Link: Tim Keller and the False Binary of Love and Holiness

Quote:

Casting God’s love and holiness as binary terms that are defined against each other does not do justice to how they are described Biblically. God’s holiness is so much more than just a hatred of sin, just like God’s love is so much more than an unconditional acceptance of sinners. God hates our sin because He loves us. Part of God’s holiness is His radical hospitality towards us regardless of our sinfulness. Jesus doesn’t protect us from God’s holiness on the cross; Jesus expresses God’s holiness on the cross. God is holy because He takes it upon Himself to provide the sacrifice that can restore us to holiness.

When we reduce God’s holiness to “pickiness,” then it unnecessarily scandalizes non-believers who think that hell makes God look sadistic and that the cross is divine child abuse rather than holy self-sacrifice. It also makes God attractive for the wrong reasons to conceive of holiness in this way. Picky people want a picky God who makes it holy to be picky about other peoples’ shortcomings. And I hate to say it but I have seen abundant fruit of the neo-Reformed conflation of holiness and pickiness in the attitude of their minions. If instead we understand the holiness God models for us to mean that we should bear each other’s sins as Jesus bore ours on the cross, then we will be less likely to turn into the Pharisees that Jesus died to stop us from being.