The Glory of God - Holy

The Bible is all about the glory of God. The Gospel is called "the gospel of the glory of Christ" (2 Cor. 4:4). Christ was "raised from the dead through the glory of the Father" (Rom. 6:4). We are blessed with every spiritual blessing to the glory of God (Eph. 1:3-12). We know that in the end every knee shall bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God (Rom. 14:11). All that has occurred from the creation of all that is to the end of all things has occurred for the glory of God. I thought that maybe it would be a good idea to take a little time to review what it is that makes God glorious.

The Bible lists many attributes of God. We're all aware that He is good and that He is love and that He is just and righteous. These are all true about God. One attribute, however, overshadows all other attributes. It is His holiness. In Isa. 6, the prophet Isaiah says, "In the year of King Uzziah's death I saw the Lord ..." (Isa. 6:1). He goes on to describe his vision of God complete with flowing robes, smoke, and seraphim. Isaiah, rather than being gleeful about this encounter with the God that he has been serving for five chapters already, is undone. "Woe is me, for I am ruined! Because I am a man of unclean lips, And I live among a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts" (Isa. 6:5). What, exactly, was it that caused Isaiah to actually curse himself? Well, certainly it was the whole package, but there was one particular aspect of his vision of God that left an indelible mark in the rest of his ministry. Isaiah describes the seraphim as calling out to one another, "Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of His glory." (Isa. 6:3). Ever after Isaiah refers to God as "the Holy One of Israel".

We have a difficult time comprehending this holiness. We think of it as "not sin", and there is certainly that element. But it is much, much more. First, "holy" refers to "set apart". This term essentially means "other". The seraphim were crying out to one another, "God is other, other, other!" As such, He is set apart from sin without a doubt, but He is "other" far beyond the concept of sin. He is "other" in that He is God and we are not. He is "other" in that He is not a man (Num. 23:19; 1 Sam. 15:29; Job 9:32; Psa. 50:21). This is one of our extremely common mistakes in our thinking about God -- we think He is just like us. He is not. He is ... other. The other aspect of "holy" that we miss is the Hebraism used. When I want to emphasize something, I might italicize it or put it in bold. I can use an exclamation mark or an underlining. They didn't use those methods. Instead, they used repetition. Repetition, to them, was a sign of emphasis. Jesus, for instance, used this tool on multiple occasions. He always spoke truth, so His disciples should always listen. On occasion, however, He would say, "Verily I say to you ..." This was a sign to the listener. "The truth-sayer is calling attention to the fact that this is truth." It was like a teacher saying, "This may be on the final exam." On rare occasion Jesus went a step further: "Verily, verily I say to you ..." On these occasions, had the disciples been modern students, they would have done well to get out their notepads, turn on their recorders, or do whatever it took to note what followed because the "truth-teller" was calling grand attention to some truth here. In the case of Isaiah's vision, God's attribute of holiness is raised to the third degree. "Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD of hosts!" It was as if they were raising the superlatives. "Holy, Holier, Holiest!" Then it was underscored, bold printed, italicized. This was not an everyday attribute; this was the key attribute.

Now, as I said, we can list a lot of attributes for God. He is love, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent. He is righteous and merciful, gracious and just. He is creative and sovereign and lots of other attributes. But never do we see any attribute listed to this third degree. Nowhere else do we read that God is "love, love, love" or "gracious, gracious, gracious." Not only is it listed that way in Isaiah 6, it is also laid out that way in Revelation. "The four living creatures, each one of them having six wings, are full of eyes around and within; and day and night they do not cease to say, 'HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is THE LORD GOD, THE ALMIGHTY, WHO WAS AND WHO IS AND WHO IS TO COME'" (Rev. 4:8). So the holiness of God is expounded in both the Old and New Testaments and raised to the third power, so to speak. There is no other attribute of God so greatly emphasized as the holiness of God.

The point is that God is set apart, other. We cannot comprehend the degree to which that is true. And while there are commonalities (we are, for instance, made in His image), we will never be able to encompass God. The finite cannot grasp the infinite. When viewed this way, our puny attempts at explaining God seem feeble. Our ardent attempts to defend God seem nonsensical. Our wondering about why God would do thus and so seems purely childish. God is God; we are not. God is holy, and we can only get a taste, a glimpse of that glory. I suspect that the longer we meditate on the glory of God in His ultimate holiness, the better we will understand the futility of fully explaining Him or arguing against Him, especially in our own lives. I suspect that once we actually get a glimpse of this kind of holiness, we, too, will be on our faces with every single person that ever came in contact with God in real terror crying, "I am unclean!" Then, I think, we would be where we should be in the glorious presence of God.