All you really need to know about holiness you learned in Geometry.
That’s my adaptation of Robert Fulghum’s “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” And mine is an obvious overstatement. But it will be relevant to the argument I make here.
“God is love, but He is also holy.”
This is a declaration commonly heard in conservative evangelicalism when the subject of never-ending torment in hell is brought up.
“Yes, God is love,” we say. “But He is also holy and that means He must punish sin.”
What do we mean when we use the word holy? Have you ever asked yourself that question?
I think most of us believe it is correspondent to the word perfect. I think we can all agree that the word perfect means a complete adherence to a moral standard.
And what is that moral standard? I think both Jews and Christians would say that we have at least part of it in the Ten Commandments. God set down for us what the moral standard is. And Jesus upheld it. In His sermon on the mount, He took that moral standard even further than the Jews were used to taking it.
So, I think we could all agree that a holy person would follow the 10 Commandments perfectly, as Jesus did. That person could also be regarded as righteous.
With me so far?
Holiness is perfect adherence to the moral standard set by God.
How can we sum up the moral standard?
Jesus did that for us in Matthew 22.
“‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”
What are the actions that a holy person takes? Love. If you want to follow the commandments, Jesus says, love.
What does love mean? I would say that to love is to will the good of the other person. If I love someone, I take actions to bring well-being to their life.
So, the moral standard is love.
Transitive Law
Now, let’s go back to Geometry class.
Back in 7th grade, you learned (or should have) what is known as the transitive law. The transitive law states that if A equals B and B equals C, then A equals C.
Now let’s apply the transitive law to help us understand what holiness is.
If (A) holiness is (B) adherence to the commandments and (B) adherence to the commandments is (C) love, then (A) holiness is (C) love.
All you really need to know about holiness you learned in Geometry!
It matters because it helps us understand who God is and what He does.
If you say to me “God is love, but He is also _,” I say you are incorrect if you think that idea would lead Him to do two different things. In the case of hell, that would be willing their well-being, but at the same time suspending them in a state of never-ending misery.
Contrary to our modern English translations, hell is not as clear-cut as we make it. And, if we apply what God tells us about Himself, we can deduce that, whatever it is, it is NOT never-ending misery, because that would NOT be holy, which we can equate with loving.
Take Jesus’ words in the sermon on the mount.
Jesus tells us what God is like in Matthew 5 and that we must be like Him in this very way.
43 “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ 44 But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45 that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. 46 If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? 47 And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? 48 Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.
According to Jesus, the heavenly Father’s perfection is inextricably tied to enemy love.
If God acts contrary to love, He acts unrighteously. When you leave the path of love, you leave the path of holiness.
That, of course, does not mean that God does not punish. I often punish my children to help them along and form them into something better than they are. And that is exactly the kind of word for punishing Jesus used in Matt 25:46 when He talked about “corrective punishment of the age.”
Read more on this subject here.
Be Perfect as Your Heavenly Father Is Perfect
“Wait!” you say. “Just because God told us that we must love, that doesn’t mean He has to play by the same rules.” (See Calvinism Refuted.)
To that I answer, did He not make us in His own image? And what does “in His own image” mean?
Does it mean that God has 10 fingers, 10 toes, 2 elbows, and a nose?
No, I do not believe that’s what it means.
I believe it means we are like Him in character. True, we have fallen, but we have fallen from His image and it is still embedded in us.
What God calls good, we should all consider good, because we are made in His image.
In the sermon on the mount, Jesus commands us to love our enemies. And in the middle of that commandment, he says “You, therefore, must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Jesus is telling us that moral perfection is the same for man as they are for His Father.
In other words, we play by the same set of rules He does.
If the thought of God doing something makes us nauseous because it would be considered unutterably evil if a man did it, then God does not do it.
His character does not violate our conscience because we are made in His image.
Calvinism violates my conscience in the deepest possible way, and it is contrary to what Jesus told us of God’s own perfect nature, so I say it is not true.
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