Holiness: Transcendent Majesty

"But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him." Habakkuk 2:20

"Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?" (Exodus 15:11)

A few months ago I read a chapter on the holiness of God that has deepened my understanding of this important aspect of God's character.

Stephen Charnock defines God's holiness as "a glorious perfection belonging to the nature of God. Hence he is in Scripture styled often the Holy One, the Holy One of Jacob, the Holy One of Israel; and oftener entitled Holy, than Almighty, and set forth by this part of his dignity more than any other."

Holiness is more than just moral perfection; it is also transcendence as R. C. Sproul points out, "When we speak of the transcendence of God we are talking about that sense in which God is above and beyond us. It tries to get at His supreme and altogether greatness. . . .Transcendence describes God in his consuming majesty, His exalted loftiness. It points to the infinite distance that separates Him from every creature."

So when we think of describing God we have to use terms like "wholly, absolutely, infinitely, incomprehensible, supreme, exalted, solitary, unique, and peerless."

I concur with Jerry Bridges who writes in The Joy of Fearing God, "Majesty, refers to sovereign power, authority or dignity. It speaks of grandeur and splendor. It can be a relative term, however, when we use it of human rulers--some are more sovereign or powerful than others; some have more grandeur and splendor. When we speak of God's majesty, we have to mean absolute, unequaled majesty. Since transcendence means over and above, I propose the expression transcendent majesty to enable us to come closest to an understanding of God."

So, let us delight to fear God. Let us cleanse ourselves from evil in our flesh and spirit (2 Corinthains 7:1). May we practice humility in light of his transcendence (Isaiah 57:15). Surely we should grow in gratitude to God for His mercy to us through Christ. And such a sense of transcendent majesty should cause us to enter His presence with reverence (Hebrews 10:19, 22).

Enjoy God's holiness and praise Him for His transcendent majesty!

Love Christ with an "overtopping" love!

I recommend that you check out Steve Camp's blog on a regular basis. On "Theology Thursday" this week I offer you some of his meditations on the love of God and then in response our love for God, which one Puritan said should be a "superlative, overtopping love."

All of the law and prophets are contained in the two great commandments: "And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength." And the second is like unto it, "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:30-31). To love the Lord with every fiber of our being is the great privilege and joy of every true believer in Christ. It is the primary motivation for our worship, service, obedience, and daily life with each other. As our brother John Piper says, "God is most glorified in us, when we are most satisfied in Him." That is genuine biblical love in action.

Love, though, is such a watered down and misunderstood word today--even in the church. We use the word love in such a casual way, even when referring to inanimate objects, that it seems to lose its very meaning if we fail to understand it biblically. Simply put, biblical love is not an emotion or feeling; it is not conditioned upon anther's response. True love, agape love--the love of God as demonstrated through Christ Jesus our Lord on the cross is four things: it is unmerited, undeserved, unfailing, self-sacrificial, and unreciprocated. In other words, He does not love us because we are lovable, lovely, or doing philanthropic acts of kindness lovingly. He loves us not because He finds good things in us to love, but because it is His divine self-pleasure and elective choice to do so (Ephesians 1:4-14). "God demonstrated His love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8)

• His love is unmerited, because we cannot earn it... it is His grace gift to us in Christ Jesus on the cross.
• His love is undeserving, because in and of ourselves we are worthy only of His justice, enmity and wrath; worthy only to be sentenced to an eternal hell, a perditious suffering that knows no end, because of the sinfulness of our sin that has rendered all mankind by nature as "children of wrath" (Ephesians 2:1-2).
• His love for us is unfailing, "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, 'For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.' No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:35-39).
• His love is self-sacrificial, for Christ gave His life as a ransom for many by paying once for all the ultimate price for our redemption from our sin. Think of it beloved, if Jesus had not fully satisfied God on the cross as a "propitiation for the sins of the people" (Hebrews 2:17) it would be impossible for God to love me or you.
• Lastly, His love is unreciprocated, for even an eternity of praise and worship to Him can never repay Him for His unfailing love.

I so appreciate the Puritans... they are my favorite body of authors for theology and practical Bible study. Even though much of the language they used seems by today's standards to be formal, flowery, and archaic, one thing is certain, the Puritans had a high view of God and His Word and loved Him truthfully, wholly and unashamedly. In reading and listening to their words we also will be brought to that same place of worship, love and awe of our holy God.

Thomas Brooks is one of my favorite Puritan writers and he has blessed us with a powerful remembrance of what it means to "love the Lord Jesus Christ." I have reprinted his words for you below with the hope that it will refresh and renew your hearts today to love the Lord Jesus Christ!

"Look that ye love the Lord Jesus Christ with a superlative love, with an overtopping love. There are none have suffered so much for you as Christ; there are none that can suffer so much for you as Christ. The least measure of that wrath that Christ hath sustained for you, would have broke the hearts, necks, and backs of all created beings.

