Holiness is Wholeness: According to John Gill

Who preceded the great Baptist preacher of the late 1800s, Charles Haddon Spurgeon? It was Pastor John Gill. Spurgeon may have gotten his first hints that holiness is wholeness from his predecessor.

John Gill writes in his A Body of Doctrinal Divinity, Book 1 Chapter 20, Of the Holiness of God:

Holiness is an essential attribute of God; it is his nature and essence; it is himself, he is holiness itself; "he swears by himself, because he can swear by no greater"; and he will not swear by any less, and yet he swears by his holiness, (Heb. 6:13; Ps. 89:35; Amos 4:2, 6:8) which places put [together] and compared together show that the holiness of God is himself; and it has been thought to be not so much a particular and distinct attribute of itself, as the lustre, glory, and harmony of all the rest; and [it] is what is called "the beauty of the Lord", (Ps. 27:4) as it is the beauty of the good angels, and of regenerate men; and, indeed, what is wisdom or knoweldge, without holinesss, but craft and cunning? or what is power, without it, but tyranny, oppression and cruetly? but God is "glorious in holiness", (Ex. 15:11) this gives a lustre to all his perfections , and is the glory of them ; and therefore none of them are or can be exercised in a wrong manner, or to any bad purpose.

So again we have an example of another giant of the faith, in the Protestant tradition, who recognizes that holiness is not a particular attribute, but the harmony of all the rest. In clear words for today, we would say that it is the whole. And who cannot rejoice in Gill's point that holiness prevents any particular attribute from being misused. A wonderful insight by him and something to consider before we accuse a whole God of any wrongdoing.

In Christ,

Pastor Jon