Image from Ligonier Ministries. 

Editor’s Note: On December 14, 2017, Dr. R. C. Sproul went home to be with the Lord. His writing, teaching, and radio ministries continue to edify generations of believers through Ligonier Ministries. As part of our 50th anniversary series, we are considering the impact of Sproul’s book “The Holiness of God”.

When asked what is the greatest singular need for the church today, R.C. Sproul responded, “to know who God is.” When asked what is the greatest singular need for culture today, he responded, “to know who God is.” The one word that captures both who God is and what we need to know of Him is holiness. 

In his beloved book “The Holiness of God,” first published in 1985, Sproul writes, “Only one time in sacred Scripture is an attribute of God elevated to the third degree. … The Bible says that God is holy, holy, holy.” The word holiness features prominently in the mission statement of Sproul’s Ligonier Ministries: “To proclaim the holiness of God in all of its fullness to as many people as possible.” When someone thinks of Sproul’s classic sermons, they consider his sermon on Uzzah or on the smoking pot and the flaming torch of Genesis 15:17. One could make the case that the arc of Sproul’s entire ministry bends toward holiness, and his classic text “The Holiness of God” is the culmination of his teaching.

There were several points of inspiration for writing “The Holiness of God,” according to Sproul. During his first reading of the Old Testament shortly after his conversion, he thought This is a God who plays for keeps. Sproul was later moved by the account of Luther trembling at his first mass, barely getting out the words, “To Thee, the living, the true, the eternal.” Later, Sproul read Rudolf Otto’s “The Idea of the Holy”  and came across the term mysterium tremendum. Mysterium is mystery, but tremendum is not tremendous. Rather, it’s better seen as tremble, as in the Negro spiritual, “Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.”

Sproul used the word holiness to speak of more than an attribute of God. He used the word to speak of the essence of the being of God, who dwells in inaccessible light. David Wells said that God rests too casually on the shoulders of the church. “The Holiness of God” confronts us, compellingly, dramatically, palpably, with the full gravitas of who God is. Our response? Worship with reverence and awe.