God / Holiness

  • The Drama of Redemption

    Psalm 85:10

    Today’s passage contains the beautiful imagery of justice and peace (or mercy, as other translations put it) kissing each other. Our Father graciously restores peace between Himself and us in Christ Jesus. This peace is permanent, for it is ...Read More

  • The Holiness of Christ

    Mark 4:35-41

    When we trust in Jesus, we are His holy people by God’s decree, and, over time, we become holy in our experience as we put sin to death and grow in likeness to Christ. In Jesus, we have a ...Read More

  • The Meaning of Holiness

    Matthew 6:9-13

    In Christ we become friends of God (John 15:12–15; James 2:23), but this is no casual friendship like we have with other human beings. The Lord is to be treated reverently by His friends, and if we ...Read More

  • The Insanity of Luther

    Romans 1:16-17

    Once we begin to understand something of the gravity of our sin and the purity of God’s character, it can be easy for our knowledge of our depravity to paralyze us. This need not be the case, for the ...Read More

  • Holiness and Justice

    Leviticus 10:1–3

    Many people complain that the doctrine of election is unfair and deny it because they think fairness demands that we all have the ability to believe the gospel. But if we are sinners, the one thing God would be fair ...Read More

  • The Holiness of God

    Isaiah 6:1-7

    Alone among the religions of the world, Christianity teaches that God does not grade on a curve. If we think that He will let us into heaven if our good deeds outweigh our bad, we are sadly mistaken. One sin ...Read More

  • The Glory of God

    Isaiah 60:1–3

    Augustine often spoke of the gravitas of worship, the seriousness of mind that we must have when we enter into God’s presence. We worship a weighty Lord, so we must always consider whether the worship we offer is light ...Read More

  • Knowing the Lord

    Jeremiah 9:23–24

    Many people today want to set holiness, love, and mercy in opposition to one another, especially when they speak of the character of God. Yet, it is only because the Lord is holy that we can be confident that He ...Read More

  • God’s Furious Anger

    Psalm 7:11–13

    As Christians, we are privileged to be under the eternal mercy and grace of God, not His wrath. Like those who never repent, we do not deserve to escape His wrath, for we have nothing in ourselves to make us ...Read More

  • Honoring God’s Holy Name

    Isaiah 8:13

    Fundamentally, revering God as holy means trusting His promises and obeying His commandments. In other words, we must recognize first that He is holy and that we are unholy, and we must rest only in His Son, Christ Jesus, in ...Read More

  • The Demands of Justice and Truth

    Genesis 2:15–17

    Without a robust doctrine of divine simplicity, we have a God at odds with Himself and One who cannot be trusted. The “gods” of other religions are not as just as they claim to be because they do not pour ...Read More

  • One True Eternal God

    Deuteronomy 6:4

    Christian monotheism is vastly different from the monotheism found in Islam and modern rabbinic Judaism. We are not unitarians who simply have a different name for the same God others worship. Those who deny the Trinity deny the deity of ...Read More

  • The Living God’s Righteous Hands

    Hebrews 10:30–31

    When talking to unbelievers, we can point out that Christianity alone believes in God’s justice and holy hatred of sin. As long as the adherents of other faiths maintain that our good works can make up for sin and ...Read More

  • The Church is Holy

    1 Corinthians 1:2

    Through the blood of Christ, God sees His church as holy, although He is by no means ignorant of the sin that persists in our lives. Yet this declaration of holiness gives us confidence that we can make real progress ...Read More

  • Putting Sin to Death

    Colossians 3:5-6

    Understanding that we are already holy in Christ should not be confused with the perfectionism that we often see in other theological traditions. We will not be free from the struggle with sin before we are glorified, but knowing that ...Read More