I Corinthians 8:6
” … And the thirst became so bad that she almost felt she would not mind being eaten by the Lion if only she could be sure of getting a mouthful of water first.
‘If you’re thirsty, you may drink.’ … For a second she stared here and there, wondering who had spoken. Then the voice said again, ‘If you are thirsty, come and drink.’ … It was deeper, wilder, and stronger; a sort of heavy, golden voice. It did not make her any less frightened than she had been before, but it made her frightened in rather a different way.
‘Are you not thirsty?’ said the Lion.
‘I’m dying of thirst,’ said Jill.
‘Then drink,’ said the Lion.
‘May I — could I — would you mind going away while I do?’ said Jill.
The Lion answered this only by a look and a very low growl.
…The delicious rippling noise of the stream was driving her nearly frantic.
‘Will you promise not to – do anything to me, if I do come?’ said Jill.
‘I make no promise,’ said the Lion … ‘I daren’t come and drink,’ said Jill.
‘Then you will die of thirst,’ said the Lion. ‘Oh dear!’ said Jill, coming another step nearer. ‘I suppose I must go and look for another stream then.’
‘There is no other stream,’ said the Lion.
It never occurred to Jill to disbelieve the Lion – no one who had seen His stern face could do that – and her mind suddenly made itself up. It was the worst thing she had ever had to do, but she went forward to the stream, knelt down, and began scooping up water in her hand. It was the coldest, most refreshing water she had ever tasted. You didn’t need to drink much of it, for it quenched your thirst at once.” – C.S. Lewis, The Silver Chair
I can domesticate God, fashion him into a kitten instead of the unpredictable Lion that He is. As some smarter than me have said, I can pet him, but I might lose a hand. I can run from His roar, but what awaits me in the distance from Him may be far more dangerous. And I will likely die of thirst, if not first be torn apart by the paws of another. What if the closer I am to the roar the safer I really am?
What if only a God whose holiness both terrifies and beckons me is God enough to save me? He is more than enough to quench my profound thirst if I dare come near the stream across which he sits.
How we understand God is a matter of life and death. Psalm 139 tells us there is nothing outside of His Lordship. He is inescapable. There is no place to hide. No place that we are not seen by Him. He penetrates every aspect of our lives with His holiness. There can be no true worship, no spiritual growth, no real obedience without understanding His holiness. It defines our goal as Christians: “Be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Peter 1:16). All attributes of the Christ-follower; love, justice, wisdom, joy, compassion, creativity, mercy, righteousness, grace, peace … flow out of His holiness. The sacrificial exchange of the Cross was only necessary because His holiness required what our sin could not pay. And His great love for us required that He Himself become the way to deliver it.
God’s holiness means that He is above and beyond us, “wholly other.” So supreme, of such greatness, that He seems completely foreign to us. His holiness, at once, draws us near and frightens us away. Shatters us and pieces us back together. God is seemingly contradictory in that He is transcendent, but eminent … out there, yet with us … Creator of the universe who walks in the Garden He created … powerful, but personal … Ancient of Days who became a newborn … Alpha and Omega … first and last … beginning and end … He is at both ends and everything in between. The metaphors for God reveal His “both-ness”: Servant and King … Father and Son … Creator and Infant … Throne and Cross … Lion and Lamb. The God who robbed the very grave He dug for Himself.
To know Him, we need to know Him in His bigness and His smallness. His infinite bigness is revealed in the highest mountains and deepest canyons, yet in the smallest details of His creation. Think of the complexities of even the tiniest insect or a snowflake. Or that while I sit here writing this, and you reading this, all the cells of our bodies are doing exactly what God designed them to do. We owe Him thanks for, literally, each and every breath.
Holiness is not just another aspect of His character but is synonymous with His deity. He is love because He is holy. He exacts justice because He is holy. He imparts wisdom because He is holy. And on it goes with each magnificent aspect of His character because His nature is holy. The “fruit of His Spirit” (Galatians 5:22) offered to each Believer grows and ripens on branches strengthened and supported by the deep roots and immovable trunk of His holiness. Nothing grows apart from Him, and we are sustained only as we remain, abide, in Him (John 15).
Can the God who might rip my arm off if I try to pet Him be trusted? Psalms says that “those who know your Name will trust in you.” Is the character of God such that we can place all our weight, the fullness of who we are, what we dream, the things we cherish – even our traumas and tragedies – into the fullness of who He is? If I truly desire to find God everywhere that He can be found, I need to know who this God is. Like Mr. Beaver in the Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe explained, “Oh, no, He’s not safe, but He is good.” I need to know this God more deeply, more clearly, more intimately, by who He says that He is. Like King David, to know Him in our “guts and our bones.” To have the counsel of the Lord driven so deep in our souls that nothing can drive it out. Like Job, can we say, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him” (Job 13:15).
How is this for intimacy and freedom: “To know God so thoroughly that we rest in Him totally and, therefore, are willing to risk for Him completely” – Mark Buchanan, The Holy Wild. Unless we trust in His character and seek to know Him as He is, and are honest with ourselves about who we are, we will never be intimate with Him. And never be free to be who we were made to be.
