Creator, Father, King #10

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty—the one who always was, who is, and who is still to come.

HAVE YOU EVER CLIMBED to the moon on a ladder? Or calculated the distance from Poughkeepsie to Pluto with a tape measure? Or explored the universe to its farthest limits in a spaceship?

Obviously, these things are impossible. But they hint at the holiness of God.

Wait, you might be wondering, did you say, “Holiness”? Don’t you mean God’s majesty, greatness, glory, or something? What does all this have to do with his holiness?

I’m glad you asked.

What’s It Mean?

When it comes to God’s holiness, which we’ll be meditating on today and tomorrow, most people focus on his moral purity. And yes, God’s holiness undoubtedly means that he is entirely without sin. He cannot sin or do anything contrary to his perfect nature.

But the extent of God’s holiness goes even further beyond his sinless nature. When the Bible describes God as holy, it is first and foremost talking about his transcendence.

That’s a big word. The dictionary defines it as “exceeding usual limits” or “being beyond comprehension.”

This transcendence includes God’s separateness from sin, but it’s not limited to that. His holiness means there is nothing like him in all creation—not even close. God is so perfectly exalted above anything else—in all of his majesty, power, wisdom, love, etc.—that human language cannot adequately describe him.

Isaiah 55:9 says, “Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts.” In other words, Isaiah was saying, “Just like you can never measure from earth to the end of the universe, so also you cannot measure how much God transcends his creation.”

There is simply nothing to compare God to in the universe. He is that excellent! He is that awesome!

He is holy.

Now What?

Spend some time meditating on Psalm 8, a chapter on the Lord’s holiness.

Did You Know?

God’s holiness is one of the main reasons for the second of the Ten Commandments: “You must not make for yourself an idol of any kind or an image of anything in the heavens or on the earth or in the sea” (Exodus 20:4). Any attempt to worship God with a man-made image fashioned after something in his creation is an abomination to his glory.