the God that Ray Comfort preaches about!" So in turn the atheist is perfectly aware that God is there BUT he or she is angry with God.
The same happened also with the religious Pharisees. They hated Christianity because it showed to how much they were fallen. Jesus abhorred their external piety and religiosity. The Pharisees thought they were good enough for Heaven. What went wrong with the Pharisees was that they were quick to unfairly criticize Jesus for eating with outcasts like tax collectors and harlots. In fact, Matthew 21:31-32 had Jesus telling them that the harlots and publicans will enter before them. Jesus did not condone the sins of harlots and publicans, in His day these people were most likely to get broken of their sins. Matthew himself was a publican before he was converted. Zaccheus was a publican before he became a Christian. Jesus was quick to condemn their stupid self-righteousness by showing them they were just as lost. Sadly the Pharisees were SO UPSET they wanted Him dead, placed a fake trial by the dead of night, broke eighteen Jewish laws just so they could keep their own righteousness. Their hearts were SO STIFF and they were SO STUPID to the point they even wanted to bribe the Roman guards to tell them the body was stolen, they knew the resurrection happened- they didn't want to believe it like the atheist knows God exists but he or she doesn't want to believe it. So evil were the Pharisees they continued to persecute the believers. In fact, their sinister system was later somewhat married into the Roman Empire system much later. Today the typical Pharisees are the Roman Catholic priests and the Caiaphas of today is the Pope.
Today we have Roman Catholics who refuse the Gospel of Jesus Christ as it is because they are relying on sacraments and rituals for salvation. It really pains me a lot especially while I got out of Roman Catholicism, many of my friends still remain in that system. I was asked, "Why have you left the Roman Catholic Church?" I soon answered almost the same thing Martin Luther had answered, "I thought I could save myself by my own merit. But after reading the Bible verse by verse, looking for the answers of the holiness of man I found none. I realize that no good I do will ever merit." They say, "That's terrible. Haven't you read James 2 were works are needed for justification?" Poor person, he never read the Bible accurately or even bothered to examine it like I did. As a Baptist and him a Roman Catholic apologist in a Jesuit parish, I really could not help but feel sorry for him. I dared not argue with him like most Independent Fundamental Baptists do today with the Catholic Faith Defenders. He even said, "Look I pray the Rosary, I attend the Novenas, I attend Mass every Sunday, I go to confessional, I pray to Mary, look there's nothing that I need." Then I had to say, "Ever read the Ten Commandments from the Catholic Bible?" I showed him from then but despite the fact he had seen the difference catechism vs. Bible, in the end he left away sad like the rich young ruler because he was more comfortable in legalism than to confront the true holiness of God who hates every graven image for worship. Even the writings of Peter and Paul who he believed were the two pillars of Romanism made him walk away sadly.
Because of holiness, God's gifts of mercy and love are not infinite to the lost. Sure He has infinite mercy and love for believers to the point He will make sure they will not live a life of sin nor will He suffer them to fall away from the faith. But to the rest of the world, God has finite grace. Sproul wrote at the end of Chapter 6 of his book "Holiness of God" saying God would be saying this, "Be careful. While you enjoy the benefits of My grace, don't forget My justice. Don't forget the gravity of sin. Remember that I Am holy." The gift of salvation is still there, but remember it is a limited atonement. The atonement of man is limited to them while they are yet alive, in death there is no more chance (Hebrews 9:27). Man is appointed to die ONLY ONCE. There is no Purgatory where masses can be offered for the salvation of the soul of those who supposedly died in grace (and a LOT of money is spent for such stupidity that lasts for decades or even centuries, seriously my great-grandfather a Freemason has been dead for 70 years yet Masses are still said for his soul!) nor will there be reincarnation to grant a second chance. In fact, having no reincarnation or chances after death fits God's holiness perfectly because once you enter into the presence of God unforgiven, unsaved... you have no holiness in you imputed from God... you definitely will taste true divine justice... "DEPART FROM ME YE CURSED INTO THE EVERLASTING FIRE PREPARED FOR THE DEVIL AND HIS ANGELS."