According to the Scriptures God is holy (Lev. 11:44-45; 19:2; 20:26; 21:8: Josh. 24:19; I Sam. 2:2; 6:2; Psa. 22:3; 99:3,5,9; Isa. 5:16; 6:3). He is the Holy One of Israel (I Kings 19:22; Psa. 71:22; 78:41; 89:18; Isa. 1:4; 5:24; 10:20; 16:6, etc.).
What is holiness?
The root meaning of the Hebrew word (qodesh, a noun, and
qadosh, an adj.) as well as the Greek word hagios
which is translated "holy" is "separation." It has both a positive
and negative sense; it refers positively to what is God's and
negatively to what is not man's. Something that is holy is not only
separated from common or human use but is separated to God.
Hence with respect to persons and things it means dedicated
or consecrated to God. That is clear from the phrase "holy
unto the Lord" (Lev. 27:9, 14, 21, 23, 30, 32). It does not
basically mean "sinless" or "morally perfect." This may be
seen from the use of the term to describe things as well as
persons. In the Old Testament, some things described as holy
are the ground (Ex. 3:5; Josh. 5:15), the ark of the
covenant (II Chron. 35:30), the vessels of the tabernacle
(I Kings 8:4), and the place where they rested
(I Kings 8:6, 8, 10). Since things cannot sin, they cannot be
sinless. But they are holy. Things and people are holy in
virtue of their relation to God Himself; whatever is
separated unto and consecrated or dedicated to a deity or
deities is holy apart from its ethical or moral purity.
This non-ethical meaning is clear from the use of the term
to describe male and female temple prostitutes of some pagan
gods (qedeshim, masculine, and qedeshoth, feminine,
Deut. 23:17-18; II Kings 23:7). As the titles indicate they
were sacred ministrants attached to Canaanite cults of the deity
of fertility. They were holy in virtue of their relation to
the deity. It does not refer to their moral character.
Of course there are moral and ethical implications of the
worship of the true God. But this meaning is secondary and
subordinate in the concept of holiness. What is primary and
foremost is the separation unto God.
"You shall be holy to me; for I the Lord am Holy,
and have separated you from the peoples,
that you should be mine." (Lev. 20:26)
In what sense is God holy?
In the Old Testament there are three senses in which God is holy.
11 Thus says the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, and his Maker:God is holy in the sense that He is separated from all He has created. He is not to be confused or identified with His creation. Even though He is near the humble and contrite, He is not to be pantheistically identified with Nature. He is not Nature but Nature's God, the Creator.
"Will you question me about my children,
or command me concerning the work of my hands?
12 I made the earth and created man upon it;
it was my hands that stretched out the heavens,
and I commanded all their hosts." (Isa. 45:11-12)"I am the Lord, your Holy One,
the Creator of Israel, your King." (Isa. 43:11)For thus says the high and lofty One,
who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy:
"I dwell in the high and holy place,
and also with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit,
to revive the spirit of the humble,
and to revive the heart of the contrite."
(Isa. 57:15; see also Psa. 99:1-3, 5, 9; Isa. 6:1-5; 17:7; 45:20; 54:5)
"18 To whom then will you liken God,God is not like the wooden idol made by the craftsman; He is the Maker of all things.
or what likeness compare with Him?
19 The idol! a workman casts it and a goldsmith overlays it with gold,
and casts for it silver chains.
20 He who is impoverished chooses for an offering wood that will not rot;
he seeks out a skilled craftsman to set up an image that will not move....25 To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him?
says the Holy One.
26 Lift up your eyes on high and see:
who created these?
He who brings out their host by number,
calling them all by name; by the greatness of his might,
and because he is strong in power, not one is missing."
(Isa. 40:18-20, 25-26)
"Have you not known? Have you not heard?God is holy in the sense that He is separated from all false gods.
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth."
