“Holy, Holy, Holy”
In the year that King Uzziah died, the prophet Isaiah was given a vision of the Lord, “sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.” Above the throne stood the seraphim, each with six wings: “with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly” (Isaiah 6:1–2). And what did these mighty, sinless creatures cry, day and night, in the presence of God?
The apostle John, given a glimpse of heaven centuries later, heard the same song: “they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come” (Revelation 4:8). In Hebrew, repetition is a way of giving emphasis; to say a thing three times is to declare it in the highest degree. The Scriptures never say that God is “love, love, love” or “wise, wise, wise,” true as those things are. But of His holiness the heavenly host cries it thrice, without end.
Notice, too, that the seraphim cover their faces. They are holy creatures who have never sinned, yet they cannot look full upon the holiness of their Creator. If the angels veil their faces before Him, how should sinful men approach Him?
What Is Holiness?
The Hebrew word for holy, qadosh, carries the idea of being set apart, separate, distinct. When the Bible says that God is holy, it means two things together.
First, God is separate from all His creatures in His majesty. He is not merely the greatest being in the universe; He is of another order altogether. He is the Creator, and all else is creature. After God brought Israel through the Red Sea, Moses and the people sang:
The answer is: no one. “To whom then will ye liken me, or shall I be equal? saith the Holy One” (Isaiah 40:25). He is “the high and lofty One that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy” (Isaiah 57:15).
Second, God is separate from all sin in His perfect purity. There is not the slightest stain, flaw, or shadow of evil in Him. He cannot sin, He cannot be tempted to sin, and He cannot approve of sin in others. “God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (James 1:13). “For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness: neither shall evil dwell with thee” (Psalm 5:4). Holiness is not one attribute among many in God, as if it sat alongside the others; it is the excellence of all His attributes. His power is holy power, His wisdom is holy wisdom, His love is holy love, and His justice is holy justice.
“Thou Only Art Holy”
In the book of Revelation, John sees those who had gotten the victory over the beast standing on a sea of glass, singing “the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb”:
“Thou only art holy.” Angels are called holy, the Scriptures are holy, the temple and its vessels were holy, and believers are called saints, holy ones. But all of these are holy only in a derived and borrowed sense, because God has set them apart or made them so. He alone is holy in Himself, originally, infinitely, and unchangeably. Hannah sang it long before: “There is none holy as the LORD: for there is none beside thee” (1 Samuel 2:2). So sure is His holiness that God swears by it as by Himself: “Once have I sworn by my holiness that I will not lie unto David” (Psalm 89:35).
“God Is Light”
Light in Scripture is the picture of purity, truth, and glory, as darkness is the picture of sin, error, and death. John does not say merely that God gives light, but that God is light, and that in Him is “no darkness at all,” not the smallest shadow. He dwells “in the light which no man can approach unto” (1 Timothy 6:16). With Him “is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17).
John draws the practical conclusion at once: “If we say that we have fellowship with him, and walk in darkness, we lie, and do not the truth: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John 1:6–7). A holy God can have fellowship only with those who have been cleansed by the blood of His Son.
“Of Purer Eyes Than to Behold Evil”
The prophet Habakkuk was troubled. Judah was full of violence and injustice, and God answered his complaint by telling him that He would raise up the Chaldeans, a cruel and wicked nation, to punish Judah. Habakkuk could hardly understand it, and he appealed to the holiness of God:
God sees all things, of course, so Habakkuk does not mean that God is unaware of evil. He means that God cannot look upon sin with approval, cannot tolerate it, cannot pass it by. His eyes are too pure to regard it with anything but holy hatred. “Thou hatest all workers of iniquity” (Psalm 5:5). And yet God was using the wicked Chaldeans for His own holy purpose, and would judge them in their turn. God’s patience with the wicked is never His approval of their wickedness. “The just shall live by his faith” (Habakkuk 2:4), trusting that the Holy One will do right.
“Holy in All His Works”
Not in some of His works, but in all of them. God was holy when He created the world and pronounced it “very good” (Genesis 1:31). He is holy in His providence, governing all things, even the sinful acts of men, without ever being the author of sin (Genesis 50:20; Acts 2:23). He is holy in His law, which is “holy, and the commandment holy, and just, and good” (Romans 7:12). He is holy in His sovereign election and in His judgments. When we cannot understand what He is doing, we may rest on this: “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Genesis 18:25).
Holiness Revealed in Judgment
The Bible gives sobering examples of what it means to treat a holy God lightly. When Moses approached the burning bush, God said, “put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground” (Exodus 3:5). At Sinai, the people were forbidden even to touch the mountain on pain of death (Exodus 19:12). When Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, offered “strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not,” fire went out from the LORD and devoured them, and God said, “I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me, and before all the people I will be glorified” (Leviticus 10:1–3). Uzzah put out his hand to steady the ark, contrary to God’s command, and God struck him dead (2 Samuel 6:6–7). Ananias and Sapphira lied to the Holy Ghost and fell down dead (Acts 5:1–11).
