Word of Salvation – January 2022

 

HOLY, HOLY, HOLY

By Rev. Steve Voorwinde

Scripture Readings: Isaiah 6:1-13; Psalm 99:1-9

Sermon Text: Psalm 99:1-9

 

Introduction

In Australia there are more than 100 Aboriginal sacred sites. The most famous of them all is of course Uluru, right in the very centre of the country. Sacred sites are places within the landscape that have special meaning or significance in Aboriginal tradition. They can be hills, rocks, waterholes, plains, trees and billabongs. For indigenous Australians the land is full of sacred sites.

But what about for us as white Australians? Do we have any sense of the sacred? What is our equivalent? What sacred sites do we have? For most European Australians church buildings don’t cut it. Not even beautiful cathedrals (and this country has a few) seem to make the grade. It has been suggested that the Australian War Memorial in Canberra comes the closest to what most Australians would call a sacred site. And maybe we should add the Cenotaph in Melbourne. Recently we heard on the news media that it had been desecrated, which is perhaps a negative way of saying that it was sacred. Something has to be sacred before it can be desecrated.

So White Australians have little sense of the sacred. And that leads logically to my next observation, and that is that secular Australians haven’t the foggiest when it come to holiness. They bandy about expressions like “holy cow,” “holy smoke” and “holy mackerel.” They have no idea what they mean or where they come from. Of course, it’s all profoundly religious language. “Holy cow” is from Hinduism, “holy smoke” from Catholicism, and “holy mackerel” from Judaism (as an alternative for “holy Moses”). But ask people what the word ‘holy’ means in such expressions, and you will probably be met with a blank stare or worse. You might be told off for being a sanctimonious fool and told to mind your own business.

Christians, of course, have a much clearer idea of what holiness is all about. If you ask a Christian what it means to be holy, you will be told that it is being like Jesus and therefore different to the world. So there’s a positive side to personal holiness – being like Jesus. But there’s also a negative side – being different from the world, and in some cases that will mean being separate or set apart from the world.

But what about the holiness of God, how do you understand that? If we are holy by being like Jesus and different from the world, how do you apply that to God? It hardly seems to make any sense. Yes, of course God is like Jesus and God is different from the world, but I already knew that. So in what sense is God holy? What is his holiness all about? 

That is one tough question. The well-known Presbyterian preacher, James Boice, put it like this:

Holiness is not an easy concept to understand or define. In fact, it is impossible to define it adequately. The most common mistake we make is to think of it primarily in terms of human righteousness. That is, we think of it as moral perfection, purity, or right conduct. Holiness involves this element, but it is far more than this. At its root, ‘holy’ is not an ethical concept at all. Rather it is the very nature of God and what distinguishes him from all else. It is what sets God apart from his creation. It concerns transcendence. (Psalms, vol. 2, p. 805.)

That’s a great little paragraph to read out to you from a famous American preacher. But is Dr. Boice right? Is holiness simply “the characteristic of God that sets him apart from his creation”? Is it about his transcendence? Is it about the fact that God is “wholly other”? Being w-h-o-l-l-y other, is that what God’s holiness is all about? 

The best way we can answer these questions is to do it in the light of Scripture, and there is no better place to begin when it comes to the holiness of God than to have a close look at Psalm 99. There God is called ‘holy’ not just once, or even twice but three times, first in v. 3, then again in v. 5, and finally in v. 9. No wonder Charles Spurgeon called this the “Holy, holy, holy Psalm.”

And there’s something else we notice when we look at the Psalm closely. Perhaps you have picked it up already. Have you noticed how often the name of the LORD, or Yahweh, occurs in the Psalm? It is the covenantal name of God, and it occurs seven times! There’s something remarkable about that. It suggests perfection and completeness. Throughout the Bible that is what the number seven represents. It’s the complete and perfect number.

Now in the Hebrew there’s one other seven. It won’t come through in many English translations and I don’t think it comes through in the ESV. But the pronoun ‘you’ or ‘he’ to refer to God is also found seven times. In Hebrew that’s being very emphatic. This Psalm is all about God. So Psalm 99 is subtle and beautiful poetry. I dare say that it’s the perfect and complete description of God’s holiness. 

