Paradigm Discipleship

CC @ UNM Foundational Resource Series

The purpose of this resource is to provide some guidance for you as you encourage your disciple to develop a strong devotional relationship with God.

The following resource is part 3 of 12 resources designed to help your disciple gain a better understanding of God’s holiness and how that pertains to the Gospel.

We encourage you to do your own study, using this resource as a guide, to develop a learning experience for you and your disciple that will help you both move deeper in your understanding of God’s holiness. The goal for this study is to help your disciple really confront and understand the holiness of God.

THE GOSPEL –PART 3-The Holiness of God

Revelation 15:4 (ESV)

4 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.”

Study Question: What does the statement “For you alone are holy,” mean?

*Holy defined: Set apart or without equal. (Isaiah 6:3, Isaiah 46:5,9-10, Isaiah 55:9-11)

* God’s Holiness defined: God is completely separate from sin. He alone is independently, infinitely, immutably pure.

Read Isaiah 6:1-7

Discuss the passage in detail. Put you and your disciple in the temple and seek to identify with Isaiah as he calls a curse down on himself, “woe is me”, and pronounces himself guilty, “I am a man of unclean lips”.

*Do you think Isaiah thought of himself as unclean before this experience?

*What caused Isaiah to have such a dramatic experience when he saw God?

“For God, to be holy is not simply to be without sin, to be holy is to be without equal.”

-David Platt

*In Hebrew repetition is used to express a superlative (an absolute/highest quality). Repetition was used to add emphasis. Here the Seraphim are indicating that God is not just holy but completely, perfectly, and totally holy in himself.

Study Question: If God’s holiness means He is by nature separated from sin, what does that mean for humanity?

Read Isaiah 59:1-13 together.

*Highlight what this passage says has happened to God and mans relationship. Don’t shy away from speaking truthfully about humans and how far we have fallen from God and His holiness.

Read: Isaiah 6:5 – Isaiah understood pure holiness when He saw God and called a curse down on Himself.

Exodus 33:20- Even Moses was separated and could not look on a Holy God.

Hebrews 12:14 – No one can see the Lord without holiness.

Study Question: What is God’s law and where does it come from?

Read: Exodus 20:1-17 – Ten Commandments

Deuteronomy 6:4-6 and/or Mathew 22:37-39 – The greatest commandment

If these are God’s laws who then is to be considered guilty?

Read: James 2: 10-11

Study Question: What does God expect of us?

Read: Leviticus 19:2, 1 Peter 1:14-16 (He expects holiness/perfection that is the same as his holiness)

*Would God be Just if he did not punish someone who was guilty of breaking His law?

*Would we respect a judge that did not hold every citizen accountable according to the law set by local and federal governments? Then why would we trust a God who has a holy standard but holds no one to it?

Read: Job 34:11-12 – It is impossible for God not to deal justly with people?

Nahum 1:3 – God deals justly with the guilty.

Important note on Holiness: God’s Holiness is both terrible news and wonderful news for his creation. It is terrible in that it is so pure and undeniable that no one can approach it or comprehend it. It separates us from God completely. It is wonderful in that God is completely unstained by evil and is therefore completely trustworthy in all of His ways. He always acts out of what is good and what brings honor and glory to his name.

Study Question: After a quick study of the holiness of God how has your view of God been changed, or enhanced? Do you often think of/consider the holiness of God and the separation that sin has created between God and every man including you?