Holiness of God - Transcendentally Different

I want to start looking at the Gospel by first looking at God because it always starts with Him, Gen 1:1 "In the beginning, God...". More specifically I want to explore the idea of His holiness because I believe that as we look and study His holiness we will gain a deeper appreciation of Him and the Gospel.

First of all, since the attribute of holiness is communicable, I want to make clear that I am talking about here the holiness of God which I think is slightly different than holiness we have through Jesus. (We will deal with our personal holiness and corporate holiness at a later time)

So, what does holiness mean? There has been a very common definition that has kind of been accepted in churches today, that holiness means set apart. It is my intent to unpack this phrase "set apart" into at least two sense, relationally and morally.

Today, we'll look at how the Bible describe God as set apart relationally.

Ex 15:11
"Who among the gods is like you, O LORD ?
Who is like you—
majestic in holiness,
awesome in glory,
working wonders?"

1 Sam 2:2
"There is no one holy like the LORD;
there is no one besides you;
there is no Rock like our God."

Is 40:25
"To whom will you compare me?
Or who is my equal?" says the Holy One."

From these verses it is easy to see that there is no one like God. In fact there is nothing that even comes close to who God is. Although God through the bible speaks of Himself in metaphors and analogies to us, there is actually no good analogy that can fully describe God. He is not just a father, king, lion, ruler, groom etc. etc. He is all that description and more.

He is set apart relationally in the sense that in relation to everything he is totally another, completely different. He is also set apart positionally, He is above all things, like Jesus in Phil 2:9-11 "Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father".

I want to draw attention to the contrast between our holiness and God's holiness. First, our holiness is setting apart horizontally, whereas God's holiness is setting apart vertically. Secondly our holiness should bring glory to God not ourselves, whereas God's holiness brings honor and glory for Himself as you can see in Philippians 2, Christ is glorified and so is God the Father.

What I mean by horizontal and vertical "set apart-ness" is that we can set ourselves apart for God but we are still humans, we have just removed ourselves "horizontally" from things that defiles. God on the other hand does not choose to set apart Himself, He is set apart by default, He cannot not be set apart. There is nothing equal to Him that is to say there is nothing to His left and His right. Everything is below Him, therefore His holiness is transcendent, He is transcendentally set apart, transcendentally different.

As we close out on this idea of how God is set apart relationally and positionally, let us approach God with an increased and renewed sense of reverence and awe that there IS no one like our God. Let us set apart God as our number one, let nothing even come close to God in our lives. Let us examine ourselves and see if there are anything that we have placed on the same level as God or even above God, this could be school, career, your future mate, your spouse, your friends, ministry, TV, video games, your pastor, etc. etc. Let God reclaim the place that only He deserves in our lives.