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God’s holiness is manifested at the cross. Wondrously and yet most solemnly does the atonement display God’s infinite holiness and abhorrence of sin. How hateful sin must be to God for Him to punish it to its utmost deserts when it was imputed to His Son!
For one sin God banished our first parents from Eden. For one sin all the posterity of Canaan, a son of Ham, fell under a curse which remains over them to this day (Gen 9:21). For one sin Moses was excluded from Canaan, Elisha’s servant smitten with leprosy, Ananias and Sapphira cut off out of the land of the living.
Because God is holy we should desire to be conformed to Him. His commandment is, “Be ye holy, for I am holy” (I Peter 1:16). We are not bidden to be omnipotent or omniscient as God is, but we are to be holy, and that “in all manner of conversation [deportment]” (I Peter 1:15).
This is the prime way of honoring God. We do not so glorify God by elevated admirations, or eloquent expressions, or pompous services for Him as when we aspire to a conversing with Him with unstained spirits, and live to Him in living like Him (S. Charnock).
Then as God alone is the Source and Fount of holiness, let us earnestly seek holiness from Him; let our daily prayer be that He may “sanctify us wholly; and our whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless...
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resolve...As holiness is the beauty of all God’s attributes, so power is that which gives life and action to all the perfections of the divine nature.
Not only does all creation bear witness to the great power of God, but also to His entire independency of all created things.
Faithful in all things, at all times
He is originally good, good of Himself, which nothing else is; for all creatures are good only by participation and communication from God. He is essentially good; not only good, but goodness itself: the creature’s good is a super-added quality, in God it is His essence. He is infinitely good; the creature’s good is but a drop, but in God there in an infinite ocean or gathering together of good. He is eternally and immutably good, for He cannot be less good than He is; as there can be no addition made to Him, so no subtraction from Him (Thomas Manton).
The goodness of God is the life of the believer’s trust. It is this excellency in God which most appeals to our hearts. Because His goodness endureth for ever, we ought never to be discouraged: “The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble, and He knoweth them that trust in Him” (Nahum 1:7).
It is the eternal and absolute free favor of God, manifested in the vouchsafement of spiritual and eternal blessings to the guilty and the unworthy.
There are three principal characteristics of divine grace. First, it is eternal. Grace was planned before it was exercised, purposed before it was imparted: “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began” (II Tim 1:9). Secondly, it is free, for none did ever purchase it: “Being justified freely by His grace” (Rom 3:24). Thirdly, it is sovereign, because God exercises it toward and bestows it upon whom He pleases: “Even so might grace reign “ (Rom 5:21). If
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The mercy of God is never shown to the prejudice of His holiness and righteousness. From
The lovingkindness of God toward His people is centered in Christ. Because His exercise of lovingkindness is a covenant engagement it is repeatedly linked to His “truth” (Psa 40:11; 138:2), showing that it proceeds to us by promise. Therefore we should never despair.
The more we are occupied with God’s goodness, the more careful we will be about our obedience. The constraints of God’s love and grace are more powerful to the regenerate than the terrors of His Law.
He is “spirit” He fills heaven and earth.
“God is light” means that He is the sum of all excellency.
Love is not merely one of His attributes, but His very nature.
His people. The better we are acquainted with His love—its character, fullness, blessedness—the more will our hearts be drawn out in love to Him.
1. The love of God is uninfluenced.
the love of God is free, spontaneous, uncaused.
2. It is eternal.
It is sovereign.
It is infinite.
It is immutable.
The divine love is subject to no vicissitudes. Divine love is “strong as death.”
6. It is holy.
God will not wink at sin, even in His own people. His love is pure, unmixed with any maudlin sentimentality.
7. It is gracious.
Calvary is the supreme demonstration of divine love. Whenever you are tempted to doubt the love of God, Christian reader, go back to Calvary.
Since God loves His people in Christ, it is not regulated by their fruitfulness, but is the same at all times. Because He loves them in Christ, the Father loves them as Christ.
Because God is holy, He hates all sin; and because He hates all sin, His anger burns against the sinner (Psa 7:11).
Indifference to sin is a moral blemish, and he who hates it not is a moral leper. How could He who is the Sum of all excellency look with equal satisfaction upon virtue and vice, wisdom and folly? How could He who is infinitely holy disregard sin and refuse to manifest His “severity” (Rom 11:22) toward it? How could He, who delights only in that which is pure and lovely, not loathe and hate that which is impure and vile? The very nature of God makes Hell as real a necessity, as imperatively and eternally requisite, as Heaven is. Not only is there no imperfection in God, but there is no
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But the more we study and ponder God’s abhorrence of sin and His frightful vengeance upon it, the more likely are we to realize its heinousness.
We cannot serve him “acceptably” unless there is due “reverence” for His awful Majesty and “godly fear” of His righteous anger; and these are best promoted by frequently calling to mind that “our God is a consuming fire.”
