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My church just finished going through a book study together. Obviously we all read scripture together during service as our pastor preaches each week. The pastors and elders got together and chose a book for the whole church to go through in Sunday schools and small groups. It was a very fun time where we were all talking about this book, and especially this author, all during the week not just on Sunday mornings.

The book was: The Holiness of God by R. C. Sproul.

The church staff also arranged for the different groups that met to study the book together to use the many different resources provided by Ligonier Ministries (founded by Sproul) as auxiliary material. These resources included lectures by Sproul, which we all enjoyed very much and found extremely helpful.

I have had the unique and blessed opportunity to study the Bible for much of my life. I was raised by missionary parents. I attended Christian school. I even studied the Bible in college, and minored in it. I have a lot of head knowledge about the Bible and about God.

Holiness is one of those things I struggle with.

I know God is holy. I know it is part of who he is, how he is, and most definitely how I am not. At the same time, it is one of the characteristics or aspects of God that I find “slippery”. I forget He’s holy, and what that implies for the rest of His character, and for my life.

This study helped with my “slippery mind” (to quote The Lion King). More than just reading the book by Sproul, watching him teach on the holiness of God impacted me greatly. It’s helped holiness stick.

Watching R. C. Sproul teach with such passion, understanding, and compassion hit me with the reality that God’s holiness is not just a thing that happens, a part of His character that is out there, but vitally important for the rest of who God is, what He has done for me, how He acts in the world, and how I (and all of us) ought to respond.

Holiness demands a response.

I don’t think I understood that before. The reality that God is holy, demands that I make a response. There is no apathy to holiness.

The reason why God’s holiness demands a response is because it is completely pervasive.

It isn’t that God is holy, and He is all His other attributes. He’s not holy, and just; or holy, and loving; holy and merciful. He is holy, therefore his love is a holy love. His justice is a holy justice. His mercy a holy mercy, and so on with every attribute of God – His holiness is pervasive! It is the defining attribute of God. He is holy, and no one else is. That is not something that can be ignored.

My automatic response to a demand like that is singing. I think it’s a pretty good answer, even the angels do so (see Isaiah 6:3, and Revelation 4:8).

During this study, this song continually came to my mind:

Only a Holy God by CityAlight

Who else commands all the hosts of heaven?
Who else can make every king bow down?
Who else can whisper and darkness trembles?
Only a Holy God.

What other beauty demands such praises?
What other splendour outshines the sun?
What other majesty rules with justice?
Only a Holy God

Come and behold Him
The One and the Only
Cry out, sing holy
Forever a Holy God
Come and worship the Holy God

What other glory consumes like fire?
What other power can raise the dead?
What other name remains undefeated?
Only a Holy God

Who else could rescue me from my failing?
Who else would offer His only Son?
Who else invites me to call Him Father?
Only a Holy God
Only my Holy God!

Soli Deo Gloria