With my eyes, it is useless to look for God in any place or person that does not revere His name. I need His eyes to see the image of Himself in the faces of those who hate Him. Who blame Him. Who oppose Him. “Holy is His name” is the bedrock of our understanding of God: Creation, Fall, Law, Cross, Church, Eternity. His holiness is woven throughout His story from beginning to end and every chapter in between. The first priority of the Lord’s prayer is “Hallowed be thy name” (Matthew 6:9) – God must be regarded and holy. “I am the LORD who makes you holy” (Leviticus 20). By His Spirit, He has given us everything we need to be holy. God alone made the way for us to live with Him forever in heaven. God alone walked between the halves of the bloody carcass to make His covenant with Abraham (Gen. 15). God alone became the bloody carcass, hanging on a cross, to make His covenant with us. None of it depends on us. It all depends on the God who promises to be faithful. He must be true to Himself for He is holy. And because He is love, His love for us desires union with us.
The repetition of “holy, holy, holy” in both Isaiah and Revelation makes this of the utmost importance. There is no other aspect of God in scripture that is elevated to importance by repeating it three times. He is not, “love, love, love”, or “grace, grace, grace”, but “holy, holy, holy.” Even the heavenly beings that speak it in Isaiah’s vision have to cover themselves in the presence of the holiness of God: each has six wings – two to fly with, two to cover their eyes, and two to cover their feet (a symbol of earthliness or creatureliness). Isaiah comes “undone”, “ruined” in the presence of God’s holiness. The temple quakes and fills with smoke. “Woe to me!” cried Isaiah – “I am ruined. For I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty” (Isaiah 6:5). Doomed and undone in the presence of His holiness, but God is faithful not to leave him there. He immediately sends an angel to “burn” him clean, thereby restoring him. “Your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for” (Isaiah 6:7). The holiness of God is a fire that either cleanses us or destroys us. Another one of God’s seeming contradictions- that we are redeemed from fire BY fire.
In Isaiah’s vision, the angels could not even look upon God … In John’s vision in the book of Revelation, the creatures were “covered with eyes front and back . Each had six wings and were covered with eyes all around” (Revelation 4:8). They are now all eyes looking full upon the Lord high and lifted up. The difference between Isaiah’s vision and John’s? “Then I saw the Lamb looking as if it had been slain, standing in the center of the throne” (Rev. 5:6). Eyes uncovered, I can now see Him in His holiness. Because of Jesus, what was formerly forbidden is now revealed for all eyes to see.
Our response to God’s presence, initially, must be “woe to me.” When we see Him for who He is, we see ourselves for who we are. His glory reveals our ruin, His light exposes our darkness, His purity, our dirtiness. So, before joy in His presence comes sorrow over sin. Before cleanness, comes shame. Before we can ever rest, trust, in the holiness of God, we must first be undone by it.
In the presence of God nothing else matters. “Woe to me for I am ruined”, cried Isaiah, but there was no better place, no safer place, to be than right there, undone in the presence of the Lord. Unraveled but now ready to be refashioned in His likeness and for His plan and purposes.
This is the pattern repeated over and over in scripture: God appears in unspeakable glory; man quakes in reverent terror; God forgives and heals; God sends. From brokenness to mission is the plan for His people – R.C. Sproul
If only we could lift our eyes from ourselves to Him. Teach us, Lord, to fear you (Proverbs 31:30). Help us to find our identity not by fear of man but in fear of You. The solution to the fear of man is not in repeated assurances that we are loved and accepted by God. It is fear of God.
- “He delights in those who fear him.” (Psalm 147:11)
- “His friendship is for those who fear him.” (Psalm 25:14)
- “His goodness is stored up for those who fear him.” (Psalm 31:19)
- “Wisdom begins with the fear of the Lord.” (Psalm 111:10)
- “The eye of the Lord is on those who fear him.” (Psalm 33:18)
- “His steadfast love is for those who fear him.” (Psalm 103:11, 17)
The fear of the Lord is contentment (Proverbs 15:16 and 19:23); is confidence (Proverbs 14:26); is blessing (Proverbs 28:14); is spiritual safety (Proverbs 29:25); and praise and adoration (Psalm 22:23).
We must fight fear with fear: fear of man with fear of God. Only when we “worship the Lord in the splendor of holiness” (Psalm 96:9) do we discover the splendor of our humanness – that we are sinners redeemed by grace, saved by faith, reconciled to God through the cross of Jesus Christ alone (Ephesians 2:16).
May we come face to face with the God of the universe to whom the rocks cry out and all of heaven declares the glory of … to more than dip our hand in the water and be satisfied with a mere sip, but to plunge headlong into the river across which the Lion of Judah sits. The Lion whom has “swallowed up girls and boys, women and men, kings and emperors, cities and realms”, yet who bids us to come and drink and not waste another precious moment seeking another stream from which to drink … ‘for there is no other stream.’
Even the Wind and Waves 