THE HOLINESS OF GOD

There is a great need for us to understand the person of God so we know how to relate to Him in our everyday lives. This post is about God's Holiness.

The Lord God is so holy that once a person understands this nature of His, that person would also understand why God cannot stand sin in any form.

The very first pointer to God's holiness is seen when the first man and woman Adam and Eve disobeyed a simple command God gave to them to eat of every tree in the garden of Eden EXCEPT the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and bad that stood in the middle of the garden.

satan came and deceived them to eat the forbidden fruit of the tree and that single act of disobedience made the glory of God to leave them. Rather than repent and ask God for forgiveness, Adam blamed the woman and the woman blamed the devil. That singular act has been responsible for the evil that entered mankind and continues to this very day.

This was not God's plan for mankind and every sin committed by man leads to spiritual death or separation from God and MUST be atoned for because God can ONLY deal in holiness. Adam and Eve were therefore punished for their act of disobedience and driven out of the garden of Eden (Genesis 3:14-24).

Their act also caused mankind's spiritual separation from God and that is why every human being is born with the stain of what Adam and Eve did and is in dire need of spiritual cleansing.

God loves mankind and it is this love that made Him to create man in His image and likeness. Even though God punished Adam and Eve for disobedience, He also in love and mercy promised redemption for mankind from the seed of the woman (Genesis 3:15).

That promise of redemption eventually came when God sent His only begotten Son our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ whose death on the Cross of Calvary made a final atonement for the spiritual separation of mankind from God caused by Adam and Eve's sin of disobedience.

Jesus Christ was born of a woman, Mary, who conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit in fulfilment of God's promise of a saviour from the seed of the woman. The pain and suffering our Lord Jesus had to endure by the will of God the Father for mankind's redemption is stated in Sacred Scripture in Isaiah 53. It took about 700 years from Isaiah's prophecy to the coming of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.

This should make you, dear reader, to understand how God detests sin, the extent of God's love for mankind, the extent to which God had to go to achieve reconciliation of mankind to Himself. Without this happening, heaven would have remained shut to mankind forever. It is simply something everyone should ponder about and appreciate God, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.

Before Jesus came to earth in human form, God had been dealing with His beloved people of Israel and taught them how they were to worship and serve Him and also make atonement for sins of every kind including UNINTENTIONAL sins. Every sin just had to be atoned for because the Lord God is too holy to stand it and every sin carried a penalty for disobedience of God's holy commands.

When the Lord brought the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, He gave specific commands on how they were to worship Him and what to do if they broke any of His commands. We see God's warning to them in Leviticus 11:44-45, "I am the Lord your God, and you must keep yourselves holy, because I am holy. I am the Lord who brought you out of Egypt so that I could be your God. You must be holy, because I am holy."

God gave several commands to His people and warned them severally to obey His commands and keep themselves holy as the ONLY guarantee of His blessings and protection over them from their enemies. God chose Aaron, Moses' sibling and his family and their descendants to be priests to offer sacrifices to God in atonement for the sins of the Israelites. No other family had the right to make offerings for sin of any kind directly to God without the

Aaronite priests doing it.

Sacred scripture records God's command to Moses in Numbers 3:10, "You shall appoint Aaron and his sons to carry out the duties of the priesthood; anyone else who tries to do so shall be put to death."

Even with God's laws to Aaron, the bible records how Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu offered to the Lord fire and incense when the Lord had not commanded them to do so. As a result, the Lord punished them immediately by sending fire to burn them to death (Leviticus 10:1-3) and Moses reminded Aaron that God said, "All who serve me must respect my holiness; I will reveal my glory to the people."

We see evidence of the Lord's holiness when Moses, in anger at the complaints of the Israelites' demand for water, disobeyed God's command to speak to the rock at Kadesh to bring forth water and instead struck the rock twice with his staff of office. This unfortunate act of disobedience caused Moses and Aaron their right to enter the promised land (Numbers 20:1-13).

God's holiness is revealed when God punished the Israelites for the sins committed by the prophet Eli's two sons Hophni and Phinehas who treated with serious disrespect the sacrifices the Israelites offered to God.

Though their father Eli cautioned them to stop their evil acts, they refused to listen and continued because as Scripture says, the Lord had decided to kill them (1 Samuel 2:23-25).

The Lord passed a judgement on Eli's family and said no sacrifice or offering will ever be able to remove the consequences of their terrible sin. (1 Samuel 3:11-14). Not only did the Lord God punish Hophni and Phinehas with death but the Israelites lost a war with the Philistines who captured the Covenant Box of the Lord (1 Samuel 4:1-11).

Even the ungodly Philistines felt the holy anger of the Lord when they dared to take the Covenant Box to their idol temples and the Lord God visited their kings and people with large tumours as punishment (1 Samuel 5) in every Philistine city where the Covenant Box was taken until they sent it back to the Israelites with gifts to atone for their sins.

