PASTOR S COLUMN:Holy, Holy, Holy
By PASTOR TIM KLIEWER
Trinity Mennonite Church
I have a book in my library by theologian R. C. Sproul entitled The Holiness of God. As we approach the Easter season we are reminded that it was to satisfy God's holiness that He sent His Son to die on the cross.
In the book of Revelation, chapter 4, we have the account of the four six-winged creatures before the throne who day and night never stop saying "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come." The song of those creatures directed my thoughts to a similar song in Isaiah 6.
There the creatures are identified as seraphs with six wings and their song is, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty. The whole earth is full of his glory."
Then I turned to the index of some hymnals and discovered that there are five or six different hymns that start out with a series of three holies. What is the significance of the three holies, (and that is where Sproul's book helps)?
Without a knowledge of the Hebrew language this significance can easily be missed. This song is called the trishagion which means simply "three times holy." The trishagion represents a peculiar literary device that is found in Hebrew forms of literature, especially in poetry. The repetition is a form of emphasis.
When we want to emphasize the importance of something in English, we have several devices to choose from. We may underline the important words or print them in italics or boldface type. We may attach an exclamation point following the words or set them off in quotation marks. These are all devices to call the reader's attention to something that is especially important.
The Old Testament Jews had different techniques to indicate emphasis. One such device was the method of repetition. We see Jesus' use of repetition with the words, "Truly, truly, I say unto you
A humorous use of the repetition device may be seen in Genesis 14. The story of the battle of the kings in the Valley of Siddim mentions men who fell in the great tar pits of the region. Some translators call them asphalt pits, or bitumen pits, or simply great pits.
Why the confusion in translation? Exactly what kind of pits were they? The Hebrew is unclear. The original text gives the Hebrew word for pit and then simply repeats it. The story speaks literally of pit pits.
The Jew was saying that there are pits and there are pits. Some pits are pittier than other pits. These pits — the pit pits — were the pittiest pits of all. It is one thing to fall into a pit. But if you fall into a pit pit, you are in deep trouble.
Only in a handful of occasions does the Bible repeat something to the third degree. To mention something three times in succession is to elevate it to the superlative degree and give it special importance. For example, the dreadful judgment of God is declared in the Book of Revelation by the eagle in midair that cried with a loud voice: "Woe! Woe! Woe to the inhabitants of the earth
Or we hear it in the mocking sarcasm of Jeremiah's temple speech when he chided the people for their hypocrisy, by which they call out, "This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord." Only once in sacred Scripture is an attribute of God elevated to the third degree. Only once is a characteristic of God mentioned three times in succession. The Bible says that God is holy, holy, holy! Not that He is merely holy, or even holy, holy. He is holy, holy, holy!
The Bible never says that God is love, love, love, or mercy, mercy, mercy, or wrath, wrath, wrath, or justice, justice, justice. It does say that He is holy, holy, holy; the whole earth is full of His glory.
You might ask, so God is holy, holy, holy? What does that mean to me? Let me ask you this: "Can you stand in the presence of a holy God, let alone a holy, holy, holy God?" Isaiah couldn't. Isaiah 6:4 goes on to say, "At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke."
'Woe to me!' I cried. 'I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.' Then one of the seraphs flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, 'See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.'"
You see, Isaiah couldn't stand to be in the presence of a holy, holy, holy God without first being cleansed, and neither can we. The Christian's hope is to spend eternity in the presence of a holy, holy, holy God, but that is only possible if we are cleansed from sin by Jesus Christ. Jesus is that live coal from the altar. His touch will cleanse you and take away your guilt so heaven can be your eternal dwelling place when your life on earth is over.
As we approach the time of the year that we remember Christ's death on the cross, his resurrection and the church he founded, against which the gates of hell will not prevail, let us gain a new appreciation for a holy, holy, holy, God who sent His holy, holy, holy, son to make us holy, holy, holy!
