You're tuned into Everyday Theology in Plain English, making sense of God's truth for your everyday life. Here's your host, the man whose desk would qualify as a federal disaster area, but is loved by a perfectly holy God. Charlie Miller. Hey there. Welcome back to Everyday Theology in Plain English. I'm so glad that you're here. For the past several episodes, we've been exploring what makes God completely different from us: his incommunicable attributes. Today we're making a shift. But before we dive in, I want to ask you something. When you hear the word holy, what comes to mind? Well, maybe you think of stained glass windows and organ music, or maybe you picture a stern, frowning God who's absolutely disgusted by your sin. Maybe holy feels cold or distant or maybe intimidating, like something that pushes you away rather than draws you near. Or maybe holy just feels like a churchy word that you've heard a thousand times without really understanding or even thinking much about what it means. I think for a lot of people, God's holiness scares them away more than it comforts them. They think of holiness as the thing that separates them from God, the gap that they can never bridge, the standard that they can never meet. And for them, holiness feels like bad news. Well, here's what I want you to know right up front. God's holiness isn't a barrier to your relationship with Him, it is absolutely the foundation for it. And today we're going to discover together what holiness really means and why it matters and how a holy God can love imperfect people like us without compromising who He is. So, what do we mean when we say God is holy? The word holy, both in Hebrew and in Greek, it carries this idea of being set apart or separate. At its most basic level, holiness means God is different, like utterly distinct from everything else that exists. But it means more than that. When the Bible calls God holy, it's describing his absolute moral purity. God is completely free from any sin, any evil, any imperfection. There is no darkness in him at all. He's perfectly good, perfectly righteous, perfectly pure. Isaiah 6 gives us one of the most profound pictures of God's holiness in all of Scripture. The prophet Isaiah has a vision of God seated on his throne. And the angels are calling out, Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory. Notice the repetition, holy, holy, holy. In Hebrew, repetition is a way of adding emphasis. Like when something's repeated, it's important. Like when it's repeated three times, it's the ultimate superlative. This is the only attribute of God that's expressed with His, with this kind of a threefold repetition. We don't hear love, love, love or powerful, powerful, powerful. Though God is those things, we hear holy, holy, holy. Holiness isn't just one attribute among many. It's the attribute that qualifies all the others. God's love is holy love. His justice is holy justice. His power is holy power. Holiness is woven into everything God is. Now let me unpack what God's holiness means in practical terms. Well, first, God's holiness means he is completely separate from sin. Habakkuk chapter 1, verse 13 says of God, your eyes are too pure to look on evil. You cannot tolerate wrongdoing. See, God doesn't just avoid sin, he's utterly incompatible with it. Sin can't exist in his presence any more than darkness can exist in the presence of light. And that's why sin is such a serious problem. It's not just that we break rules, we violate the very nature of a holy God. And sin is an offense against his perfect purity. Second, God's holiness means he is the standard of what is good. So we don't measure God against an external standard of goodness. God is the standard. Something is good because it aligns with God's character. Something is evil because it contradicts who he is. And this is why morality isn't arbitrary or even culturally relative. It's grounded in the unchanging character of a holy God. And third, God's holiness evokes a response of awe and reverence. When Isaiah saw God's holiness, he didn't feel warm and fuzzy. He was completely undone. Isaiah 6, verse 5 records his response. He says, Woe to me, I am ruined, for I am a man of unclean lips and live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the king, the Lord Almighty. This is the appropriate response to holiness, not casual familiarity, but reverent awe. Not terror that pushes us away, but wonder that draws us in with appropriate humility. Now here's where it gets really good. Here's the question that matters most. How can a perfectly holy God have a relationship with sinful people like us? This is the tension that runs throughout the entire Bible. God is holy, completely pure, unable to tolerate sin. We are sinful, deeply flawed, corrupted at our core. How can these two realities coexist? The answer is the gospel. God's holiness demanded that sin be dealt with, and God's love provided the solution. At the cross, God's holiness and love met. This is what theologians call the great exchange. Jesus took our sin and we receive his righteousness. Jesus experienced separation from God and we receive relationship with God. The holy God doesn't lower his standards to accept us. He meets his own standards on our behalf. So God's holiness isn't bad news for sinners. It's the context that makes the gospel such good news. Without holiness, there is no gap to bridge. Without holiness, grace doesn't mean anything. God's holiness is what makes his love so astonishing. Okay, quick pause. If this is making sense to you so far, drop a comment and let me know because I'd really love to hear your thoughts. Now you might be thinking, okay, Charlie, I understand that God is holy and that Jesus bridges the gap. But how does God's