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“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.” (Isaiah 6:3)
Exodus 15:11 – Who among the gods is like you, Lord? Who is like you—majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?
1 Samuel 2:2 – There is no one holy like the Lord; there is no one besides you;…
Psalm 96:9 – Worship the Lord in the splendor of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth.
The Incomprehensible Purity of God
There is no shortage of verses in the Bible that speak to God’s holiness. The first one we typically think of when we consider how God is holy is Habakkuk 1:13: “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrongdoing.”
And, indeed, that is a very appropriate way to think of God’s holiness. He is holy, we are not, and that creates an insurmountable problem for us. As sinful creatures we are simply incapable of truly understanding “holiness” as it applies to God. A.W. Tozer explains,
“We cannot grasp the true meaning of the divine holiness by thinking of someone or something very pure and then raising the concept to the highest degree we are capable of. God’s holiness is not simply the best we know infinitely bettered. We know nothing like the divine holiness. It stands apart, unique, unapproachable, incomprehensible and unattainable. The natural man is blind to it. He may fear God’s power and admire His wisdom, but His holiness he cannot even imagine.”[1]
In his book The Existence and Attributes of God, Stephen Charnock affirms that “God is so holy, that he cannot possibly approve of any evil done by another, but doth perfectly abhor it; it would not else be a glorious holiness (Ps. 5:3)…. He doth not only love that which is just, but abhor, with a perfect hatred, all things contrary to the rule of righteousness.”[2]
The Significance of the Trisagion
Interestingly, “holy” is the only attribute of God that is repeated three times: holy, holy, holy. This is called the Trisagion, and according to Matthew Barrett,
“Hebrew Scholar John Oswalt says it is ‘the strongest form of superlative in Hebrew,’ indicating that ‘Israel’s God is the most “godly” of all the gods.’ It is to stress, as emphatically as possible, that no one is holy like the Lord. His holiness places him in a realm all by himself.”[3]
Further, Art Lindsley says this about the significance of the Trisagion:
“The Hebrew does not have a grammatical way to express the comparative or the superlative (i.e., holier or holiest). The way it stresses the importance of something is by repetition. For instance, Genesis 14 describes a battle between various kings. At one point the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah flee and fall into the ‘tar pits’ (vs. 10). In order to indicate the size and extent of these ‘tar pits,’ the Hebrew just repeats the word ‘pit.’ These ‘tar pits’ are the ‘pit, pits.’ In other words, these are the pitiest pits you could find anywhere.”[4]
Holiness as Separateness
But there’s a second way that God is holy, and that involves His “separateness,” His “otherness.” The word translated “holy” actually means “separate.” Tony Evans explains, “It is the same root word from which we get the words ‘saint’ or ‘sanctified.’ All of these carry the meaning ‘to be separate or distinct.’”[5]
J.I. Packer says, “When God is declared to be holy, the thought is of all that separates him and sets him apart and makes him different from his creatures.”[6]
The Call for Believers to Be Holy
But what are we to make of Jesus’ command in 1 Peter 1:16 (and other places) to “Be holy because I am holy”? Tozer says, “To Israel first and later to His Church God spoke, saying, ‘Be ye holy; for I am holy.’ He did not say ‘be ye holy as I am holy,’ for that would be to demand of us absolute holiness, something that belongs to God alone.”[7]
The context of verse 16 gives us a good starting point for how we are to be holy:
“As obedient children, do not conform to the evil desires you had when you lived in ignorance. But just as he who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do; for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’” (1 Peter 1:14-16)
In his second epistle Peter explains that God has “given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.” Then he explains the process by which we can begin to see holiness displayed in our lives:
“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 1:3, 5-8)
Easy? Absolutely not! And impossible without the Holy Spirit working within us. But with His help, our path toward holiness becomes a life-long commitment to becoming more and more Christlike. That’s how we can be “holy.” And we commit ourselves to live that way because He is holy.
Our Response to Divine Holiness
But here’s the bottom line. What should happen when you are confronted with the holiness of God—either in the sense of purity or in the sense of separateness? For that answer we go to the prophet Isaiah. Here is how he describes his encounter with the holy God:
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory.’
“At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. ‘Woe to me!’ I cried. ‘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 6:15)
We see the same type of reaction from John when he sees the vision of Jesus in Revelation 1. Revelation 1:17 says, “When I saw him, I fell at his feet las though dead.”
Have you ever been so overcome by the holiness of God that you have come undone? Have you actually or metaphorically fallen at His feet in utter despair at your own sinfulness, your own unholiness? Perhaps you should take a deeper dive into what it is in your own life that is keeping you from recognizing that God is indeed, “Holy, holy, holy.” Because, as Art Lindsley warns, “Unless we grasp God’s holiness, we will no longer be ‘amazed’ at his amazing grace.”[8]
End Notes
- A.W. Tozer, The Knowledge of the Holy (Fig: Kindle Edition).↑
- Stephen Charnock, The Existence and Attributes of God (Vol. 1&2): Complete Edition (e-artnow: Kindle Edition), p. 1184.↑
- Matthew Barrett, None Greater: The Undomesticated Attributes of God (Baker Publishing Group: Kindle Edition), p. 218, quoting John N. Oswalt, The Book of Isaiah: Chapters 1-29, New International Commentary on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986), p. 181.↑
- Art Lindsley, “The Holiness of God,” Knowing & Doing, Teaching Quarterly from the C.S. Lewis Institute, Fall 2008.↑
- Tony Evans, God, Himself: A Journey through His Attributes (Moody Publishers: Kindle Edition), p. 64.↑
- J.I. Packer, Knowing God (InterVarsity Press: Kindle Edition), p. 252.↑
- Tozer, Knowledge, op. cit.↑
- Lindsley, op. cit.↑
Go Deeper
R.L. Wilson
R.L. Wilson has been on staff at the Ankerberg Theological Research Institute since 1982. Wilson’s articles draw from the perspective of someone who grew up in a multicultural environment, and who has been a follower of Christ for many decades.
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