Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed. (vs. 4)
I have been studying holiness this entire year, and it is obvious from all that Scripture says that God alone is holy. The definition of holiness is sinless perfection without any spot or blemish of any kind, seen or unseen. Only God Himself meets that standard. John writes here that, in the end, all nations will come and worship Him because He alone is holy. Yet, throughout the Bible, many other things are called “holy.” There is the holy land (which is not very holy these days). The Bible speaks of holy days, holy places, holy objects, and even holy people—or saints, as the Bible puts it. We must remember that none of these things, places, peoples, or objects are holy in and of themselves. Their holiness does not come from any particular quality they possess; only God is holy, and the holiness of God and His consecration of these things makes them holy.
Therefore, we can say that all who are “in Christ” are also holy or saints. The word “saint” in the Bible does not denote the idea found in the Roman Catholic church of special people who possessed some particular form of righteousness and performed miracles that the church has vetted. On the contrary, the word saint refers to all true believers because they have been clothed with the righteousness of Christ. We are to pursue holiness and purity because we love God, and He is holy. Yet, ultimately, any righteousness we possess is His righteousness that has been conferred to us because we are born again and filled with His Holy Spirit. He alone is holy, and anything else that is called “holy” is holy because of His presence in that thing, time, or place. This truth infers two important things: anything good in me comes from Him, and if I walk in His presence, even the mundane things of my life can become holy as they are submitted to the Lordship of Christ.
