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Fri, 08 January 2010 06:49

william
Messages: 1464
Registered: January 2006

Senior Member
Administrator

In another note someone brought up "love" as being a key to the Bible
and it got me to thinking about the attributes of God. The Bible is the
revelation of God, or to put it another way the revelation of His
attributes. Since He is perfect/complete in all of His attributes it
might be a bit presumptuous to lift one attribute above another but I
believe that one could make a pretty good case that "holiness" is the
premier attribute of God, not "love". Obviously from our standpoint we
benefit from God's love more than we do from His holiness but it is
because of His holiness that we need His love in the first place!

The whole of the biblical revelation seems to be designed to highlight
His holiness. Yes, His love can be seen throughout as well --the
atonement is the exclamation point that reveals just how great and
far-reaching that love is-- but were it not for His holiness there would
not be a need for the atonement. The scriptures start out by teaching
us this fact. This truth (the Holiness of God) is behind all of the
Mosaic Law. All of the teaching about the "clean" and "unclean", all of
the difficult rituals, all of the separation rites and even the election
of a separate people, was a clear indication not of His love, but His
holiness. This teaching continues in the New Testament --Heb 12:14
Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see
the Lord:

Comments?

Blessings,
William

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