In about four weeks we begin Lent, leading to Holy Week.  In preparation for that I want to consider the subject of Holiness, which is crucial to all these events.  And you may be surprised by what we find.

      Let’s begin by recognizing that Holy is a basic name for God, as in the phrase “The Holy One of Israel” or the words in the Lord’s Prayer: “…hallowed be thy name.”  But it’s hard to talk about holiness without reference to other basic names like just, righteous, merciful, faithful and love.  Here’s one problem: Since we believe in One God, all these names must be united in some way or else we would end up with a God divided into different components.  But we would not use all these names unless each one suggested something a bit different.  So what’s distinct about holiness and how does it relate to the other names of God?

      Holiness, like justice and righteous, move in the direction of the moral majesty and perfection of God.  And these words have associations with judgment and punishment.  By contrast, mercy, goodness, and love move in the direction of union or reunion with God in kindness, forgiveness and salvation.   Many people first encounter this distinction when they discover that each parent assumes one but not both roles and the children had to figure out how to protect themselves from the Holy parent and appeal to the loving parent.  When the parents confused things by changing roles depending on the issue, the kids had to adjust their strategy.  But when you have one God, it is hard to know what to do if somehow God is holiness and love.  (Yes, I am aware that Roman Catholics might find comfort in praying to Mary or Protestants might rush to pray to Jesus rather than our Holy Father.  But in general, it would be good not to have God, the Holy Family, or the saints divided according to preferences regarding judgment or forgiveness. As you can see, there is a lot at stake in this discussion.  Unless holiness and love can be related in a positive way, we are not sure how to approach God, nor are we sure what it might mean to be a holy or loving people.  It won’t work to claim holiness belongs to the Old Testament and love belongs to the New Testament, since a careful reading shows that each Testament is about both. And I am not in favor of preaching on holiness one Sunday and Love on the next, leaving everyone wondering what will come next week.   

      The standard strategy for dealing with this issue is to find texts which show the unity of holiness and love.  A simple example of that is Psalm 23.   It consists of a comprehensive list of the way God protects, cares for, restores the faithful, provides goodness and mercy for ever in the house of the Lord. Here indeed is a strong affirmation of love and goodness directed toward us.  At the same time and from the first verse, we are reminded that the one doing all these things is the Lord, i.e., the Almighty God.  Holiness is not mentioned but implied, as we may have no fear in the face of the shadow of death, evil or our enemies.  There is no question that the loving, caring God is the Holy One of Israel, there is not a hint that holiness and love might not be united in God.         

      A somewhat different strategy would be to look at what holiness means when it appears by itself.  If the only way we can affirm holiness is to let love come to the rescue, that only paints us into a corner.  The question then is: What can we learn about holiness in both Testaments.

      Let’s begin with call of the prophet Isaiah in Is. 6.  When Isaiah comes into the presence of the Holy God, he declares: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”  Nothing more may happen without a divine act of healing.  So, a burning coal touches his lips and he is made clean: “…your guilt is taken away and your sin is forgiven.”   Only then can the call of Isaiah be accepted.  Seminary students rush to have this read at their ordination, so they too may see themselves as called and sent by God.  What are usually not read are the next few verses: When Isaiah asks what he shall say to the people of Israel, the answer is to tell them God will destroy nearly everything because of their faithlessness and sins. 

      There are two themes in this story.  The first is that holiness differentiates God from humans, who deserve judgment, and it could take terrible form.  Note that this is expressed in two ways: a) the language of moral perfection, sin and guilt. b) the language of pure and impure, clean and unclean, and the resulting shame.  Standing before God, Isaiah needs to be cleansed outwardly as well as spiritually since he is an unclean person amid an unclean people.  This sets up a parallelism that occurs repeatedly in the Bible.  From a moral perspective, sinners need to be forgiven and reconciled to God; from the perspective of purification, they need to be cleansed.  If sin generates guilt which must be taken away, the shame of impurity needs to be washed away, or as in this case, burnt way. The second major theme, quite the opposite of separating us from God, is that holiness can be the means for healing/reconciliation.  It is the Holy God who commands that Isaiah shall be cleansed by the hot coal, allowing him to speak for the Holy God.   