The Psalm is also made up of three stanzas, and each ends with a declaration that God is holy:

• Verse 3: “Let them praise your great and awesome name! Holy is he!”
• Verse 5: “Exalt the LORD our God, worship at his footstool! Holy is he!”
• Verse 9: “Exalt the LORD our God, and worship at his holy mountain; for the LORD our God is holy.”

But now the question is, how is God holy? How do we see his holiness? And these are precisely the questions that this Psalm is designed to answer. With each of the three stanzas we get an ever-fuller answer to these questions. 

And the topics of these three stanzas will also be the three points to my sermon this morning:

1. Stanza 1 is about God’s power or greatness (vv. 1-3)
2. Stanza 2 is about God’s justice (vv. 4-5)
3. Stanza 3 is about God’ s faithfulness (vv. 6-9).

1. So let’s begin with stanza 1, which is made up of verses 1-3, and which is all about God’s power and greatness. This is the first way that God demonstrates his holiness. He is powerful and he is great. 

 

1. I wonder how you have experienced the power and greatness of God. I would like to tell you about a couple of experiences that I’ve had and that have left a deep impression.

Perhaps the best road trip that my wife and I have ever taken was when we drove across America from East to West. When we were about halfway, we met a lady who asked where we were heading. We said that we were driving to San Francisco and that from there we planned to fly back to Australia. Then she said this, “Before you get to San Francisco, make sure you visit the Redwood Forest. It will be a spiritual experience.” We were hoping to go down the California coast anyway. So we were keen to take up her suggestion, but we were prepared to wait and see whether it would a “spiritual experience.” When we drove through the Redwoods it was a beautiful day. It was late summer, and the crowds had gone. We drove down the Avenue of the Giants and stopped to gaze at trees towering 100 metres or more above us. Everything was picture-perfect. But was it a “spiritual experience”? 

Let me read you a poem by Joseph B. Strauss, the builder of the Golden Gate Bridge, and I’ll let you decide whether it could have been a “spiritual experience.” His poem is simply called “The Redwoods” and it goes like this:

Here, sown by the Creator’s hand, 

In serried ranks, the Redwoods stand,

No other clime is honored so,

No other lands their glory know.

The greatest of Earth’s living forms,

Tall conquerors that laugh at storms; 

Their challenge still unanswered rings,

Through fifty centuries of kings.

The nations that with them were young,

Rich empires, with their forts far-flung,

Lie buried now – their splendor gone; 

But these proud monarchs still live on.

So shall they live, when ends our day,

When our crude citadels decay;

For brief the years allotted man,

But infinite perennials’ span.

This is their temple, vaulted high,

And here we pause with reverent eye,

With silent tongue and awe-struck soul,

For here we sense life’s proper goal;

To be like these, straight, true and fine,

To make our worlds, like theirs, a shrine; 

Sink down, Oh, traveller, on your knees,

God stands before you in these trees.

That’s how Joseph Strauss responded when he saw these towering giants. All we could do was to look up and go “Wow!”

(b) On the trip across America, as we were crossing the state of North Dakota, which has been called the Siberia of America, Nancy asked me, “Is Australia as desolate as this?” Here we were driving along a four-lane highway complete with exits and overpasses. In the distance you could see fir-trees and farmhouses. So I said to her, “You haven’t seen anything yet, Honey.”

Our first holiday in Australia was a drive clear across NSW from Sydney to Broken Hill. As we approached the mining town we were overtaken by nightfall. For miles around there was no one and nothing. There were also no city lights. There were no clouds in the sky. And it was a moonless night. So we decided to pull over to the side of the road, get out of the car and look up at the sky. It was just blazing with stars from one horizon to another. The night sky looked like one giant enormous Milky Way. It was absolutely dazzling and overwhelming. Neither of us had ever seen a night sky like this before. Neither of us can hold a tune, but as we got back into the car we just broke into song:

O Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder

Consider all the worlds Thy hands have made

I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder

Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

Then sings my soul, my Saviour, God to Thee,

How great Thou art. How great Thou art.

Then sings my soul, my Saviour, God to Thee,

How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

When you see the night sky, you just want to break into song, whether you can sing in tune or not. But we did have to borrow someone else’s words to express how we felt. As we saw the starry hosts, we felt the same as when we looked up at the Redwoods, and we just went “Wow!” 

