A holy God and a holy people

In my studies, I learned that the holiness of God has three aspects:

  1. Purity: God is absolutely free from sin
  2. “Otherness”: He is beyond us in every way – there is that about Him that we can never comprehend, and the only things we can know about Him are those things He reveals to us
  3. Transcendence: He is glorious, bright and beautiful

I have been considering what that means in relation to the holiness available to human beings. I think that the three aspects of God’s holiness are mirrored in the lives of those who have fully yielded their lives to Him:

  1. Purity: God is willing and able to purify the hearts of those who surrender their all to Him
  2. “Otherness”: God calls us, as a holy people to be separate from the world – to be “in it but not of it”
  3. Transcendent: that is, we are to reflect the glory of God – to be the “light of the world”

Please note that when we speak of holiness like this we must remember that God is holy and we, by his grace, are being made holy. Holiness in men and women is only possible by God’s creating a reflection of His holiness in us.