This was the first book I have read by R. C. Sproul. In The Holiness of God, Sproul expertly navigates and illustrates God’s holiness through Scripture and helpful, accessible teaching. In the first four chapters, Sproul explores God’s holiness from Creation, Isaiah 6, the life of Christ, and the response of human beings to God’s holiness, especially in the New Testament. Then, Sproul explores Martin Luther’s life and his encounter with the Holy God. After Luther, Sproul dedicates an entire chapter (6) to the difficult passages in the Old Testament about God’s brutality, pointing to His holiness as a necessary explanation. Then, Sproul surveys God’s holiness in the lives of Jacob, Job, Habakkuk, and Saul of Tarsus. Sproul concludes his book with a call to Christians to pursue holiness, and then looking for evidences of the Holy God generally in nature, and in specific places and times. In all, this book powerfully succeeds in calling Christians back to a healthy fear of the Holy God, and a renewed treasuring of Christ for His sufficient sacrifice.
The strengths of this book are evident in Sproul’s thorough treatment of biblical passages, engaging in difficult topics with both fairness and insight, and his ability to make complex topics accessible. For instance, Sproul tackled the difficult passage in Leviticus 10 when God killed Aaron’s sons, Nadab and Abihu, for offering unsanctioned fire. God appears here brutal and perhaps capricious. Sproul deftly explained, though, that:
“When His divine judgment fell on Nadab or Uzzah, the response was shock and outrage. We have come to expect God to be merciful. From there the next step is easy: We demand it. When it is not forthcoming, our first response is anger against God, coupled with protest: ‘It isn’t fair.’ We soon forget that with our first sin we have forfeited all rights to the gift of life,” (126).
In attempting to explain why men hated Jesus, Sproul used a helpful analogy of grading on a curve for a test. No one likes the person who breaks the curve and therefore makes the rest of the class look bad. Sproul likened this to Jesus, the Holy Son of God: “Jesus Christ was a curve breaker. He was the supreme curve buster,” (61). Sproul then concluded encountering the Holy One can evoke the same reactions today, “As the Jews at the foot of Mount Sinai fled in terror from the dazzling face of Moses, so people today get uncomfortable in the mere presence of Christians,” (65).
Perhaps the only weakness of this book was the final chapter, “Holy Space and Time.” The chapter was based largely on Mircea Eliade’s book The Sacred and the Profane. In it, he argued that mankind throughout history has quested for the sacred and been unable to tolerate or create a purely profane space (207). Sproul then cites examples both from the Bible and anecdotally from life about space and time that is made holy by the presence of God (or that humans at least treat as different). To illustrate, he gives an example of a teenager walking tip-toed through a cathedral (213). His point seems to be that the Holiness of God separates certain times and spaces as holy, and that even the pagan world understands this. My issues with this chapter are twofold. First, his main point about sacred time and space seems suspect for his conclusion. If it truly is God’s presence that sets apart a place or a time, then how do even pagan temples illustrate this point? Further, in Jesus’s conversation with the woman at the well, Jesus seemed to have said that the holy space is no longer the temple, but the hearts of men and women indwelt by the Holy Spirit, a fact further emphasized when the veil of the temple was torn at Christ’s death. Second, this chapter does not do justice as a fitting conclusion to Sproul’s work. He has argued for the uniqueness of God in His transcendent splendor, but then concludes his book with a disorganized look at places and times that are unique in some way. A more fitting ending would be a summary chapter of the previous 10 and then if desired, including chapter 11 merely as an appendix.
For a printable book review with quotes, click HERE.
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