holiness actually affect my daily life? Well, let me give you three practical ways understanding God's holiness absolutely transforms how you live. First, God's holiness gives you confidence to approach Him. So picture someone, we'll call her Megan, right? Megan struggles with shame. She knows what she's done, she knows the sins she's committed. And every time she tries to pray, she feels like she's approaching a God who must be absolutely disgusted and disappointed with her. And she keeps her distance because she feels too dirty, too unclean to come close. But here's the truth Megan needs to hear. Because of Jesus, she can approach the holy God with confidence. Not confidence in herself. She's right that she's sinful. We all are. But confidence in Christ. His righteousness has been credited to her account. Hebrews 4.16 says, Let us then approach God's throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. And maybe that's you. Maybe shame keeps you at arm's length from God. Maybe you feel like you have to clean yourself up before you can come to Him. I get it. I felt that way too. There have been seasons when my sin felt so heavy that I could barely pray. But here's what I want you to know: you don't come to God based on your righteousness. You come based on Christ's righteousness. The Holy God sees you through Jesus. And because of Jesus, you can approach him boldly, not arrogantly, but confidently. Come as you are, not because God doesn't care about sin, but because he's already dealt with it. Second, God's holiness transforms your attitude towards sin. So let me paint you another picture. Imagine a man who we'll call him Derek, who's been treating sin casually, right? He knows certain habits he has aren't honoring to God, but he figures grace covers it, so no big deal. He's not too worried about holiness in his own life because God loves him anyway. But when Derek starts to understand God's holiness, and I mean really understand it, something changes in him. He realizes that sin isn't just rule breaking, it's an offense against this one that he loves. It grieves the holy God who gave everything to rescue him. Here's the heart of it. The more you understand God's holiness, the more you hate sin. Not because you're trying to earn God's favor, but because you love the one your sin offends. Holiness becomes something you pursue not out of fear, but out of love. 1 Peter chapter 1, verse 15 and 16 says, But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do. For it is written, be holy, because I am holy. We're called to reflect the character of God who saved us, not to earn salvation, but because we've been transformed by it. Third, God's holiness fills you with appropriate awe and worship. We live in a culture that has lost its sense of the sacred. We're casual about everything, including God. We approach him like a good buddy rather than the holy king of the universe. Understanding God's holiness restores proper perspective. Yes, we can approach him confidently because of Jesus, but we approach the Holy One, the one who makes angels cover their faces and cry, holy, holy, holy. Now, this changes how you pray. This changes how you worship, this changes how you think about God. There's a place for intimacy and warmth in our relationship with God. He is our Father, after all. But there's also a place for reverent awe, for falling on our faces, for being undone by his glory. As we wrap up today's episode, here's what I want you to remember: God is perfectly holy, utterly pure, completely separate from sin, the standard of all that is good. But this holy God doesn't leave us in our sin. Through Jesus, he made a way for imperfect people to be made righteous and to approach him with confidence. God's holiness demanded that sin be dealt with, but God's love provided the solution. And because of this, you can come to God without shame. You can pursue holiness out of love, not out of fear. And you can worship with appropriate awe the one who is holy, holy, holy. So here's your assignment for this week. Spend some time meditating on Isaiah 6, verses 1 through 7. Isaiah's vision of God's holiness. Read it slowly. Picture the scene, let yourself feel the weight of God's holiness. Then notice what God does for Isaiah. He cleanses him and commissions him. Ask God to give you a fresh sense of his holiness and a renewed confidence to approach him through Christ. Maybe journal about what the Holy Spirit shows you. Now here's our community question. Has your understanding of God's holiness ever made you feel distant from him? Or has it drawn you closer? How has the gospel, the truth that Jesus bridges the gap between holy God and sinful us, changed the way you relate to God? Your honest reflection might help someone else who's wrestling with feeling too messy for a holy God. Hey, I'd like to remind you, don't forget, we have a companion guide for this season. It goes a lot deeper into each topic, has all kinds of great stuff in it. You can check out the link in the show notes, and I appreciate it a lot. Next episode, we're tackling a question that's probably crossed your mind. If God is perfectly just, why does life seem so unfair? I mean, bad things happen to good people, good things happen to bad people. Where is God's justice in all of that? I hope you'll hit the like and subscribe buttons and join us for that discussion. Until then, remember, the holy God who cannot tolerate sin has made a way to embrace you. You are welcome by the most pure being in the universe, not because you're worthy, but because Jesus made you worthy. Thanks for joining me on Everyday Theology in Plain English. I'm Charlie Miller, and I'm so grateful that you're part of this community. I can't wait to continue this journey with you.