Whenever I write or talk about holiness, Christians start (rather forcefully) reminding me of the love of God, as if the two are opposed somehow.
I get it—the wounds inflicted by leaders who manipulate and abuse the scriptures, mangling our understanding of God's holiness, go deep. But if this is you, do not let these horrible wounds take from you the life-altering understanding of the God who pursues you with relentless ardor. We cannot grasp the love that motivates God until we have faced his holy nature first because God loves us with a holy—wholly other—love, not the love of human understanding.
I have written of this incomprehensible love before (see here) and how we've bought into a definition of love that isn't compatible with the God revealed in the Bible. Modern Christianity has sold the world (and the church) on a milquetoast bowl of fluffy love.
"Likewise, the love of god—a prominent theme in both Testaments—is never kitschy or sentimental. His love is tenacious as oak roots, potent as a typhoon. It is abrasive as much as it is soothing. It scours and breaks us before it sets us right—in order to set us right. It never lets us alone. It is so fierce, the love of God, that many choose to be condemned rather than to step into the light of it."—Mark Buchannan
God's love is no ordinary, Disney-movie kind of love. It's extravagant to the point of obsession. Sacrificial not enabling. Heartbreaking and remaking. Breathtaking.
We don't understand his love because we don't understand his holiness. This is why so many are tempted to reduce "God to their own experience, to limit His love by the evidence of their own circumstances, weighing their wounds and suffering against days of laughter and bounty and seeing which tips the scale." (Mark Buchanan, The Holy Wild)
When the authors of the Bible write reams of songs or go on endlessly in rapturous words about God's love, they usually point to either the extreme limitlessness of God's love (such as Ephesians 3:18-19) or the expression (proof) of that love, which is referred to as the "goodness" of God. The goodness of God—his righteous acts toward humankind—is the tangible proof of a holy God who loves.
Holiness is his nature, love is his motivation, and goodness is the expression of his holy love.
Like Israel, we can experience what it’s like to be the “apple of his eye” (Deuteronomy 32:10, Psalm 17:8, Zechariah 2:8). But beware: this will not be comfortable. God's love is not like indulgent human parents who think their child always right. We are the focal point of the God of the universe and his obsession with us—thoughts more numerous than the sands (Psalm 19:17-18) who knows each strand of our hair (Matthew 10:26:31, Luke 21:18) and pursues us with every molecule of his being. This God—our God—moves mountains and builds empires, swallows kingdoms and sacks cities—all to make us his own. This love of the Holy Spirit, a Living Flame, does what it takes to burn the darkness out of us, transforming us by imputing to us the image of Christ, the holy one of Israel.
Too often, we respond to God's holiness by backing away, much like Israel backed away from Mount Sinai when the throne of God descended. Holiness purges. It burns. Each step up his holy hill is a burning away of the unholy in us. But oh the prize at the end of it! The face of God is best reflected in the purifying flames of absolute surrender.
If we do not back away from the revelation of God’s holiness but push through to his presence, we can experience true rest in the revelations of his goodness (the expression) as the overflow of a holy God (the nature) who loves (the motive). Rightly repositioned, we can see his actions are never in conflict but perfectly holy—or wholly other—expressions of the “doing” part of love, expressing himself as a holy God does: creating, consuming, calling, rescuing, contending, waiting, remembering, avenging, working, healing, freeing, removing, filling...even dying. This is not like the yin and yang of a Hindu god where each action requires the opposite action to cancel it out. Each action is fully owned by God, emanates from his holy nature, and is in perfect compatibility with his motivation of love. This is why mercy and wrath are both holy expressions of the same Holy God who is motivated by perfect love.
Because he is perfect love, everything we fear is cast out of his presence. Death has no hold on those whose citizenship is in the Kingdom to come. Bondage is no match for his presence. Demons flee because he has all authority in Heaven and on Earth and we are adopted into his name. Sickness and disease are under his authority because he is the Creator and all perversions must go at his command.
God restores because this is what a holy God does. God heals because that is what a good God does. God frees because that is what a loving God does. What he does and who he is cannot be separated—his righteous ways are always in perfect harmony with his holy nature and his perfect love.
He already loves us more than we can imagine—he will never love us more than he loved us when he laid the foundations of the earth. His love is perfect at all times in all ways. It doesn't grow. It cannot change. You can't earn it.
And we can't earn his goodness any more than we can earn his love. We cannot move or manipulate his hand to do what we wish. We can only pursue his holy presence, moving ever closer to Him, learning to stay in His presence, and participating in his heart.
Everything we need is poured out by our holy God who loves us with an everlasting love.