The Holiness of God the Holy Spirit, part 1

When we read through the Bible, we cannot help but see that God is holy. It is a theme that runs throughout the entire Bible. God is holy and He wants His people to be holy. In fact, we are instructed to be Holy as He is holy. 

For the past couple of weeks, we have been looking into The Holiness of God. The purpose in this short series has been to realize that, if we are going to be holy as He is, we must know something about His holiness.
 

We have talked about The Holiness of the Father. The Holiness of God the Father is separated from and high above mankind. We read of the Holiness of God the Father in the Scriptures, it is expressed by Exodus 3:5, where Moses is told: “Do not come closer….” And the reason the Father says not to come close is for our own benefit, for our safety; it is not because He doesn’t want us to be there.

You see, if we were to try to approach God in our sinful condition, we would surely die! This is what will happen on the Day of Judgment. Every person will stand before a Holy God to give an account of their lives. Those whose sins have not been washed in the blood of Jesus will be sentenced to an eternity in hell (the Book of Revelations calls that, “The Second Death”). Why? Because God is Holy and sin cannot coexist, or linger, in His Holy presence.
 

We have seen that the Father’s Holiness says, “Do not come closer,” but in His love and mercy He provided a remedy for our sin so that we can draw close to Him. The remedy is found in Jesus Christ, His One and Only Son. Through Jesus’ sacrifice, we are able to draw close to God. Jesus is our Mediator and in Him we hear, “Let Me wash your feet.” 
 

This week, we will see that, through the Holy Spirit, holiness is brought even closer to us. It is brought within the hearts of believers in response to their faith and trust in Jesus.

God speaks of this, hundreds of years before Jesus is born. It was always His plan. We read in Ezekiel 36:24-27, “For I will take you from the nations and gather you from all the countries, and will bring you into your own land. 25 I will also sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean. I will cleanse you from all your impurities and all your idols. 26 I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will remove your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. 27 I will place My Spirit within you and cause you to follow My statutes and carefully observe My ordinances” CSB.
 

This week, we are going to look at The Holiness of the Holy Spirit.
God the Father gave His Son in a past, completed act, continuing in love. God the Son poured out His life in a past, completed act, continuing in intercession. God the Holy Spirit makes salvation real to the believer, a present, never-yet-completed work (speaking of the process or journey of sanctification). 

Before we begin to dive into the message, let’s read John 16:7-15.

“Nevertheless, I am telling you the truth. It is for your benefit that I go away, because if I don’t go away the Counselor will not come to you. If I go, I will send Him to you. 8 When He comes, He will convict the world about sin, righteousness, and judgement: 9 About sin, because they do not believe in me; 10 about righteousness, because I am going to the Father and you will no longer see me; 11 and about judgement, because the ruler of this world has been judged.
 

12 I still have many things to tell you, but you can’t bear them now. 13 When the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all truth. For He will not speak on His own, but He will speak whatever He hears. He will also declare to you what is to come. 14 He will glorify me, because He will take from what is mine and declare it to you. 15 Everything the Father has is mine. This is why I told you that He takes from what is mine and will declare it to you” CSB.

Continued tomorrow