God Is Holy

“And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!” (Rev. 4:8)

What do you think of when you hear the word “holy”? Some may think of it in the stereotypical Puritan sense: “The haunting fear that someone, somewhere may be happy.” Or maybe, you think of it as my dear Baptist friends joke: “Don’t drink, don’t smoke, and don’t go with girls that do!” If these are our conceptions of “holy,” we should not be surprised that so few people desire to be holy, that so few people worship God as holy!

What does it mean to be “holy”? To be holy means to be set apart, but not set apart for any ol’ purpose. To be holy means to be set apart for the most glorious, the most fulfilling, the more delightful purpose - God. When we survey the Old Testament, Leviticus records the most uses of the word “holy.” In fact, we could say that Leviticus (the most important book of the Old Testament) focuses solely on holiness. The priests are set apart for one purpose – to serve God. Offerings are set apart for one purpose – to serve God. The furniture of the Tabernacle is set apart for one purpose – to serve God. They are “devoted to God.” In fact, in John 17:19, Jesus goes as far to say that He was set apart for od that we may be set apart for God. As the blood of lambs purified and set apart instruments from a common to a holy use, so the blood of Christ sets us apart from a common to a holy use.

Isn’t this what we were made for? Adam and Eve were originally set apart for God. It reminds me of a riddle from G.K. Chesterton: “’What did the first frog say?’ And the answer was, ‘Lord, how you made me jump!" That says succinctly all that I am saying. God made the frog jump; but the frog prefers jumping.’” To be holy is what God made us to do, and our greatest joy will come from being holy.

But how does this apply to God? We can say that God is set apart for Himself, that He is devoted to His own glory. His name will be set apart and exalted above all else. This makes holiness the chief jewel of all His attributes; therefore, we can say that God is holy in His righteousness, holy in His justice, holy in His purity, holy in all His being! He isn’t just holy, or holy, holy, He is thrice holy – the perfection of holiness. Standing before God, Isaiah says through trembling voice: “I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell among a people of unclean lips.” Our God will be exalted as holy – be it through the judgment of sinners (Lev. 10:1-3) or the salvation of sinners (Is. 6:1-7).

If God’s glory is our greatest good, this should cause us to rejoice! There will be a day when we will dwell in a land of holiness where no impurity, no unrighteousness, no injustice, no evil will dwell. We who were created to be devoted to God, who are created anew as devoted to God, will live as those fully devoted to God. We will “love Him with an unsinning heart.”