“Who among the gods is like you, O LORD? Who is like you—majestic in holiness, awesome in glory, working wonders?” (Exodus 15:11).
“I am the LORD your God; consecrate yourselves and be holy, because I am holy” (Leviticus 11:44).
“‘To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?’ says the Holy One” (Isaiah 40:25).
“Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name” (Matthew 6:9).
R. C. Sproul: “Any attempt to understand God apart from His holiness is idolatry.”
To be holy means to be SET APART.
• God is set apart from SIN.
“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).
• God is set apart from CREATION.
“The Lord is exalted over all the nations, his glory above the heavens. Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth?” (Psalm 113:4-6).
God is transcendent: above and beyond the commonplace.
We are creatures; God is the creator. We are finite; God is infinite. We are dependent; God is independent. We are mortal; He is eternal.
Sigmund Freud believed that mankind invented God to alleviate the fear of the unknown. But what humans really fear most is an encounter with a holy God. This is the reason why many people are atheists.
Isaiah 6:1-8
1. If God could be known by only one attribute, it would be HOLINESS.
“In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple” (v. 1).
Uzziah was a good king who provided peace in Judah. The people’s reaction to his death was “What are we going to do now?” They were afraid.
Why “Lord” instead of “LORD”?
• “LORD” is the English translation of Yahweh/Jehovah. This is the name by which God identified Himself to Moses (Exodus 3:14). It means “I AM WHO I AM.”
• “Lord” is the English translation of Adonai. Adonai means “The Supreme Sovereign One” and implies that He holds all power and authority.
• “LORD” is God’s name; “Lord” is His title. (Illustration: Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Stephen Harper is his name; Prime Minister is his title.)
In the year that King Uzziah died, Isaiah saw the King. (John 12:41 reveals that Isaiah saw the preincarnate Jesus Christ.)
“Above him were seraphs, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying” (v. 2).
What is the significance of the seraphs?
Seraphs are angels who minister in the presence of God. They have six wings.
• One set of wings is to cover their faces.
“You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live” (Exodus 33:20; see vv. 18-23).
• One set of wings is to cover their feet.
“‘Do not come any closer,’ God said. ‘Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground’” (Exodus 3:5).
• One set of wings is to fly.
“And they were calling to one another: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD Almighty: the whole earth is full of his glory” (v. 3).
What is the significance of seraph’s song: “Holy, holy, holy”?
In the Hebrew language, repetition was used for emphasis. (Example: Jesus often said, “Truly, truly I say to you…”)
The only example of triple repetition is “Holy, holy, holy.” No other attribute is repeated three times. Why? The holiness of God encompasses all of His other attributes.
2. If we really understood the holiness of God, we would forever see ourselves as SINNERS who deserve nothing but JUDGMENT.
“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’” (vv. 4-5).
Isaiah was a prophet. Prophets gave pronouncements from God, sometimes called oracles. There were two kinds of oracles:
• Oracle of weal: A pronouncement of divine favor (“Blessed…”). (Example: “Blessed are the poor in spirit,” Matthew 5:3.)
• Oracle of doom: A pronouncement of divine judgment (“Woe…”). (Example: “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!” Matthew 23:13.)
Isaiah pronounces an oracle of doom upon himself: “Woe to me!” In other words, “I deserve judgment from God!”
“I am ruined!” In other words, “I am falling apart; I am disintegrating!” Isaiah is a great prophet and a righteous man, but when he sees a glimpse of the holiness of God, he is confronted with his own wretchedness. When he sees who God is, he sees who he is.
God is holy; we are not. We compare ourselves to one another and think we’re pretty good. But we need to compare ourselves to a holy God. (Illustration: My guitar playing would not sound good if compared to a really good player.)
“For I am a man of unclean lips.” In other words, “I have a dirty mouth.” Why the mouth? A prophet’s mouth was used to declare God’s message to the people. Even our best qualities are dirty when compared to the holiness of God.
“Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, ‘See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for’” (vv. 6-7).
God purges Isaiah’s dirty mouth. He forgives Isaiah’s sin. This is based upon Isaiah’s repentance. God is holy, but He is also gracious.
3. If we really understood the holiness of God, we would never stop praising Him for His GRACE.
On this day 266 years ago, Jonathan Edwards preached one of the most famous sermons of all time: “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” Edwards uses graphic images to portray man’s precarious position before a holy God. Some people refer to this sermon as “scare theology.” This sermon is based on Deuteronomy 32:35: “In due time their foot will slip; their day of disaster is near and their doom rushes upon them.”
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some detestable insect, over the fire, detests you, and is dreadfully provoked: His wrath towards you burns like fire; His eyes are too pure than to bear to have you in His sight; you are ten thousands times more abominable in His eyes, than the most hateful venomous snake is in ours. You have offended Him infinitely more than ever a stubborn revel did his prince: and yet, it is nothing but His hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell last night; that you were allowed to awake up again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose this morning, but that God’s hand has held you up.
O sinner! consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it apart.
The focus on the sermon is not on the flames of fire but on the kind hand of God that keeps us from falling.
Hell is real. Jesus said so. If there is not hell, then one of two things must be true: (1) there is no unrepentant sin or (2) God is not holy.
The main point of Edward’s sermon: It is dangerous to take God’s kindness for granted. He is a holy God who will punish sin. We all deserve hell.
We are shocked at the wrath and justice of God. We should be shocked at the grace of God.
The holiness and grace of God are seen most clearly in the cross. God is gracious—He wanted to save us. But God is holy—He couldn’t simply overlook our sin. Sin must be punished. So He punished His Son on the cross in our place.
How should the holiness of God affect our lives?
• Christian: We should realize the awesomeness of our God and give Him our complete obedience. “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, ‘Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?’ And I said, ‘Here am I. Send me!’” (v. 8).
• Unsaved: Don’t take God’s kindness for granted. “Do you think you will escape God’s judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God’s kindness leads you to repentance?” (Romans 2:3b-4).
THE HOLINESS OF GOD
To be holy means to be ___________________.
• God is set apart from _________.
“This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him is no darkness at all” (1 John 1:5).
• God is set apart from ______________.
“The Lord is exalted over all the nations, his glory above the heavens. Who is like the Lord our God, the One who sits enthroned on high, who stoops down to look on the heavens and the earth?” (Psalm 113:4-6).
Isaiah 6:1-8
1. If God could be known by only one attribute, it would be ________________.
2. If we really understood the holiness of God, we would forever see ourselves as ________________ who deserve nothing but _______________.
3. If we really understood the holiness of God, we would never stop praising Him for His ____________.
