What Does It Mean For God to Be Holy, Holy, Holy?
What does it mean for God to be holy? And while we’re on the topic, what does it mean for us—or anything, for that matter—to be holy? When the majority of folks think about the word holy, the most likely words that come to mind are purity, perfection, goodness, integrity, righteousness, or any other word that denotes moral uprightness of some kind. Indeed, as believers, we too are called to be holy: “You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy” (Leviticus 19:2). But what does that actually mean? While holiness certainly contains within it the virtues of purity, perfection, righteousness and the like, we will come to see that there is actually far, far more to being holy than just moral integrity.
When we call something or someone holy, we attribute to that thing or person a degree of otherness. We are saying that it is “set apart” or “a cut above” something or someone else. To be holy is to be other. To be holy is to be in a category apart from other, more everyday things. Consider that we call the Bible not just “The Bible,” but “The Holy Bible.” The Bible is holy because it proceeds from the lips of Him who is utterly holy. However, when we as believers are called to be holy, or when the Bible describes the angels as “the holy angels,” let us remain humbly aware of the fact that this holiness is always first and foremost in imitation of Him who is alone holy in and of Himself.
Indeed, ours is a distinctly creaturely holiness. We are to be set apart as Christians—“in the world, but not of it.” However, the degree to which we are other from the world only ever remains within the realm reserved for created beings, be it angels, men, or otherwise.
But again, what does it mean for God in particular to be holy? As the burning seraphim in Isaiah 6:3 are in the throes of their song, crying as with every fibre of their being the words “Holy, holy, holy,” they are not simply saying God is “Good, good, good” or “Perfect, perfect, perfect.” God is all of these things, and much more, but He is first and foremost holy. When we speak of God as holy, we are talking about a Being who is in a category entirely unto Himself. This divine otherness applies to each Person of the holy Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The triune God has no comparable equal, sizeable metaphor, or close second. As the sole Creator, God is the ultimate Other. In The Holiness of God, R.C. likens holiness closely with transcendence. He writes,
“God is above and beyond us. Transcendence describes His supreme and absolute greatness. The word is used to describe God’s relationship to the world. He is higher than the world. He has absolute power over the world. The world has no power over Him. Transcendence describes God in His consuming majesty, His exalted loftiness. It points to the infinite distance that separates Him from every creature. He is an infinite cut above everything else.”
Perhaps it would be helpful to consider some other quotes regarding God’s holiness. A.A. Hodge said that, “The holiness of God is not to be conceived of as one attribute among others. It is rather a general term representing the conception of God’s consummate perfection and total glory. It is His infinite moral perfection crowning His infinite intelligence and power.” Speaking in a similar vein, Thomas Watson spoke about how, “Holiness is the most sparkling jewel of God’s crown. It is the name by which He is known.” John MacArthur, ever the straight shooter, simply said in a sermon of his that “Holiness is God’s total glory crowned. Holy is His name.”
In The Holiness of God, R.C. Sproul allots several pages to unfolding the significance of the phrase “Holy, holy, holy” in the song of the seraphim from Isaiah 6. For example, have you ever wondered why the word holy is repeated three times? In English, if we want to draw attention to something important, we can employ several tactics: I can write words in bold, I can italicize them, I can underline words, and I can even END A SENTENCE LIKE THIS TO REALLY GET YOUR ATTENTION!
In the Hebrew language of the Old Testament, however, the chief device for suggesting emphasis was repetition. Hence, God is praised as being not just “Holy” or even “Holy, holy,” but “Holy, holy, holy!”
No other attribute of God is elevated to the third and superlative degree anywhere else in all of Scripture. At no point is God said to be “Love, love love,” or “Wisdom, wisdom, wisdom.” He is, however, “Holy, holy, holy.” Holiness is the crowning jewel of God’s beauty; the diadem sitting upon the brow of His other perfect attributes. Because God is “Holy, holy, holy,” His love is a holy love, His wrath a holy wrath, His wisdom a holy wisdom, and so on. Everything about God is set apart and a cut above even the suggestive whisper of comparison.
