There is, finally, demonstrative evidence of the fact that the idea of perfect moral purity, as connected with the idea of God, is now, and always has been, the same which was originated and conveyed to the minds of the Jews by the machinery of the Levitical dispensation. The Hebrew word קדש ([Transliteration]) quadhosh, was used to express the idea of purity as originated by the tabernacle service. The literal definition is, pure, to be pure, to be purified for sacred uses. The word thus originated, and conveying this meaning, is employed in the Scriptures to express the moral purity or holiness of God.[15] In the New Testament this word is translated by the Greek term ἅγιος, ([Transliteration]) hagios, but the Hebrew idea is connected with the Greek word. In King James’s version this Greek word is rendered by the Saxon term holy—the Saxon word losing its original import (whole, wholly), and taking that of the Hebrew derived through the Greek. So that our idea of the holiness of God is the same which was originated by the Levitical ceremonies; and there is no other word, so far as I have been able to examine, in any language which conveys this idea. Nor is there any idea among any people that approximates closely to the Scripture idea of holiness, unless the word received some shades of its signification from the Bible.[16]
[15] שם קדשי ([Transliteration]) ‘my holy name.’—Lev. xx. 3. [Back]
[16] One of the principal difficulties which the missionary meets with, according to letters in the missionary reports, is, that of conveying to the mind of the heathen the idea of the holiness of God. They find no such idea in their minds, and they can use no words in their language by which to convey the full and true force of the thought. The true idea, therefore, if communicated at all, must be conveyed by a periphrasis, and by laboured illustration. This obstacle will be one of the most difficult to surmount in all languages; and it cannot be perfectly overcome, till the Christian teacher becomes perfectly familiar with the language of those whom he wishes to instruct. [Back]
Here, then, the idea of God’s moral purity was conveyed by the Mosaic economy in a manner in accordance with the constitution and the condition of the Jewish mind. This same idea has descended from the Hebrew, through the Greek, to our own language; and there is, so far as known, no other word in the world which conveys to the mind the true idea of God’s moral purity, but that originated by the institution which God prescribed to Moses upon the Mount.[17]
The demonstration, then, is conclusive, both from philosophy and fact, that the true and necessary idea of God’s attribute of holiness was originated by the ‘patterns’ of the Levitical economy, and that it could have been communicated to mankind, at the first, in no other way.[18]
[18] The foundation principle of that school of scepticism, at the head of which are the atheistical materialists, is, that all knowledge is derived through the medium of the senses, and that as God is not an object of sense, men can have no knowledge of his being or attributes. Now these deductions show that the truth of revealed religion may be firmly established upon their own proposition. [Back]
CHAPTER VIII.
THE ORIGIN OF THE IDEAS OF JUSTICE AND MERCY, AND THEIR TRANSFER TO THE CHARACTER OF JEHOVAH.
Although holiness and justice convey to the mind ideas somewhat distinct from each other, yet the import of the one is shaded into that of the other. Holiness signifies the purity of the Divine nature from moral defilement; while justice signifies the relation which holiness causes God to sustain to men, as the subjects of the Divine government. In relation to God, one is subjective, declaring his freedom from sin; the other objective, declaring his opposition to sin, as the transgression of the Divine law. The Israelites might know that God was holy, and that he required of them clean hands and a clean heart in worship, and yet not understand the full demerit of transgressing the will of God, or the intensity of the Divine opposition to sin. God had given them the moral law, and they knew that he required them to obey it; but what, in the mind of God, was the proper desert of disobeying it, they did not know. They had been accustomed, like all idolaters, to consider the desert of moral transgression uncertain and unequal. Now they had to learn the immutable justice of the Supreme Being—that his holiness was not a passive quality, but an active attribute of his nature, and not only the opposite, but the antagonist principle to sin.