(Isa. 40:28)
"7 In this day men will regard their Maker,It was in this sense that Isaiah was overwhelmed with the holiness of God during the vision in the temple (Isa. 6:1-5). Isaiah feels the contrast between the true God and all the false gods that his people are worshipping. The worship of the true God by the seraphim brings conviction to Isaiah of the uncleanness of his lips and of the people's in the midst of which he dwelt. With their lips they worshipped and praised false gods, not the King, the Lord of hosts. Seeing the Lord, Isaiah recognizes the awful character of idolatry. "Woe is me! For I am lost!" God is holy because He is the Creator of all things; He is not to be confused with any of them; this distinguishes Him from all false gods.
and their eyes will look to the Holy One of Israel;
8 they will not have regard for their altars,
the work of their hands,
and they will not look to what their own fingers have made,
either the Asherim or the altars of incense." (Isa. 17:7-8)
"Fear not, you worm Jacob, you men of Israel!In many places the Holy One of Israel is called "your (our) Redeemer" (Isa. 43:14; 47:4; 48:17; 49:7; 54:5). This also distinguishes the true God from all false gods.
I will help you, says the Lord;
your Redeemer is the Holy One of Israel." (Isa. 41:14)"For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior."
(Isa. 43:3)
10 "You are my witnesses," says the Lord,Of those who worship false gods Isaiah says,
"and my servant whom I have chosen,
that you may know
and believe me and understand that I am He.
Before me no god was formed, nor shall there be any after me.
11 I, I am the Lord, and besides me there is no Savior."
(Isa. 43:10-11)6 Thus says the Lord, the King of Israel and his Redeemer,
the Lord of Hosts:
"I am the first and the last;
besides me there is no god.
7 Who is like me? Let him proclaim it,
let him declare and set it forth before me.
Who has announced from of old the things to come?
Let them tell us what is yet to be.
8 Fear not, nor be afraid;
have I not told you from of old and declared it?
And you are my witnesses!
Is there a God besides me?
There is no Rock; I know not any."
(Isa. 44:6-8; see also Isa. 45:5-6, 14, 18-19, 21-22; 46:9.)
"16 All of them are put shame and confounded,The true God is holy because He alone can save and deliver. He alone has the power. He alone has unlimited freedom; He alone can and will save because He alone is love.
the makers of idols go in confusion together.
17 But Israel is saved by the Lord with everlasting salvation;
you shall not be put to shame or confounded to all eternity."
(Isa. 45:16-17)20 "Assemble yourselves and come, draw near together,
survivors of the nation!
They have no knowledge who carry about their wooden idols,
and keep on praying to a god that cannot save.
21 Declare and present your case;
let them take counsel together!
Who told this long ago?
Who declared it of old?
Was it not I, the Lord?
And there is no other god besides me,
a righteous God and a Savior,
there is none besides me."
(Isa. 45:20-21; see also Hos. 13:4)
What is love?
Love is a relationship between persons, the person that loves and
the person that is loved, and in this relationship the person
who loves does good to the person loved. Paul's summary statement in
Rom. 13:10 that "love does no evil to one's neighbor" may be stated positively,
"love does good to one's neighbor". Thus love may be defined
as the choice of a person to do for another person that which is good for him,
This love is not a feeling but a choice, the choice to do good to
the person loved. The commandment to love is addressed to the will and one
must choose to obey the commandment. It may be accompanied by feelings of
compassion and caring, but Agape-love is the choice of the will to do good to
the person that may be unloveable and evil. Thus God loves the sinner, not
because the sinner is inherently loveable, but God chooses to do good to him
and save him. Because love is a choice, it can be commanded and it can be
obeyed. There are other kinds of love, but the kind of love that God commands
is Agape-love. This love is not acquisitive love, that wants to acquire its
object; neither is it caused by its object because of the value or the goodness
of its object (Eros-love). Agape-love creates value where there is no value;
it does good to the person loved. Agape-love gives what the person loved
needs, what is good for him or her. This love is perfect love.
Thus Agape-love must be defined as the choice of a person to do for another
person that which is good for him, This definition of love raises the problem
of the good:
"What is the good?"
