When the people heard Ezra read the Law they were convicted and grieved (Nehemiah 8:9-11). Because they understood God’s holiness and grieved their lack of holiness, Ezra could tell them to stop grieving and get on to the joy of the Lord.
Our secondary students started to read The Holiness of God recently as well. I asked my class this past Thursday, does our church talk about holiness? Do we talk about too much, too little, just right? Have we reached Goldilocks-level of considering the holy, or are we missing the mark?
None of them remembered/mentioned that we had just dealt with God’s holiness in the previous Nehemiah sermon, or how the holiness of God is not against our joy, but rather for our joy, if He enables us to understand. And fine. Here we are again.
Holy is a four letter word, easy to say, maybe easy to define, but very hard to grasp. R.C. Sproul defined it in his book:
“The primary meaning of holy is “separate.” It comes from an ancient word that means “to cut,” or “to separate.” … Perhaps even more accurate would be the phrase “a cut above something.” … When the Bible calls God holy, it means primarily that God is transcendentally separate.” (The Holiness of God)
Isaiah’s vision of the Lord was of angels crying unto another, “Holy, holy, holy” (Isaiah 6:3). In response, Isaiah knew he was unclean, in particular, a man of unclean lips (Isaiah 6:5).
There are two ways our communion time could be joyful, one as a way to avoid God’s holiness, the other as the fruit of looking as straight at God’s holiness as we can, and realizing how He has dealt with our unholiness. May it be the latter.