1. But is that an adequate response to God’s holiness and majesty and grandeur? Is it enough, when you see something of the splendour of God in creation, that you go “Wow!”? If we take the Bible seriously, I think we will go one step further. Do you remember what Isaiah said when he saw the Lord sitting on a throne high and lifted up, and when he saw that the train of his robe filling the temple, and when he heard the mighty seraphim cry out to one another, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isa 6:3)?

 What did Isaiah say in that situation? Did he say “Wow!”? Or did he say, “Woe is me! For I am undone” (Isa 6:5)? In our appreciation of God’s holiness, I am sure there are some of us who need to move from “Wow!” to “Woe!” Any pantheist or New Ager can say “Wow!” It doesn’t take much spirituality to see how small we are compared to God and even to creation. It takes a whole lot more to see how sinful we are and to cry with Isaiah, “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips and I live among a people of unclean lips” (Isa 6:5). Have you made the transition from “Wow!” to “Woe!”? 

1. This is where the Psalm begins, “The LORD reigns.” He is sovereign. He is in control. He is the King in Isaiah’s vision. He is sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the whole earth is full of his glory. 

He also “sits enthroned upon the cherubim.” What’s so special about that? For a start, as the Jewish commentator, Robert Alter, has reminded us that “these are not the dimpled darlings of Christian iconography” (p. 346). They are not chubby little boys with wings. Nor are they “the weaponless cupids of religious art” (Kidner, 354). The cherubim are fierce and terrifying angels. We first meet them in the Garden of Eden. After the fall into sin, they are given a flaming sword to guard the way to the tree of life (Gen 3:24). Sometimes they are pictured as the fiery chariot that God rides (Ezek 1) or as the lofty throne on which he sits (Isa 6). Like the seraphim, they are mighty angels who are close to God and guard his very presence. They live in the holy of holies. You don’t mess with them. If you do, you are as good as dead. 

1. So how do you respond to the greatness and power of God? If you look closely at stanza 1 (vv. 1-3), you will see that an adequate response is twofold:

• I’ll read verse 1 again: “The LORD reigns: let the peoples tremble! He sits enthroned above the cherubim; let the earth quake!” The people are to shake and the earth is to quake. They are to be like the overwhelmed Isaiah who could only exclaim, “Woe is me!” Listen to this description of God from a couple of Psalms earlier. This is what it says in Psalm 97:2-5:

² Clouds and thick darkness are all around him;

 righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.

 ³ Fire goes before him and burns up his adversaries all around.

 ⁴ His lightnings light up the world; the earth sees and trembles.

 ⁵ The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the Lord of all the earth.

What these Psalms teach us is that there is a terrifying side to God’s power and greatness. He is the Maker of the majestic Redwood Forest. He created the vast expanse that is the Milky Way. But if he reigns and sits enthroned upon the cherubim, then he is also sovereign over volcanoes and tsunamis and avalanches and bushfires. He is also sovereign over a little virus called Covid 19. The impact of this virus around the world has been a stark reminder that God is in charge, and we are not. For believers, it has come as a reality check, and for unbelievers it’s a wake-up call. We can’t pretend that we are in control or that we are invincible. Our programs falter. Our plans collapse. Our businesses need to be on life-support. These are unpredictable times, but so is every other time. 

Whether you say that God ordains these things or simply permits these things, He is still sovereign. He is in charge. He is in control. He is also frightfully powerful and unspeakably great. He alone is holy. Therefore “let the peoples tremble . . . and let the earth quake.”

• But the Psalm moves on. In vv. 2-3 the Psalm continues: 

“The LORD is great in Zion;

 he is exalted over all the peoples.

Let them praise your great and awesome name!

Holy is he!”

The Psalm doesn’t just leave us shaking in our boots. It puts us on our feet and has us sing God’s praise. Yes, we can burst into song to celebrate his power under a dazzling night sky. And yes, we can write a poem to magnify his greatness as it’s reflected in creation. His greatness and power demand our praise. God’s greatness and power are expressions of his holiness. Therefore, let us praise his great and awesome name. Holy is he!

1. But then God’s holiness is not only shown in his power and greatness, but also in his justice. And that’s the thrust of the second stanza (vv. 4-5).

1. Listen to how the stanza begins in v. 4:

“The King in his might loves justice. 

You have established equity;

You have executed justice

And righteousness in Jacob.”

