The Holiness of God- Part One

The scene is a familiar one. A witless, young blonde opens a door to find a dark stairwell that leads down to an old basement. She begins to fumble down the stairs while the audience knows all too well that something strange and sinister lurks below.

In every culture, there exists some idea of the holy. This is due to the fact that within every human there is an innate desire to feel terror. It is a strange phenomenon that theologians have called the mysterium tremendum, or the "overwhelming mystery." We seek to satisfy this desire whether it be through the Hollywood, horror slasher or through telling ghost stories by the campfire. In Scripture, God is portrayed as the being who evokes "overwhelming mystery." If we lose this concept of God as holy and mysterious, we will replace it with something that will make the hair stand on the back of our necks.

In the modern church, the holy tremors have all but vanished. In its place, we have adopted a casual, cavalier attitude towards the Sovereign of the universe. The slogan, "Jesus is my homeboy" has become so ubiquitous that the concept of God as transcendent and holy is nearly unintelligible. God is imminent but he is not imminent to the exclusion of his transcendence. We must recapture the Biblical picture of God as "high and lifted up" (cf. Is. 6:1) if we are expected to encounter God in this generation.

To gain an understanding of the holiness of God, let us look to Scripture where men had real encounters with the holy. Such a visible manifestation of God's presence is often called by theologians a theophany. One such theophany is recorded for us in Isaiah 6:1-7:

In the year that King Uzziah died I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him stood the seraphim. Each had six wings: with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. And one called to another and said: Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” And the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke. And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!” Then one of the seraphim flew to me, having in his hand a burning coal that he had taken with tongs from the altar. And he touched my mouth and said: “Behold, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away, and your sin atoned for.”

The theophany

Chapter six unfolds with a majestic manifestation of God. Isaiah records that he saw the Lord "high and lifted up" and "the train of his robe filled the temple." The temple spoken of here is not the earthly temple but the heavenly temple. Isaiah is seeing God exalted in the heavens! "The train of his robe filled the temple" signifies the majesty of God. Seraphim fly about the throne of the Lord, covering their faces because angelic beings have no glory that can compare with God. The cry of the seraphim is that of "Holy, Holy, Holy" and it is known as the trihagion. God is holy. Why would it not suffice for the angelic beings just to cry holy once? It should be noted that in the Hebrew language, repetition is used for emphasis. However, this is not a complete answer. The reason that the angelic beings cry "Holy" thrice is because God is thrice holy. And God is thrice holy because God is tripersonal. God is holy-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. To be enraptured with the holiness of God, is to be enraptured with the holiness of the Trinity. Let us examine closely what is meant by the term "holy."

The two meanings of holy

When we speak of holiness, we should be careful to distinguish its two meanings. Its primary meaning has to do with transcendence. God is separate from his creation. This meaning does not involve the idea of moral purity. If the idea of holiness were exclusively moral purity then only humans would reckon God as holy. For the seraphim were morally pure, yet we have just read that they had to cover their faces and feet and cry out, "Holy!" It is because God is transcendent and distinct from his creation. As such, the creation falls in reverential awe of him.

The text continues in v. 4 and we read "the foundations of the thresholds shook at the voice of him who called, and the house was filled with smoke." We will look next time at the secondary definition of holiness and how Isaiah reacted in the presence of a being with absolute moral purity.