We need to see that when God keeps his first and great commandment, he does not cease to keep the second commandment. The best way I know how to show this is to explain how God is holy, God is righteous, and God is love, and how these interrelate.
God is holy
When we describe God as holy, we mean he is one of a kind. There is none like him.
Moses taught Israel to sing: 'Who is like thee, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like thee, majestic in holiness, terrible in glorious deeds, doing wonders?' (Exodus 15.11). Centuries later, Hannah, Samuel's mother, taught Israel to sing: 'There is none holy like the Lord, there is none besides thee' (1 Samuel 2.2). Isaiah 40.25 says: 'To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him?' says the Holy One.'
God is holy in his absolute uniqueness. Everything else belongs to a class. We are human, Rover is a dog, the oak is a tree, Earth is a planet, the Milky Way is one of a million galaxies, Gabriel is an angel, Satan is a demon. But only God is God. Therefore he is holy, utterly different, unique.
All else is creation. He alone creates. All else begins. He alone always was. All else depends. He alone is self-sufficient.
Therefore the holiness of God is synonymous with his infinite value. Diamonds are valuable because they are rare and hard to make. God is infinitely valuable because he is the rarest of all beings and cannot be made at all, nor was he ever made. If I were a collector of rare treasures and could somehow have God, the Holy One, in my treasury, I would be wealthier than all the collectors of all the rarest treasures that have ever lived.
Revelation 4.8-11 recounts the songs that are being sung to God in heaven. The first one says: 'Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty who was and is and is to come!' The second says: 'Worthy art Thou, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power.' These two songs mean the same thing. God is holy means that he is worthy. His holiness is his immeasurable worth and value. Nothing can be compared with him, for he made everything. Whatever glory makes a created thing valuable is found a million-fold in the Creator.
'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory,' say the seraphim above his throne Isaiah 6.3. Habakkuk cries: 'God came from Teman, and the Holy One from Mount Paran. His glory covered the heavens, and the earth was full of his praise.' Habakkuk 3.3. And the Lord himself says in Leviticus 10.3: 'I will show myself holy among those who are near me, and before all the people I will be glorified.'
The holiness of God is the absolutely unique infinite value of his majestic glory. To say that our God is holy means that he is beautiful beyond degree in the magnificence of his glory and that his value is infinitely greater than the sum of the value of all created beings.
God is righteous
At the root, the righteousness of God means that he has a right assessment of his own ultimate value. He has a just regard for his own infinite worth, and he brings all his actions into conformity to this right judgment of himself. God would be unrighteous and unreliable if he denied his ultimate value, disregarded his infinite worth and acted as though the preservation and display of his glory were worth anything less than his wholehearted commitment. God acts in righteousness when he acts for his own name's sake. For it would not be right for God to esteem anything above the infinite glory of his own name.
Psalm 143.11 says: 'For thy name's sake, O Lord, preserve my life! In thy righteousness bring me out of trouble.' Similarly, Psalm 31.1 says: 'In thy righteousness deliver me.' And verse 3 adds: 'For thy name's sake lead me and guide me.' Similarly in Daniel 9 .16-17 the prophet prays: 'According to all thy righteous acts let thy anger and thy wrath turn away from thy city Jerusalem . . . For thy own sake, O Lord, cause thy face to shine upon thy sanctuary, which is desolate.' An appeal to God's righteousness is at root an appeal to his unswerving allegiance to the value of his own glorious name.
For God to be righteous, he must devote himself 100%, with all his heart, soul and strength, to love and honouring his own glory.
And that he does. The main point of Ephesians 1 is repeated three times: God 'destined us in love to be his sons through Jesus Christ according to the purpose of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace' (verses 5-6). 'We who first hoped in Christ have been destined and appointed to live for the praise of his glory' (verse12). 'The promised Holy Spirit . . . is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.' (verses 13-14). All of God's work in creation and redemption is done in order to display his own glory.
God is supremely and unimpeachably righteous because he never shrinks from a right assessment of his ultimate value, a just regard for his infinite worth, or an unswerving commitment to honour and display his glory in everything he does.
God is love
God's love in no way conflicts with his holiness and righteousness. On the contrary, the very nature of God's holiness and righteousness demands that he be a God of love. His holiness is the absolute uniqueness and infinite value of his glory. His righteousness is his unswerving commitment always to honour and display that glory. And his self-sufficient glory is honoured and displayed most by his working for us rather than our working for him. And this is love.
Love is at the very heart of God's being because God's free and sovereign dispensing of mercy is more glorious than would be the demand for humans to fill up some lack in himself. It is more glorious to give than to receive. Therefore, the righteousness of God demands that he be a giver. Therefore, the Holy and Righteous One is Love.
Jesus Christ is the incarnation of God's love. And when he came he said: 'The Son of Man also came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.' Mark 10.45.
The Son of Man has not come seeking employees. He has come to employ himself for our good. We dare not try to work for him lest we rob him of his glory and impugn his righteousness. The apostle Paul says: 'Now to one who works, his wages are not reckoned as a gift but as his due. And to one who does not work but trusts him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is reckoned as righteous' (Romans 4.4-5). Even when we work out our salvation in fear and trembling, the only reason we can will to lift a finger is that God is the one 'at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure' (Philippians 2.13).
Though Paul worked harder than any of the other apostles, he declares: 'It was not I, but the grace of God which is with me' (1 Corinthians 15.10). In Romans 15.18 he avows: 'I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has wrought through me.' Paul is utterly convinced that no blessing in life is finally owing to man's willing or running, but to God, who has mercy' (Romans 9.16).
God aims to get all the glory in our redemption. Therefore he is adamant that he will work for us and not we for him. He is the workman; we stand in need of his services. He is the doctor, we are the sick patient. We are the weak; he is the strong. We have the broken-down jalopy; he is the gifted mechanic. We must beware lest we try to serve him in a way that dishonours him, for he aims to get the glory. As Peter says in 1 Peter 4.11: 'Whoever renders service (let him render it) by the strength which God supplies; in order that in everything God may be glorified through Christ. To Him belong glory and dominion forever and ever.'
So God is love, not in spite of his passion to promote his glory, but precisely because of it. What could be more loving than the infinite, holy God stooping to work for us? Yet in working for us rather than needing our work, he magnifies his own glorious self-sufficiency. It is the stream that glorifies the fullness of the spring. And the stream that flows from God is love. If he ceased to seek his glory he would be of no value to us. But, praise God, he is holy, he is righteous, and therefore, he is love.
John Piper is pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis and the main speaker at the FIEC Caister conference this month.
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