A few weeks back I wrote a doodle on Isaiah’s commission, drawing on a sermon I preached on the same passage. Since then it’s been my intention to write more because—while Isaiah 6 records that famous commission, second only to Paul’s—I’m persuaded it’s more about God than his dispensable herald. Furthermore, having only 30 minutes to preach there was much I had to omit, especially in the way of reading. In this article therefore I want to fix our eyes on God over against his prophet, by developing some of the rich theology concerning God’s holiness in Isaiah 6.

God Is, In Himself, Holy

As we read in 6:3, the seraphim call to each other: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory.” Remarkably, according to Alec Motyer, this is the only time in the Old Testament that anything is raised to the power of three. In order to make something superlative, Hebrew will repeat the word. But in this heavenly anthem sung by the seraphim there is a resounding third. God is “holy, holy, holy.” The significance of this is easily missed, stemming from our familiarity with the verse and unfamiliarity with Hebrew. For an Israelite, on the other hand, this threefold repetition would have been dramatic and arresting.

Building on this grammatical observation, Motyer argues that holiness is the “whole truth” concerning God. As John Webster puts it, God’s holiness is “the majesty and singular purity which…God is in himself.” A little more simply, D. A. Carson likes to say the closest synonym for holiness is ‘godness.’ When we speak about God’s holiness, then, we are recognising his absolute and utter distinction from everything else. You might say there are two levels to reality: God and all that isn’t God; the Creator and his creation. To use a theological term, God is transcendent. He alone is God.

The Holy and Triune God

However, Isaiah 6 doesn’t permit us to limit God’s holiness or transcendence to his otherness. For as Staniloe, an Eastern Orthodox theologian, notes: too often the word ‘holy’ has been exclusively understood with regards to God’s distinction, as “an attribute of impersonal mystery.” Of course, orthodox Trinitarianism guards against viewing God as eternally impersonal, since God’s essence or being is relational—suggesting both Augustine and Reginald Heber were right in concluding that “holy, holy, holy” reveals “God in three persons, blessed Trinity.”

So we know that God isn’t impersonal or absolutely other, and Isaiah’s commission reveals as much. For in these verses we see God’s holiness displayed in drawing near to the prophet, overwhelming Isaiah by his majesty and also working to save or set him apart.

1. Holiness Is More Than Transcendence

Firstly, the prophet recounts seeing the Lord (Isaiah 6:1). “My eyes,” he exclaims, “have seen the King, the Lord Almighty” (Isaiah 6:6). He beholds the holy one. Thus Webster writes that God’s holiness “is a majesty known” and “manifest.” This tracks with the second line of the seraphim’s song: “the whole earth is full of his glory” (Isaiah 6:3). Yes, God is absolutely distinct from his creation. Yet the prophet is visually confronted by this utterly glorious and holy one.

2. Holiness Is More Than Moral Purity

Secondly, it is this holiness that humbles the prophet—God’s revealed majesty rather than some mysterious obfuscation. This tracks with the prophet’s response. He doesn’t call down woes on his head because God is far away or unknowable; he cries out, instead: “Woe to me…I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty” (Isaiah 6:5).

To quote John Webster again, God’s holiness “acts towards and in the lives of his creatures.” When Isaiah is confronted by the holiness of God he is of course terrified by his own sinfulness (unclean lips), but this doesn’t mean we should limit God’s holiness to his moral integrity. The glorious God overwhelms Isaiah and puts him in his place.

3. Holiness Is More Than a Condemning Attribute

Thirdly, God’s holiness is bound up in his saving action—it isn’t a static attribute. By the seraphim’s coal, God removes the prophet’s guilt and atones for his sin (Isaiah 6:7). Having been brought low the prophet is finally brought closer to God through his work.

As Motyer notes, when we arrive at Isaiah 6:8 the prophet is near enough to hear the “divine musings” and receive God’s commission. To quote Webster one last time, “God’s holiness is precisely that which is made known in his mercy, in his coming to the aid of his people, in his taking up their cause, in his bearing their sin.”

God’s Holiness: “Good and Terrible”

In The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe C. S. Lewis writes: “People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time…When they tried to look at Aslan’s face they just caught a glimpse of the golden mane and the great, royal, solemn, overwhelming eyes; and then they found they couldn’t look at him,” but were moved to trembling.

When Isaiah encounters God in the temple, the prophet’s experience is much like the Pevensies’. For God is at the same time terrible and good. In some ways, it’s his uncompromising glory that confronts Isaiah in his sin. Yet that same majestic holiness is not only manifest, but also merciful. When we speak about God’s holiness we should therefore tone down our emphasis on his distance from the sinful human creature, because in Isaiah 6 we see a holy God moving towards that creature to atone.