Word of Salvation – Vol. 21 No.11 - December 1974

The Holiness And Majesty Of Our God

Sermon by Rev. K. J. Campbell, B.A., B.D. on Isaiah 6:1-5

Scripture Readings: 1Peter 1:13-25; Isaiah 6:1-8

Psalter Hymnal (New): 189:1-5; 318 Opening; 160; 352; 193; 310 Doxology

Introduction:

Do you all remember the account in Exodus of Moses and the burning bush?  How Moses was shepherding a flock of sheep belonging to his father-in-law, Jethro, and how, as he wandered past Mt. Horeb, Moses noticed a flame of fire coming from the midst of a bush, but that the bush itself was not being burnt or consumed by the fire?  And do you recall how Moses decided to go and have a closer look at this strange phenomenon, and how, as he did so, he was stopped in his tracks by a voice coming out of the burning bush saying: "Moses, Moses . . . draw not nigh hither, put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground." (Vss.4-5).  Then do you remember how that voice identified itself to the fearful Moses by saying: "I am the God of thy father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob".  And how did Moses react to this holy presence of God?  "And Moses hid his face; for he was afraid to look upon God." (vs.6).

It is this reaction of Moses that is of interest to us.  Moses was filled with fear he was afraid to look upon God.  Moses was awe-struck.  Here he was in the presence of Almighty God, and he didn't dare look upon His Face.  Why was this the case?  Well, Moses recognised he was in the presence of his Creator.  Moses was aware that he, a mere creature, was in the presence of the mighty creator God.  Moses felt his creatureliness.  He felt his own insignificance and unworthiness in comparison with the presence of God.  Moses felt his own nothingness, because here before him was the Lord God.  Moses was over-awed by the sense of the majesty and holiness of God.

Just imagine what would your reaction be if you were walking around in the countryside somewhere and God appeared to you in the same way as he did to Moses?  What would you do if God was to audibly call you by name, and tell you that you were standing on holy ground, and tell you that you were in His actual presence?  Wouldn't you be overcome with a sense of the holiness of God?

To have His glory shining all about you – wouldn’t it be a fearful experience?  Wouldn't you be filled with awe and reverence?  Wouldn't you also be too afraid to look upon the holy presence of God, feeling your own nothingness?  Moses trembled, not only because he was aware of the majesty and Glory of God, but because he was aware of the purity and perfection of God and of his own impurity and imperfection and sin.

Here, in this incident in the life of Moses, we have a presentation of the holiness of God.  A sense of the majesty of Almighty God and a sense of the purity of God is projected in this episode of Moses' many experiences.  It is the holiness of God that we want to meditate upon this day.

Do you think there is much sensitivity to the holiness of God among men today?  For those who are of the world, who do not desire that saving fellowship with Jesus Christ, there is an obvious lack of sensitivity to the holiness of God.  There is the blatant blasphemy of God which shows no sense of the holiness of God at all.

Then also there is that more subtle rejection of the idea of the holy God.  How often is God made the subject or the object of some joke, of the laughter of sinful men?  There is no awe of reverence toward God at all.  His name is bandied about as if he were just another thing analysed and demythologised, declared to be dead, denied existence at all, and rejected and ignored out of hand.  The world has no time for God.  The very thought of Him is an embarrassment and an inconvenience more often than not.

If God is thought of today by the world at large, He is thought of as nothing more than another 'mod con' to be switched on and off as needed.  When things are getting a little beyond a person, or when some sickness comes, invariably the world will switch on God in desperation, but as soon as things are getting better and starting to go well, then God is switched off.  This materialistic world can think only of a materialistic god – a convenience god – something or someone to fill in the gaps technology has not filled up as yet.  A fear of the true and living God, a sense of his holiness is totally lacking.  But then, that is not all that surprising, seeing that the world is lost in the depths of the darkness of its rebellion against God.

