“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty;

the whole earth is full of his glory.”

Isaiah 6:3

 The Old Testament patriarchs and prophets were no strangers to godly fear. Take Isaiah’s cry for example: “Woe to me! I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty” (Isaiah 6:5).  

The seraphs have set the tone: “Holy, holy, holy.” Holy, repeated three times, is ”the sum of all praise”* of who God is. So what else is a man with unclean lips and friends to do when he comes face-to-face with the LORD, but tremble in awe and reverence! As Isaiah is in awe of pure holiness, so too am I.  

· Worship the LORD in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth (Psalm 96:9).

· Tremble, O earth, at the presence of the Lord (Psalm 114:7). 

I find this in the Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament: one of the Hebrew root words for holiness, qodesh, underlines the idea of “separation”—there is no one like God. As an online Blackaby Ministries International article says: “God’s holiness declares He is entirely unlike us, or anyone else, in every respect. God is not a mixture of various elements. He is absolutely pure.”

A.W. Tozer** adds to the idea of separation and purity: “Holy is the way God is. To be holy He does not conform to a standard. He is that standard. He is absolutely holy with an infinite, incomprehensible fullness of purity that is incapable of being other than it is.”

I am faced then with my finite inability to wrap my mind around holiness. Yet that idea is reassuring. Why would I be in awe of God if His holiness were not absolute and pure? “Who…is like you, LORD? Who is like you—majestic in holiness, awesome in glory?” (Exodus 15:11).

Holy. Holy. Holy. I am in hot pursuit of deeper insight into your holiness, O Lord. I know that only in heaven will I see it fully. For now I cherish any earthly glimpses you give me.    

Nancy P

*Wesley online commentary

**The Knowledge of the Holy, p.112-113

All Scripture quotations are from the NIV 1973, 1978, 1984, unless otherwise noted.