Week 29 of 52
The Holiness of God
Before you know what God does, you must know that He is set apart.
Built on Isaiah 6:1-8. The vision that gives the church its clearest single picture of God's holiness: seraphim covering their faces, a threefold cry of 'holy', a threshold shaking, and a prophet undone before he is ever sent.
Holiness is the attribute Scripture reaches for a superlative to express. Nowhere does the Bible repeat any other quality of God three times in a row the way the seraphim repeat 'holy, holy, holy' in Isaiah 6, and the same triple cry returns around the throne in Revelation 4. Holiness is not one attribute among many. It is the atmosphere in which all the others are true: God's love is holy love, His justice is holy justice, His patience is holy patience.
This week is not academic. Holiness is the truth that undoes Isaiah before it commissions him, that keeps Moses' sandals off his feet, that strikes Uzzah for touching what he should not have touched. It is also the truth that stands behind the command 'be holy, for I am holy', which means this week is finally about worship and about how we are to live. We will look at seven scenes: the throne room, the mountain, the tabernacle, a warning about carelessness, a call to a holy life, the holiness that separates a people, and the holiness that will fill the earth at the end.
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Seven days
Each day is its own devotional
Day 1
Holy, Holy, Holy
The one vision of the throne that leaves no room to domesticate God.
Isaiah 6:3
Day 2
Take Off Your Sandals
Ordinary ground becomes holy ground the moment God is present in it.
Exodus 3:5
Day 3
A Holy People, a Holy God
Holiness moves from throne room to tabernacle to a nation's daily life.
Leviticus 19:2
Day 4
Do Not Touch the Ark
A sobering warning against treating what is holy as merely useful.
2 Samuel 6:6-7
Day 5
Without Which No One Will See the Lord
Holiness pursued is not optional decoration on faith.
Hebrews 12:14
Day 6
Called Out to Be Different
Holiness always includes a real separation from what surrounds it.
1 Peter 1:15-16
Day 7
Holy to the Lord
The holiness that began at a throne will one day fill the earth.
Zechariah 14:20