GOD'S NAMES SPELL HOLINESS.
Not love. Not power. Not mercy. Not knowledge. Not righteousness. God's names almost all breath holiness. I believe all do when understood in context.
Above are a few of God's names, starting with His actual personal name. In Part II, I discussed the fact that holiness was part of God's personal name. I AM is a name that no one can claim but Him.
In addition, God has a number of other names or titles that describe Him in one way or another. All the titles highlight a specific thing about God, such as His power, mercy, omniscience, etc. "God is Yahweh of Armies." Most translations say "Lord of Hosts". That means something specific about God. It is a mention of God's power and status as a warrior leading other warriors, a conqueror. But George Bush can say that. He lead a nation in a war and conquered another nation.
So are George and God warriors in the same sense? No. George had to tax millions of people for money for the war. He had to recruit thousands of young men as soldiers, sailors, and airmen. He had to get thousands of others to train these young men. He did nothing much with his own power.
God's power is nothing like that. All the power of God's army is from God Himself. George has no power against another nation. He borrowed power.
In addition, George fought vicariously through young men, borrowing their power, to defeat a nation of men who were made of flesh and blood just like his flesh and blood. Not so God. He fights no one like Him, because there is no one like Him. He is a Spirit who can speak all flesh out of existence. No flesh now lives without His powerful arm supporting it and His omniscient mind ordering each vibration of each sub-atomic particle in each molecule of every cell. Anyone in His army exists just because God makes him exist and his power is borrowed from God.
In short, God is the leader like no other of armies like no other.
The same sort of thing can be said about all the other names. "God is love" doesn't mean the same thing that "Phil is love" means. It means that God is a loving being. Well, so am I. I love my wife. I love my dogs. I love reading the Bible. I love my family. Each of these things and people I love are things that cause me to love them. I fell in love with my wife because she was and looked a certain way. I love my dogs for certain reasons, too. I love God because He first loved me. My love is selfish and caused. His love is unselfish and uncaused.
The LORD appeared to him from afar, saying, "I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore I have drawn you with lovingkindness."--Jeremiah 31:3.
And He said, "I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion."--Exodus 33:19.
In other words, God loves just because He has decreed it so. His love is uncaused and free. It is like no other love. Even His love is holy.
All of God's attributes are one of a kind and separate from the some sort of attribute possessed by any other being. Everything in reality is created, except God. Remember, holiness is differentness, called-outness, unmixedness, outsideness, uniqueness, purity. Only God is uncreated. All else is created and derived. My love is some capacity God created within me. His love is outside created reality and cannot be compared to mine in any way whatsoever, except that both are love, but of very different kinds. My power is created, derived, and limited. His is uncaused, unlimited.
All power, all love, all righteousness, all compassion, all mercy, all wrath, all justice, all intelligence is created, limited, and derived. Except God's. His love, power, justice, mercy, knowledge, is unlimited, uncaused, uncreated, underived, and unknown to us except by His gracious revelation. He doesn't know like we know. He doesn't love like we love. He doesn't exercise power like we do.
ALL GOD'S OTHER ATTRIBUTES ARE GOVERNED BY THE HIGHEST ATTRIBUTE--HOLINESS.
When I was young, I was taught that there was a great God and He had a number of attributes. They were all His attributes and there wasn't a real order of importance given. They were all equally His, none higher than the other, unless by the emphasis given by a particular preacher. It looked a lot like this:
MEism (Modern Evangelicalism) typically sees it another way. "God is love" seems to be the ruling principle that governs all other things about God. His wrath is governed by His love, so it is often said God doesn't send anyone to hell. (So how do they get there, I wonder?) It looks like this:
While this scheme isn't often formally articulated, it seems, by the teaching, the preaching, and the beliefs of folks in the pew, God's love is His foremost attribute. Love governs all else. He wants everyone saved and happy. Love limits His power, His wrath, and His sovereignty.
This isn't biblical. Holiness (uniqueness, differentness, apartness) isn't just one of the attributes. It governs all the others. God's love, being underived and uncreated, is unique from the love of all others. Their loves are derived from the creative hand of God. On the other hand, God's uniqueness (holiness) isn't anymore loving than it is powerful or wrathful or merciful or sovereign. But His sovereignty is indeed holy, different and unique from all others. All His attributes are uncaused, underived, uncontingent, independent in their very essense. So, the biblical scheme looks like this:
HOLINESS IS THE VERY EXCELLENCY OF THE DIVINE NATURE--A. W. Pink.(1)
Isaiah 6 tells us that the Lord of hosts is holy, holy, holy. Why is this sort of statement stressed less that "God is love" from I John? Never is God called love, love, love. In Psalm 89:35, we see that God swears by His holiness. He never swears by His love, does He? Mr. Pink called the holiness of God "an excellency about all His other perfections" and "the glory of every perfection in the Godhead". (2)
The highest attribute of God is holiness. God's holiness is powerful, but it is also meek. His holiness is loving, but it is also wrathful. His holiness is sovereign, but humble. However, the opposite isn't true. His love is holy, but not impure. His power is holy, but not unholy. His sovereignty is holy, but not mixed with the common. All other attributes of God are balanced. Love and anger. Power and control. Mercy and justice. Righteousness and compassion. Knowledge and the determination to impute righteousness and forget sin in His beloved. Even His sovereignty humbles Itself to use the will of man to carry out the decree God made in whatever was before the foundation of the world. Not so holiness. Purity isn't balanced with impurity. If it is, it's ruined. It's no longer pure, but impure. Uniquensess isn't complemented by conformity. It is sullied. It's no longer unique. God is just holy, holy, holy.
YAHWEH IS THE ONLY HOLY GOD.
All other religions have a concept of the holy. That seems to be implanted in us. However, Yahweh is the only holy God. Other gods may be called holy by their followers, but they really aren't. They are very like the creation. First, they're created. Usually by man. We make them up or we follow created demons and call them gods. Second, their attributes are just human attributes exaggerated. They aren't seen as outside of space-time. They live space-time. Yahweh is eternal and omnipresent. That means He is outside space-time. Apollo looked like a man and did things with his arms and legs just like you might do them if you were a cartoon. That's why idols are often statues. We take what little we know and rearrange it just so-so and call it Fred, God of Gerbals, Kangaroos, and Giraffes. And our neighbor makes Nora, Goddess of Bathwater and Navels. Another man takes a half horse and half man and creates something else in his imagination. Worse, a person goes to church and imagines a god who only loves people, never hates them for their sin, gets a job preaching and tells folks that he found this god in the Bible somewhere.
Our God is holy, holy, holy. Nobody is like Him.
Be holy,
Phil Perkins.
(1)Pink, A. W.; The Attributes of God; Sovereign Grace Publishers; Lafayette, Indiana; copyright 2002 by Jay P. Greene Sr.; ISBN 1-58960-320-6; p. 43.
(2) ibid. p. 44.
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