Devotionals: The Otherness of God - Business Marketplace Ministry

Chief among the ills of the church today is the failure to keep in continual and clear focus the otherness of God-He is not like us. Of first importance the Bible instructs us that God is holy and we are not. Save for the righteousness of Christ that God graciously credits (imputes) to believers, we would not be able to stand in His presence or otherwise have a relationship with Him. Simply put, holiness cannot tolerate or abide the presence of un-holiness (i.e., sinfulness, unrighteousness).

Nowhere in Scripture is this more starkly demonstrated than in Isaiah’s personal encounter in the presence of our Holy God; he cries out “woe is me for I am undone” when confronted with his own sin-a man of unclean lips who dwells in the midst of a people of unclean lips (Isa. 6:1-7), and by God’s turning away from His own Son on the cross at the moment Jesus became the living embodiment of all of the sins of humankind past, present and future (Mark 15:34; Ps. 22:1; 2 Cor. 5:21).

We err sinfully and presumptuously when we liken God to some type of “cosmic buddy” or otherwise think of Him in human terms (Ps. 50:21 and Isa. 55:8-9). Our God is gracious and tells us to boldly approach His throne of grace, but it is only by virtue of Jesus’s work on the cross as our great and forever High Priest that we are able to do this (Hebrews 4:14-16). Indeed the children of Israel trembled at the foot of Mt. Sinai during the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses saying, “You speak with us, and we will hear; but let not God speak with us, lest we die” (Ex. 20:18-19).

We would do well to remind ourselves daily, if not more often, of the timeless advice of Solomon (widely regarded as the wisest man to have ever lived) as he concludes Ecclesiastes thusly: “Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every work into judgment, including every secret thing, whether good or evil” (Ecc. 12:13-14).