God is holy means God is set apart. He is other. He is not like us. He’s not like anyone or anything. He is above all things. He was before all things. He’s so holy His name is, “I am who I am,” the “self-existing one.” He is of Himself. We can’t say that. God gave us life. God was. He’s the only uncreated thing in existence. No one comes close to Him.

We can’t touch Him. People had to wash themselves and the priests had to offer daily sacrifices to be able to approach God. Even then they couldn’t touch Him. Only once a year could a priest enter into the room with the ark where God’s presence was. They could die if they entered without being holy, following God’s laws for setting themselves apart to Him. Someone died for touching the ark. Lots of people died for looking inside the ark.

It’s important to know God’s love. It’s also important to know God’s holiness. How does it change your view of God’s love knowing God is holy? Think about John resting on Jesus. The holy, untouchable God, drew near. He draws near to His people. He wants to be with His people. He accomplished it by coming in human flesh. But, He remains a holy God. We need Him to be holy or we lose our God Who is above and beyond all else.

Do you see how the facts that God is love and God is holy set up the whole story of the Bible? God created us to love us. Our sin separated us and caused us to no longer be holy, and wholly His. His love reached out, not canceling the need for holiness, but making a way for us to be called holy. The blood of Jesus cleans us and His Spirit makes us His own, set apart to Him, holy.

Yes, we can relate to Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, like John did, but we need to not lose sight of the holiness of God. We don’t treat Him lightly! It’s a fearsome thing to be in God’s presence. Yet we get to approach His throne with boldness. What an awesome God we serve!

Read each verse. What is the verse teaching? State it in your own words.

Revelation 4:8 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!”

Hebrews 7:26 For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.

Colossians 1:17 And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Exodus 3:14 God said to Moses, “ I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘ I AM has sent me to you.’”

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Exodus 19:10-13  The Lord said to Moses, “Go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow, and let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. And you shall set limits for the people all around, saying, ‘Take care not to go up into the mountain or touch the edge of it. Whoever touches the mountain shall be put to death. No hand shall touch him, but he shall be stoned or shot; whether beast or man, he shall not live.’

Hebrews 9:7 But into the second only the high priest goes, and he but once a year, and not without taking blood, which he offers for himself and for the unintentional sins of the people.

2 Samuel 6:6-7 And when they came to the threshing floor of Nacon, Uzzah put out his hand to the ark of God and took hold of it, for the oxen stumbled. And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah, and God struck him down there because of his error, and he died there beside the ark of God.

1 Samuel 6:19 Then He struck the men of Beth Shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the LORD. He struck fifty thousand and seventy men of the people, and the people lamented because the LORD had struck the people with a great slaughter.

Matthew 1:23 “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us).

James 4:8 Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded.

1 John 1:5-7 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Hebrews 4:16 Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Lesson Point: God is holy and must be set apart from man and everything else.

Challenge Question: How do you honor and/or forget the holiness of God?