Holy love
Holiness and love belong together. He who loves completely does not allow harm to come to the beloved. We have a choice: we can place ourselves under the love of God or we can choose self-realisation and selfishness. With the latter, our actions will affect, harm others. Because God loves all people, he does not allow that, his holiness does not allow that. God’s holiness is so important for love because it guarantees that he never ceases to seek the absolute good, this leads to «glory»: where he comes into play with his holy love, it becomes «glorious».
The mother bear
A mother bear is dangerous. Why? For whom? The danger comes from her wanting to maintain a safe space for her cubs. For the bear’s cubs, she is not a danger – on the contrary. For them, she is the caring mother. For a mother bear, there are only two spaces: you are her child and therefore under her protection, or you are outside. The bear’s love for her children becomes a danger for those who want to interfere with this love.
Real love is sacred: It creates a clear separation between good and evil. Dangerous and loving, we also experience this tension with God – for the same reason. God is holy, but he is also love:
Whoever lives with God is under his love
«God is love, and he who lives in love lives in God and God lives in him»(1 John 4:16 NLB).
«The ways of the LORD are goodness and faithfulness to all who keep his covenant and his testimonies.»(Psalm 25:10 LUT).
Whoever turns against goodness is struck by the holiness of God:
«But as the LORD your God gave you the good things he promised you, so will he bring evil upon you if you break the covenant of the LORD your God which he commanded you. He will cut you off in this good land he has given you. If you worship other gods and serve them, his anger will flare up against you.» (Joshua 23:16 NLB).
Whoever breaks the covenant breaks out of this circle of the loving Father’s protection and decides for the worse. Like the prodigal son. He also left his father’s protection and wandered the world until he could no longer even eat what pigs are allowed to eat – literally, he had to live «under the worst of circumstances».
Understanding love correctly
How does love actually work?
- Start: I consider something to be valuable and «worthy of love
- I wonder what the beloved needs to develop fully
- I am totally committed to making good a reality for the beloved.
Now God’s love is holy: that means: He loves unceasingly and completely. There is no diminishing of his love, neither in time nor in intensity. Now the great mystery of the universe is that God has chosen to love man, to make him his children.
In this world, there are only two ways to seek happiness:
- With God as my Lord and Father and Christ His Son and my Brother
- Or about self-realisation = egoism = sin
I can only withdraw from this love if I remove myself. That is what Adam and Eve did, they chose the path of self-realisation, that is why they had to leave paradise and since then man has been separated from God. Whoever sins destroys the good that God has made. Every single sin – destroys something and thus makes him an enemy of God, the guardian of good. His holiness is the strength and determination with which he seeks the good and separates himself from all that is bad. Or as the Bible puts it: «This is the message he has given us to share with you: God is light; in him there is no darkness.» (1John 1:15 NLB). Meaning: Whoever chooses the darkness or remains in it has the light as an enemy.
Love overcomes, the separation between God and man
If God were «only» holy, the separation between God and man would have remained forever. It was the love of God that bridged the gap between God and man. The love of God is the motor that drove God to overcome the gulf with man:
«For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life»(John 3:16 NLB).
If God were only holy, he would have wiped out humanity completely because it does not love. That is what the holy God almost did with Noah. But God loves man. But God does not just leave man alive, alone on his own. No, man cannot find real happiness without God. Leone’s love is the motor that He Himself came into this unholy world in His Son Jesus Christ. God has overcome the gulf between Him and man not us. All religions tell us that we have to overcome the gap with the gods. The biblical God is different, He has opened up to us.
But God has not given up his holiness. The fact that God took on man does not make him pure. It took the substitutionary death on the cross, where God Himself takes upon Himself the sins of man and washes them clean. The mystery of the cross is that God, despite his love, did not betray his holiness. He found a way to remain holy and still be able to love us by washing us clean through the sacrifice of Christ. He became unholy for us so that we might become «sanctified». On the cross, holiness and God’s love meet, in which God Himself takes upon Himself separation from life – death!
Only on the basis of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ does everyone have the opportunity to decide for themselves whether they want to live under God’s love and come back to Him, or whether they remain God’s enemy who destroys God’s good with their «sins».
Glory – the place where holiness and love meet
God is all light and no darkness is in him. He is holy. Light is good. Light gives colour, light gives warmth, light gives orientation, light lets us see every object as it is. Light gives us the ability to see things correctly. In the darkness there is coldness, everything is black, you cannot see or recognise anything.
«The fruit of the light is pure goodness and justice and truth». (Ephesians 5:9 NLB).
God is always light, God is always holy (full of truth and justice), but God is also always full of goodness. Holiness and love cannot be separated.
This makes it clear why holiness is so important, especially for love. God’s holiness guarantees that he never ceases to seek the absolute good, which leads to «glory».
«They cried out to one another: «Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty! The earth is filled with his glory!»(Isaiah 6:3 NLB).
Glory means that in a place (keit), someone (a Lord) reacts in a certain way (lich). With self-glory – I rule and that doesn’t come good. Glory, glorious is positive. Now when it says that the «earth is filled with his glory», it means that the unrestricted, holy love of God brings an incredible glory to the whole earth. We see what such glory can look like in creation. After creation, God looked at everything and recorded: It is very good.
And we are already allowed to live with this God. If Christ has room in our hearts, he will «glorify» himself in and through us. We will separate ourselves from everything dark and bad and turn to the light and good. In this change of our lives, holy love of God and his Son and his Spirit will then become visible in our lives. And then people will see the creative power and love of God in us.
Are we holy – is the love of God visible in us and through us?
Possible questions for the small group
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What is the difference between a mother bear protecting her children and the heavenly Father? (possible answer: The mother bear is not all-powerful, but God is. A mother bear cannot protect her cubs against all dangers, God can).
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Do you believe that God really loves you and seeks the good for you and wants to be close to you, or is God somewhat alien to you because of his holiness?
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How far have I understood that it is me with my decisions that leads to a separation with God or maintains the existing separation with God and not God who is the one seeking the separation? (God always loves me. God always seeks the good for me. But if I choose self-realisation and selfishness, it destroys my environment. If I become the destroyer, I automatically become the enemy of the «builder»).
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How far do you share the view that holiness and love belong together? And if so, what does that mean for your everyday life?