The Biblical solution to this problem was given in Jesus' answer
when He was asked,
"Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?" (Mark. 10:17).
Jesus answered,
"Why do you call me good? No one is good but God."
(Mark. 10:18).
That is, God is The Good, the Absolute Good, and all others are relative
good; that is, they possess their good in relation to the Absolute Good,
to God Himself.
When God created the earth and its inhabitants, He saw that they are good.
"And God saw that it was good." (Gen. 1:10, 12, 18, 21, 25).
"And God saw all that he had made, and behold, it was very good."
(Gen. 1:31).
Thus all that God has created is good, not evil,
but it is relative good, not absolute good.
And God has specified man's relationship to the Absolute Good in His
commandment,
"And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heartThis excludes the sin of idolatry, which is the absolutizing of the relative. The relative good must not be made the absolute good, as god. The true God said,
and with all your soul and with all your might." (Deut. 6:5 NAS)
"You shall have no other gods besides Me." (Exodus 20:3 NAS margin)Because this command prohibits the basic sin of idolatry it is the first and great commandment of the law.
"36 'Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?'The second commandment specifies the relative good; man shall do good to his neighbor, even as he does good to himself. The Apostle Paul also made this clear in his comments on love in Rom. 13:8-10.
37 And he said to him,
'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your mind.
39 This is the great and first commandment.
40 And a second is like it,
You shall love your neighbor as yourself.
On these commands depend all the law and the prophets.'"
(Matt. 22:36-40; cf. Mark 12:30-33).
"8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another;Love does no evil to one's neighbor when it does good to him or her.
for he who loves his neighbor has fulfilled the law.
9 The commandments, 'You shall not commit adultery,
You shall not kill, You shall not steal, You shall not covet',
and any other commandment, it is summed up in this word,
'You shall love your neighbor as yourself'.
10 Love does no evil to one's neighbor;
therefore love is the fulfillment of the law."
(Rom. 13:8-10 ERS).
God is holy because He is love and this love is Agape-love; that is, the choice of a person to do for another person that which is good for him. This truly set the true God apart from all false gods. They are everything but Agepe-love. The true God is holy because He is love. That which sets the true God apart from all other gods and also from all creatures is that feature which is most characteristic of God Himself, His love. Holiness is that which sets the true God apart from all other gods and also from all creatures, and that is the feature which is most characteristic of God Himself, His love. "God is love" (I John 4:8, 16). This love is not just an attribute of God; it is what God is in Himself. Before God ever created anything outside of Himself and thus created beings for Him to love outside of Himself, love existed in God. Since love is the choice of a person to do for another person that which is good for him, a person cannot love without another person to love. Love involves a relationship to another person. And since God has made Himself known as three persons, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, there is another person in God for Him to love. These three persons of the Godhead love each other (John 3:35; 5:20; 15:9-10; 17:23-26; 14:31). And God is love in Himself because these three persons love each other.
Now God created beings outside of Himself, not because he needed objects for His love (these already existed within Himself), but because of the abundance of His love that existed within Himself. Love is creative and this is true in the supreme sense of God Himself. Creation and salvation are the overflow of the love of this triune personal God of love. When man fell from the image of God because of his sin, God provided a way to take away man's sin and to restore him to the image of God. This involved God sending His Son to become man to die for him. But God raised His Son from the dead. And in this resurrected God-man, Jesus Christ, the Son of man, who is the image of God, man is being and shall be restored to the image of God. God provided this salvation because He is love. This "so great salvation" (Heb. 2:3) is the outflow of His superabundant love.
"9 In this the love of God was made manifest among us,The love of God is the source of our salvation from death, from sin and from God's wrath.
that God sent His only Son into the world,
so that we might live through Him.
10 In this is love, not that we loved God
but that He loved us and
sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins."
(I John 4:9-10 ERS)
God did not have to love; there was no nature or inner necessity that caused
God to love. God has freely and sovereignly chosen to be love.
His choice determined the good. The good is what God wills.
