The Love of God is Holy – The Truth about Love (Part Three)

To get an accurate understanding of the nature of God’s love, we’ll need to look at His other attributes.

More than anything else, God is holy.

“Don’t take the holiness of God lightly, for it is the very essence of His character.” — Billy Graham

“Holy means set apart. The holiness of God sets Him apart from everything else. He is sacred and holiness is the very nature of God. This attribute influences all others as God’s love is holy. His justice is holy.” (Source: Attributes of God: Holiness via Billy Graham Training Center)

There is none holy like the Lord: for there is none besides You; there is no rock like our God. — 1 Samuel 2:2

Man is unable to stand in the full presence of God because of sin. This was not always so, though. There was a time, in the beginning, when God interacted directly with Man, namely Adam and Eve. This was when all His creation was perfect and without sin.

And God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good. — Genesis 1:31

When Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they were cast out of Eden and out of His presence. Because God is holy, and so is His justice, their disobedience had to be punished.

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned — — Romans 5:12

Did Adam know what the punishment would be for disobedience?

Yes, God made it very clear to him:

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.” — Genesis 2:15–17

Because of Adam’s disobedience, he was separated from God and His holiness; because God is holy and just, Adam was punished. And through this separation between Adam and God, sin would be passed on to all of Adam’s descendants as punishment for Adam’s disobedience. From sin came depravity, decay, and death — something every single human since Adam would experience.

Depravity:

Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. — Galatians 5:19–21

Decay and Death:

We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away. — Isaiah 64:6

For the wages of sin is death — Romans 6:23

So, because of Man’s sin, and because God is holy and just, He cannot coexist with sin, He severed the communion with Man.

But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear. — Isaiah 59:2

God is not only holy and just, He is also a merciful God who loves us —

who wants everyone to be saved and to understand the Truth. For, there is one God and one Mediator who can reconcile God and humanity — the man Christ Jesus. — 1 Timothy 2:4–5

And it is through God’s loving grace He freely gave us this saving gift –

For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. — Titus 2:11

Through this gift of Salvation, He presented us His son, Jesus –

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. — John 3:16

The entire nature of God was encapsulated within Jesus — His holiness, mercy, grace, and most of all — His love.

“God’s plan for humanity. It was crafted in the halls of heaven and carried out on the plains of earth. Only holiness could have imagined it. Only divinity could have enacted it. And only righteousness could have endured it.

When God chose to reveal himself, he did so through a human body. The hand that touched the leper had dirt under its nails. The feet upon which the women wept were calloused and dusty. And his tears — oh, don’t miss his tears. They came from a heart as broken as yours or mine ever has been.” — Max Lucado

READ THE REST OF THIS SERIES ON THE GOSPELER!