"And one cried unto another, and said, Holy, holy, holy, is the LORD of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory." Isaiah 6:3
"I am the LORD, your Holy One, the creator of Israel, your King." Isaiah 43:15
As for our redeemer, the LORD of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel. Isaiah 47:4
"And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, LORD God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come." Revelation 4:8
"Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glorify thy name? for thou only art holy: for all nations shall come and worship before thee; for thy judgments are made manifest." Revelation 15:4
A.W. Tozer states the following:
"Holy is the way God is. To be Holy He does not conform to a standard. He is that Standard.
God is holy with an absolute holiness that knows no degrees, and thus He cannot impart to His creatures. But there is a relative and contingent holiness which He shares with angels and seraphim in heaven and with redeemed men on earth as their preparation for heaven. This holiness God can and does impart to His children. He shares it with them by imputation and impartation, and because He has made it available to them through the blood of the Lamb, He requires it of them."
“Because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy.” 1 Peter 1:16
Why is it crucial for us to see God in His holiness? Tozer concludes;
"Until we have seen ourselves as God sees us, we are not likely to be much disturbed over conditions around us as long as they do not get so far out of hand as to threaten our comfortable way of life. We have come to live with unholiness and have come to look upon it as the natural and expected thing. We are not disappointed that we do not find all truth in our teachers, of faithfulness in our politicians or complete honesty in our merchants or truthfulness in our friends.
Only the Spirit of the Holy One can impart to the human spirit the knowledge of the holy. Yet as electric power flows only through a conductor, so the Spirit flows through truth, and must find some measure of truth in the mind before He can illuminate the heart. Faith wakes at the voice of truth but responds to no other sound.
“So then faith cometh by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”
Romans 10:17
Theological knowledge is the medium through which the Spirit flows into the human heart, yet there must be humble penitence in the heart before truth can produce faith. The Spirit of God is the Spirit of Truth. It is possible to have some truth in the mind without having the Spirit in the heart, but it is never possible to have the Spirit apart from Truth.
We must hide our unholiness in the wounds of Christ as Moses hid himself in the cleft of the rock while the glory of God passed by.
We must take refuge from God in God.
Above all we must believe that God sees us perfect in His Son while He disciplines and chastens and purges us that we may be partakers of His holiness.
By faith and obedience, by constant meditation on the holiness of God, by loving righteousness and hating iniquity, by a growing acquaintance with the Spirit of holiness, we can acclimate ourselves to the fellowship of the saints on earth and prepare ourselves for the eternal companionship of God and the saints above."
