A Question of Holiness
Holiness. More often than not that word does not stir up pleasant feelings. The meaning of the word is obscure, but it carries with it a weightiness. Before I became a follower of Christ, I would have cringed at that word. Something about it left a bad taste in my mouth. Holiness was not a virtue to be exalted, let alone embraced. Something about it seemed so serious, so heavy, so alienating. The very mention of the word seemed to inspire feelings of guilt.
What I knew of holiness was associated with the term "holier-than-thou." To be holy meant to be pious, uptight, and, well...snobbish. Holy people didn't have fun. In fact, holy people were too serious to enjoy life's pleasures. Holy people had so many rules to obey that they were not free to do whatever they wanted - how could that be fun? When I pictured holiness, I pictured people in long, flowy white robes walking around shaking their heads at "sinners" as they went about their religious activities. There was something so dull about it - like a lonely grave, holiness carried with it the stench of lifelessness.
My One Dimensional God
I can't think of a subject more misunderstood than the Holiness of God. If discussing politics and religion is taboo, then Holiness, especially as it pertains to the wrath and judgment of God, might be the most taboo topic of all. Until recent years, I tended to focused on the other attributes of God - you know, the ones that inspired more pleasant feelings, like love, joy, peace, grace, etc. How can Christians believe in a God who is loving and gracious yet has wrath and judgment? Aren’t the two a contradiction? Don’t you have to believe in one or the other? For me, if there’s a question that comes up in conversations about Christianity more than any other, it’s this one.
To be honest, it’s a question that haunted me for years, one I contented myself not to really think about because I just didn’t have an answer. It just seemed like one of those “mysteries” of God I would never be able to understand. But inevitably the question would resurface with a vengeance whenever I heard about hell, heard stories from the Old Testament, or read passages of scripture where God’s dealt harshly with people. These things made me afraid, and not in a “I love scary movies” kind of way.
And you want to know what made it more confusing? How all I’d ever heard was how loving and full of grace God is. But then I would read these parts of the Old Testament where God acted with wrath and judgment, I would immediately want to close the Bible or skip to the New Testament. If Christ loves us so much that He was willing to lay down his life for our sins, how could this God so full of love be so...ruthless? How could any God who proclaims to be Love send people to hell? God seemed so bipolar, like He went from being hostile toward humanity one second, then Jesus dies and *boom* God loves everybody.
The Dilemma
Even though it seems to be the burning question on everyone’s mind, how often do you hear Christians or pastors addressing God’s wrath and judgment in scripture? Not often. At least in more modern churches. Or, perhaps, you grew up in a church where the wrath and judgment of God were all they seemed to talk about, and as a result it left a bad taste in your mouth. The wrath and judgment of God are incredibly touchy subjects that I would venture to say most people want to avoid. And for good reason. It has been used in some rather poor contexts.
In previous decades, the Church tended to focus on the wrath of God, proclaiming a hellfire and brimstone message. Not surprisingly, this trend may inspire obedience, but it is motivated by fear, not love - God is more fire insurance than Father. A neglect of grace breeds judgment and legalism within the Church. Such adherents themselves become full of wrath and judgment, their hearts are cold. This is where the Church receives present criticism. The Church's negative history makes many Christians eager to distance themselves from this ideology and seek a more progressive direction to redefine the modern Church.
I think we as a Church have found ourselves in a dilemma. In an effort to correct this pattern and break away from legalism and ritualism, it seems like we have swung to the opposite side of the pendulum. We have opted to focus on the love and grace of God, which is wonderful in some ways. Unfortunately, the Western Church has focused so much of its preaching on the love and grace of God, it neglects a healthy dialogue around these more controversial scriptures, instead sweeping them under the rug.
I talk with more and more people who don’t know how to process this God they read of in the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament, who seems so, well...Machiavellian. It doesn't make sense. Because what they read seems so diametrically opposed to a God who is supposed to be loving and full of grace, they feel lied to, even disillusioned. After all, that's all they were ever told. They are then faced with a decision: Do they throw out parts of the Bible (or all of it) in order to believe God is good and loving or do they let go of their view that God is loving in order to believe the Bible?
Is God Mute?
The problem with only focusing on God’s love at the exclusion of his holiness is that it can lead to compromise and complacency. A natural conclusion to a God who is loving but not holy is universalism, pluralism, and moral relativism. Because, let's be honest, if God exists and He doesn’t care about how you live your life (aka holiness), why should you? What then is birthed is an exploitation of grace. Why? Because if anything goes you and there is no real right or wrong, why would we even need grace? How can we be transformed by the love and grace of God, if we don’t even know what it is we need grace for? Grace becomes cheap, if not entirely unnecessary. Complacency leads to a tolerance for wrongdoing, which full-blown can becomes apostasy (falling away).
For some of you, a God who is loving but not holy is not really a bad thing – perhaps that’s exactly how you prefer God to be. But consider this, how does a God of tolerance, who does not care about right or wrong, respond in the face of evil and injustice? When men like Hitler march against the nations and set about systematically murdering millions of people? When a young child is sold and trafficked for sex? When those in poverty are exploited and oppressed?
The God who is tolerant does nothing about such things; His tolerance compels him to compromise. If he does not judge, he cannot call to account. The blood of the oppressed cries out for vindication but receives none. If God doesn't care about right versus wrong, he doesn't care about injustice and evil. He is mute. And here is the question we must then wrestle with: is such a God actually loving? A God who is tolerant sounds appealing, but the implications are much deeper.
And if we want God to be intolerant of injustice and evil, where do we expect Him to draw the line? Who determines right and wrong? If it’s left up to each individual, you will get as many different responses. Not everyone agrees on what is right and what is wrong. Under moral relativism, societies like that of Germany under Nazism are guilty of no real wrongdoing – they simply acted on what was acceptable in their own eyes at the time, a survival of the fittest, where they came out strongest.
The problem with a God who is not Holy, who does not uphold justice and despise wrongdoing, is His ambivalence. He is complacent about good versus evil. He is tolerant, therefore, He cannot judge, and therefore, He cannot act. And if He cannot act, He cannot save or call to account. His Love is rendered powerless, if not indifferent altogether. But a God who is not only loving but also holy...well, that’s a different story entirely.
(To be continued...)