That first line is such a powerful statement: “The King in his might loves justice.” In God there is a perfect union of might and right. He doesn’t abuse his might, because all his actions are right. He loves justice. And notice this trio of terms here. In the one verse we meet God’s justice, equity and righteousness. It all lines up with his holiness. His justice is holy. His equity is holy. His righteousness is holy. And couldn’t you also flip that around and say that his holiness is righteous and equitable and just? That’s why I have trouble with the quote from James Boice earlier where he says, “At its root, ‘holy’ is not an ethical concept at all.” Really? How can God’s holiness not be ethical if it is expressed through his justice? God’s holiness is profoundly moral and ethical. How could it be otherwise? God is the very source of our morality and ethics. “Be holy, for I am holy,” says God in the law of Moses, and then he gives a whole bunch of moral commands; he tells us how to live ethically. Without God’s moral character there is no basis for morality. Without his holiness there is no basis for ethics.

1. But now let’s return to God’s justice for a moment. “The King in his might loves justice” (v. 4). Now what does that justice look like?

• Let’s begin with some examples from the book of Proverbs:

• “A false balance is an abomination to the LORD, but a just weight is His delight” (Prov 11:1).
• “To do righteousness and justice is desired by the LORD rather than sacrifice” (Prov 21:3).
• “Do not rob the poor because he is poor or crush the afflicted at the gate; for the LORD will plead their case, and take the life of those who rob them” (Prov 22:22-23).

• Not only does the Lord love justice, but he also gives laws that are just. Let me give you a quick sample from the laws of Moses:
• “If a man steals an ox or a sheep, and kills it or sells it, he shall repay five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep” (Exod 22:1). In other words, crime doesn’t pay, but being a victim of crime does! Today if a thief wrecks your car on a joy ride, he may be fined or even get a gaol term, but you don’t get a new car. Under the laws of Moses you would four or five new cars!
• “You shall not wrong a sojourner or oppress him, for you were sojourners in the land of Egypt” (Exod 22:21). How does that compare to Australia’s treatment of refugees and asylum seekers? I wonder if there were any detention centres in ancient Israel?
• “You shall not spread a false report. You shall not join hands with a wicked man to be a malicious witness” (Exod 23:1).
• And so it goes: law after law, precept after precept, rule after rule. Israel was to be a just society, a land where it would be a joy to live, a great place to raise a family, a place where women and children would be safe. It was designed to be a model community that was to be God’s beacon to the world. And what was the basis for all of that? Our Psalm puts it so well in v. 4:

The King in his might loves justice

You have established equity;

You have executed justice 

And righteousness in Jacob.

• And how do you respond to a God like that? You praise him! That’s exactly what we are told to do in the next verse: “Exalt the LORD our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he!” (v. 5). But where is his footstool?

If you go to the end of the Psalm, to the last verse, v. 9, you will notice that it starts out in exactly the same way as v. 5, “Exalt the LORD our God,” but then it doesn’t say, “worship at his footstool,” it says, “worship at his holy mountain.” So put two and two together, and what do you get? God’s footstool is his holy mountain. So worship at his holy mountain. And that’s in line with other passages in the Old Testament:

• Think of Psalm 132: “Let us go to his dwelling place (i.e., the temple); let us worship at his footstool!” (v. 7).
• Or think of what David said to his people towards the end of his life: “I had it in my heart tobuild a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the LORD and for the footstoolof our God” (1 Chron 28:2).

So God’s footstool was his holy mountain, his dwelling place, the temple that Solomon was going to build. So what does the Psalm mean when it says, “Exalt the LORD our God and worship at his footstool”? It is a call to God’s people to come together to worship him together in his temple. And by extension, it is a call to us to come together to worship God as we are doing today. And as we do that this morning, let us remember that we are here to exalt God for his greatness, his power and his justice.

• But there is more. We are also here to worship our God for his faithfulness. That’s the message of the third stanza in vv. 6-9. God’s holiness is not only shown in his greatness, his power and his justice, but also in his faithfulness. But how does God show his faithfulness? How was he faithful to Israel, and by implication how is he faithful to us?

1. The first way is through answered prayer. Listen again to the words of verse 6:

Moses and Aaron were among his priests,

Samuel also was among those who called upon his name.

They called to the LORD, and he answered them.

These three men all had priestly roles, although Aaron was the only one who actually served as a high priest. And what does a priest do? Well, if a prophet speaks to the people on behalf of God, a priest speaks to God on behalf of the people. In other words, a priest is an intercessor. He prays for his people.

