Holy, Holy, Holy Lord
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INTRODUCTION
The study of God, theology proper, is the very essence of Christianity. God as the supreme creator is without comprehension. He is the standard by which everything else is reviewed. His character is the essence of all that exists. Who He is, in our limited human understanding, can be found from a study of His attributes. His holiness is an attribute which demonstrates how he is separate from evil and from things of the world.
God is a Holy God is taught throughout scripture. The purpose of this paper is to explore what it means to say “God is Holy”. In Isaiah 6 the seraphim are found to be saying: “Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty”. Basic hermeneutics teaches that when a word is repeated then it is important. With a word bring tripled, then its importance has increased. The word “holy” is the only description of the God in Holy Scriptures to be used in a triple form.
The intent of this paper is for the researcher, and anyone who reads the paper, to gain a better and fuller understanding of God. Noted is that God cannot be fully understood and the scope of this paper will not be able to present the Attribute of Holiness in a complete manner.
WHAT IS AN ATTRIBUTE?
The attributes of God refer to those qualities or properties that set Him apart as God and by which mankind recognizes him as such. They are those things which reveal Him as God. The very essence of who He is. God is eternal, all powerful, all knowing, and supreme. The way mankind even begins to understand who He is, is through His attributes.
Who is God?
The Bible teaches that God is the Creator of all things. The wonder of Gods creative power is that He spoke and it happened. There was a time when there was nothing. No people on the earth. No earth. No Sun. No moon. No stars in the sky. No sky. At some point, God decided to create a universe with the earth in it. He exercised His awesome power, spoke, and the universe was created.
Because God created the universe, He is the owner of it. God created it from His own internal, self-existent power. Therefore it is His. The Psalmist writes, “The earth is the LORDS, and all it contains, The world, and those who dwell in it. For He has founded it upon the seas and established it upon the rivers.”(Psalms 24:1-2) Since He created all things, then all is His. God is the owner.
Basic distinctions of his attributes.
Theologians have tended to distinguish his attributes in terms of those that he alone possesses and those which he shares in a derivative and finite sense with his creation. Theologians have referred to these qualities as “Absolute and Relative”, “Immanent and Transitive”, and the most popular with Reformed Theologians, “Incommunicable and Communicable”.
God is an invisible, personal, and living Spirit, distinguished from all other spirits by several kinds of attributes: metaphysically God is self-existent, eternal, and unchanging; intellectually God is omniscient, faithful, and wise; ethically God is just, merciful, and loving; emotionally God detests evil, is longsuffering, and is compassionate; existentially God is free, authentic, and omnipotent; relationally God is transcendent in being, immanent universally in providential activity, and immanent with His people in redemptive activity.
Among Gods Incommunicable attributes are: “Unity/Simplicity, Aseity, Immutability, Perfection, Infinity, Eternity, Immensity, and Omnipresence.” Some of Gods communicable attributes include: “Spirituality, Life, Personality, Omniscience, Wisdom, Veracity/Faithfulness, Love, Goodness, Holiness, Righteousness/Justice, Jealousy, Wrath and Sovereignty.”
HOLINESS DEFINED
Holiness is a central theme of who God is in scripture. The word Holy appears 667 times in scripture. R.C. Sproul has said:
The idea of Holiness is so central to biblical teaching that it is said of God, “Holy is His name” (Luke 1:49). His name is holy because He is holy. He is not always treated with holy reverence. His name is tramped through the dirt of this world. It functions as a curse word, a platform