MONITE ‘EPELELI 6, 2026
2 SAMIUELA ; SELEMAIA 7:1-15
Minimizing, ignoring, or doubting the perfect holiness of the Lord will never produce anything good in you or through you.
Ko hono fakasi’isi’i, fakasikaka’i, mo hono fehu’ia ‘a e ma’oni’oni haohaoa ‘o e ‘Otua, ‘e ‘ikai te ne fakatupu pe fou ha lelei ‘iate koe.
We don't have the vocabulary or categories to describe adequately the infinitely perfect holiness of our Lord. Nothing and no one is perfectly pure all of the time and in every way. The Hebrew word for holy means "other," set apart from everything else. In the complete holiness of his holiness, God is the great eternal other. There has never been and never will be anyone like him. His holiness is not a part of him; it is his essence. He is holiness through and through. He is holy in love, holy in wisdom, holy in power, holy in faithfulness, holy in anger, holy in grace, holy in patience, holy in judgment, holy in mercy, and so on. In all that he is, all of the time, he is perfectly holy. In this way he is unlike us. Here's why this is so important. Only when you understand the utter holiness of the Lord will you understand the horrible sinfulness of sin. Only in light of the holiness of God will you take his holy law seriously. Only when you understand the holiness of the Lord will you be blown away by the generosity of his gift of redeeming grace. Easy-believism and moral boundary-breaking begins with forgetting the shocking holiness of God.
I am convinced that this is why God, in protective love, has preserved for us shocking reminders of his uncompromising holiness. These stories are hard for us to read. As sinners, we are tempted to think that God is overreacting or that his anger has too much control over him. It is important to humbly admit that when we wince at accounts of God's acting in holy anger, we do so because we wish God were just a little bit more flexible, a little more like us, and maybe not so holy all the time and in every way. His otherness makes us uncomfortable--and it should, because confessing how unlike him we are is the doorway to seeking his grace.
One of these uncomfortable holiness stories is found in 2 Samuel 6. The ark of the covenant, over which God's presence rested, was being transported on a cart (6:1-11). This was a violation of God's law concerning transportation of the ark, a visible representation of God's presence. God had commanded that priests carry it with wooden poles. The cart began to tip, so Uzzah, walking beside the ark, reached out to steady it, touched the ark, and was immediately struck dead. Our holy God is serious about his law and will not compromise his holy standards. This is why the cross was necessary. God would not turn his back on our sin; a penalty had to be paid. Rather than making us question the goodness of God, the death of Uzzah should cause us to celebrate the grace of Jesus that allows sinners to stand in the presence of a perfectly holy God.
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