“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!”

Isaiah 6:3

 

THE GREAT OLD TESTAMENT prophet Isaiah writes in chapter 6 of an amazing vision he has of the “Lord sitting on His throne”. There are seraphim—heavenly creatures— flying above the throne, but what is perhaps most astounding is not the creatures themselves but their words: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!”

God’s holiness is one of His attributes and is the one that is arguably most central to who He is. His holiness entails His separateness, particularly His separation from sin and thus His absolute moral purity and perfection. Therefore, it is not surprising in Isaiah 6 that when Isaiah is confronted in his vision with the holiness of God, his response is to cry out, “Woe to me, for I am ruined!” How can a sinful man stand in the presence of a God who is “Holy, holy, holy”?

The answer to that question is found in Christ and His cross. “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (II Corinthians 5:21). Christ took the believer’s sin upon Himself on the cross, bearing our punishment there. And even more wonderfully, as the believer embraces Christ by faith, Christ’s righteousness is credited to him. We are then declared righteous by God and thus able to stand in the presence of our holy God. As the old hymn wonderfully says, “Bold I approach the eternal throne and claim the crown through Christ my own.”

 

Pastor Craig publishes  "A Word from God's Word" weekly in the "Kootenay News Advertiser".

About the Author

Pastor Craig has served as Senior Pastor of Cranbrook Fellowship Baptist Church since 2018. His passion is for preaching and teaching God's Word, as it is through the proclamation of the gospel that God does His work in people's lives.