Exploring His

Excellencies

He is Holy
John Isaacs
May 24, 2009
KingsWay Community Church
 “Everything
will work out
fine,
if we press into
God's presence
The Most Common
Barrier To
“Pressing Into
God”
Not
Knowing
 What is God
like?
I think God is like …
- Will lead to
idolatry!
God has revealed
Himself
in the Bible
- Will to be …
inspire
God is who the
Bible (in its
totality)
reveals Him to
We will
experience God
more completely as
we come to
understand Him
more clearly.
The Bible Reveals
God To Be …
1. All Good
The Goodness of God
is the sum total of all
of God’s “favorable”
characteristics.
The Bible Reveals
God To Be …
2. All Powerful
God is able to act or
to produce any effect
or result that He
wants.
The Bible Reveals
God To Be …
3. All Wise
Able to see the most
perfect way and how
to get there by the
most perfect means.
The Bible Reveals
God To Be …
4. Eternal
God is forever. He
didn’t have a
beginning and He will
not have an end.
The Bible Reveals
God To Be …
1. All Good
2. All Powerful
3. All Wise
4. Eternal
 The Bible Reveals
God’s Attributes As …
1. Original
The source or cause from
which everything arises. He
isn’t a copy of anything – all
things exist as a copy of Him.
 The Bible Reveals
God’s Attributes As …
2. Essential
Implies belonging to the very
nature of a thing and
therefore being incapable of
removal without destroying
the thing itself or its
 The Bible Reveals
God’s Attributes As …
3. Infinite
Without measure. To extend
indefinitely or to be endless.
Subject to no limitation or
external determination.
 The Bible Reveals
God’s Attributes As …
4. Immutable
To not be capable of change
or susceptible to any
variation.
 The Bible Reveals
God’s Attributes As …
1. Original
2. Essential
3. Infinite
4. Immutable
1. He is originally powerful:
Powerful in Himself, which nothing
else is.
2. He is essentially powerful:
Not only powerful, but He is power
itself.
3. He is infinitely powerful:
There is no measure to His power.
4. He is immutably powerful:
There was never a time when God
was more or less powerful. He
doesn’t change.
Jesus was and is the perfect
representation of God the
Father.
• He is the revelation of God’s
goodness.
• He is the demonstration God’s
power.
• He is the manifestation of God’s
wisdom.
With the goodness of God
to desire our highest
welfare, the wisdom of
God to plan it, and the
power of God to achieve it,
what do we lack? Surely we
are the most favored of all
creatures.
God
is
Holy
Isaiah 6:3
And one called to
another and said:
"Holy, holy, holy is
the LORD of hosts; the
whole earth is full of
his glory!"
Revelation 4:8
Each of the four living
creatures had six wings and
was covered with eyes all
around, even under his wings.
Day and night they never stop
saying: "Holy, holy, holy is
the Lord God Almighty, who
was, and is, and is to come."
 Holiness
• The loftiness, exaltedness,
and splendor of God.
• The absolute purity of His
goodness. God is untouched
and unstained by evil. He is
perfectly pure and complete in
His character.
 Holiness
• He is separate from His
creation. Distinct from all else
in the universe.
When you talk about the
holiness of God, you have not
only the problem of an
intellectual grasp, but also a
sense of personal vileness,
which is almost too much to
bear. Each one of us is born
into a tainted world, and we
learn impurity from our
cradles.
We nurse it in with our
mother’s milk, we breathe it in
the very air. Our education
deepens it and our experience
confirms it — evil impurities
everywhere. Everything is
dirty; even our whitest white is
dingy gray. This kind of world
gets into our pores, into our
nerves,
until we have lost the ability to
conceive of the holy.
Holiness means purity, but
“purity” doesn’t describe it
well enough. Purity merely
means that it is unmixed, with
nothing else in it. But that
isn’t enough. We talk of moral
excellency, but that isn’t
adequate. To be morally
someone else in moral
character. But when we say
that God is morally excellent,
who is it that He exceeds? The
angels, the seraphim? Surely
He does — but that still isn’t
enough. We mean rectitude;
we mean honor; we mean
truth and righteousness; we
mean all of these — uncreated
eternal. God is not now any
holier than He ever was. For
He, being unchanging and
unchangeable, can never
become holier than He is.
And He never was holier than
He is, and He’ll never be any
holier than now. His moral
excellence implies self-
existence, for He did not get
anyone nor from anywhere.
He did not go off into some
vast, infinitely distant realm
and there absorb His
holiness; He is Himself the
Holiness. He is the All-Holy,
the Holy One; He is holiness
itself, beyond the power of
thought to grasp or of word to
express, beyond the power of
cannot express the holy, so
God resorts to association and
suggestion. He cannot say it
outright because He would
have to use words for which
we know no meaning. He
would have to translate it
down into our unholiness. If
He were to tell us how white
He is, we would understand it
dingy gray. God cannot tell us
by language, so He uses
association and suggestion
and shows how holiness
affects the unholy.

Knowledge of the Holy

by A. W. Tozer