And it is not whimsical or arbitrary
because it is God who has willed it.
"Thy will be done on earth as in heaven" (Matt. 6:10, etc.)
God's will is not determined by His nature; His nature is His will;
He is what he chooses to be (Deut. 32:39; Isa. 45:7; 46:8-11).
And God has chosen to be love and He has revealed
that choice in the history of children of Israel and
supremely in Jesus Christ, His Son (John 3:16; I John 4:9-10).
The true God is a God of sovereign love, not of sovereign justice or holiness.
God does not have to fulfill any condition before He
can act in His love to save us; God's love is truly free and does not have to
satisfy a supposed divine justice before He can act in love. God can freely
forgive man's sin because he is not bound by any prior conditions in His
nature. And according to the Scriptures, He will forgive when a man will
repent and turn from his sin (Ezek. 18:21-23,32; see also Ezek. 33:11).
And since a person becomes like the god he worships (Psa. 115:4-8; 135:15-18), a Christian becomes like the God of love he worships and serves, and this sets him apart from the world. Love is that which makes Christians saints, holy ones (John 13:34-35).
Sanctification is the act of God by which man is separated from the worship of a false god and is dedicated to the true God. The term is not basically a moral or ethical concept. The idea of sanctification is soteriological before it is a moral concept. The idea of sanctification, which word has the same root as holiness in the Greek and Hebrew, is first of all a religious term and secondarily a moral term. It does not mean basically sinless or morally perfect. To be sanctified is to be dedicated to God. The RSV correctly translates the verb as "consecrated" in I Tim. 2:21. Sanctification denotes first of all the soteriological truth that the Christian belongs to God. Paul uses the term to denote another way of looking at salvation (I Cor. 1:30). Justification emphasizes the right personal relation to God, whereas sanctification emphasizes belonging to the true God rather than to a false god. The view that justification designates the beginning of the Christian life while sanctification designates the development of that life through the internal work of the Spirit is an oversimplification of the New Testament teaching and obscures an important truth. As we will see in the next section, the legalistic interpretation of justification distorts the relationship between it and sanctification. The word "sanctification" occurs only once in Romans (6:22) and is significantly omitted from the steps leading to glorification in Romans 8:30. This is because sanctification is just the other side of justification, and need not also be mentioned when the other is.
The righteousness of God in the Scriptures is not an attribute of God whereby He must render to each what is he has merited nor a quantity of merit which God gives, but is act or activity of God whereby He puts or sets right that which is wrong. [1] Very often in the Old Testament the Hebrew noun, tsedeq and tsedaqah, is derived from the Hebrew verb, tsadaq. [2] Although it is usually translated "to be righteous" or "to be justified," the verb has the primary meaning "to be in the right" rather than "to be righteous." (Gen. 38:26; Job 11:2; 34:5) [3] The causative form of the verb (hitsdiq) generally translated "to justify" means not "to make righteous" nor "to declare righteous" but rather "to put in the right" or "to set right." (Ezekiel 16:51-55). Thus it very often has the meaning "to vindicate" or "to give redress to" a person who has suffered wrong. Thus the Hebrew noun (tsedeq) usually translated "righteousness" means an act of vindication or of giving redress. When applied to God, the righteousness of God is God acting to put right the wrong, hence to vindicate and to deliver the oppressed. Thus in the Old Testament the righteousness of God is the action of God for the vindication and deliverance of His people; it is the activity in which God saves His people by rescuing them from their oppressors.
"In thee, O Lord, do I seek refuge;Thus the righteousness of God is often a synonym for the salvation or deliverance of God. In the Old Testament this is clearly shown by the literary device of parallelism which is a characteristic of Hebrew poetry. [4] Parallelism may be defined as that Hebrew literary device in which the thought and idea in one clause is repeated and amplified in a second and following clause. This parallelism of Hebrew poetry clearly shows that Hebrew poets and prophets made the righteousness of God synonymous with divine salvation:
let me never be put to shame;
in thy righteousness deliver me!" (Psa. 31:1)"In thy righteousness deliver me and rescue me;
incline thy ear to me, and save me!" (Psa. 71:2)"11 For thy name's sake, O Lord, preserve my life!
