Holiness

As I was meditating the other morning I started thinking about the holiness of God and what exactly that meant or looked like. We read in Revelations where the four living creatures and the elders are always singing over and over "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty". So here are my thoughts. The English word means to be free from sin; pure; sacred. The greek word is hagios which literally means to be set apart. It is to be seen in apposition to the word koine which means common. So how does all of this relate to God?

As I thought I wondered what it is that sets God apart. And I kept coming back to the two most important aspects of who God is - namely that He is powerful and He is good. No created being can boast that he is all powerful. Many have power (though all of their power is given by God) and in our eyes that can look almost limitless, but held up next to God it is pathetic. But God's power is unlimited and that sets Him apart from anyone or anything else in the universe. Related to that is His majesty and splendor and when one looks at Him in all of His glory, he cannot help but cry out that there is no one like You - You are holy, set apart from everything else. Here on earth we do not see Him that way most of the time, though at times we get a glimpse. Therefore we do not really appreciate His holiness. Isaiah got a chance to see Him and saw the true holiness of God, and what did he do? He fell on his knees and face thinking that he was doomed because he saw his own sin in comparison to God's purity. It is a lot different than when we compare ourelves to each other.

That brings me to the other characteristic of God - His goodness. Power is one thing and it is expected for after all God should be all powerful or He would not be God. But what is so unexpected in an all powerful God is His total goodness. That just blows us away when we really think about it. We have never seen absolute goodness, though once again we occasionally get glimpses of it. That also sets Him apart from any other being in the universe. It is impossible for us to even comprehend all that it means and all that it looks like. His goodness is manifested to us in many ways including His love, mercy, grace, forgiveness and compassion. When we get to heaven and see the absolute goodness of God, we will fall down before Him like the living creatures and proclaim His holiness.

Then of course there is the aspect of His purity. We cannot really comprehend what absolute sinlessness and purity looks like. Once again it brings us to our knees and in a lot of ways terrifies us because we see our own sinfulness in comparison. Even the angels are in awe of the purity of God. It is not clear if they are capable of sin (certainly at one time they were, hence the fall of Lucifer), but I think, and this is my opinion only, that they recognize a difference in their purity and that of God's. In summary, all of this separates God from the rest of the created universe and leads the creation to bow in awe and sing holy, holy holy.