Introduction
We began by singing Holy, holy, holy, that hymn which recalls Isaiah’s vision which is recorded for us in Isaiah 6 when he saw the Lord, seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the train of his robe filled the temple and the angels called to one another, saying:
Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.
And the hymn also recalls John’s vision in Revelation 4 when he too saw into heaven where the angels never stop saying:
Holy, holy, holy
is the Lord God Almighty,
who was, and is, and is to come.
And the 24 elders in heaven laid their crowns before God’s throne and said:
You are worthy, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honour and power,
for you created all things
and by your will they were created
and have their being.
And I chose Holy, holy, holy for us to sing because God’s holiness is mentioned three times in today’s psalm. Verse 3:
Let them praise your great and awesome name —
he is holy.
Verse 5:
Exalt the Lord our God
and worship at his footstool —
he is holy.
And verse 9:
Exalt the Lord our God
and worship at his holy mountain,
for the Lord our God is holy.
Three times the psalmist calls on us to praise the Lord who is holy.
When we say that God is holy, we mean that he is set apart. He is distinct. He is separate. And God is set apart from everything else that exists because he alone is God. He is the Creator and he is therefore set apart from his creation. And as we read in Isaiah 57, he lives in a high and holy place which is far above us. And so, when we say that God is holy, we’re referring in the first place to his majestic transcendence. God is above and beyond everything else.
But then, his holiness also refers to the way that he is set apart from all that is evil. We are sinful and he alone is sinless and he’s infinitely and unchangeably pure and good. And therefore, his holiness refers, not only to his majestic transcendence, but also to his majestic purity. Because of his majestic transcendence, we feel small and insignificant compared to him. And because of his majestic purity, we feel unclean compared to him and unfit to come into his presence.
And so, his holiness presents us with two problems. How can we know God when he is above and beyond us? And how can we come into his presence when we are unclean and he is not? The psalm focuses on his transcendence in verses 1 to 3 and on his purity in verses 4 and 5. And in verses 6 to 9 we discover that God has overcome our two problems.
Verses 1 to 3
In verses 1 to 3 the psalmist tells us that God is over all.
He begins the psalm with a declaration that the Lord reigns. Since the word Lord is in capital letters, then that tells you that the psalmist is using God’s special, covenant name, which is Yahweh in Hebrew. And it speaks of God’s commitment to his people and how he has bound himself to his people with a promise to be their God and to deliver us from our sin and misery by his Son. And so, it’s this God — Israel’s God, our God — who reigns. And since the nations are commanded to tremble, then that tells you that he reigns, not only over Israel, but over all the nations. He rules over the whole world and the people in every nation of the world should tremble before him. They should tremble and shake with fear, because he’s the great King who is over all of them.
And he sits enthroned between the cherubim. By referring to be cherubim, the psalmist is thinking about the Most Holy Place in the temple in Jerusalem, which was God’s throne room on the earth. And inside the Most Holy Place there were two statues of angels with their wings stretched out over the ark of the covenant. And the walls of the Most Holy Place were covered in gold. However, the whole room was designed to represent heaven, because the gold signified the glory of heaven; the ark of the covenant represented either God’s throne or the footstool of his throne; and God is surrounded by angels who worship him day and night. The Most Holy Place in Jerusalem reminded the people that God is actually far above them in heaven. They are on earth and he is in heaven above.
And so, the psalmist declares in verse 2 that the Lord is great and he’s exalted over the nations. He’s above them and rules over them. And in verse 3 that psalmist calls on the nations of the world to praise God’s great and awesome name. That is to say, they’re to praise God because he is great and awesome. He fills our hearts with fear and awe, because he is so great and so highly exalted over us. We feel small compared to him. As Isaiah says, the nations are like a drop in the bucket to him and they are like dust on the scales. We are like insects compared to him. And when the psalmist tells us in verse 3 that God is holy, he means that God is above and beyond us.
How, then, can we know him when he is so far above and beyond us?
Verses 4 and 5
In verses 4 and 5 the psalmist tells us that the Lord is good.
