God Is Holy and Righteous — Are Those the Same?

00:00:00.000 | Well, today's question comes to us from a listener named Andrew.

00:00:06.680 | "Pastor John, hello.

00:00:08.360 | I was wondering if you can explain the difference between God's holiness and God's righteousness,

00:00:15.440 | and how does that apply to us?

00:00:17.340 | What does it mean that we are supposed to be holy and righteous?

00:00:21.640 | What is the difference for us?"

00:00:24.080 | If we start at the bottom, that is where we live, I would say that the kind of behavior

00:00:33.160 | that would be called holy and the kind of behavior that would be called righteous are

00:00:39.780 | in fact the same behavior, but viewed from different angles.

00:00:46.400 | In other words, I don't think it's ever the case that we would do something that would

00:00:53.860 | be called righteous but would be unholy, or that we would ever do something called holy

00:01:03.080 | that would be unrighteous.

00:01:04.960 | So when it comes to the actual deeds and attributes, all holy behavior will be righteous behavior,

00:01:14.680 | and all righteous behavior will be holy behavior.

00:01:18.480 | That's the first thing.

00:01:20.960 | Now, that doesn't mean that the words are identical in meaning.

00:01:26.820 | So what's the basic difference?

00:01:29.060 | The essential idea behind the concept of holiness is being separated from, distinct from, that

00:01:39.400 | which is ordinary or common.

00:01:42.200 | So in its initial usage, it could refer to something bad or good.

00:01:48.660 | There might be a temple prostitute who's holy because she's not an ordinary prostitute.

00:01:54.600 | But in the Bible, that's not the way the word holy is used.

00:01:59.520 | Holiness has taken on a moral meaning that derives from God's holiness.

00:02:06.860 | In other words, God is separated from all that is not God and is in a class absolutely

00:02:15.240 | by himself, which means that God, like the rarest diamond in the universe, absolutely

00:02:22.920 | unique, is infinitely valuable.

00:02:26.760 | His holiness, therefore, most essentially consists in his absolute uniqueness and therefore

00:02:35.320 | the infinite value of his beauty and his excellence.

00:02:40.880 | He's in a class by himself.

00:02:43.020 | He's above all things.

00:02:45.000 | He's sui generis.

00:02:47.240 | He's distinct from everything that is not God, and therefore he is of infinite and of

00:02:54.100 | absolute worth.

00:02:56.380 | When Isaiah 6 describes the angelic beings crying out, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord

00:03:06.040 | of hosts.

00:03:07.040 | The whole earth is full of his glory."

00:03:11.240 | It seems to me that the reason it doesn't say, "The whole earth is full of his holiness,"

00:03:17.360 | which is kind of what you'd expect—"Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts.

00:03:21.560 | The whole earth is full of his holiness."

00:03:24.440 | And it doesn't say that.

00:03:25.440 | It says, "The whole earth is full of his glory."

00:03:29.580 | The reason, I think, is that holiness is conceived of as the intrinsic worth and beauty and purity

00:03:40.560 | and value and excellence of God, and his glory is conceived of as what that looks like when

00:03:50.240 | it goes public, when it fills the earth and is made visible for humans to see.

00:03:57.120 | He is holy, holy, holy, and he fills the earth with his public manifest holiness called now

00:04:06.200 | glory.

00:04:09.080 | Now this implies that God's holiness in action is all of his thinking, all of his

00:04:16.920 | feeling, all of his doing, which is in accord with his infinite value.

00:04:24.920 | That's the way I'm defining God's holy action, holy thinking, holy feeling.

00:04:30.920 | If God ever acted in a way that somehow contradicted his utterly unique existence and his infinite

00:04:38.240 | worth and beauty, his action would be unholy.

00:04:43.600 | Now right at this point, there's an overlap with the concept of righteousness.

00:04:50.880 | Righteousness doesn't have the basic idea of being separate and distinct from what is

00:04:57.480 | common.

00:04:59.200 | Righteousness has the basic idea of conforming to a standard, and when that standard is conformed

00:05:07.200 | to, the behavior, the thinking, the feeling is right.