      We have here an interesting development: The two forms of holiness move in different directions: one separates sinners from God and announces judgment, the other overcomes separation and makes whole. Note that the tension is not expressed in terms of holiness versus love but now appears to be two forms of holiness.  Also note that Isaiah is not made clean by his own actions, nor does he offer gifts or deeds to appease an angry God. Rather, it is God who initiates the means to overcome the separation and take away judgment.  This is true of every saving event in the Bible, such as the liberation of Israel from Egypt, the Mosaic Covenant, the renewal the covenant after the idolatry of the Golden Calf or the means of forgiveness on the Day of Atonement.  In the case of Jesus, the call to believe in the coming Rule of God begins with a call to repent. While Jesus does not practice the ritual washing associated with John the Baptist, his call for repentance makes clear that the Holy God requires change due to our separation from God. In the end, the change required is faith in the coming Rule of God and the call to participate in the New Covenant of Jesus.

      We don’t always think of Holiness as the will to redeem.  But consider the origin of the word holy.  It has ties to the words whole and heal. Holiness also has strong ties to goodness.   For example, in the creation story in Genesis 1, things are declared to be good, which can also be expressed by saying that they are whole and are united in harmony.  They have integrity because they are not divided by conflicting impulses.   By contrast, in Genesis 3, where the sin of disobedience appears, the result is fear and mistrust of one another and of God.  Instead of wholeness, Adam and Eve are divided.  And each is divided from their true self until wholeness can be restored.  Thus we can say that in its original form in creation, holiness contains the creative drive to create outside of God that which is also holy.  Then we discover in later events how holiness appears in the theme of God’s will to restore the creation, as for example in the covenant of Sinai.   God creates a people and calls them to be holy.  When sin enters the story in the idolatry of the Golden Calf, the harmony of the covenant is broken.  But the story does not end in absolute judgment, but the will of the Holy God to heal and restore the covenant.        

      One last example: Paul’s view of the righteousness of God. This is a well know example and, through Luther, became foundational for the Protestant movement.  Like Holiness, righteousness names God and also God’s opposition to sin and evil.  Sin is a break in our relation to God and incurs God’s judgment.  In this sense, to invoke the righteousness of God when talking about sin can strike terror in the hearts of listeners.  Paul, however, uses this most terrifying term to interpret the salvation appearing in the death and resurrection of Jesus.  Here the righteousness of God is at work as God’s will to restore and heal rather than condemn and destroy.  So Paul can say that “…while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  (This is parallel to the declaration in John’s gospel that Christ came not to condemn the world but to save it.)   For Paul, this requires re-thinking who God is and what God intends for the world.  The holy and righteous God wills to save and redeem.  In this sense, the tension between holiness as separation/judgment and holiness as restoration/healing is resolved.  There will always be judgment against sin and evil but judgment is not the last word.  So Paul can say that the righteousness of God is revealed in Jesus as the restoration of the brokenness of the world. Such a conclusion has enumerable consequences for the way we think and believe, as well as the way we worship.  If at every point the Holy God initiates restoration, forgiveness of sins and liberation from shame, then we must never think of our salvation as something we initiate, generate, earn or claim.  It is always an act of God—the very Holy God who opposes sin and evil.

      So what have we discovered?  It is clear that holiness means two things: God’s opposition to sin and evil and God’s will to heal and restore.  This is quite amazing, since this tension, which is usually expressed in terms of the tension between holiness and love, is now within holiness itself.  It is not just love which pushes for healing and restoration, but holiness as well.   If this is the case, the ground for the popular interpretation of the cross known as penal substitution is taken away.  Let me explain.  As a way of interpreting the cross, penal substitution argues that Jesus must die in order to satisfy the demands of the law.   Sin has broken the Law and the Holy God cannot forgive until satisfaction has been achieved.   The solution is for God to send the Son to offer his life as settlement for sin.  To be sure, this act by God can be interpreted as a gracious will to save, but it is compromised by the idea that God cannot act until the demands of the Law are met. Holiness can only distance God from sin and evil and demand punishment to appease God by Jesus’ death. The whole argument rests on this view of holiness.  But this is not consistent with the way holiness functions in the history of salvation.  Holiness is both God’s opposition to sin and evil but also God’s will to restore and heal.  In Exodus 34 in the face of Israel’s idolatry of the Golden Calf, it is the Holy God who renews the broken covenant.  In Paul’s view, it is the righteousness of God which wills the salvation of sinners. 

      We have, then, a view of holiness which too often has been ignored in favor of the demanding and judgmental view of the Holy God.  This changes the way we view God and interpret the cross of Jesus.  And it even changes the way we think about fulfilling the mandate that the people of God should be holy as God is holy.  That would mean not claiming innocence because there is indeed a difference between God’s holiness and our attempts to be holy.  It would also mean that the practice of holiness would include the will to heal and restore rather than judge and condemn.