Holy, Holy, Holy

“Something like a sea of glass, similar to crystal, was also before the throne. Four living creatures covered with eyes in front and in back were in the middle and around the throne. The first living creature was like a lion; the second living creature was like a calf; the third living creature had a face like a man; and the fourth living creature was like a flying eagle. Each of the four living creatures had six wings; they were covered with eyes around and inside. Day and night they never stop, saying: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God, the Almighty, who was, who is, and who is coming.” (Revelation‬ ‭4‬:‭6‬-‭8‬ ‭HCSB‬‬)

This past week, we looked at the first of our declarations about God: The ONE seated on the throne is the Sovereign King. He is unlike any earthly king and is absolutely sovereign in His kingly authority. All other kings and rulers are subject to Him and His will. These truths about God would have encouraged and emboldened the recipient churches of Asia Minor as they faced the ire of their peers and the wrath of Rome. But these truths must also encourage our response and embolden our trust in Him as we face increasing animosity and cultural challenges:

1. The ONE seated on the throne is the sovereign KING.
2. The ONE seated on the throne is the holy LORD.
3. The ONE seated on the throne is the divine CREATOR.

This week, we will take a closer look at the premise that the ONE seated on the throne is the Holy LORD. Like a jewel of high quality, the more you look at God’s character, the more you see and the more you admire and are amazed by Him. The four living creatures are described as having six wings and being covered with eyes on all sides. As mentioned last week, these four creatures represent all living creatures in this vast universe. The six wings are described in Isaiah 6 as two covering the eyes, two covering the feet, and two used to fly. The covering of the eyes emphasizes God’s holiness, the covering of the feet emphasizes humility (before His holiness), and the two used to fly emphasize obedient service to Him.

Sometimes we get so busy or so distracted that we don’t really notice what is going on around us. This is especially true in our modern culture of mobile device use. We are often so glued to our phone screens that we don’t see the things right around us, so we certainly don’t pay attention to God. In fact, I think we are often afraid of the silence, solitude, and reflection needed to hear and see God and recognize His activity in our lives. While God’s Word is powerful, sharp, and able to lay bare our souls before God (see Heb. 4:12), we often give it just enough access to our daily lives to assuage our guilt and check off an item in our list of daily Christian duties.

Notice, the living creatures are covered with eyes, around and inside. This indicates that God sees and knows all that goes on in and around us. Not only do we need to see Him, He sees and knows all that goes on in our lives. Nothing is hidden from Him. He knows our thoughts, our hopes, our dreams, and every action we take or don’t take. He knows not only what we do, He also knows why we do it. This is critical to a proper understanding of God’s holiness. Holiness is God’s transcendence, righteousness, justice, love, and sovereignty all rolled together. In essence, holiness is the totality of God’s divine character. In one way, it is beyond our ability to fully know and comprehend God’s holiness. In another way, when we begin to experience and perceive His holiness, it will overwhelm, flood into, and satisfy our souls.

Let’s start with God’s transcendence. While we are made in God’s image, He is wholly different from us. We are finite, He is infinite. We are mortal, He is immortal. We are creatures, and He is our creator. He is simply so far beyond us as to be incomprehensible to us. We are only able to know Him because He has breached and bridged that chasm. The very name given to this Biblical book attests to that fact, Revelation or “the unveiling”. John is seeing Him through human eyes, but God is SO transcendent that John is only able to describe what he is seeing using human terms. It is impossible to describe God and all that John sees without the use of similes – what I am seeing or experiencing is somewhat like this thing you’re familiar with. 

God’s transcendence is described here as “something like a sea of glass, similar to crystal, was also before the throne.” As I mentioned last week, the sea is a physical barrier to us. While it may be less of one today than it was in the first century, it is still a barrier. The sea is also representative of sin and the chaos, storm, and destruction it causes in our lives. Our sin separates us from God and is a barrier to His presence in our lives. But why does our sin create a barrier or separation between man and God? Because of that next characteristic in our list, His righteousness…

Righteousness is God’s moral goodness or “rightness”. He is wholly good and right in all that He is and in all that He does because that is His character. Because God is righteous, then sin, anything that is not right and outside of God’s will, is abhorrent to Him. The eyes of the living creatures are able to see and know all of God’s creation and all that is right and wrong within it. The creatures are not all knowing, but they are able to see the stark contrast between righteousness, life according to God’s will, and unrighteousness, life according to our will. We can too, if we will look with open eyes.

“The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. So if the light within you is darkness — how deep is that darkness!” (Matthew‬ ‭6‬:‭22‬-‭23‬ ‭HCSB‬‬)

We make choices based on what we see and how we perceive those things. If we perceive them to be the best for us, then we choose those things. Even when we choose something negative or destructive, we do so because we think it is best for us or the way to achieve our desired outcome. We struggle with the hyperbole of Jesus’ demand, “if your eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better to lose one part of your body than for your whole self to be thrown into hell.” You will only make a choice like that when you are clearly able to see the stark contrast between righteousness and unrighteousness. You will only see that stark contrast when you have your eyes transfixed on God’s kingdom and His righteousness. Never forget, God’s righteousness ALWAYS has your eternal joy in mind. His righteousness will always lead you into what is consistent with His will and best for you and eternal life.

