[Ali Imran]

The God that we know possesses a number of attributes - omnipotence (all-powerful), omniscience (all-knowing), just, loving and so on and so forth. But the one attribute that transcends all others is holy. When the prophet Isaiah saw the vision of God on the throne, he heard the angels crying out, "Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord of hosts." (Isa 6:3) The angels didn't cry out "Love, Love, Love," or "Just, Just, Just," or "Omnipotent, Omnipotent, Omnipotent."

There's only one word that can depict the totality of God's being: holy, which comes from a Hebrew word meaning "to cut" or "to separate." That means God is a "cut above" everyone and everything, and is separate from anything or anyone else in creation after it went haywire. God's holiness means He's separate from everything, including sin. He's beyond any contact with evil. "Your eyes are too pure to approve evil. And You cannot look on wickedness with favor" (Hab 1:13)

Of all the attributes that create a distance between God and us, it is His zero tolerance for sin of any kind that makes Him wholly different from us. We may imagine ourselves to be morally superior to God because we're more accepting of sin than He is. You wonder why can't God be as tolerant of people's mistakes as we are？ It's because God isn't like us. The fact that we can tolerate sin in others - especially in ourselves - isn't proof of our godliness but actually evidence of our ungodliness. The holiness or separateness of God creates a moral distance between the Creator and us that began in the Garden of Eden and extends into our lives today.

So we see the seriousness of man's sin and the necessity for a blood offering to cover that sin - the once-for-all sin offering that ultimately only God Himself could provide.

Yes, I already know what you believe about our Creator. You believe our Creator is not a forgiving God. He created us with a propensity to sin, yet he cannot tolerate our sins. You believe God will throw me in hell for stealing a lollipop because he cannot just forgive me, even if I am sorry for that wrong.

Do you have an answer as to why our Creator created us with the propensity to sin when he cannot tolerate sins?