Point-of-View

For the holiness of God to translate into the priorities of the Florida Baptist Convention, there are certain pre-suppositions:

1. The church must be an institution of divine power.

2. Divine power is always connected to clarity and cleanliness–clarity in fundamental truth, and cleanliness in our lives.

3. If we do not abide by this axiom, we will abound in shallow misery.

Leaders must advance clarity of truth and cleanliness of life if we are to change this world. We are living in a world different than anything our forefathers knew. Our world has accepted the doctrine of evolutionary development as truth.

W. A. Criswell, former pastor of First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas, had a saying:

I was an amoeba when I
began to begin.
Then I was a tadpole with
my tail tucked in.
Then I was a monkey
swinging from a tree.
Now I’m a professor with a PhD!

In the light of evolution, the church must re-examine the doctrine of God. Human beings are more than organisms passing through regular and anticipated stages of life. We are the highest of God’s creation. A living soul made in His image is marred, but it is still His image.

Any discussion of the doctrine of God must begin with God’s holiness. Any low view of God destroys the available power of the believing church. No church or denomination will rise above its concept of God. We will find ourselves either trying to reduce God to manageable terms or declaring Him "high and lifted up."

Someone said it well: "God Himself can never become less than Himself." Yet we try to think God down to our level. Man cannot "dumb-down" God! To say such is "open-theism."

A. W. Tozier in The Knowledge of the Holy, has an interesting statement, "The mind looks backward in time till the dim past vanishes, then turns and looks into the future till thought and imagination collapse from exhaustion; and God is at both points, unaffected by either ... When time words appear in scripture they refer to our time, not His."

Preaching on the holiness of God is akin to catching the ocean in a teacup! Or to catching a raindrop on a fish hook! Or to painting the Mona Lisa by numbers! However, there are some subjects worthy to dwell on just for stretching the mind and to challenge the spirit.

All of the holiness God has is from Himself. All holiness man has is also from God. Someone said it well, when God comes to man in holiness, "it is the heavenly character of condescension." All that God has said about Himself is not subject to change or chance. All the inspired Word has said about Him will never be rescinded.

The absolute and monumental question we must ask ourselves: Do we judge man by God, or do we judge God by man? If we judge man by God, we can have absolute standards without discrimination. If we judge God by man, we will disbelieve absolutes, bog down in self interest, and have a theology that is only interested in appeasement or some pseudo objectivity, or, at worst, navel gazing. We must never make God a prisoner of logic! God’s holiness is larger than man’s intelligence. It must become a faith affirmation, because God will never act out of character.

This is the first in a two-part series on the holiness of God, which is part of a longer series on doctrine. Next week, the holiness of God will be examined in light of Exodus 3:4-6.