However, what is surprising and distressing is the same lack of fear and reverence for God among many who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ.  They seem to be ignorant of the holiness of God.  An awareness of the majesty and purity and righteousness of God often appears to be totally lacking.  In many cases where Christians seem to be empty of any sense of awe for the holiness of God it may well be the result of wrong and weak teaching.  If a person thinks that he is doing God a favour by accepting Jesus Christ – and there are many Christians who think this way – they think God can't help but be pleased because they have accepted Jesus, because they are taught that God has provided a way of salvation but can't do anything with this provision, can't give it to anyone unless people come and get it from Him.  They are not taught that God graciously saves, that He graciously bestows salvation on whom He wills, that no man can come to God unless God first graciously enables that person to, by regenerating him, and giving him a new heart and mind which can see the great need of salvation and then begins to hunger and thirst after righteousness and seeks fearfully and earnestly the Saviour.  No!  They think that they have done God a great favour by accepting Jesus and consequently there is that lack of a sense of awe and wonder that a holy and just God should reach down and pick up an unholy and unjust sinner and restore him to a right standing with God.

Then again, Christians can fall into the trap of a false familiarity with God which leads to a lack of respect.  This can happen between people and people.  A person in authority, or in a position of dignity, may extend friendship to some individual and that individual can abuse that friendship by overstepping the mark and ignoring the authority or dignity of the other person.  Just because God has drawn us into fellowship with Him, and just because Jesus calls us His friends, doesn't mean we or any other Christians can think we are on equal terms with God.  God is holy and we must fear and reverence His holiness.  To take God for granted, to have a lack of sincere respect for Him, not to tremble in His presence, is not the response, not the reaction that true faith would call forth.  Moses' response was a response of faith.  He knew that God was holy, he revered the holiness of God.  Isaiah trembled before the holiness of God also and our text in Isaiah sets before us very clearly the holiness of God and our proper response to that holiness.

EXEGESIS AND APPLICATION

In chapter 6 Isaiah is recording his first encounter, or first vision of God, when God called him to serve as a prophet.  In this vision of God Isaiah is drawn into the very presence of the Lord and he sees a host of seraphim surrounding God and praising God and singing, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory". (vs.3).  These seraphim, with their faces covered, just as Moses was, and their feet covered, declare the holiness of God.  Three times they use the one word 'holy' to describe God.  If we can grasp the meaning of this word 'holy', then we will come to better understand and appreciate the holiness of God.

The basic meaning of the word 'holy' is SEPARATENESS OR SEPARATION, and so in the first place that God is holy means that He is separate from all things.  God is above all things, God is above all that He has created.  As the Creator, He is separate and distinct from His creatures.  While His creatures depend upon Him, God does not in any way depend upon them.  God is transcendent; He is far above all His creatures, both in being and in perfection, as Exodus 15:11 says: "Who is like unto thee, O Lord, among the gods?  Who is like thee, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders?”

God, being holy, is separate from His creatures; He is unapproachable and incomparable.  "There is none holy as the Lord: for there is none beside thee: neither is there any rock like our God", says the prayer of praise of Hannah in 1Samuel 2:2, and Isaiah 57:15 records: "For thus saith the high and lofty one that inhabiteth eternity, whose name is Holy: I dwell in the high and holy place...!"

The holiness of God sets him apart from man.  He is far above and beyond man as He says himself in Hosea 11:9, "I am God, and not man; the Holy One in the midst of thee".  In His being and in His perfection God is entirely separate from man.  Man can't compare with God – God is holy and mighty.  The holiness of God in this sense means that He is unique; that He is distinct from all His creatures, that He is incomparable in His glory and being, that God is so wonderfully above all – the holiness of God in this sense is HIS MAJESTY.  Can you sense the majesty of God?  Can you feel His holiness?

All those who have gotten the victory, who stand on the sea of glass –all those who have passed from this life and are in the presence of Christ and the glory of God, are singing and praising God for His holiness with these words of Revelation 15:4 "Who shall not fear thee, O Lord, and glory thy name?  For thou only art holy.”

Moses feared the holiness and majesty of God, and so did Isaiah, for he says in verse 5 as he beholds the majesty and glory of his holy God, "Woe is me!  For I am undone."  Isaiah trembled at the holiness of God.  He saw the awesome majesty of his Creator and Saviour.  He was overpowered by the glory of the presence of God.  He saw the perfectness and divinity, the incomparableness of God, and he was awakened to a sense of his own absolute nothingness.  He saw that in comparison with God he was nothing.  Isaiah felt his own creatureliness.  Isaiah stood before Almighty God, his Creator, and seeing the holiness of God he could only confess that he was completely undone.  He could do nothing but prostrate himself before the majesty of God.