In thy righteousness bring me out of trouble!
12 And in thy steadfast love cut off my enemies,
and destroy all my adversaries,
for I am thy servant." (Psa. 143:11-12)
"The Lord hath made known His salvation:From these verses it is clear that righteousness of God is a synonym for the salvation or deliverance of God.
His righteousness hath he openly showed in the sight of the heathen."
(Psa. 98:2 KJV)"I bring near my righteousness, it shall not be far off,
and my salvation shall not tarry;
and I will place salvation in Zion for Israel my glory."
(Isa. 46:13 KJV)"My righteousness is near,
my salvation is gone forth,
and mine arms shall judge the people;
the isles shall wait upon me,
and on mine arm shall they trust."
(Isa. 51:5 KJV)"Thus saith the Lord,
keep ye judgment and do justice [righteousness]:
for my salvation is near to come,
and my righteousness to be revealed." (Isa. 56:1 KJV)
(See also Psa. 71:12, 15; 119:123; Isa. 45:8; 61:10; 62:1)
The righteous acts of the Lord, or more literally, the righteousnesses of the Lord, referred to in Judges 5:11; I Sam. 12:7-11; Micah 6:3-5; Psa. 103:6-8; Dan. 9:15-16 means the acts of vindication or deliverance which the Lord has done for His people, giving them victory over their enemies. It is in this sense that God is called "a just [righteous] God and a Savior" (Isa. 45:21) and "the Lord our righteousness" (Jer. 23:5-6; 33:15-16). A judge or ruler is "righteous" in the Hebrew meaning of the word, not because he observes and upholds an abstract standard of Justice, but rather because he comes to the assistance of the injured person and vindicates him. For example, in Psalm 82:24:
"How long will you judge unjustlyFor the judge to act this way is to show righteousness. A judge in the Old Testament is not one whose business it is to interpret the existing law or to give an impartial verdict in accordance with the established law of the land, but rather he is a deliverer and thus a leader and savior as in the book of Judges (Judges 1:16-17; 3:9-10). His duty and delight is to set things right, to right the wrong; his "judgments" are not words but acts, not legal verdicts but the very active use of God's right arm. The two functions of a judge are given in Psalm 75:7:
and show partiality to the wicked?
Vindicate the weak and fatherless;
do justice [judgment] to the afflicted and destitute.
Rescue the weak and needy;
deliver them out of the hand of the wicked."
(Psa. 82:24; see also Psa. 72:4; 76:9; 103:6; 146:7; Isa. 1:17.)
"But God is the judge:Since this a statement concerning God as a judge, it could be taken as a general definition of a Biblical judge. In Psa. 72:1-4, these two functions of Biblical judge are given to the king of Israel.
he puts down one and exalts another."
"1 Give the king thy justice [judgment], O God,These same two functions are ascribed to the future ruler of Israel, the Messiah, according to Isaiah 11:3-5.
and thy righteousness to the royal son!
2 May he judge thy people with righteousness,
and thy poor with justice [judgment]!
3 Let the mountains bear prosperity for the people,
and the hills, in righteousness!
4 May he defend the cause of the poor of the people,
and give deiverance to the needy,
and crush the oppressor!" (Psa. 72:1-4)
"3 And His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.His righteousness is shown in the vindication of those who are the victims of evil, the poor and meek of the earth.
He shall not judge by what His eyes see,
or decide by what His ears hear;
4 but with righteousness He shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
and He shall smite the earth with a rod of His mouth;
and with the breath of His lips He shall slay the wicked.
5 Righteousness shall be the girdle of His waist
and faithfulness the girdle of His loins." (Isa. 11:3-5)
The righteousness of God is not opposed to the love of God nor does it condition it. On the contrary, it is a part of and the proper expression of God's love. It is the activity of God's love to set right the wrong. In the Old Testament this is shown by the parallelism between love and righteousness.
