God’s holiness is His having a due, meet, and proper regard to everything, and therefore consists mainly and preeminently in His infinite regard or love for Himself. He is infinitely the greatest and most excellent being, and therefore a meet and proper regard for Himself is infinitely greater than for all other beings. Now as He is, as it were, the sum of all being, and all other positive existence is but a communication from Him, hence it will follow that a proper regard for Himself is the sum of His regard. Jonathan Edwards
The beauty and glorious nature of God is lost in the thinking of so many today, but the Scripture and then Edwards thought of God in a different way. Many seem to judge God by fallen man rather than realize and bow before the living God by whom no one and no standard other than Himself. God is holy when God is God and does all for the glory of His own name. God is holy when He does all out of love for Himself and His own glory. God is holy when He regards Himself in all things and does all things out of that regard for Himself. What else should God have regard to? What else should He love? He is the supreme standard of for all things and no one and nothing else should be that standard.
All human beings are from Him and there is no other way to obtain anything that is truly positive but from God. This is in line with the two Greatest Commandments. All are commanded to love God with all of the heart, mind, soul, and strength. However, all are commanded to love their neighbor as themselves. The only way to look at that is to know that we cannot love any other unless we love God first, but not only that we cannot truly love them if we don’t love them out of love for Him. As I John 4:7-8 teaches, no one loves but those who are born of God and know God. God is the only source and origin of love and so for any human to love that human must receive that love from God.
When a believer loves another believer, what we see is the love of God that He has for Himself, which is His holiness. God exists in perfect love within the Trinity and all true love must come from Him by grace and be communicated in accordance with His perfect holiness. God is so beautiful in and of Himself and in love for Himself that this is an essential aspect of His holiness. While there are other aspects to His holiness, there can be nothing more beautiful and holy than God being just like Himself and living in perfect love for Himself.
Isaiah 6:3 And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.”
Isaiah 42:8 “I am the LORD, that is My name; I will not give My glory to another, Nor My praise to graven images.
Isaiah 48:11 “For My own sake, for My own sake, I will act; For how can My name be profaned? And My glory I will not give to another.
Psalm 27:4 One thing I have asked from the LORD, that I shall seek: That I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the LORD And to meditate in His temple.
Psalm 96:6 Splendor and majesty are before Him, Strength and beauty are in His sanctuary.
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