Is this our experience too?  Do we see that in comparison to our great and holy God we are nothing?  Do you experience that same fear and reverence and awe?  Does a sense of the holiness of God overwhelm you?  This is surely how we ought to approach the throne of grace and enter into the holy courts of our God.  We can come before God with confidence that He will receive us, because Christ is with us.  But this doesn't mean we can come with any less sense of the awesome holiness of God.

Now the idea of the holiness of God is not exhausted in terms of the majesty of His being.  The idea of separation or separateness means also separation from all moral wrong, separation from evil and sin.  That God is holy means also that He is pure.  He has no communion with sin as Habakkuk 1:13 says: "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look upon iniquity".  i.e. God is separated from the iniquity of the evil world.  That God is holy means also then that He is morally perfect.  God, as holy, abhors sin, and demands the same holiness, the same purity, the same moral excellence to be present in his creatures, as Leviticus 11:44 reads, "For I am the Lord your God; ye shall therefore sanctify yourselves, and ye shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy."  For this reason Peter exhorts all members of the Church of Jesus Christ to live lives of holiness: " But as he, which hath called you, is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation; because it is written, 'be ye holy, for I am holy.'" (1Peter 1:15-16).  The holiness of God calls mankind to a life of holiness.  The holiness of God – his moral excellence and separation from sin – should also evoke within us a sense of awe and wonder and reverence on the one hand, and a sense of shame and impurity and a consciousness of sin on the other hand.  Wasn't this Isaiah's reaction?  "Woe is me!  For I am undone; because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips: for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

Isaiah saw the majesty of God and realised that he himself was nothing.  Isaiah saw the sinlessness, the holiness of God and realised that he himself was nothing but a sinner.  "I am a man of unclean lips."  That Isaiah's lips are unclean means that he is an unclean man, a sinful man.  "It's what comes out of a man that defiles a man".  In the presence of God Isaiah was made severely conscious of his own sin and unworthiness.  Shame came upon him because of his own unholiness.  A spirit of repentance overcame him and he confessed to God his sin and lack of holiness.

Unclean lips cannot praise God.  i.e. the sinful and depraved heart of a man cannot praise God.  When there is sin in the heart then there is no praise on the lips.  In the presence of God Isaiah ought to have praised God along with the seraphim.  He ought to have cried out, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts."  But he couldn't do this until his heart was broken and contrite and cleansed.  Isaiah was humbled before the holiness of God.  His heart was contrite with shame, and so his heart was cleansed.  In symbolic language this cleansing is described: a live coal was taken by one of the seraphim and – as Isaiah says in verse 7 – “And he laid it upon my mouth and said, lo, this has touched thy lips; thine iniquity is taken away, and thy sin purged."

We too can praise God for His majesty and wonder and purity and perfection.  We can praise Him for His holiness, but only after our hearts have been made clean, and the live coal that cleanses us is the blood of Jesus Christ applied to our lives by the Holy Spirit.  That is what washes us clean.  "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin" says 1John 1:7 and verse 9 says therefore "if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

Do we all see the holiness of God?  Is there fear in our hearts and praise upon our lips as we stand in His holy presence?  Do you come fearfully before the Lord?  Is it with awe and reverence that you come before His holy throne?  When you see the transcendence of God, His separateness, His majesty, His being lifted up above all His creation, are you not filled with awesome wonder of His being and the nothingness of yourself?  When you see the purity of His holiness are you not struck with your own impurity?  And are you not driven afresh to the Saviour Jesus Christ knowing that He alone is the One who can cleanse you?  As we recognise and acknowledge the holiness of God, as we fear the glory of God we ought to be clinging on all the more tightly by faith, to Him who is the Saviour, for He alone is our cleansing and our holiness.  Oh, may it be then, that each of us would be overwhelmed with a renewed sense of the holiness of our God, and may we honour his majesty with awe and reverence.  May it be that the blood of Jesus would wash us afresh and cleanse us from any flippancy and cheap familiarity which may have developed in our relationship with our holy God.  May it be with a trembling heart and a humble spirit that we walk before God and praise Him for His holiness.  Let us be holy as He is holy.

Amen.