"But the steadfast love of the Lord isGod expresses His love as righteousness in the activity by which He saves His people from their sins. In His wrath He opposes the sin that would destroy man whom He loves. In His grace He removes the sin: the grace of God is the love of God in action to bring salvation (Titus 2:11; Eph. 2:8). The grace of God may properly be called the righteousness of God. For in His love, God acts to deliver His people from their sins, setting them right with Himself.
from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear him,
and His righteousness to children's children." (Psa. 103:17).
(See also Psa. 33:5; 36:56; 40:10; 89:14.)
[1] Alan Richardson,
An Introduction to the Theology of the New Testament
(New York: Harper & Brothers, 1958), pp. 79-83, 232-233.
[2] C. H. Dodd,
The Epistle of Paul to the Romans
(London and Glasgow: Fontana Books, 1959), p. 38.
[3] C. H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks
(London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1964), p. 46.
[4] Edward J. Young, An Introduction to the Old Testament
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1950), pp. 281-282.
See also Gleason L. Archer, Jr.,
A Survey of Old Testament Introduction
(Chicago: Moody Press, 1964), pp. 418-420.
The legalistic misunderstanding of salvation and of the death of Christ is based on and grounded in a legalistic misunderstanding of God. Since legalism is basically an absolutizing the law, either by identifying God with law or making the law stand by itself apart from God and above God, legalism is fundamentally a misunderstanding of God. It conceives of God entirely in terms of the law. The will and mind of God are subject to the law, whether the law is conceived as existing externally apart from God and above Him or as the eternal and essential nature of God. The law is the eternal, objective order, lex aeterna, to which the will and mind of God conforms as the Lawgiver and Judge. In legalistic Christian theologies the law is not external and above God but is internal and in God, the very essential nature of God. The law is the essential being of God. According to these theologies God's will is immutably determined by His eternal and unchanging nature; it is the expression of His essential being. [1] God acts freely (?) in accordance with the inner law of His own essence. He does not will the good because it is good; for then the good would be above God. Neither is the good good because God wills it; for then the good would be arbitrary and changeable. God acts freely but not whimsically; He acts always in accordance with the inner law of His being. [2] Thus God's being is misunderstood in terms of the law.
According to this understanding of God's being, the holiness of God is misunderstood in terms of the law. The holiness of God is the eternal conformity of His will to His being which is law; it is the purity and moral perfection of God's being. [3] Holiness is accordingly the fundamental attribute or, more exactly, the consummate infinite moral perfection of all the attributes taken together. Each attribute has its own perfection; holiness is the infinite moral perfection of the whole together. It is not one attribute among others but is the total moral perfection of the Godhead that sets Him transcendently apart and above all the creatures. As such, holiness is the regulative principle of all of them. Accordingly God's love is holy love; His power is holy power; His will is a holy will. "Love must have a norm or standard, and this norm or standard can be found only in holiness." [4] In His eternal and essential nature God is Holy.
Righteousness is also understood legalistically to consist in the conformity to the law of right and wrong. [5] The absolute righteousness of God is the infinite moral perfection of God and as such is equivalent to the holiness of God. In His eternal and essential nature God is righteous. God is immutably determined by the law of His own being to act righteously in His relationships with man. This exercise of the divine will in relation to man, determined by God's infinite righteous nature, has been called the relative righteousness of God. [6] God's righteous nature expresses itself in the form of the law and in all its essential principles of right and wrong the law is an immutable transcript of the divine nature. This relative righteousness of God is called rectoral, when viewed as exercised in administering the affairs of His government, in providing for and governing His creatures. This relative righteousness of God is also called distributive, "when viewed as exercised in giving unto each creature his exact proportionate due of rewards and punishments. It is called punitive or vindicatory when viewed as demanding and inflicting the adequate and proportionate punishment of all sin, because of its intrinsic ill deserts." [7] God, because of His own eternal and essential righteousness, must reward all good because of its own intrinsic merit (remunerative justice) and He likewise must visit every sin with a proportionate punishment because of its own intrinsic demerit (retributive justice). According to this legalistic theology, to do otherwise God would be unrighteous and unjust. Absolute justice which is the eternal being of God requires and demands the reward of good and the punishment of sin. As the Judge, God shows His righteousness by visiting divine retribution upon sin and unrighteousness. No evildoer can escape; all will receive what is due to them and the precise deserts of their evil. Because of the holiness of the divine nature God hates sin with a holy revulsion and is impelled by the demands of His righteousness to pour out His wrath. God must display His righteousness in judging and punishing sin; not to do so would be a reflection on His righteousness. [8]
There is little place in this view of God for love, mercy, or grace. These were totally absent from the legalistic philosophy of the Greek and Roman philosophers and have little place in the legalistic Christian theologies. [9] In the definition of God in the Westminster Shorter Catechism, the goodness of God is mentioned but the love, mercy, and grace of God are totally absent.