• Think of Moses. This is how he pleaded with God after the golden calf incident: “Alas, this people have sinned a great sin. They have made for themselves gods of gold. But now, if you will forgive their sin – but if not, please blot me out of your book that you have written” (Exod 32:31-32). What a prayer! Moses really meant business with the Lord when he prayed for Israel! 
• Then there was Samuel. The lords of the Philistines had banded together and with a horde of men were coming up against the Israelites. The people were afraid of the Philistines, and they said to Samuel, “Do not cease to cry out to the Lord our God for us, that he may save us from the hands of the Philistines” (1 Sam 7:8). Then it says that “Samuel cried out to the LORD for Israel, and the LORD answered him” (1 Sam 7:9). The Lord threw the Philistines into confusion and they were routed before Israel.
• Time and again Israel was spared because there were those who interceded for them. There were intercessors, and humanly speaking they saved the day. How many people do you intercede for? But you may say, you are comparing me to such greats as Moses, Aaron and Samuel. I’m not a priest like those men. O, yes you are! One of the great rediscoveries of the Reformation was the universal priesthood of all believers. In other words, we are all priests in Christ. We can all intercede for other people. We can pray for their needs, spiritual and physical. We can pray for their salvation.
• So how many people are you praying for? What kind of an intercessor are you? And is God answering your prayers? Let me say something that may encourage you. In the first congregation I served, I would regularly pray for all the people named on the membership list. But after a while I got disheartened. The church wasn’t growing the way I would have liked and there were not the changes I would have liked to see. But one day as I was praying my way through the membership list, it dawned on me. Most of these people were growing in their faith and in their walk with the Lord. They were becoming more holy, more sanctified, and the Lord was using me in that process. That might not have been exciting or earth-shattering, but God was answering prayer. He really was.

1. So God shows his faithfulness by answering our prayers. He also does it by giving us his word. In v. 7 the Psalmist again casts his mind back to Moses and Aaron: “In the pillar of cloud he spoke to them; they kept his testimonies and the statutes that he gave them.” It’s really interesting when you check back this reference. When did God speak to Moses and Aaron in the pillar of cloud? There are two answers to this question. There’s the Moses part and there’s the Aaron part, and they really merge together to form one united answer:

• Moses would go to the tent of meeting outside the Israelite camp in the wilderness. And there he would meet with God. When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the entrance to the tent (Exod 33:9). And then it says, “Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Exod 33:11). How remarkably privileged Moses was! God would speak to him face to face as a man speaks with his friend. In the OT, it’s only Abraham and Moses who are called friends of God. They enjoyed a wonderfully intimate relationship with the Lord.

• But what about Aaron, how did God speak to him in the pillar of cloud? Aaron’s story turns out to be rather different. Aaron and his sister Miriam were envious of Moses’ prophetic gift and his special relationship with the Lord. And so they speak of their brother Moses with contempt, “Has the LORD spoken only through Moses? Hasn’t he also spoken through us?” God then summons them to the tent of meeting and speaks to them in a pillar of cloud. But these are not words of intimacy, but words of rebuke:

When a prophet of the LORD is among you,

I reveal myself to him in visions,

I speak to him in dreams.

But this is not true of my servant Moses;

He is faithful in all my house.

With him I speak face to face,

Clearly and not in riddles; 

he sees the form of the LORD.

Why then were you not afraid 

to speak against my servant Moses? (Num 12:7-8)

When the cloud lifted, there stood Miriam, the principal offender, covered with leprosy like snow. Moses pleaded for her, “O God, please heal her!” (Num 12:13). She was healed, but for her act of public rebuke, she was publicly shamed for seven days and was not allowed to enter the camp.

So God spoke to Moses and Aaron in the pillar of cloud. Then it says, “they kept his testimonies and the statute that he gave them” (v. 7). In other words, Moses and Aaron responded to God’s holiness by keeping his commandments. The same could be said of Samuel. In my personal devotions I have just finished reading the first book of Samuel, and I can’t remember reading one bad word about him. He was a model saint.

1. So when it comes to Moses, Aaron and Samuel, God showed them his faithfulness by answering their prayers and by speaking to them. Verse 8 picks up that thought and then reminds us of another dimension to God’s faithfulness:

O LORD our God, you answered them;

You were a forgiving God to them, 

(Now I think we would all like the verse to end right there, but it continues).

