Creator, Father, King #11

Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty—the one who always was, who is, and who is still to come.

YESTERDAY’S AND TODAY’S VERSE come from one of the most beautiful chapters in the Bible.

In the fourth chapter of Revelation, the last book of the Bible, the apostle John receives an incredible vision of heaven’s inner chambers, where four mysterious angelic creatures and “twenty-four elders” surround God’s throne in constant worship of heaven’s eternal King. Three times—signifying emphasis and completeness—they cry out, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God, the Almighty!”

Clearly, we need to understand God’s holiness.

What’s It Mean?

The word holy means “separate” or “set apart.” As we learned in yesterday’s devotion, a primary aspect of God’s holiness is his transcendence above all creation—his complete exaltation and glorious majesty far above anything else in the universe. Today, we turn our attention to the other major aspect of his holiness: his separateness from sin.

Not only does God not sin, he cannot sin. He is set apart from it. Sin is not within God’s character. To do evil would be to contradict his very nature and the moral laws that he set to govern his creation since the beginning. He is completely pure and righteous in all his ways.

This is great news for us! In a world where sin so often destroys, it is wonderful to know that there is a holy God in heaven who is separate from sin—a God who loves us and offers the chance to be holy in his sight through faith in the redeeming work of his Son, Jesus Christ!

Now What?

Do a word search in a Bible concordance or a website such as BibleGateway.com (with an adult’s permission) to see how many times the Bible uses the word holy—both to describe God and to call his people to be holy like him.

Did You Know?

Some of the many biblical examples of God’s separateness from human sin can be found in the stories of Moses and the burning bush (Exodus 3), the command to separate the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place in the Tabernacle (and later, Temple) with a veil (Exodus 26), and Uzzah’s death for touching the Ark of the Covenant (2 Samuel 6).