"God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His being,Where love is allowed a place in the legalistic view of God, it is reduced to an affection or emotion which must be subordinated to God's holiness and righteousness in order not to become sentimentalism, a sympathy which tolerates human imperfection. Legalism not only misunderstands God's righteousness but also his love; it has misunderstood God.
wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth."
The Biblical view of God is not this legalistic view. God's will is not immutably determined by His eternal and unchanging nature. On the contrary, God's nature is His sovereign will; He is what he chooses to be (Deut. 32:39; Isa. 45:7; 46:8-11). God is truly free. His choice determines the good. God's will is not determined by the good; for then the good would be above God. The good is what God wills. And it is not whimsical or arbitrary because it is God who has willed it. "Thy will be done on earth as in heaven" (Matt. 6:10, etc.). God is love (I John 4:8,16); but this does not mean that God had to love; there was no nature or inner necessity that caused God to love. God has freely and sovereignly chosen to be love. God's will is not determined by His nature; His nature is His will; He chooses what he will be. And God has chosen to be love and He has revealed that choice in the history of the children of Israel and supremely in Jesus Christ, His Son (John 3:16; I John 4:9-10). The true God is a God of sovereign love, not of sovereign justice. Since love is the choice of a person to do good to the person loved, God in His love has sovereignly chosen to do good to man He has created. God does not have to fulfill any condition before he can act in His love to save us; God's love is truly free and does not have to satisfy a supposed divine justice before He can act in love. God can freely forgive man's sin because he is not bound by any prior conditions in his nature. And according to the scriptures, He will forgive when a man will repent and turn from his sin (Ezek. 18:21-23,32; see also Ezek. 33:11).
[1] Archibald Alexander Hodge, Outlines of Theology
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1949), pp. 154
(question 59), p. 411 (question 13).
[2] Ibid., p. 153 (question 58). See also
Henry Clarence Thiessen,
Introductory Lectures in Systematic Theology
(Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1949), p. 129.
[3] A. A. Hodge, Outlines in Theology, p. 163.
[4] A. Hopkins Strong, Systematic Theology
(Philadelphia: Judson, 1907), vol.1, p.x.
See also Carl F. H. Henry, Notes on the Doctrine of God
(Boston: W. A. Wide Co., 1948), p. 113.
[5] James I. Packer, "Just, Justify, Justification," in
Baker's Dictionary of Theology, ed. Everett F. Harrison
(Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1960), p. 305.
[6] A. A. Hodge, Outline of Theology, p. 154, question 59.
[7] A. A. Hodge, Outline of Theology, p. 154, question 59. (underlining ERS).
[8] James I. Packer, "Just, Justify, Justification," in
Baker's Dictionary of Theology, ed. Everett F. Harrison
(Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1960), p. 305.
[9] Note the brief treatments of the love of God in
Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 3 vols. 1871;
A. A. Hodge, Outlines of Theology, 1878;
A. H. Strong, Systematic Theology, 1907; and
Herman Bavinck, The Doctrine of God, 1918.