God’s holiness also encompasses His justice. Because of His transcendence and righteousness, He is just in all that He does and in all that He judges. In other words, God’s judgment is always right. He is incapable of judging based on partial knowledge or limited understanding. He alone has the right to judge because He alone has the ability to judge rightly. Because God sees our what and God knows our why, He is able to be holy and just in all His judgments. That thought ought to strike fear into the heart of man, but if you’re paying attention, it ought also to bring a sense of peace. Why? Because you will NEVER be misjudged by this holy LORD.

I intentionally chose the phrase “the ONE on the throne is the Holy LORD” for this study because that word LORD references God’s personal name – YHWH. So far, the qualities and characteristics of God that we’ve considered emphasize His differences to us. But when we begin to talk about His love as a part of His holiness, then it emphasizes His nearness to us. The transcendent sea that I referenced earlier has become like a sea of crystal glass. It is not the raging, foaming torrent that separates us from God but is a calm, tranquil sea of glass that reflects and emphasizes the many facets of His holiness. I believe one of the facets that is emphasized by the tranquil sea of glass in John’s vision is God’s merciful love. Love is only expressed and realized in a personal relationship between the lover and the loved. God crossed that raging sea of transcendence and began expressing His love for man by revealing to us His personal name. God introduced Himself to us in a very personal way – He gave us His name.

We are able to know God’s love because God has chosen to make the invisible visible, the unknowable known, the inaccessible accessible by coming to us – IMMANUEL. “We love because He first loved us.” (1 John‬ ‭4‬:‭19‬ ‭HCSB‬‬) But you need to realize that without God taking that step, we could never have known Him. Unless He calmed that raging sea, we could never have come near to Him. The difference between religion and Biblical Christianity is that religion is man’s futile attempt at crossing that endless, raging sea. But God didn’t leave us making endless, futile attempts at knowing Him. He took the initiative. He revealed Himself. He calmed that sea.

“For God loved the world in this way: He gave His One and Only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world that He might condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through Him. Anyone who believes in Him is not condemned, but anyone who does not believe is already condemned, because he has not believed in the name of the One and Only Son of God. “This, then, is the judgment: The light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil.”(John‬ ‭3‬:‭16‬-‭19‬ ‭HCSB‬‬)

The fomenting sea that separates us from the God who loves us was calmed by the ONE and only Son of God, the only One who could calm it. This is where things get challenging for us. We don’t like admitting our weaknesses, our inabilities, our failures at conquering any barriers in our lives. We take great pride in overcoming any obstacles that stand in our way. We honor and venerate the men and women who exemplify these very traits. That’s precisely why we gravitate towards religious ceremonies that emphasize our attempts at placating the gods in our lives. If we do enough good deeds, it will offset our failures. If we sacrifice or give enough, it will satisfy our god’s demands and expectations. But good is not good enough because God demands holiness. 

“For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans‬ ‭3‬:‭23‬ ‭HCSB‬‬)

This verse describes perfectly our dilemma. We are incapable of God’s glory because we continue to sin and fall short of it. Fortunately, the verses that follow that verse give us hope: “they are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God presented Him as a propitiation (sacrificial payment) through faith in His blood, to demonstrate His righteousness…” God’s holiness is on full public display in Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection. The very ones who have sinned and continue to sin are incapable of being God’s glory. But God loved us SO much He gave us His Son to calm the raging sea that separates us from Him and to make it possible for us to be His glory, His righteous children.

Listen once more to the words the living creatures continually cry out: “Holy, holy, holy, LORD God, the Almighty, who was, who is, and who is coming.” Whenever a word is repeated in scripture, it is done for emphasis. For example, when Jesus uses the “amen, amen” or “truly, truly I say to you” phrase, He does so to emphasize both the importance and the truthfulness of what He is telling them. When it is repeated thrice, it is for superlative (or the GREATEST) emphasis: HOLY, HOLY, HOLY! There is nothing nor anyone more holy than the LORD God, the Almighty. Put simply, God is infinitely holy in His sovereignty.

What God wills, what God desires, what God does in His sovereignty is perfectly and completely holy. He is the God of the past (who was) and He is perfectly holy in all that He HAS done. That is not said in denial that our world has not been subjected to monstrous evil. It has been, but God has NEVER willed for man to sin. He is the God of the present (who is) and He is perfectly holy in all that He IS doing. Yes, we still see much evil in our world today. The evil we have known and are experiencing is the direct result of man’s failure to live according to the will of God – love God first and foremost and love others like yourself.

But listen to the last part of this promise: this superlatively HOLY God, the ONE who has made Himself personally known to us by His name – the LORD God, and the ONE who is the Almighty – the sovereign KING, is also the ONE who IS COMING! He’s not just the God of the past. He’s more than just a God who is present in the midst of our current struggle. He’s also the holy ONE who is coming to set things right! He knows our past failures. He’s with us in the midst of our current struggles. But HE’s the holy ONE who is coming to set all things right.

The churches who received John’s Revelation needed to know these things. Our church needs to know these things. You and I need to know these things. The ONE who is seated on Heaven’s throne is the Holy LORD who is coming to set things right. He is holy in His transcendence. He is holy in His righteousness. He is holy in His justice. He is holy in His love and He is holy in His sovereignty. He wills and does what is holy, good, and right! Will you trust Him? Because HE is coming… are you ready?