Book Review: The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul

Some books give you knowledge, and some deeply change how you see. The Holiness of God by R.C. Sproul is among the books that truly challenged the way I look at God’s holiness.

The central theme of this book is to understand the holiness of God and why it matters so deeply to us. The more we grasp how holy He is, the more it exposes how small we are before Him.

The author builds around a simple but unsettling question: what actually happens when a human being comes face to face with a truly holy God?

To answer it, Sproul turns to Scripture’s own record of encounters of Isaiah in the temple, Peter in the boat, and other profound figures showing a consistent pattern.

In this book, the most powerful for me was when the Holy God revealed Himself to Isaiah. We find the use of “holy, holy, holy”; this repetition elevates it to the superlative degree, emphasizing something as supremely important. When Isaiah encountered God, he called himself undone. The prophet was shattered. The holiness of God changes a person and turns them into something amazing. Ordinary things become holy when the Lord makes them holy.

There is a common pattern when someone truly encounters God. The author also brings up how biblical figures, in their own way, wrestled with God and how their encounter with Holy God brings a peace unlike anything the world offers.

Sproul traces this familiar arc through the life of Martin Luther, showing how his years of efforts to be holy through his own efforts failed under the weight of his own conviction until God redirected him toward grace.

The book reveals a harder truth: God’s holiness is inseparable from His justice. Sproul used difficult passages as biblical examples of Uzzah, Nadab, and Abihu to show that God’s holiness cannot be treated carelessly and yet points us toward how Christ absorbed that justice on our behalf so that grace and justice meet rather than cancel each other out.

God calls us to be holy, which seems something impossible for sinful living beings like us. The only possible way is through the perfect righteousness of Christ that has been put in our account.

The book closes by widening the lens, showing how God has revealed Himself through creation itself, and how we humans have lost sight of Him in an age more fascinated with its own reflection. We need to long for a holy space in a world that has largely forgotten what holiness even means.

This book really challenges the reader to examine their walk with God. It has deeply encouraged me to pursue a life of transformation through Christ. The Holiness of God comes highly recommended, as it directs the reader to know the Holy God and live the life He has always intended for you.

Note: The review was originally published on the author’s blog and reposted with her permission.