So, he refers to the Lord as the King. But he’s a good king, because he loves justice and he has established equity or fairness and he does what is just and right. Earthly rulers can be very different, can’t they? Instead of doing what’s right and just, they do what is wrong. Instead of being fair, they are unfair, showing favouritism to their rich friends and despising the poor and weak. And so, there are plenty of kings and emperors in the Bible who passed unjust laws and who mistreated the people and who did evil things. And we hear all the time about scandals involving our leaders today. Think of the recent post office scandal and how all those post office workers were mistreated and falsely accused for years by people with authority over them.
That’s what we’re used to. We’re used to rulers and leaders who take advantage of their people. But the Lord loves justice. He establishes equity. He does only what is just and right. This is so because he is morally perfect. He is altogether good. He is infinitely and unchangeably pure. As the psalmist says in verse 5, we should exalt him and we should worship at his footstool, bowing down humbly before him, because he is holy. That is to say, he is morally pure.
And since that’s the case, then how can sinners like us hope to come into his presence?
Verses 6 to 9
So far we’ve seen that God is majestic in his transcendence. He is above and beyond the world he has made. He is exalted over all. So, how can we know him?
And we’ve also seen that God is majestic in his purity. He is upright and good. He is sinless. So, how can we come before him?
The answers come in verses 6 to 9 which tell us that God has made himself known to us; and they tell us that he forgives our sins.
The psalmist refers in verse 6 to Moses and Aaron and Samuel. They called on the name of the Lord. That is, they prayed to him. And he answered them by speaking to them from the pillar of cloud. Do you see that in verse 7? He’s referring to the glory-cloud which signified God’s presence with his people and which rested over the tabernacle and which filled the temple. And that means that, though God is above and beyond us, he graciously and freely came down to his people in the pillar of cloud and made himself and his will known to them. He spoke to them from out of the cloud and he gave them his statutes and laws for them to keep.
And according to verse 8 he showed himself to be a forgiving God, though he also punished their misdeeds. The psalmist probably means that when the people went astray, God punished them. But when they confessed their sins and turned from them, he forgave them. Think of the story of the bronze snake in Numbers 21. The people sinned against the Lord by becoming impatient and complaining. And so, the Lord sent poisonous snakes into the camp to punish them. Afterwards the people confessed their sin to Moses and asked him to pray for them. And when Moses called on the Lord on behalf of the people, the Lord answered him and told them what to do so that they would live and not perish. And so, the Lord punished them for their sin, but he also forgave them when they called on him.
And the psalm ends with the psalmist once again reminding us that God is holy. And yet, even though he’s above and beyond us, he came down to his people in the cloud and made himself known to them. And even though he’s sinless, he forgives his people for their sins.
Conclusion
And what God began to do in Old Testament times, he did more fully and completely afterwards.
And so, while he came down in the cloud to make himself known to Aaron and Moses and Samuel, he came down to us more fully and completely in the person of his Son. God the Son came to earth as one of us and he made known to us what God is like, because he himself is God. He came and revealed himself to his people. And now that he has returned to heaven, he comes to us in the reading and preaching of his word. He comes to us in his word to tell us about himself and who he is and what he has done and what he requires from us. Though he is above and beyond us, he graciously and freely comes to us in his word and he makes himself known to us.
And while he revealed himself in Old Testament times as a forgiving God, he did it more fully and completely afterwards by sending his Only Begotten Son into the world to take the blame for us and to suffer the punishment we deserve so that all who believe in him might receive forgiveness for all that we have done wrong. God sent his Son into the world to give up his life on the cross to pay for our sins in full and to make a lasting peace for us with God. And so, because of his self-sacrifice, we are no longer cut off from God because of our sin. And in Christ’s name we can come before God in prayer and we can look forward to coming into his presence in the life to come.
Our God is still holy, holy, holy. But though he is above and beyond us, he came to us in the person of his Son and he comes to us in the reading and preaching of his word so that we can know him. And though he is sinlessly pure, he sent his Son to cleanse us from our sin so that we can come before God and be with him forever and forever.
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