12. Mutual Relation of Holiness and Love
Mutual Relation of Holiness and Love
Then as we think of God’s attributes in this light, it begins to grow clear to us that of these two attributes, holiness and love, neither one is fundamental to the other. Instead, they function side by side, so to speak, each conditioning and giving its character to the other. So His holiness is a loving holiness, and His love is a holy love. For His holiness demands that He should be loving, because He could not be unloving and remain holy; and His love requires that He should be holy, for He could not be unholy and be able to love. His love is therefore the necessary expression of His holy life, and His holiness the necessary quality of His loving life.
It thus seems obvious that one of these attributes of God’s moral life—holiness, defines the fundamental quality of His character, while the other—love, indicates the fundamental expression of that character. That is, holiness describes what God’s spiritual life is in itself, while love describes what that life is toward other moral beings. And so we arrive at the conclusion that holiness is the fundamental passive attribute in God, or what He is in Himself, while love is the fundamental active attribute, or what He is toward other moral beings, with spiritual life lying back of both of them as the final moral fact in His Being.
Now it is unthinkable that such a God should give Himself over to that which ought not to be, for the resulting destruction of both His holiness of character and His power to love, would destroy both Himself and His universe, and bring in the eternal reign of conditions that ought not to be.
He must, therefore, in the nature of things, forever desire the perfect and eternal moral welfare and happiness of all moral beings, and the character from which such a desire comes forth would thus be the embodiment of that which ought to be, and that is holiness. But God’s holy life seeks active expression toward all moral beings, because He has for them a holy desire for their moral welfare. And what He does for them must, in the nature of things, be determined by what He is. How, then, will such a holy life express itself toward other moral beings? That can be found in the light of two opposing and mutually exclusive moral principles.
These two principles are the only moral principles in existence. So no being with moral capacity can escape coming under the control of one of them. One principle has one’s own interests, with no primary reference to others, as the supreme object of life. The other has the interests of others as the final motive of every act. One is therefore the selfish principle, and the other, the sacrificial principle.
These principles must forever remain antagonistic. It is impossible, in the nature of things, for the interests both of self and of others to be first, for “no man can serve two masters” (Matthew 6:24). Every life is therefore under control either to the selfish or the sacrificial principle. There can be no middle ground.
Reverently let it be said that even God’s life must express itself in harmony with one of these principles. It could not be otherwise with any moral being. And so, since it is forever impossible for the selfish principle to have place in a God whose holiness, in its very nature, impels Him to seek the perfect happiness of other moral beings, He must therefore express His holy life through eternity on the basis of the sacrificial principle.
Now it is self-evident that the very essence and nature of sacrifice is self-giving, and self-giving is love. It is through sacrifice, therefore, that the holy life of God will forever express itself toward all moral beings in His universe. So it is this active attribute of His holy life that is meant when the Bible says: “God is love” (1 John 4:16). And it must also never be forgotten that His love is a holy love.