What do you think of when you think of holiness? Some kind of religious piety, removed from the world — operating on a different plane? Perhaps someone who is morally superior to everyone else... definitely not fun at parties!
What about when you think about love? Perhaps images of softness creep in, someone you can curl up with and never feel bad about yourself. All accepting, all affirming, all accommodating. A loving person builds peace and relationships and invites everyone to the party!
How can a perfect God be both holy and loving?
Scripture teaches us that Jesus is the perfect expression of Grace and Truth (John 1:14), and that in Jesus the nature of God is fully revealed. At all times and in all places, God is fully loving and fully holy.
One might be forgiven for reading about a harsh God in the Old Testament who was capricious and angry — constantly smiting mankind for his transgressions — and then experiencing whiplash when reading about Jesus in the New Testament, who seemed to embody love, hung out with the outcasts and sinners, and even partied with them!
How do we square these two seemingly opposite expressions of the same God?
First, by recognizing that reducing the God of the Bible to either holy OR loving is a false dichotomy. The God of the Old Testament was just as much a God of love as the God revealed through Jesus in the New Testament is a God of holiness.
The late theologian Kenneth Bailey used the illustration of two rails of a railway track to describe the relationship between God's holiness and His love. Both rails are essential to keeping the train on course. Remove either one and the whole thing ends in disaster.
Remove holiness and love becomes little more than indulgence. A God who simply overlooks evil and injustice, who makes no distinction between right and wrong, would hardly be worthy of our worship.
But remove love and holiness becomes something equally terrifying. A God whose righteousness demands perfection but offers no mercy would leave us without any hope of reconciliation.
We need both rails.
But perhaps the problem isn't that God's holiness and love are incompatible. Perhaps it's that we've never properly understood either one.
The prophet Hosea gives us a remarkable glimpse into this mystery.
God speaks through Hosea about His relationship with Israel, describing Himself as a loving father who taught His child to walk, took him by the arms, and bent down to feed him.
Yet Israel repeatedly rejected God, turning to idols and pursuing its own desires.
Surely a holy God must respond to such unfaithfulness with judgment!
And He does. Hosea does not shy away from the devastating consequences of Israel's rebellion.
But then, in chapter 11, God asks a provocative question:
"How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I hand you over, Israel?"
And then comes this divine declaration:
"For I am God, and not a man — the Holy One among you." (Hosea 11:9)
Did you catch that?
God appeals to His holiness as the reason He will not utterly destroy the very people who have rejected Him.
We might have expected God to say, "I am holy, therefore I must destroy you."
Instead, He declares that because He is God, the Holy One, His response will be different.
His holiness doesn't diminish His love. In fact, His holiness seems to be expressed through His love.
And perhaps the reverse is equally true. Perfect love doesn't compromise holiness. Rather, it demands holiness, because love cannot be indifferent to the things that destroy those whom God loves.
Hebrews 12:10 tells us that God disciplines His children for their good, "in order that we may share in his holiness."
God doesn't love us because we are holy. He makes us holy because He loves us.
Perhaps this is what John is getting at when he describes Jesus as being "full of grace and truth."
We sometimes think of grace as God's soft side and truth as His hard side. Grace accepts us; truth corrects us. Grace forgives; truth judges.
But John is drawing on a much older description of God.
In Exodus 34:6, God reveals His own character to Moses as compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in hesed and emet — Hebrew words often translated as steadfast love and faithfulness.
John isn't introducing a new understanding of God's character. He's telling us that the same God who revealed Himself to Moses has now revealed Himself fully in Jesus.
Perhaps we could think of this combination of grace and truth as Reliable Love.
Not a God who sometimes extends grace and at other times insists on truth, but a God whose love is entirely faithful to His own character.
God's holiness means He cannot be corrupted. His convictions do not shift with circumstances, and He does not change His mind about what is good and what is evil.
But neither does His love.
His mercy is not a temporary suspension of His righteousness. His love is not dependent upon His mood, our performance, or our ability to make ourselves worthy of it.
You never have to wonder what kind of God you will encounter when you come to Him.
Jesus told Philip, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father." (John 14:9)
If we want to know what God's holiness looks like, we look at Jesus.
The Jesus who touched lepers, welcomed sinners and forgave His enemies.
But also the Jesus who confronted hypocrisy, called people to repentance and refused to compromise the truth.
He wasn't loving in some moments and holy in others.
He was perfectly holy in every expression of His love, and perfectly loving in every expression of His holiness.
So, you say, that’s great a theological exercise but what does this mean for me?
Through Christ, we have been made God's own people. We are called holy, not because we have somehow achieved moral perfection, but because God Himself has set us apart as His children.
You belong to Him. You are holy because He has made you His. And you are loved because He is Love.
Yet God doesn't simply declare us holy and leave us as we are. His Spirit continues the work of making us more like Jesus.
Which brings me back to Bailey's railway tracks.
Perhaps there is a third rail.
When I lived in Chicago, you didn’t need a car to get around the city because the L-train could take you anywhere for $1.50. While waiting for a train to arrive, you would see warnings about stepping onto the tracks – especially avoiding the third rail. That’s because, on an electrified railway, the third rail provides the power that moves the train along the tracks – and is also able to cook an unsuspecting trespasser to a “Chicago-style” crisp!
The third rail doesn't guide the train. It powers it.
And perhaps that's a fitting picture of the Holy Spirit's work in our lives.
We can understand the importance of holiness and love. We can even aspire to both. But we cannot produce either in its fullness through our own determination.
As we yield to the Holy Spirit, He transforms our hearts, renews our desires and increasingly conforms us to the character of Christ.
Not merely making us better behaved.
Not merely making us more accepting.
But making us more like Jesus.
And perhaps that is the real measure of our spiritual maturity.
Are we becoming more loving as we become more holy?
Are we becoming more holy as we learn to love?
Because if our pursuit of holiness makes us less compassionate, less gracious and less merciful, something has gone terribly wrong.
And if our expressions of love leave us indifferent to sin, injustice and the things that destroy people, something is equally wrong.
God never asks us to choose between holiness and love.
He invites us to share in His holiness, to abide in His love, and through the power of His Spirit, to become more like Jesus.
