God (part 2)

The Attribute of God
While the nature of God reveals “that He is,” the attributes of God tell us some thing about God.
There is no completely comprehensive list, and at times descriptions of God’s nature is also seen as an attribute.
Bill Bright in his little booklet “13 Steps to Discovering His Attributes” lists the following: God is a personal Spirit, is all-powerful, is ever-present. Knows everything, is sovereign, is holy, is absolute truth, is righteous, is just, is love, is merciful, is faithful, and he never changes.

Let’s look at one of these: holiness.

The holiness of God
One of the hardest attributes to grasp is the concept of God being Holy. This is complicated because:

1. What exactly does holy mean?
The simplest definition of Holy is “set apart”. God is set apart from everything else. Creation is temporary, God is eternal, Creation is impure, God is pure, Creation is tainted with sin, God is without sin.
Another way to understand Holy is being perfect or pure, unlike anything else.

2. If God is holy then why do bad things happen?
I realize that this statement is often phrased as “If God is loving then why do bad things happen?” But that it is not really the complaint, because many wonderfully loving people allow bad things to happen all the time. Or a person might ask “If God is all powerful why does He allow bad things to happen?” Again the question is wrong because even if you were all powerful you would not stop all the evil, because you would not recognize the evil.
Therefore the real problem is that God is loving, is all-powerful, and He is holy which means He is well aware of the difference between good and evil and yet it still exists.

3. If God is Holy how can I have anything to do with Him?
This hits to the heart of the matter. God is Holy and I am not, so how can we have anything to do with each other?
Understanding why Jesus came and why He had to die for our sins is caught up in this understanding of God’s Holiness. If we are going to be in relationship with God then we also need to be made holy. We are incapable of such a thing, but Jesus, being God, is holy and therefore capable of making us holy.

Let me explain it in another way. In the Old Testament items would be designated as holy (an item used in the Temple or perhaps a piece of ground. The items were not themselves holy, but were called so do to their association with God who is Holy.
In the same way we who believe in Jesus Christ are called holy (Not because we are perfect or pure) but because of our closeness (being found in) Jesus Christ who is Holy.