Holiness is what God is. It is an attribute of God. Since God is simple, He is indivisible and cannot be apportioned into parts. Therefore, each of the three Trinitarian persons is pervasively holy. The attributes of God are coextensive with His being and thus each and every one is possessed comprehensively, exhaustively, and indivisibly by the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In short, God’s holiness is as comprehensive as His being—infinite, eternal, immense. God is not partly holy, partly loving, and so on; He is comprehensively and exhaustively loving, holy, good, and every other attribute that He is.
When we think of holiness as it can be expressed in humans, it is often equated with moral and spiritual characteristics. This is seen in exhortations such as the Lord telling His people, “Be holy, for I am holy” (Lev. 11:44; 1 Peter 1:13–16). It is an imperative to moral and spiritual purity.
Perhaps a more basic idea is separation. God is transcendent, separate from creatures, and in this context calls us to be separate in moral and spiritual terms—although not in any detachment from the world around us. This is a call to abandon idolatry and to be faithful to God’s covenant (Isa. 57:15; 2 Cor. 6:14–18).
Yet these considerations only scratch the surface. If holiness were merely separation from sin and idolatry, God would be holy only in relation to His creation—separate and free from all the defilement of the world. It would entail the existence of the creation and the place of the human race within it, together with the sinful rebellion that Adam instigated. It would be to see God not as He is in Himself but in relation to the entities He brought into existence. God, however, is holy in Himself, independently of the existence of the created order. He remains forever true to who He is. He does not change. We can rely on Him absolutely.
This tells us that in thinking of holiness, we must begin with God. One of the most sustained treatises on the attributes of God was written by Stephen Charnock.1 In his dissertation on Charnock’s theology of God’s holiness, Markus Holmbom argues that the holiness of God represents His own integrity, the integrity of all His attributes, all that He is, in His simple and immutable being. Holmbom writes, “Holiness is best understood as God’s metaphysical integrity, undividedness, or wholeness.”2 This underlines the point, mentioned repeatedly in Scripture, that God is forever true to Himself. He does not change (Num. 23:19; Ps. 110:4; Mal. 3:6; Heb. 7:21; James 1:17).
This should lead us to consider that, in such ways as we may by God’s grace reflect His character, personal integrity is at the heart of what is meant. The one who pleases God “swears to his own hurt and does not change” (Ps. 15:4). This was perfectly embodied in Jesus Christ, God’s eternal Son, God with us (Matt. 1:23), the second person of the Trinity, living as man (John 1:14). He was free from sin and could therefore challenge His deadliest enemies to convict Him (John 8:46; 1 Peter 2:21–24; Heb. 7:26). His utter integrity was seen in that He set His face to go to the cursed cross, to suffer human death and human burial.
How much this integrity is needed! When Christians, especially Christian leaders, lack personal integrity, that is a reproof to Christians and brings reproach upon the church. It should not be so.
As John Calvin wrote in his commentary on 2 Peter, the goal of the gospel is to make us sooner or later like God. Peter spells this out in a range of virtues that are produced in us by the Holy Spirit and perfectly exemplified in our Lord (2 Peter 1:5–11). They can be summed up by the integrity, the wholeness, that is conformity to the character of God, imperfectly in us now but in full flowering when Christ returns in undiminished and unrefracted glory, when we shall be made like Him (1 John 3:1–2). This demands our ongoing attention (1 John 3:3).
Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (1682); Updated and Unabridged, ed. Mark Jones; 2 vols (repr., Crossway, 2022).↩
Erik Markus Holmbom, “A Theological Retrieval of Stephen Charnock’s Discourse of Divine Holiness” (PhD diss., Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 2026).↩
Ligonier Ministries