00:05:11.800 | It's right.

00:05:13.640 | And you can see how the two concepts produce the same behavior, because if you ask what

00:05:19.200 | is the ultimate standard by which all thinking and feeling and acting should be measured,

00:05:26.400 | the answer for God and for us is the absolute worth and beauty of God himself.

00:05:34.880 | Or you could say in its manifest form, the glory of God.

00:05:39.560 | Everything you do should be in accord with the glory of God, the worth of God manifest

00:05:46.800 | in his glory.

00:05:48.720 | All behavior that is consistently done in accord with God's glory is righteous behavior.

00:05:57.520 | It conforms to the highest standard.

00:06:01.700 | And just in passing, I'll say we have the Word of God because as sinners, we can't know

00:06:07.680 | all that conforms to God's worth without his guidance.

00:06:11.400 | So if somebody says, "Well, what about the Word of God?"

00:06:13.280 | I say, "Oh, the Word of God is indispensable, but I want to define righteousness and holiness

00:06:19.800 | as what they are intrinsically, not just to say, 'Obey the Word of God and you're righteous.'"

00:06:24.760 | That would be true, but it wouldn't tell you why it's ultimately righteous.

00:06:29.220 | So the Word of God is indispensable in telling us what does conform to the infinite worth

00:06:35.560 | of God and to the glory of God.

00:06:39.040 | When the psalmist says in Psalm 147.11, "For your namesake, O Lord, preserve my life.

00:06:47.280 | In your righteousness, bring me out of trouble."

00:06:49.880 | That parallel between "for your namesake" and "in your righteousness" gives a clue.

00:06:57.180 | For God to act in his righteousness is to act for his namesake, that is, for his glory,

00:07:04.420 | that is, in accord with the ultimate standard of his glory or his manifest worth and beauty.

00:07:13.900 | So my conclusion is that God's holiness is his complete and utter uniqueness distinct

00:07:21.520 | from all other beings in his infinite and absolute worth and beauty, and that his holy

00:07:29.480 | behavior is behavior that accords with that infinite worth and beauty, which means it

00:07:36.520 | overlaps with his righteousness, which is his unwavering commitment to the highest standard

00:07:44.820 | imaginable, namely his glory, which means that when God acts in a holy way, he is always

00:07:54.640 | acting in a righteous way and vice versa.

00:07:58.940 | And that's true of us as well.

00:08:01.960 | When we are distinct from all that is sinful and bring our lives into conformity with God's

00:08:08.900 | infinite worth and beauty, that is, when we're holy, we are at the same time acting in righteousness

00:08:19.140 | because we're conforming to the highest standard in the universe.

00:08:22.780 | Amen.

00:08:23.780 | Thank you, Pastor John, and thank you for listening and making the podcast part of your

00:08:27.840 | day and your commute.

00:08:28.840 | It is an honor to join you as part of your day.

00:08:31.860 | And for more about this podcast, check out our online home at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn.

00:08:39.100 | Well, I'm not sure what's up next on Wednesday, but I do know that we have a trio of Reformation-related

00:08:45.820 | episodes in the works, one talking about the five solas of the Reformation, another one

00:08:52.060 | talking about your, Pastor John, your favorite biographies of Reformers, and then we are

00:08:57.180 | going to have a 30-minute conversation with a Reformation scholar coming up.

00:09:02.020 | We haven't published many long-form conversations of late, but we hope to publish one soon,

00:09:06.900 | talking about how Martin Luther single-handedly made the printing press and the book publishing

00:09:11.540 | market into what we know of them today.

00:09:15.100 | All of that is coming up later this month as the monumental 500th anniversary of the

00:09:19.740 | Reformation approaches at the end of October.

00:09:23.740 | For now, I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:09:25.420 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with longtime author and pastor, John

00:09:29.580 | Piper.

00:09:30.580 | We'll see you on Wednesday.

00:09:31.580 | [END]

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00:09:33.080 | John Piper, The Reformation

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God Is Holy and Righteous — Are Those the Same?

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