What God’s Holiness Actually Means

By Joel Webb

For my entire life I have understood the concept of God’s holiness to basically mean that God is completely other, so different from anything else and unlike anything or anyone else. And that definition seems to make sense; right?

While on the surface this seems to be a complete definition, it actually is not. Why? Because the primary focus of this definition is on the negative of what God is not like, rather than answering the question What is He actually like in His holiness?

The problem with negative definitions is that they seek to define by subtraction. They take what is already there, or what is presupposed. Then by removing it, we are expected to be able to cobble together a picture of the answer. While we certainly can come to something of an answer by this method, it still leaves huge gaps. If we take the entirety of Scripture, look at the incompleteness and brokenness of humanity and the world, and then ask “How is God unlike all of this?” we might be able to get a fuzzy picture of the character and nature of God, but some things might be distorted.

That’s why it’s essential that we develop a positive definition of who God is, as revealed in His Word, rather than a negative one by deducing what is like and unlike Him. The Apostle John can help clue us in to what we are getting at when he writes, “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love” (1 John 4:8). This is likely the most succinct definition in Scripture of who God is — that He is love.

What Love Actually Is

We then stumble into the next question: What actually is love? In a world and culture so often confused by what love actually is, and so often based on the emotions that we feel, we need a more resolute and grounded definition. For this, the definition given by the great thinker of the church, Thomas Aquinas, is what I’ve found to be the best where he says love is “to will the good of the other.”

Does that love not sound like the character of God whereby everything that He does is in the best interest of others? We know that this definition is core to the gospel message, “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8), and also seen just a few verses later in 1 John 4:10, “This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

So if God is love, and love is to will the good of another, then everything God does flows out of this love, this willing of our good. And here is where the connection to holiness becomes crucial, because Scripture never pits God’s love against His holiness. In fact, it binds them together. The angels around the throne don’t cry out “Love, love, love,” nor do they proclaim “Power, power, power,” but they sing, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3).

Yet, when that holiness touches Isaiah, what happens? He is not destroyed — he is purified, forgiven, restored. Holiness is not annihilating goodness; it is restoring goodness. And what is restoration except love in action?

Holiness is love’s fire, love’s purity, love’s power to heal and to make whole. To be holy is not merely to be separate; it is to be full — utterly full of God’s own nature, His goodness, His self-giving love. When we say God is “other,” we are not simply saying He is distant or detached. We are saying He is infinitely perfect in His love. He is other because His love is other. Holiness is love with absolute integrity. It is love that never compromises with evil because evil destroys those God loves. God is holy because God is love — and that love is perfect, relentless, radiant, and just.

There is a reason that when Moses asked to see God’s glory, God declared His goodness (Exodus 33:18–19). Glory, goodness, holiness, love — they are all intertwined strands of the same divine reality. God’s holiness is not a separate attribute competing with love; His holiness is the blazing purity of His love.

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 “Holiness is love’s fire, love’s purity, love’s power to heal and to make whole. “

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This matters enormously, because if holiness were simply “separateness,” then holiness could exist without relationship. A god who is merely separate could remain aloof, unaffected, untouched by the world and unmoved by human suffering. But the God revealed in Jesus Christ is not aloof. He does not keep His distance. He descends. He draws near. He enters suffering. He bears sin. He conquers death. The holy God is the God who comes close, not the God who retreats.

Holiness in Motion

In Christ, holiness is not God keeping sinners away; it is God coming close to sinners to make them whole. This is why Jesus — God in flesh — eats with tax collectors, touches lepers, forgives adulterers, and restores the broken. Holiness is not fragile purity that fears contamination; it is powerful purity that cleanses, heals, and renews. When the woman with the issue of blood touches Jesus’ cloak, she does not contaminate Him — His holiness restores her (Mark 5:25–34). This is holiness in motion; holiness with hands, holiness with compassion, holiness with purpose.

And this is how we must reimagine holiness: not as cold perfection but as burning love, not as sterile isolation but as sacred nearness, not as the absence of sin alone, but as the fullness of love’s power over sin. The holiness of God is not primarily about what He avoids, but about what He pours out. God’s holiness is His love in its most intense, unfiltered, undefiled form.

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 “In Christ, holiness is not God keeping sinners away; it is God coming close to sinners to make them whole.”

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Think of Mount Sinai and Mount Calvary together. At Sinai, God’s holiness shook mountains, split rocks, and terrified hearts. At Calvary, God’s holiness is nailed to wood, bleeding for His enemies, praying, “Father, forgive them.” It is the same holiness — majestic, blazing, overwhelming — but shown in love’s greatest act. The cross is the collision of holiness and love, not as rivals, but as one reality. Holiness is the power of love that refuses to abandon the beloved to sin, sorrow, or death.

The holiness of God is beautiful because it is the security of the universe. We do not worship a God who is merely powerful or simply moral. We worship the God who is eternally committed to our good — who wills and works for our redemption with perfect fidelity and unstoppable love. That is holiness. Holiness is God being fully and faithfully Himself for the sake of the world.

So what does this mean for us, especially as those who follow Christ and seek to reflect Him in our lives, in our churches, and in our communities?

It means holiness in the Christian life is not first about separation from people, but about dedication to God and devotion to their good. To be holy as He is holy is to love as He loves. It means we cannot think of sanctification as simply sin-avoidance, but as love-formation. The question of holiness is not simply, “What have I abstained from?” but “Whom am I loving? Whose good am I willing and pursuing?”

Holiness is not withdrawal from a broken world — it is entering into the world as agents of healing, truth, mercy, and justice, just as Christ did.

In the Free Methodist tradition, holiness is not optional and it is not private. It is social, transformative, and incarnational. John Wesley declared that “Christianity is essentially a social religion.”

Love of God and love of neighbor are inseparable. Holiness is not just a personal moral state but a kingdom reality that reshapes communities, liberates the oppressed, and lifts the poor. Holy people are not those who hide from the world but those who serve the world with Christlike love.

So perhaps we need to recover this vision — not holiness as a defensive crouch against the world, but as love’s courageous advance into it: holiness as mission, holiness as service, holiness as healing presence, holiness as the radiant force of divine love poured into human hearts by the Spirit (Romans 5:5) forming us into the likeness of Christ who loved us and gave Himself up for us (Ephesians 5:2).

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 “Holiness is not withdrawal from a broken world — it is entering into the world as agents of healing, truth, mercy, and justice, just as Christ did.”

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The world desperately needs to see holiness again, but in its true biblical and Christ-shaped form — not dour moralism, not thin niceness, not hollow religiosity. The world needs to see the holiness that feeds the hungry, welcomes the outsider, binds up the wounded, speaks truth with grace, forgives enemies, resists injustice, and lays down its life for others. A holiness that is holy because it loves — deeply, sacrificially, fiercely, joyfully.

To be holy people is to be a people of cruciform love — love shaped like the cross, love that looks like Jesus, love that is both gentle and strong, humble and bold, merciful and just. This is the holiness the church must offer the world, because this is the holiness of our God. The holiness of God is not an abstract doctrine; it is the heartbeat of the gospel. God’s holiness is the power of His love.

And the invitation to us is not merely to admire that holiness, but to participate in it — to be caught up in that love, transformed by it, and sent out in it. Holiness is not what God demands from us before He will love us; it is what God accomplishes in us because He loves us.

God is love. God is holy. These are not two competing truths, but one glorious reality. His holiness is His love, blazing, purifying, redeeming, and renewing all things. And that is very good news.
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