#DailyDevotion God Is Holy, Holy, Holy
Isaiah 6:1-7 In the year when King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a high and lofty throne, and His robe filled the temple. 2Above Him stood angels [seraphim]. Each had six wings, two to cover his face, two to cover his feet, and two to fly with. 3They kept calling to one another:”Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of armies! His glory fills the whole world.” 4The voices of those who called shook the foundations under the thresholds, and smoke filled the temple.
I find it interesting in verse one Isaiah says Lord. Here Lord is “adonai” which means lord as in king, royalty, etc. but it is used of God in the Old Testament. In verse 3 we get LORD which is the divine name YHWH. After the exile, the Jews no longer pronounced the name YHWH but instead would just read Adonai. Later someone used the vowels for Adonai with YHWH which is how we get Jehovah. Our God is both Adonai and YHWH. That is who Isaiah sees in this vision. We get this glorious vision of our God sitting high and his robe filling the temple. Isaiah is probably in the temple in Jerusalem when he sees this but what he sees is the reality of the Temple in heaven.
Instead of the two cherubim over the ark of the covenant we see two seraphim. Seraphim are fiery serpents. They have six wings. They are no doubt some of the creatures that are closest to the Almighty. When I think of fiery serpents I also think of Satan, that old dragon. Why do I bring him up? Because of the song of the seraphim, “Holy, Holy, Holy.” They shout this to one another. It just seems to me there should be a third seraph. I sometimes wonder if Satan wasn’t one of them before he fell. Tradition has it he was one of the creatures closest to God (this is probably from a mistranslation from the Hebrew, to the Latin, to the English of Isaiah 14, but is more likely the king of Babylon). Now if this doesn’t float your boat, no worries. It’s just what I think.
Let us look then at the song, “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of armies! His glory fills the whole world.” Here we have this thrice holy. Why three times? Well, from the New Testament point of view, having been revealed to us by Jesus most notably in Matthew 28, the LORD, YHWH, is Father, Son and Holy Spirit. One God, one LORD, one Eternal, one Almighty, one Incomprehensible who is the Father, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and the Holy Spirit, each person being God, LORD, Eternal, Almighty and Incomprehensible, existing at the same time distinctly but being only one. He is the LORD of armies (Sabaoth, which is different from Sabbath), the angelic armies of heaven who defend Israel, God’s people. His glory not only fills the temple in heaven, his glory fills the whole earth. We see his glory in all of creation. This is not Jesus, your buddy. This is Jesus your Lord. Now it is true the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit love you as demonstrated by Jesus’ humility in becoming man, suffering and dying. While we may most definitely come to God, boldly and confidently through the blood of Jesus, we also need to remember our creatureliness and assume some of the humility of the seraphim who cover their faces and their feet in the presence of Adonai YHWH. We do this by remembering how it is we can approach God, not in and of ourselves, but through the blood of Jesus who is Holy, Holy, Holy.
Heavenly Father, grant us your grace that we may come into your presence with both humility and confidence through the blood of Christ and may we join the song of the seraphim who proclaim your unending glory. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.