O my friends! There is no love but a superlative love that is any ways suitable to the transcendent sufferings of dear Jesus. Oh, love him above your lusts, love him above your relations, love him above the world, love him above all your outward contentments and enjoyments, yea, love him above your very lives; for thus the patriarchs, prophets, apostles, saints, primitive Christians, and the martyrs of old, have loved our Lord Jesus Christ with an overtopping love: Rev. xii. 11, 'They loved not their lives unto the death;' that is, they slighted, contemned, yea, despised their lives, exposing them to hazard and loss, out of love to the Lamb, 'who had washed them in his blood.'

If you want to be inspired more here is Steve's post in its entirety.

Our identification with Christ

I have been memorizing and meditating on Romans 6:5 this week which says, "If we have been united with him in a death like this, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his." This verse speaks of my identification with Christ as a believer. This is what theologians call positional truth. For those who are repenting of their sin and trusting in Christ, we are in Christ. When he died, we died. When he rose again, we rose again with him.

Pastor Kent Hughes comments on Romans 6,

The specific emphasis of verses 3–5 is that we are so profoundly identified with Christ’s death and resurrection that we actually did die with him and truly were raised with him, so that we now share in his resurrection life. Again the Scriptures attest to this. Galatians 2:20 tells us: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” Galatians 6:14 says: “… the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.” Just as we died with him, we were also resurrected with him. “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God” (Colossians 3:1). Whereas before we had only a solidarity with Adam’s sin, now that has been broken and we have a solidarity with Christ, the Second Adam, in his death and resurrection. We need to know and count on this if we are to experience victory over sin.--Hughes, R. K. (1991). Romans : Righteousness from heaven. Preaching the Word (124). Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books.

The practical outworking of this is what Paul develops in the next few verses which we will look at next week. But first we must know these truths before we can live them. And when we do know them they will have a profound impact on overcoming sin and temptation.

Knowing Christ

Paul cries out, "I want to know Christ, and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable to His death" (Philippians 3:10, NIV). Knowing Christ, or knowing God (the title of J. I. Packer's classic book) should be the heart of our lives. We ought to pursue a knowledge of the Holy One with a passion, but that knowledge should always lead to worship and heart transformation. Right theology should lead us to a right worship and love for God.

Samuel Guzman over at Christian Research Net writes

I believe that one reason we do not see power in the fundamental churches today is that we do not know God in the way that we should. I am not talking about right theology, for we have plenty of that. We have built our theology on the shoulders of the great men of God, and right it may be, but why did those great men of God shake the world while we remain helpless bickering armchair theologians? It is because they knew God. Don’t get me wrong, I believe that theology plays an essential role in the Christian church. Without right theology, we cannot know who God is or what He requires of us. But there seem to be so much fear of over emphasizing the Holy Spirit, that we fear any knowledge of God that goes beyond a dry intellectual sense. If you take the time to read any of the writings of the great men of God, Augustine, Luther, Tozer, and of course the Apostles, you will be impressed with one thing: God was real to these men and their hearts overflowed with love for him. I believe that’s what we are missing. We have figured God out, we have analyzed him into a cold abstract, and we have lost our love.

As a post on Thursday's on the theme of theology, I trust that it will awaken and stir up within all of us a love for God. My goal, by the grace of God, is to enlighten the mind and awaken the affections so that we pursue God more and say with Paul, "I want to know Him!" Knowing more about God causes us to know more of His love for us and causes us to see more of His love and care for us. Both are important.

David is a great example of a person who knew God, but His theology of God set His heart on fire for God. He knew God deeply but he also knew Him personally, not abstractly. He called God "my rock, my strength, my fortress, my deliverer, my God, my shield, my horn of my salvation, my stronghold, my redeemer."

John Owen helps us to know Christ more in his book called Communion with God by spending much time just revealing the glorious nature of Christ.

Christ is all-glorious:

• glorious in his throne, which is at “the right hand of the Majesty on high”
• glorious in his commission, which is “all power in heaven and earth”
• glorious in his name, a name above every name—“Lord of lords, and King of kings”
• glorious in his scepter—“a scepter of righteousness is the scepter of his kingdom”
• glorious in his attendants—“his chariots are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels,” among them he rides on the heavens, and sends out the voice of his strength, attended with ten thousand times ten thousand of his holy ones
• glorious in his subjects—all creatures in heaven and in earth, nothing is left that is not put in subjection to him
• glorious in his way of rule, and the administration of his kingdom—full of sweetness, efficacy, power, serenity, holiness, righteousness, and grace, in and toward his elect—of terror, vengeance, and certain destruction toward the rebellious angels and men
• glorious in the issue of his kingdom, when every knee shall bow before him, and all shall stand before his judgment-seat.

Knowing you, Jesus!--there is no greater thing! You are my all in all!