Holiness and Love.
Just like there are two driving principles behind the Bible – Law and Gospel – there are also two driving principles behind God Himself – Holiness and Love. No one can possibly understand the Bible, without understanding Law and Gospel and no one can possibly understand God or the Bible, without understanding His Holiness and Love. If you read the Bible with this in mind, the Bible can become an open book – opening your soul to the deepest mysteries of the very nature of God. That is because the Bible is not just God’s Word, but the Bible is God Himself. God is the Word. God not only reveals Himself in the Word, but He also comes and dwells within us through His Word. His Word is the creative power that He uses to create and sustain faith in our souls, maintain His loving relationship with us, to comfort, strengthen and protect us every day. The Word of God is far more than just a book to read, it is God Himself dwelling among us. It is God sharing His Holiness and Love, His very nature, with us in an extremely intimate way. It is God’s way of letting us know beyond a shadow of a doubt, "I love you. I want to be intimate with you. I am consumed with thoughts of you. I cannot and do not want to get you out of my mind."
One of the greatest pictures of God’s love for us can be found in the Songs of Songs. There God is taking great delight in His children. It’s called the Songs of Songs, because God is rejoicing in song over His beloved brides, His people, His chosen ones, His heirs of heaven. The Song of Songs is not just about human sexuality; it is about the depth of God’s affection towards us. His all consuming love for us engulfs Him. He cannot stop Himself from loving us. To put it in human terms, God is giddy with love for us. In human relationships, there is no greater love, than to wholly give oneself to another physically, mentally, bodily and even spiritually. In a similar way and even much greater way, God gives Himself to us completely. He holds nothing back. He loves us so much that He was even willing to deliver His own precious Son to death on the cross, punish Him with the agony of hell, pour out on Him His entire wrath for our sins, for at least one very important reason – so that we could be united and restored in our relationship with God forever. That is how much He loves us.
God craves a relationship with His creation. That too is directly related to His very nature. God is Triune. The Father, Son and Holy Spirit are One God. They have a perfect relationship. They are perfectly united, in perfect harmony, share perfect love and they want their entire creation to delight in and share in this awesome and perfect fellowship and oneness that they share. One of God’s greatest joys comes from fellowship, oneness, having an intimate relationship with, loving and being loved by His creation. His holiness and perfection is not just part of His law nature, it is very powerfully a part of His loving nature.
The holiness of God also includes His holy love. There can be no greater love anywhere. God’s holiness and love are not mutually exclusive; they are thoroughly entwined and cannot be separated. To dwell on God’s holiness is also to dwell on His perfect love for us. It is not like God has two natures – a Law nature and a Gospel nature – God’s nature is one. Even His wrath and punishment are an expression of His almighty and powerful love for us. God is never evil, mean, vicious, vindictive, hateful or abusive. God is holy and God is love and everything He does is a reflection of that holiness and love. The fact that we see His holiness in the light of holy terror on our part, is not God’s fault, it is ours. It is because of our sinfulness, our being separated from God, our rejection of God’s great love for us, our distorted and twisted vision of what we think God should be like, that we are led to believe that God just might be evil when He is so far from it that it is as far as the East is from the West. You cannot get any farther from it, because the East and West never meet. If you go North, you will eventually end up going South and vica versa. However, if you go East or West you will always be going either East or West. In a similar way, God’s love is never anything but love and God’s holiness is never anything but holiness and the two are one. God’s wrath and punishment are not the opposite of love and holiness, but an expression of His love and holiness.
When we read the Bible, it is utterly important to keep the nature of God, His holiness and love in our minds at all times. If we are just looking at the Bible like an historical book, looking for facts and figures, trying to "interpret" the Bible according to insignificant little details based on geography, history, math, science or whatever, we are missing out on the entire point of the Bible. The Bible is God wanting a holy and loving relationship with us. Every Word of the Bible is aimed at God dwelling in our souls in holiness and love. God wants us to be His temples, the place where He lives and has His being. God wants us to be His children, His beloved ones, His heirs of eternal life, enjoying the treasures of heaven.
When the Bible talks about building up treasures in heaven, it is not just talking about gold and silver or even good works, it is talking primarily about the greatest treasure we can possibly ever have and that is our relationship with God. God wants us to grow in His grace and knowledge on earth, so that when we get to heaven we can see even clearer His awesome holiness and love in its’ proper perspective. Just like a married couple should be growing in their love and holy relationship with one another, so God wants us to grow in our love and holy relationship with Him, both now and in eternity. The Bible never says we will begin with a perfect knowledge of God in heaven. In fact, Christ showed us that He can be perfect in every way and yet still grow in wisdom and in stature with God and with man. In heaven, we will be granted an infinity to grow in wisdom and in stature with God and with man. Even though we will know Him as He is, it will still be one of our greatest joys to spend an eternity getting to know God’s holiness and love more and more and thoroughly enjoying the thrill of being completely immersed in that holiness and love. Again, to put it into the most profound human perspective, a sexual orgasm, which seems to be held in the highest esteem by even the crassest unbelieving humans, is nothing, is trivial, and is a garbage heap of dung, compared to the surpassing greatness of God’s holiness and love that He freely shares with us in Christ.
The Apostle Paul makes the point, that of faith, hope and love, the greatest of these is love. That is not a mistake or an overstatement. That is a reflection of the very nature of God and His almighty power, holiness and love. There can be no greater virtue, no better human goal in life, than to grow in the grace and knowledge or undeserved love and intimate familiarity with the love, compassion, tenderness and devotion that God has for us. That is the height of fellowship with God and worship of Him. To have fellowship with God is to be eternally enveloped by His holiness and love, to the point that we reflect that holiness and love to everyone around us. It means to share in His divine nature and become like God in true holiness and love. To worship God is to acknowledge and exalt Him above everything, because of His almighty holiness and love that He has infinitely poured out on us in Christ. Holiness and love = God + Us.