The Holiness Of God
THE HOLINESS OF GOD
In the year of King Uzziah's death, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, lofty and exalted, with the train of His robe filling the temple.
Seraphim stood above Him, each having six wings; with two he covered his face, and with two he covered his feet, and with two he flew. 3 And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.” (Isaiah 6:1-3). This is a glorious vision. It is a vision that takes us into heaven and into the very throne room of God. Isaiah begins with a brief but historical footnote. His account begins by rooting the event in time and space. What Isaiah is about to describe takes place in real history. It is not a “once upon a time” fairy tale. God really did speak. He did so... In the year of King Uzziah's Death... The reign of Uzziah is described in 2 Chronicles 26:1-23. He began his reign by doing right in the sight of the Lord. And because of this, the Lord blessed him and made the kingdom of Judah to be prosperous. But Uzziah became proud. And in his pride, he took it upon himself to enter into the Temple and to offer incense upon the altar of incense. This was something that only a priest was permitted to do. As a result, God smote Uzziah with leprosy. Because he was a leper, he was no longer to even approach the Temple. He was ceremonially unclean and he remained in this state for the rest of his life. Indeed, he could not even continue to rule his kingdom. Although he held to the title of king, his son Jotham served as regent and defacto ruler in his place.
Now the king had died. And in that same year, Isaiah was given a vision. It was a vision of the Temple. Not the Temple which Solomon built, but of heaven itself. In contrast to the sullied career of court and king, the vision of Isaiah is one of wonder and majesty. It is a vision of the presence of the Lord. He is accompanied by Seraphim -- the Hebrew word sereph describes “fire” -- these are “fiery ones.” They comprise a royal honor guard around the throne. They are there with a message to proclaim. Their message is a declaration of the character of their Creator: And one called out to another and said, “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.” (Isaiah 6:3). The first question that we must ask in approaching this passage concerns the definition of this quality known as holiness. What does it mean to be holy? Being holy has often thought to be the same as being spiritual or being good, but this is not necessarily the case. The Hebrew word vwOdq' (qadosh) describes that which has been set apart and made special.
It is used of places such as the ground where God showed Himself to Moses (Exodus 3:5).
It is used to refer to the Sabbath Day that had been set apart as a day of rest and remembrance of God (Genesis 2:3; Exodus 20:8).
It is used to speak of people such as the priests of God who were set apart from the rest of the nation (Exodus 28:41).
One synonym that can be used to express this quality of holiness is “otherness.” Each of these things is said to be set apart and other than the rest of those things that surround them. This brings us to a question: In what way is God holy? He is set apart from the rest of His creation. There is nothing else in the universe that is like Him. He is other than the rest of creation.
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||||| The message of these Seraphim point to the holiness of God. They say it repeatedly: “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the LORD of hosts, The whole earth is full of His glory.” Hebrew has no punctuation marks. When you wish to make something emphatic in Hebrew, you do so by repeating it again and again and again. For example, when Jesus is speaking with Nicodemus and He wants to make a point, He doesn't just say, “I am telling you the truth when I say you must be born again.” He says, “Truly, truly.” He repeats it. This emphasizes and underlines what He is saying. When Peter is given the vision of the clean and unclean animals coming down from heaven, the vision is given three times. The seraphim repeat this three times. They say, “Holy, holy, holy.” There are not many things that are repeated three times in the Bible. This should cause us to rise up and take notice. God is holy. When Isaiah looked into heaven and saw this picture of the holiness of God, what exactly did he see? He saw the glory. He saw the seraphim. But that is not all. This incident is quoted in John 12:39-41. For this cause they could not believe, for Isaiah said again, 40 “He has blinded their eyes, and He hardened their heart; lest they see with their eyes, and perceive with their heart, and be converted, and I heal them.” 41 These things Isaiah said, because he saw His glory, and he spoke of Him. (John 12:39-41). The portion of Isaiah that is quoted is from the same chapter in which we were reading. It is from Isaiah 6:10. It is from the same context as Isaiah's vision. Here is the point. When Isaiah saw the glory of God, he was not seeing God because God is unseeable. He was seeing Jesus. That is what John tells us in John 12:41 -- he spoke of Him.