Even in Israel, 70 men in Beth Shemesh were killed at once for daring to look into the Covenant Box (1 Samuel 6:19). Only the Levites had the right to handle the Covenant Box as the Lord God commanded. It was only when the Israelites repented, dropped the idols they worshipped, offered sacrifices for atonement, fasted and prayed that the Lord forgave them and allowed them to defeat the Philistines (1 Samuel 7:1-14)).

We see the Lord's holiness during the era of Israel's first King Saul when God commanded Saul in a war against the Amalekites to destroy everything they owned including killing their king Agag. Not only did Saul disobey God's command and spared the life of Agag the Amalekite king, he and his men took some animals to offer as sacrifice to God.

In sending His priest Samuel to Saul, Samuel said in response to Saul's excuse of being afraid of his soldiers in 1 Samuel 15:22-23, "Which does the Lord prefer: obedience or offerings and sacrifices? It is better to obey Him than to sacrifice the best sheep to Him.

Rebellion against Him is as bad as witchcraft, and arrogance is as sinful as idolatry. Because you rejected the Lord's command, He has rejected you as king."

In His Holy anger, the Lord rejected Saul as king of Israel and that was the end of Saul's dynasty (1 Samuel 15) as God chose David as new King of Israel.

Again, we see the Lord's holiness during the era of King David of Israel when David decided to bring the Covenant Box to Jerusalem from Baalah in Judah. David led 30,000 men and all of them were singing and dancing in honour of the Lord as they carried the Covenant Box with the help of an oxen conveying it.

At Nacon, the oxen stumbled and in his bid to prevent the Covenant Box from falling, a man Uzzah reached out to touch the Covenant Box and the Lord in Holy anger struck Uzzah dead for his irreverence, since it was ONLY the Levites that were allowed to touch the Covenant Box as the Lord had commanded.

David became angry at what happened but became afraid again and instead of Jerusalem as he initially planned sent the Covenant Box to the house of Obed Edom, where the Covenant Box stayed for 3 months and the Lord God blessed Obed Edom greatly.

When David heard this, he came again with the Levites to take the Covenant Box to Jerusalem and this was done with singing, dancing and praising of the Lord until they all reached Jerusalem. You can see the whole story in 2 Samuel 6.

Dear friend, all these Scripture references are made to demonstrate the holiness of our great Father and God of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. God cannot be toyed with - whatever command He has given MUST be obeyed without question because He alone knows why He has given the command and He is a righteous and Holy God who is slow to anger but full of constant love.

As the prophet Eli warned his sons Hophni and Phinehas in 1 Samuel 2:25, "If a man sins against another man, God can defend him; but who can defend a man who sins against the Lord?"

Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of the Almighty God and Messiah of mankind in obedience to His Father came and laid His life to reconcile mankind to God and so no other sacrifice is required again to take away mankind's sins (Hebrews 10:10, 15-18).

What we are expected to do to now to be put right with God is to repent of our sins, accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour of our lives, live a righteous life free from sin and ask the Holy Spirit to lead us to the truth about God.

This is the ONLY way to Salvation and to God's eternal kingdom in heaven when we leave this world. As said in Hebrews 9:27-28, Everyone must die once, and after that be judged by God. In the same manner Christ also was offered in sacrifice once to take away the sins of many. He will appear a second time, not to deal with sin, but to save those who are waiting for Him.

This second coming of Jesus Christ is the rapture that Christians talk about and we are living in the last days when our Lord Jesus Christ in His love and mercy has been taking different people to show them the realities of hell and heaven and to see how satan is deceiving many to end up in hell and warning mankind to turn to Him (Jesus Christ) in true and sincere repentance.

There is no other way to salvation and the time to accept Christ's invitation is now, not tomorrow or later as this may be too late. Do not say that you are the worst sinner or your sins are too heavy or too much for God to forgive.

That will be a lie from satan from the pit of hell to deceive anyone to continue to live in sin and then die and go to hell FOREVER IN TORMENT where he (satan) and his demons operate because of their foolish rebellion against God who threw them out of heaven into their deserved place in hell.

As Sacred Scripture says in Ecclesiastes 12:13-14, "After all this, there is only one thing to say: Have reverence for God, and obey His commands, because this is all that man was created for.

God is going to judge everything we do, whether good or bad, even things done in secret."

As Jesus in response to a Pharisee's question on the greatest commandment clearly stated in Matthew 22:37-40, "Love the Lord your God will all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the most important commandment.

The second most important commandment is like it: 'Love your neighbour as you love yourself.' The whole Law of Moses and the teachings of the prophets depend on these two commandments."

Dear friend, as this last bible reference clearly states, no one can deal with God on his or her own terms. It is either God's Holy way or no way. Choose this day whom you will serve. There is no harm in serving the Lord God of heaven as He will always protect and bless those who belong to Him by obeying His commands.

I sincerely urge you to choose God's way in Christ Jesus our Lord. God bless you as you obey His commands to live right through faith in Christ Jesus, Amen.

Gabriel Ama.