You were a forgiving God to them,

BUT an avenger of their wrongdoings.

All these people knew that they were dealing with a holy God, a God of justice:

• We have already seen that with Miriam. She was afflicted with leprosy for a week and was made to live outside the camp of Israel.
• Moses and Aaron were to learn the same lesson. In the arid wilderness the people were thirsty and asked them for water. God told Moses and Aaron to speak to the rock in the hearing of the assembled congregation. But instead Moses lost his temper with the people and twice struck the rock with his staff. The water gushed out and all the people drank and so did their livestock. But this is what God had to say to Moses and Aaron:

Because you did not believe in me,

To uphold me as holy in the eyes of the people of Israel,

Therefore you shall not bring this assembly 

Into the land that I have given them (Num 20:12).

God forgave Moses and Aaron for their rash and thoughtless action. But their action had consequences. They would never enter the Promised Land. You see, you can be forgiven, but your actions still have consequences.

• Moses and Aaron were forgiven. But there were consequences.
• Miriam was forgiven. But there were consequences.
• After the children of Israel worshipped the golden calf, they were forgiven. But for them too there were consequences.

And the same is as true for us as it was for them. We live in the same moral universe, and it is a universe that is run by a holy God:

• God can forgive a student for plagiarizing from an unpublished thesis, but then in his providence also let that student’s work be marked by the author that thesis.
• God can forgive young men checking porn on the internet in the dead of night, thinking that they won’t be discovered. But they are and they have to face the consequences.
• God can forgive a man for a furtive affair on a business trip. But when his wife finds out, his marriage is in tatters.

God is faithful. He is faithful to forgive, but he is also faithful to himself and his own holiness. He has to be true to himself. He sees to it that sinful actions have consequences. If not now, then certainly on judgment day.

I was once speaking to a young Jehovah’s Witness who had come to the door. We soon found ourselves discussing all kinds of doctrines over which we disagreed. One of those doctrines was the divinity of Christ. Nothing I said seemed to get through. Finally in desperation I said something like this: “Look, we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. I have to and you do too. How can you appear before him when you are going door to door telling people that Christ is less than who he really is? How will you stand before the judgment seat of Christ on the last day?”

How will you be when you stand face to face with a holy God? How will you be when you see him in all his purity, holiness and justice? On the last day, the great Day of the Lord, how will you stand before the Great White Throne? How will you stand before a holy God?

We have learned today that God is holy in three ways:

• God is holy in his power and his greatness.
• God is holy in his justice.
• God is holy in his faithfulness.

And God’s holiness shines most brightly through the cross of Jesus:

• On the cross God showed his faithfulness by keeping his promises and fulfilling so many OT prophecies.
• On the cross God executed his justice, even at great cost to himself.
• After the cross God displayed his greatness and divine power by raising Jesus from the dead.

We will all stand before the judgment seat of Christ. If we want to be acquitted, if we want to be declared not guilty on the last day, then we must first come to the cross of Christ, while there is still time, to plead for his forgiveness and grace. It’s still feely on offer. So grab it with both hands. Only Jesus can turn his throne of judgment into a throne of grace. Has that happened for you? Come to him. Come to him before it’s forever too late.

Conclusion

In closing let me read you a poem about God’s holiness. I think it’s an apt summary of the sermon. It goes like this:

The Lord our God is holy,

While we are small and lowly.

His holiness we cannot see,

He’s three in one, a Trinity.

Holy Father, holy Son,

Holy Spirit, three in one.

As mortal creatures here below,

The Father’s holiness we can’t know.

We think but by analogy

Avoiding every parody.

He’s whiter than the whitest snow,

Brighter than the brightest glow.

Our God is a consuming fire,

Our awe and terror to inspire.

The second of the three in one,

And equally holy, is the Son.

If we his holiness would see,

Then look no further than the tree.

The perfect Man, reflecting God,

In all our earthly ways he trod.

Tempted, tested, crucified, 

He was sinless till he died.

If we of holiness can boast,

It’s only in the Holy Ghost.

God’s perfect image marred by sin,

He recreates our hearts within.

The beauty of the Holy Son

He makes it shine through us each one, 

Till we appear without a taint,

Each and every one a saint.

            Amen.

Stephen Voorwinde