These things are written so that we may know that God means what He says: “our God is a consuming fire” (Hebrews 12:29). The final revelation of His holiness will be the day of judgment, when “there shall in no wise enter into [the holy city] any thing that defileth” (Revelation 21:27). That is why the redeemed in Revelation 15 sing of His holiness precisely as His judgments are poured out: “for thy judgments are made manifest.” The holiness of God is not a comfortable doctrine for the unrepentant sinner. It is the reason why sin must be punished.
Holiness Revealed at the Cross
If God is too pure to look upon iniquity, how can any sinner ever be accepted by Him? This is the great question of the Bible, and the answer is found at Calvary. There the holy God laid upon His own Son the sins of all His people: “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
On the cross the Lord Jesus cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). The Son, who had enjoyed the Father’s love from all eternity, was made to bear the wrath of a holy God against sin. Psalm 22, which begins with those very words, gives the answer to the question: “But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel” (Psalm 22:3). Never was the holiness of God more clearly shown than when He would not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all (Romans 8:32).
At the cross God’s holiness and His mercy met. He did not set aside His justice to save sinners; He satisfied it. Christ was set forth “to declare his righteousness: that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus” (Romans 3:26). A holy God can now receive sinners, not because their sin does not matter, but because it has been fully punished in their Substitute.
“The Beauty of Holiness”
Holiness is not only fearful; it is beautiful. In the days of King Jehoshaphat, a vast army of Moabites, Ammonites, and others came against Judah. The king proclaimed a fast, and God answered through a prophet: “the battle is not yours, but God’s” (2 Chronicles 20:15). Then Jehoshaphat did a remarkable thing:
Singers went before the soldiers, praising the beauty of God’s holiness. “And when they began to sing and to praise, the LORD set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir” (v.22), and the enemy destroyed itself. The holiness of God, which is terror to His enemies, is the delight and the defence of His people. “Give unto the LORD the glory due unto his name; worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness” (Psalm 29:2). “O worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness: fear before him, all the earth” (Psalm 96:9). “Sing unto the LORD, O ye saints of his, and give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness” (Psalm 30:4).
“Thy People Shall Be Willing”
Psalm 110 is a psalm of the Messiah, the King and Priest whom the LORD seats at His right hand. And in this verse we learn how His people come to Him. By nature no sinner loves the holiness of God; “the carnal mind is enmity against God” (Romans 8:7). Left to ourselves, we would flee from the Holy One as Adam hid among the trees of the garden. But in “the day of thy power,” when God works by His Spirit, His people are made willing. They do not make themselves willing; they are made willing by sovereign grace. “For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13).
And they come “in the beauties of holiness,” arrayed as worshippers, like the priests of old who wore on their foreheads the golden plate engraved “HOLINESS TO THE LORD” (Exodus 28:36). This is the purpose for which God chose them: “he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love” (Ephesians 1:4). The new man is “created in righteousness and true holiness” (Ephesians 4:24), and God chastens His children “for our profit, that we might be partakers of his holiness” (Hebrews 12:10). What God requires, God gives.
How Should We Respond?
With humility. When Isaiah saw the Lord, he did not feel proud of his spirituality. He cried, “Woe is me! for I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips … for mine eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts” (Isaiah 6:5). Job said, “now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5–6). Peter fell at Jesus’ knees and said, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Luke 5:8). The nearer we come to the holiness of God, the more we see our own sin. And the Lord answered Isaiah’s confession by sending a seraph with a live coal from the altar: “thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged” (Isaiah 6:7).
With reverent worship. “Exalt ye the LORD our God, and worship at his footstool; for he is holy” (Psalm 99:5). Much of what passes for worship today treats God as a casual friend or an audience to be entertained. The holiness of God calls us instead to “serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear” (Hebrews 12:28), to come before Him in the way He has commanded, not with “strange fire” of our own devising.
With holy living. “But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, Be ye holy; for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15–16; Leviticus 11:44). We are not made right with God by our holiness, for our righteousnesses are as filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). We are justified by the righteousness of Christ alone. But those whom God justifies, He also sanctifies, and a professed faith that produces no love for holiness is no saving faith at all. “Follow peace with all men, and holiness, without which no man shall see the Lord” (Hebrews 12:14).
Forever Holy
The holiness of God will be the theme of eternity. The redeemed will never tire of it, for in the holy city “there shall be no night there” (Revelation 22:5), and the Lamb is the light thereof. Let every reader ask himself: am I ready to stand before this holy God? There is only one way: to flee to the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy One of God, whose blood alone can cleanse a sinner fit to dwell in His presence. “Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart” (Psalm 24:3–4), and that is only the man whose hands and heart have been made clean by Christ.