What do we mean when we say, “God is holy?” Usually, it’s taken to mean that God is separate from sin and therefore from us. While there is truth in this, Sinclair Ferguson argues in Devoted to God that by describing holiness from the viewpoint of sin or of the creature, it is starting at the wrong place.

He, therefore, begins this book by insisting that any definition of holiness starts with God as he is in himself, considered apart from and before the work of creation. As God was holy before there was any creation, we must be able to define holiness without reference to the creation.

There was no separation or distance in the Eternal Trinity. Instead, there was perfectly pure devotion between the three persons – “absolute, permanent, exclusive, pure, irreversible, and fully expressed devotion.” Devotion, therefore, not separation, gets closer to the real meaning of holiness and opens up a much warmer and personal idea of holiness. So much so, says Sinclair, that “in a sense ‘holiness’ is a way of describing love. To say that ‘God is love’ and that ‘God is holy’ ultimately is to point to the same reality. Holiness is the intensity of the love that flows within the very being of God.”

“If this is what holiness means in God, then in us it must also be a corresponding deeply personal, intense, loving devotion to him that is irreversible, unconditional, without any reserve on our part.”

In a beautiful section, Sinclair re-frames the seraphic chorus in Isaiah 6 as veiling their faces because “to gaze on the sheer intensity of this flow of triune holy love would be to endanger themselves.”

That’s why Sinclair then defines holiness as to be devoted to God. Doesn’t that make holiness much more inviting and enticing?

Devoted to God: Blueprints for Sanctification