Indeed, “Holiness is God’s total glory crowned. Holy is His name.” Hodge was right to say that holiness is less an attribute of God in and of itself than it is the general term describing everything glorious about God—perfect, good, true, beautiful, loving, and utterly distinct. God is holy—He is other than—not just because there is a finite, fallible created order to which He (and more importantly, they) can be compared, for He was “Holy, holy, holy” in eternity past before a single creature was made, but because He is and is alone God. In His infinite glory, God is not only a standard deviation above everything else (as though this were the only thing that made Him holy and other). Rather, God is the very infinite standard by which all other good, truth, beauty, and love ought to be judged. Remember Jesus’ words: “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18). Jesus was not denying that He is good; instead, He was challenging sinful man’s standards of what and who passed for being truly good—God alone.
The distinction between God and man—between Creator and creature, between the holy and the profane—extends far beyond us as His image-bearers. There lies an everlasting gulf between God and all that He has made—in large part, this is what it means for God to be holy in the first place. Indeed, the highest angel in Heaven and the lowest worm on Earth are far closer in kind than the former—that is, the angel—is in proximity to the glory of Almighty God. An infinite expanse separates both these creatures from the Lord, irrespective of how near or far apart they might be from one another. There is little sense in distinguishing between greater and lesser degrees of infinity.
This is not to say that there exists no difference in glory between created beings, such as a worm from an angel, from man to man, or even angels from angels. For,
“There are heavenly bodies and earthly bodies, but the glory of the heavenly is of one kind, and the glory of the earthly is of another. There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for star differs from star in glory” (1 Corinthians 15:40-41).
Even in the New Heavens and the New Earth, we as sons and daughters of God will differ from one another in glory. All those in Christ shall “shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matthew 13:43), while nonetheless remaining unique from one another—“for star differs from star in glory.”
The chief point here is that all creaturely glory fades beyond a dim flicker when compared to the incomparable, infinite, thrice-holy glory of the Creator, just as a flashlight’s beam makes no difference under the blaze of a noon sun.
Though even a single seraphim (Hebrew for “burning ones”) would likely reduce our world to ash should he be unveiled in all his creaturely glory before us, the simple fact remains that these creatures, elevated as they may be, cannot even look at the Lord God. In Isaiah 6:2, it is with two wings that the seraphim shield their face and with the other two that they cover their feet—these appendages being symbols of their creatureliness—and with the remaining two they flee from the presence of Him with whom we all have to do. The flight of the burning ones from before the inferno of the Lord’s holiness is not unlike this scene we see at the end of the age:
“Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them” (Revelation 20:11).
If heaven and earth cannot flee from His holy presence, nor even the holy angels themselves, then who is man to suppose that he is exempt from judgement? “And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account” (Hebrews 4:13). A proper understanding of God as holy is utterly foundational to our grasp of the Gospel: it locks our unrighteous hearts in the holy vice-grip of the Lord’s perfection, leaving us with nothing else to do but look unto Him for mercy and grace.
Indeed, though the Lord is “high and lifted up” and “Holy, holy, holy,” He is also supreme in steadfast love, kindness, and humility. Only a few chapters earlier in Isaiah 1:18, the Lord welcomes sinners to repent and come to Him for cleansing: “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD: though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow.” In His divine, holy kindness, God “is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9). Such patience is holy indeed to bear so long with rebellious sinners.
As the thrice-holy God, the Lord cannot even look at sin. And yet it is He who welcomes sinners to come to Him, free of payment, for forgiveness and atonement from the countless sins they have committed against Him. Outside of His abundant grace, we would all be reduced to lament alongside Paul: “Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24). The answer to his question arrives in verse 25: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
There is an infinite gap between God and man. And thanks be to God, there is an infinite Savior who has bridged that gap in God’s only Son, having reconciled all things to Himself through the cross (Colossians 1:20).
Jesus has closed the distance between holy God and sinful man through the peace purchased by His atoning death. Despite every just and righteous reason the Lord has to wipe humanity from existence, He has chosen instead to wipe away the sins of all those who repent and put their faith in Jesus.
In Christ alone, we as believers are made truly holy, even as He is holy. On the cross, Jesus took upon Himself our sin; by grace through faith, God the Father clothes us with His Son’s holy robes of perfection—“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). It is a foreign, other righteousness that now clothes us.
All thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Photo by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Unsplash
Author’s Note: A longer version of this article (where I go through Isaiah 6 verse by verse) can be found here: “Holy, Holy, Holy: The Gospel According to Isaiah Six”.
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